The not terribly accurate “second half” starts today. If you’re anything like me, the All-Star game doesn’t do a helluva lot to satisfy the need to fill up those multiple box scores and follow the ridiculous number of rosters I have in fantasy baseball. So thank goodness the break is over and we can move on to more important things other than whether a pitcher not-so-gracefully curtseyed to a living legend. Who cares, we have titles to win here.
While I can’t speak for the rest of the writing staff, I must say that I enjoy doing these Depth Chart Discussions. Our fearless leader, Eno Sarris tells us what division we’re looking at for the week and we sign up for the depth charts we want to cover. More often than not, we end up choosing one that we either really like to discuss or one that we want to actually learn more about, but every so often, one comes along where someone has to take one for the team. Valuing my ability to be a team player, the Miami Marlins infield is my sacrifice. Read the rest of this entry »
For as far back as I could remember,even before I was bitten by the fantasy bug, the MLB trade deadline was one of the most exciting times of the year. Hearing the rumors, listening intently as deals are announced and just the general wheeling and dealing that takes place as the year’s haves and have nots make arrangements for their respective futures. The experience has intensified over the years as the game has evolved, contracts have become what they are and free agency has taken center stage. And of course, now that I am neck deep in the fantasy racket, it has taken on a whole new life. But sometimes, this euphoric time of year that I long for each summer, can get awfully stressful and if the scales of justice are tipping one way and not the other, I find myself saddened and depressed as my favorite time of year just came up and kicked me in the groin. Read the rest of this entry »
When Mat Gamel started making his way through the Milwaukee Brewers system beginning in 2006, the team envisioned him as their third baseman of the future. While he continued to work on some defensive shortcomings, he was exhibiting exceptional power, good plate discipline and a knack for getting on base at a rate well above average. When he finally got the call in May of 2009, he struggled at the plate. Flashes of power, yes. Solid walk rate, yes. But far too many strikeouts. He landed back in Triple-A and it all started to go downhill from there as injuries began to derail his career and the door opened up for other players like Casey McGehee to step in.
Third base has been rather unspectacular in 2011, in both fantasy baseball and spikes-on-the-ground baseball. With the playoffs just a few days away, I remarked to a colleague just how terrible third base looks for two of the six teams that we know will be in the post-season and how it’s a testament to the talent that surrounds them. Those two teams are the Milwaukee Brewers and the Detroit Tigers, but their third base situations aren’t quite the same.
Just how bad are their respective third basemen? What follows is a quick history of ineptitude at the hot corner for playoff-bound teams and a brief fantasy analysis for 2012. Read the rest of this entry »
In response to my fan mail as a preschooler, I once had Tom Paciorek of the Seattle Mariners write to me on a 4 inch by 6 inch piece of cheap Mariner notepad and tell me, “Kid, in baseball, you’re either the hero or the goat”. It took my folks a good number of days to explain why being a goat was a bad thing to a 5 year old, but to this day I often marvel at the wisdom of that singular line.
As I look at performances this season, I imagine Casey McGehee has a sense for this in 2011 where he’s mostly been of the two-horned variety.
McGehee was so bad in June that his triple-slash line was .177/.214/.208 for a whopping .422 OPS. His wOBA was .192. That’s just horrific. In all of June and July, he had 36 hits in 171 at bats, six going for doubles, one triple, one home run. He was as bad as any regular in all of baseball.
And then August happened.
“Don’t take your love away from me
Don’t you leave my heart in misery
If you go then I’ll be blue
‘Cause breaking up his hard to do.”
It plays over and over in my head every time I look at a roster that includes the likes of Hanley Ramirez, Adam Dunn, Dan Uggla and Joe Mauer. Aggravataing? Yes. Both the song and the lack of production. But what’s really aggravating is that question that keeps popping into your head as well, “How long do I stick with this guy?” Read the rest of this entry »
Obviously it depends on the roster size and depth of your league, but it never ceases to amaze me when you see veterans who have produced in the past, yet started off the season slowly, begin to heat up and still get left out on the waiver wire. Maybe the rosters are far too loaded up or maybe owners are just not paying close enough attention. Either way, if you’ve got a corner infield spot that’s lagging or just need to balance your team via the utility spot, here are a pair of vets you might want to look up. Read the rest of this entry »
RotoGraphs is embarking on a series of player pro/con debates in an effort to thoroughly cover players that are particularly popular in either a positive or negative way. Today, I’ll be discussing the pros of Nationals 1B/OF Mike Morse and Eno Sarris will tackle the cons on Monday.
The title of this post actually says it all and if I wanted to just type out his batting line over the last few weeks with the phrase, “nuff said,” that would probably cover it. But for the sake of argument, and knowing that Eno will shred me if I don’t come up with enough evidential proof as to why Mike Morse is, indeed, fantasy gold, we’ll go a little further. Read the rest of this entry »
Blame it on the injuries. Blame it on the fact that the once lush and dense forest of talent to be found at third base is thinning out faster than a middle aged guy’s hairline. Blame it on Rio or the bellboy, I don’t really care. The fact of the matter is, the position is like a fantasy nightmare that picks right back up where you left off no matter how many times you wake yourself up and try to calmly fall back asleep. And it just keeps getting scarier each time. Read the rest of this entry »