Archive for Pablo Sandoval

We’ve posted several articles hypothesizing whether certain players might be had on the cheap or if you might be able to sell high on others. Typically, comments are mixed inasmuch as actually believing you could buy low/sell high on Players X, Y, or Z. This is pretty standard fare for fantasy baseball in April. But the uncertainty of what opposing managers might think about particular players got me wondering what the actual value of players might be if the draft were held today.

Enter Yahoo! and their rather archaic in-season drafts. Drafting at the tail end of April always seemed like a pretty silly notion to me. But with their new pay leagues, I thought the results of a draft where other managers are actually competing for cash prizes might provide a bonafide pulse on whose stock has already risen and whose has dropped. You have to account for the fact that we’ve had some injuries not to mention relievers who have lost their jobs already, so the pool of players has changed a tad, but not significantly.

So yes, for you dear fantasy baseball enthusiast, I reluctantly joined a draft this past Sunday just so I could pass along the results. Note that there were no auto drafters up until the last three rounds. This was a standard 5×5 roto league with 12 teams and a snake draft format and the average draft positions I’ll reference are those found in Yahoo.

The first round went almost as expected. Guys like Albert Pujols and Jose Bautista still went #3 and #6, respectively, which is about where they were going in February and March. The biggest mover early on was Josh Hamilton, who was selected 11th overall while his ADP was 33. Hamilton is already nursing a sore back, so perhaps owners missed any opportunity they might have been looking for to peddle him at his highest value — but his hot start rather catapulted him up the draft list on this day.

Not far behind Hamilton was Pablo Sandoval, whose current .311/.361/.500 slash line had some manager all in a dither so as to draft him with the 16th overall pick whereas his ADP was 42. My guess was he’d go somewhere in the 3rd round, but holy cow — this was either a real reach or Sandoval’s mother is now playing fantasy baseball. I’m not saying he’s not worth an overall 16th pick at his current clip, so perhaps this manager has a more reliable crystal ball than I do.

The 3rd-6th rounds had Stephen Strasburg going 28th (ADP of 54), Jay Bruce 38th (56th ADP) and Yu Darvish 52nd (83 ADP). In the case of Strasburg and Bruce, it could be that their value might never be higher. At 70 overall was Kevin Youkilis, who had an ADP of 64, so while his stock has dropped some, it’s not quite as much as I assumed.

If you’re in a buy-low mood, some of the gentlemen selected well past their initial ADP include Ian Kennedy at 93 (79 ADP), Mat Latos at 126 (109 ADP), Ike Davis at 165 (137 ADP), Ubaldo Jimenez at 171 (150 ADP), Dustin Ackley at 169 (148 ADP), Carlos Marmol at 189 (145 ADP) and Justin Masterson way down at 264 (198 ADP). Of the group, I’d probably be most interested in Kennedy, Latos, and Marmol if you can find them at a significant discount. Masterson is already finding himself on waiver wires.

On the other hand, if you’ve got glaring needs and you’re thinking of trying to sell high, there were a good number of players that were drafted much higher than expected just a month ago. There was a real believer out there in Emilio Bonifacio and his nine steals as he was selected 88th despite an initial ADP of 142. David Freese went 108th (135 ADP), Jesus Montero went 112th (157 ADP), J.D. Martinez went 131st (242 ADP), Edwin Encarnacion went 140th (203 ADP), and Mark Trumbo went 171st (194 ADP).

In the case of Montero and Trumbo, it might have a lot to do with position eligibility as Montero now qualifies in most leagues at catcher and Trumbo at third base. But the hot starts by Freese, Martinez, and Encarnacion definitely impacted this draft — and if you own them, it’s your call as to whether or not they’ll be able to keep it up or if it’s time to strike while the proverbial iron is hot.

Tiers seem to unearth the mighty wrath of fantasy baseball enthusiasts, but since we’ve already seen the third base consensus rankings and my general reactions to them thereafter, it’s time to categorize the gentlemen at the five into tidy little compartments of descending desirability.

As you well know, the tiers are not hard and fast — they change (sometimes dramatically) over the course of the first few months of the season. In fact, there’s been movement in these tiers even before I had a chance to publish them! It’s important to remember that these are not keeper tiers — they simply attempt to arrange rough approximations of value in standard 5×5 leagues as you prepare for what might be your final draft(s).

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Monday featured the third base version of the ongoing consensus rankings project and the results actually did reveal a pretty good amount of consensus from our four great minds, but there were some details and departures in opinions worth pointing out.

First of all, and this was teased out in the comments, it’s fairly likely we’re going to see names like Miguel Cabrera, Hanley Ramirez, and Mark Trumbo on the list of the third base eligible come May (for most league formats, probably much earlier). In the case of the former two, it would shake up the rankings in the top five considerably, and there’s a good chance many of you are targeting Cabrera as the overall #1 pick given his new digs in the infield.

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You’re gonna have to learn your clichés.  You’re gonna have to study them, you’re gonna have to know them. They’re your friends. Write this down:  “We gotta play it one day at a time…I’m just happy to be here and hope I can help the ballclub…I just wanna give It my best shot and, Good Lord willing, things’ll work out.” — Crash Davis

While the influx of baseball chatter and interviews is sincerely welcomed at this time of year, we, as fantasy owners, must maintain a clear head and corral that child-like jubilation that a new baseball season brings.  You’re going to hear a number of comments regarding players and teams from both coaches and general managers, as well as from the players themselves.  You’re going to hear things that get you excited about a particular player and if you don’t take things with a grain of salt, you could get swept up in the pomp and circumstance of spring training, lose sight of what’s actually in front of you, and fall victim to the hype.

So with that, let’s look at some common phrases you’ll hear and how you might want to react to them. Read the rest of this entry »

We rely on mock drafts to help guide us on trends without necessarily acting as the definitive voice. They’re somewhat like exit polls in politics — we’re just trying to get a pulse on public opinion before we see the actual results, with the exception that in mock baseball drafts, we can’t be entirely assured that a human being actually made the pick.

The problem being of course, is that mock drafts across formats is a lot like exit polls in Wyoming versus New York. So much depends on context. For instance – if you’re targeting Ian Stewart for any particular reason, Yahoo would suggest that you should expect to see him taken in the 20th round. If you trust Mock Draft Central, he is drafted at roughly 442, should anyone ever get to that round awake.

Stewart is an extreme case but it’s worth pointing out the differences in systems. As you well know, how a player is ranked in the draft room almost inevitably impacts where they are ultimately drafted — and some of the differences are so big that it could dramatically alter your draft approach.

Focusing solely on third base — here are some of the players that have a pretty major difference between Mock Draft Central and Yahoo’s current ADP. For the heck of it, I threw in any notable percentage changes in trend at MDC in case recent news has them moving up or down, and I tossed in the rankings of Eric Karabell over at ESPN (those that made his top 100 anyway).

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Each year, there’s always one pick in the draft that always seems to cause the biggest stir amongst the fantasy community and leads to the greatest number of emails seeking added opinions.  It used to be closer to the tail end of the first round when an owner was deciding between whichever offensive treat was left or the number one overall starting pitcher.  This year, I’ve received a number of emails from people with the 4th pick.  People with the 8th and 9th picks are rolling their eyes right now, but truly, the 4th pick can cause quite the conundrum.

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As you well know by now, some dutiful readers of RotoGraphs took it upon themselves to virtually duke it out in an online mock draft, putting to test what we have repeatedly analyzed in the past several weeks — that is, just exactly where should we expect some of our favorite players to be taken?

There is of course a great deal of risk in relying solely on one source for your average draft positions, and while the draft was conducted in Mock Draft Central, having some well informed individuals making the selections instead of what could be third graders and well trained monkeys for all we know, provides us with a nice window for analysis.

For today, third base will be under the microscope.

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Continuing our analysis of the RotoGraphs Reader Mock Draft, here’s a look at Rounds 5 through 8… Read the rest of this entry »

If we can assume relative health of the available third basemen heading into 2012, the position isn’t such a black hole as it appeared to be going into 2011. But taking an early look at the average draft position (ADP) on Mock Draft Central of those qualifying at the hot corner, it seems you’ll have to strike early or pay dearly if you want anyone who occupies the first couple of tiers.

It’s likely no surprise that Jose Bautista is the highest on the list, and among third basemen, he’s very much in a class by himself. But as it stands, Evan Longoria is even sniffing the first round with an ADP of 12.6. Coming off the board in rounds three and four are David Wright, Adrian Beltre, and Ryan Zimmerman, in that order. In standard leagues, that’s very much your first and second tier — gone by the end of the 4th round.

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Based on some of the names Brian Sabean was rumored to be shopping at the winter meetings, it was hard to figure the Giants would pull off any sort of a deal, let alone one that would actually serve as an upgrade for the team.  But when he dealt centerfielder Andres Torres and reliever Ramon Ramirez to the Mets yesterday in exchange for 30 year old Angel Pagan, he did just that.  We’ll leave the defensive debate for Jack Moore’s piece over in FanGraphs ( I threw in my two cents in the comments section).  RotoGraphs is fantasy and in fantasy, for position players,  it’s about the hitting.  And offensively speaking, Pagan should fare well in San Francisco and improve the team’s leadoff hitting, something they are in desperate need of doing.

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