• White Sox at Yankees: David Robertson furnished save #34. D-Rob has only blown 2 saves all year this year and has done an awfully good job displacing Mariano Rivera. In fact, as a closer, Mariano Rivera never reached a 30% K-Rate and his career contact rate was 79.7%. D-Rob has a sub-70% contact rate this year and could be even better next year assuming the luck stats (BABIP based on his inflated line drive rate this year; HR/FB and LOB%) all take a step forward next year. It will be interesting to see where D-Rob lands next year considering he deserves a big payday and the Yankees still have another dominate K%(39.9%)/Contact%(70%) reliever in Dellin Betances. D-Rob got the 10th best K%-BB% in baseball right now: 28.5% tied with Koji Uehara.
• Rays at Blue Jays: Casey Janssen has offset an awful K-rate with the best BB-rate of his career, but he walked Wil Myers tonight to start the 9th and blew a save after a couple of singles. Brad Boxberger pulls an Armando Benitez and gives up a 2R-HR to Dioner Navarro and a double to Colby Rasmus. We were getting pretty spoiled with Boxberger: 8 scoreless innings since August 10th with a 13:1 K:BB ratio and only 3 hits. Between Koji Uehara yesterday as well as Boxberger and Ken Giles today, the R2M (Regression to the Means) Monster hit me hard this weekend.

Read the rest of this entry »

-In today’s episode of “Anything Can Happen At Coors Field,” the visiting Marlins held a five run advantage over the hometown Rockies heading into the last half of the ninth until Kevin Slowey was asked to take the hill. Slowey surrendered a couple of runs on three hits without logging an out before being pulled in favor of Miami’s closer, Steve Cishek, with men on first and second. Cishek allowed one of the inherited runners to score on a single off the bat of Nolan Arenado, but he got out of the jam to earn his 20th save of the season. Cishek is now 20-of-22 on the season with a 3.02 ERA (2.95 FIP) and a 1.05 WHIP.
Read the rest of this entry »

Mariano Rivera faced two Mariners over the minimum en route to his 22nd save of the season today in Seattle. The future Hall-of-Famer surrendered a leadoff single and issued a free pass, but eventually struck out the side to seal the deal. Tonight’s save raised Mo’s career total to 630 and he now sits just one save behind league-leader Jason Grilli (23) for the current campaign. Two more historical tidbits on Mo: He’s saved 630-of-670 games over the course of his career.  And if Mo were to hang ’em up today, Joe Nathan, whose 316 saves rank second-most among active players, would need just 314 saves to catch the Yankee.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mariano Rivera notched his 13th save on the season and the 621st of his career this afternoon as the Yankees clipped the Rockies, 3-1. The future Hall-of-Famer got two quick outs off the bats of Wilin Rosario and Nolan Arenado before plunking the third batter he faced, Jordan Pacheco. But the potential tying run, Josh Rutledge, grounded out to Jayson Nix to seal Colorado’s fate. The closer’s age and last year’s injury are clearly not a factor. Mariano is Mariano. Arguably (hardly) the best closer ever.

Read the rest of this entry »

They say that, in life, timing is everything. Yes, success is often something you achieve when you put in the proper amount of work, but for many, it can simply be a matter of being in the right place at the right time.  Sometimes, it can be an amazing occurrence in life, at least when it happens to you, and other times you just sit there and watch in complete disbelief, wondering how some people can catch such a break. It can be as big as randomly meeting someone who, in the end, offers you your dream job, or as small as simply flipping on the TV and catching a ballgame in the fourth inning that ends up being Matt Cain’s perfect game. 

Read the rest of this entry »

As we sit and wait for all the big-named free agents to find themselves new homes, it’s time to start thinking about strategy for next year.  There are numerous of ways to go about drafting your team and you’re going to hear plenty of do’s and don’ts from a variety of people.  So allow me to chime in here first and tell you why punting saves should not be in your plans when developing a proper draft strategy.  Some people see no harm in it and tell you to just bulk up elsewhere.  I disagree.  It’s an automatic concession of points to your competition and immediately puts you at a disadvantage.

Read the rest of this entry »

In his first (almost) full year as the Phillies closer, it’s been an outstanding year for Ryan Madson.  With the usual injury issues of Brad Lidge and the seemingly ageless Jose Contreras, Madson, who for years has been the trusted right-handed set-up man and spot closer for the team, took over the ninth inning  job early on and never looked back.  He finished the regular season with 32 saves, a 2.37 ERA (2.25 FIP), and 62 strikouts in 60.2 innings of work.  He posted a rock solid 48.8 GB%, a meager 3.7% HR/FB, and had a manager’s dreamlike 80.7% LOB.  Now he takes his game to the playoffs where his mettle will be further tested as he will be relied upon to be the team’s stopper on baseball’s biggest stage.  All the while, likely sitting in the back of his mind, his impending free agency looms.  That’s quite a load for anyone to handle.  But while all that is fine and dandy for those that live in the real world, we’re still living in a fantasy baseball world here and what Madson owners everywhere want to know is — where will he land next season and will he remain a closer?

Read the rest of this entry »

The All-Star Game voting discussion is topical in real life, so why not talk about it in fantasy?  I’m of the philosophy that All Star Games should be about the best players, not just the players off to a hot start over the first few months.  In this case, I’ll define “best player” as the players that offered the most production over the past calendar year (i.e. June 2010 through May 2011).  Below, the point values are FanGraphs Points, and the $ shown are the player’s average cost.  Without further delay, here are your American League (fantasy) All-Stars!

Catcher: Victor Martinez (746.5 pts, .368 wOBA, $25)
Alternates: Carlos Santana (571 pts, .352 wOBA, $31) and Mike Napoli (565 pts, .343 wOBA, $12)

Now primarily a DH, Martinez continues to be an excellent fantasy producer.  The guy can hit, and with catcher eligibility he’s just a terrific player–probably more so in fantasy than in real life, given his fielding issues.  Santana is back after missing time with injury, and has largely picked up where he left off last year.  Napoli might surprise some folks, but he got a lot of playing time after the first few months last year and produced very well.  If only he could actually catch, he’d get more PT…

Read the rest of this entry »

To close out our series of looks at the values of players in ottoneu Pick Six, we look today at pitchers.  As before, the numbers below are based on weighted averages of THT’s Oliver and BPro’s PECOTA (more weight to Oliver b/c it includes this season’s data).  The numbers are FP (FanGraphs Points per IP), though keep in mind that for starters this number is divided by four to keep starters from being the only thing that matters in pick six.

Starting Pitchers

Elite Five (they cost a fortune, but they’re worth it)

Tim Lincecum, 5.33 FP/IP, $48
Josh Johnson, 5.21 FP/IP, $38
Felix Hernandez, 5.04 FP/IP, $49
Cliff Lee, 5.04 FP/IP, $43
Roy Halladay, 5.01 FP/IP, $52

Johnson’s injury risk has kept his value down in traditional ottoneu, but when he’s healthy (currently has shoulder ouchie), he’s the best value of this group.  But you can’t go wrong here: more than any other pitchers in baseball, these guys should give you lots of productive innings per start.

Read the rest of this entry »

As much joy as the game of fantasy baseball brings to most of us, it can also bring an enormous amount of frustration and anxiety.  They say you shouldn’t keep that sort of stuff bottled up inside you, unless, of course, you enjoy the taste of bile and all the other stomach acids that a bleeding ulcer provides.  You need to get it out.  But what are you going to do, bitch to your girlfriend?  Try to gain sympathy from your fellow owners?  Doubtful.   Her level of care is reciprocal to your level of interest in her best friend’s latest relationship disaster and deep down, your fellow owners are wishing this kind of stuff on you. Read the rest of this entry »