Archive for keeper leagues

Mike Trout is a stud.  No question about it.  At 20 years old, the Angels outfielder has taken MLB by storm with a .341/.397/.562 slash line that comes with 12 home runs, 40 RBI, 57 runs scored and 26 stolen bases. He’s delivered all of that and, mind you, he was in the minors for the first month of the season. The production has been phenomenal and as an owner of Trout in my primary keeper league, the smile is so wide, it makes the Kool-Aid guy look like a crying fool. But while the old adage is not being able to see the forest through the trees, so many keeper league owners are so hell-bent on building up their future that they fail to see the season at hand and are so willing to dismantle their entire squad simply to acquire Trout and hand me the league this year. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve spent so much time on these Would You Rathers with respect to keeper leagues that it’s time we threw some out for those that re-draft each year.  Taking long term benefits out of the way, which player would you rather draft this season — Yoenis Cespedes or Bryce Harper?

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As we saw through last week’s series of articles, there’s been quite a lot of talk about the Fan/RotoGraphs Dynasty Mock Draft.  Yes, there seemed to be a bit of confusion — two people thought it was a regular keeper draft rather than a dynasty one — but lost in the mundane and repetitive critique of that aspect was the true meaning of a mock draft.  Its is a test.  It is a guideline.  It is a tool.  You use a mock draft to gauge where particular players are going; where certain positions come off the board in a run.  It certainly isn’t the gospel, but while the calendar hasn’t even flipped to January and offseason player movement has far from ceased, it’s definitely a useful piece of information from which to get started.  That being said, we’re going to wrap up its coverage with a listing of the catchers that went, where they came off the board, and a few notes along the way.

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While there seems to be a bit of a lull on fantasy relevant player movement right now — Eno jumped on the Twins/Willingham potential deal and sorry, but .180-hitting Kelly Shoppach to the BoSox is barely relevant in my eyes — we can continue to focus on the mock drafts that we’ve all been covering lately.  As I was going over the catcher ADP, one of the more noticeable oversights found in the FanGraphs dynasty league mock draft was Royals catcher Salvador Perez.  Granted, it was just a 12-team, one catcher league, but with so many youngsters going so early, it’s hard to imagine that out of 27 rounds and 324 players selected, there was no love for the Royals 21-year old backstop.

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By now you’ve already heard the news that the Rockies traded Chris Iannetta and his over-inflated OBP to the “can we please have Mike Napoli back, our catchers stink” Angels while signing Reds free agent Ramon Hernandez as a replacement and mentor for prospect Wilin Rosario.  If not, then wake up and check out articles here from Erik Hahmann, Jack Moore and Chris Cwik, all of whom have chimed in on the move.  But while all that is certainly big news, my fantasy radar keeps me in Cincinnati.  With the departure of Hernandez, the Reds will have a new catching tandem to watch and, more than likely, bigger possibilities on the horizon.

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Over the last week or so we’ve done plenty of articles discussing the impending move of the Houston Astros to the American League and how it will impact those in the fantasy baseball community.  But no matter how many times we attempt to look on the bright side and find the silver lining in it all, there’s one common thing that seems to come through in every piece.  It’s like that early montage in the movie Major League where the Indians’ fan base is looking at their 40 man roster in disbelief — from some guy asking who Mitchell Friedman is to the groundskeepers’ claims that “these guys are sh*tty”.  There’s almost no love for the 2012 Astros and very little hope for the club moving forward.  However, just like the old fantasy adage (is there such a thing?) that states that even closers on bad teams can be good and helpful, the same can be said about everyday players from Houston.  Just because the team is in relative shambles, doesn’t mean that you can’t find some helpful players at a bargain cost.

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Throughout the season, we ran a series of fantasy rankings for each position at the top of each month to help you keep track of the risers and fallers and to see who might be worth a sell high or buy-low effort.  Well, this week, we are rolling out a series of Keeper Rankings for each position to help you get a leg up on the competition and begin your preparation for the 2012 season.  Each author will take his assigned position and each post will be dedicated to a specific tier within that position.  With that, here is the top tier for catchers in keeper leagues.

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Today’s suggested Would You Rather comes via email from someone named SuicideKing and I couldn’t be happier about posting it here.  Talk about throwing something right in your wheelhouse!  If you’ve been reading all season, you’ll know I’ve never been shy about my dislike for drafting Joe Mauer as high as he usually goes and that I’ve been a huge Alex Avila fan all year.  But this is business here, so let’s do an objective comparison and then I’ll turn it over to the rest of you for further discussion.

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As the sun begins to set on another dazzling baseball season, fantasy baseball GMs, especially keeper league owners, have been evaluating their current players in an effort to determine how right they were in drafting certain guys as well as what the prospects may be for owning them in 2012.  The catcher position tends to be somewhat of an afterthought if you’re not talking about a top name like Brian McCann and Carlos Santana.  But what about a guy like Mike Napoli?  In case you weren’t paying attention, after a slow start to the season, Napoli put up some fantastic numbers and, frankly, commands your attention when discussing the top players at the position for this year and next.

Let’s just hit the basics, first and foremost.  Fantasy baseball is a numbers game and you’re only as good as your level of production.  While Napoli was used plenty as a DH this season, he played in 55 games behind the dish and therefore maintains his eligibility.  Here’s a a quick look at the basic stats that are important to the fantasy game:

*based on a minimum of 250 PA

That’s not too shabby for a guy who was, on average taken somewhere in the 9th or 10th round of your draft.  Not only do his overall numbers blow away most of the catchers in the game, but he actually outperformed numerous players at other positions that were taken ahead of him in almost every draft.  If you want to talk position scarcity, then we can make a pretty good case for catchers, no?  But we’ll just stick with the backstops for now.

Obviously, the thing that stands out the most is just how productive Napoli has been in the limited plate appearances he has received.  It just so happened to be one of the biggest knocks on him coming into the season.  Only once in his career had he topped 500 plate appearances in a season, and while he was no longer under the rule of the Jeff Mathis-loving Mike Scioscia in Anaheim, the Rangers had brought in additional help behind the plate despite trading a coveted bullpen arm for him.  The playing time question was certainly an issue.

But in typical Napoli fashion, he accepted his limited playing time and still mashed the heck out of the ball, even while missing most of June with an oblique strain.  It may have taken him the whole first half of the season to get things going in the batting average department, but the post-All Star break surge cannot be taken lightly, nor dismissed.  While yes, his BABIP shot through the roof in the second half, you also need to take note that he also improved his walk rate dramatically while also lowering his K% to a much more respectable level.  Given his BABIP totals over the last few years, you can definitely say that his .385 second half average was partially luck driven, but you can’t deny that he also worked hard to improve his plate discipline.

Napoli is arbitration eligible right now, and given what he’s done for the Rangers this season, it’s hard to believe he won’t be back in Arlington next year.  Maybe they give him more work, maybe they give him the same.  Either way, a backstop with a .246 career ISO mark and is capable of hitting above .270 (just to keep it low and realistic) certainly deserves consideration over some of the top, yet under-producing names out there.  Yes, oft-injured Joe Mauer….I’m looking in your direction.

In the spirit of trying to help and really give the public what they want, this ongoing series does, in fact, take requests.  A few pairings have been mentioned in previous posts and have been discussed in the comments sections, so today’s was pulled off of Twitter (feel free to submit yours to @rotobuzzguy) and brought here for discussion.  It’s more upside vs proven talent, but this time we’re talking speed….and a lot of it!

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