Fantasy Baseball 365
Key Stats: The big story in baseball today is the Wilpon’s settling out of court in the Madoff case. So the Mets avoided court… yay? How come no one is taking the Yankees to court when they stole Granderson from the Tigers in 2009? I’m not sure what the statute of limitations is on grand larceny in NY State, or is this a Federal matter since it crossed state lines? In anycase, while Ian Kennedy has held up his end of the deal, Phil Coke isn’t as good as Coke Zero and Austin Jackson is like Curtis Granderson before Curtis Granderson decided to be Curtis Granderson, but somehow we feel will never be Curtis Granderson. 2011 numbers and major league rank in parenthesis follow: 41 HR (2nd), 119 RBI (3rd), 136 Runs (1st…by a lot), let’s not forget the 25 steals he had as well. It is not an outlandish statement to say Granderson helped many people win championships last year. Career year? Career year. Do we pay for career years the following season? Not always. Can he do it again? Maybe…
no commentsKey Stats: Roy Halladay has been ranked among the top 15 overall players in fantasy baseball for four straight seasons. The only other player that can claim the same is Albert Pujols. Coming from a pitcher that’s amazing. While I would contend that Miguel Cabrera and Ryan Braun are more of a sure thing than Halladay, Halladay is probably the fourth best guarantee in fantasy baseball.
Skeptics Say: In three starts so far this spring, Halladay has an ERA north of 10. Halladay claims that he is not hurt and just said that it will take him longer to get going as a veteran with lots of miles on his arm. Does that mean he won’t be good in April? I doubt it – last year he had a 2.14 ERA and 0.99 WHIP in that month. no comments
Key Stats: Cliff Lee is like a fine wine. At age 32 last season, he had the best year of his career. He had an 0.45 ERA in the month of August and that was bad compared to the June that he had. He demolished his best strikeout and ERA seasons, threw more innings, and had six complete game shutouts. We can say that he was lucky, and to an extent he was, but he was also as dominant as ever.
Skeptics Say: Both Lee’s FIP and xFIP were higher than his ERA. Also, he will be 33 this season. Pitching as well as he did at age 32 isn’t quite unheard of, but replicating last season will be a very tall order. Lee had just a 9.3% swing and miss rate, but managed a K% close to 26%. By comparison, John Danks also had a 9.3% swing and miss rate, but had a K% of 18.5%. Lee does rely on called strikes of course, but expect this number to drop anyway.
no commentsKey Stats: Dustin Pedroia finished last year as the 16th ranked overall player. It was the same ranking he had in 2008 when he was named the American League MVP. Pedroia did everything statistically. He was tied for 4th in home runs among second basemen and finished in the top 3 at the position at the other four standard categories.
Skeptics Say: There’s no telling what Bobby Valentine’s philosophy will be regarding Pedroia’s stolen base potential. He doesn’t have blazing speed, but is a smart enough player to get good jumps and steal 20. Also in terms of power, he had a career low in fly ball percentage, so he was lucky to end up with as many home runs as he had. no comments
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Based on my analysis and current ADP data, these are the players that I feel are overvalued or too risky to take on draft day.
no commentsKey Stats: Mark Teixeira has averaged 697 plate appearances the last four seasons. With good health comes a better chance for numbers to accumulate. Sure enough Teixeira has driven in at least 108 runs in each of the last four seasons and at least 105 in the last eight seasons. No other player in the game can make that claim. Teixeira has also had at least 30 long balls every season since 2004.
Skeptics Say: Last year Teixeira followed up a .256 average in 2010 with a .248 campaign. He was supposed to bounce back to the kind of player that hit .297 in five seasons before that. The problem lies in Teixeira’s batting average on balls in play and more specifically the fly balls that he’s hit. His BABIP in New York was just .218 last year. He is probably too drawn to the short porch in right field. While the 39 home runs were great last year, fantasy players might want to trade in five of them for 40 to 50 points in batting average.
Peer Comparison: Teixeira will be 32 this season, so perhaps the batting average is a trend of the times to come as he slowly should see his numbers come down. Teixeira isn’t the only first baseman that is going to be 32 and has driven in at least 100 while bopping 30 home runs in each of the last six seasons. No I’m not talking about Albert Pujols. He didn’t drive in 100 last season. Ryan Howard has done this for the past six seasons. Howard is currently coming off the board 113 selections after Teixeira on drafts at Mock Draft Central. no comments
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Key Stats: Felix Hernandez saw his ERA rise from 2.27 in 2010 when he won the Cy Young Award to 3.47 last season. It is eye-popping, but probably something not worth worrying about. His xFIP went up by one one-hundredth of a point, his strikeout to walk rate was identical, and his K/9 actually rose last season. Beyond the numbers, if you saw the guy pitch at all in 2010, the eye test says that he is still nasty. He is going to turn 26 in a month. I wouldn’t worry over an uptick in the ERA.
Skeptics Say: We have to be sort of picky with someone as good as King Felix, but his quality start percentage was tied for 25th last season among qualifying starters. He also had an ERA of 3.91 in the second half. These are obvious signs of inconsistency something he did not have in 2011 when he led the league in quality start percentage. Just to be fair though, C.C. Sabathia was also 25th in QS% last year, and if there was one word to describe him it would be consistent.
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