Archive for Matt Wieters

With just about 10 games into the season and no one amassing more than 40 plate appearances, the Small Sample Size Police are in full force right now.  Hot starts, cold starts, nothing matters to these brazen fantasy owners who dismiss such meaningless statistics at this time of year.  But that doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t have a little fun and appreciate the good fortune bestowed upon us by the fantasy gods as our catchers come flying out of the gate, white-hot, and throw us some always helpful power stats.  I mean, would you rather be sitting there lamenting Russell Martin’s ice cold start and wonder if his batting average will actually be worse than 2011’s .237 mark or give in to your child-like giddiness over the fact that Alex Avila has picked right up where he left off last season?  Yeah, that’s what I thought… Read the rest of this entry »

As beloved editor/writer Eno Sarris continues to roll out the RotoGraphs Consensus Positional Rankings, those of us not included in the Fab Four (with the handsome mugshots) but that cover a specific position were asked to chime in with our thoughts after the rankings were released.  You can find my personal rankings either on FantasyPros or on my site, but for now, let’s just talk backstops and the consensus rankings.  Also, don’t forget that next week we will be rolling out the position tiers as we did last season.

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By the time you reach the last few rounds of your draft, your remaining options can look pretty scary.  Some people are grabbing middle relievers and potential save vultures, some people are picking up middle infield depth, and some are just stockpiling minor league players hoping that if you throw enough against the wall, something’s bound to stick.  For you, there can be another option and given the fact that we’re so far into the draft, the risk is minimal with a potentially enormous upside.  Laugh if you will, but Baltimore’s Chris Davis can make for an outstanding late round sleeper pick this year.

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If you’re using ADP to help guide you through your draft, it’s always good to see it in action.  The lists you see on Mock Draft Central are great because of the aggregate data, but you know how a lot of mocks go — sometimes you get guys that stay for the first 10 rounds and then leave, putting it on auto-pick the rest of the way.  That just skews the data towards the site’s rankings and becomes less helpful.  So while the sample size is tiny, let’s look at the RotoGraphs Reader Mock Draft and see how a group of informed and dedicated fantasy baseball citizens did with their catchers in comparison to the ADP data we see.

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At the request of you, the readers, we are covering the early Average Draft Position (ADP) results by individual position  Over the past week, you’ve seen results for Second Basemen and AL Starting Pitchers, so now it’s time to cover the boys behind the plate.  Here are some early ADP results for the Catchers with a few thoughts added in. Read the rest of this entry »

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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Tracking average draft position (ADP) can be an incredibly useful tool in preparing for your upcoming fantasy drafts.  It’s most helpful in standard snake-style drafts as you’re able to see, on average, where a particular player is taken; whether you can wait a few rounds to grab him or if you have to act quicker than you thought to pick him up.  Obviously it’s less helpful if you’re in an auction, but it does help you see which players are, for the most part, off people’s radars and can be stolen late in your auction for a cheaper price tag.

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While you never want to be cast aside by the only team you’ve ever called home for your entire professional career, the Pirates refusal to pick up Ryan Doumit’s $7.25M option may have been the best thing that could have happened to him as a baseball player.  It may have been nice to continue playing for a team whose amazing turnaround in 2011 caught the eyes of MLB and its fans, but in an effort to extend his playing career, Doumit needed to move on.  His time in Pittsburgh has run its course.  He needs to go somewhere that can showcase that offensive potential that has had us champing at the bit since he first showed up in 2005.  He needs to go somewhere where his defense behind the plate won’t be such a liability.  He needs to go to the American League.

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The 2012 Catcher keeper rankings continue here with the third tier which is filled with a little bit of hope and a whole lot of promise.  How much of that promise we see…well, that’s going to be the question.  In case you missed the first two tiers, here are links to Tier 1 and Tier 2 so you can see exactly where these guys here in Tier 3 rank in the grand scheme of things.

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