In fantasy sports, the key to success, above all else, is proper evaluation.  Evaluation of your players, your team, other players, other teams, etc.  Making the right draft picks is based on evaluation, making the right trades is based on evaluation, and picking the right matchups is based on evaluation.  The biggest evaluation mistake you can make is on your own players and your own team.  Sure, it's important to correctly predict the future of a player you're targeting in a trade, but it's more important to correctly evaluate the players you're replacing or trading.  If you can take all the information you're given about a player and correctly predict his future production for a given time period, then all the rest will fall into place. 

I started using a very rudimentary system to evaluate my own team's likely future performance last year during the fantasy football season, and this year I've adapted it to baseball.  I personally think it's extremely useful and insightful, so I wanted to throw it out to all you faketeamers for further discussion/analysis/criticism, etc.

What I do, in a nutshell, is take every important player on my team (not only starters, but any player that sees a decent amount of at-bats as a result of platoons), and assign him a number between -2 and +2.  I look at the player's projection for the current season on espn.com, and decide whether he will outproduce that projection, or underproduce it.  -2 means I think he will fall substantially short, +2 means I think he'll perform substantially better.  I think you can figure out what -1, 0, and +1 mean.

As an example, I'll post the results of this exercise performed on my team in one of my bigger leagues:

Soto 0, Konerko -1, Prado 0, Arod +2, S. Drew +1, Bruce +1, Granderson +1, G. Jones 0, A. Soriano 0, Crawford 0, Heyward 0, F. Hernandez 0, Ubaldo -1, C. Lee 0, Romero -1, E. Santana 0, R. Soriano 0, Broxton 0.

That all adds up to +2.  Assuming judgement error, one can reasonably assume my team will perform at about its current level for the remainder of the season, with the opportunity to get slightly better.  This team is currently in 2nd place, 19 points up on 3rd.  Now, to put this info to use, I can now decide what sort of trade I need to pursue (if any) to set myself up for the remainder of the season.  Any trade I make would involve draft picks for next year.  I'm already down a pick that was used to acquire Cliff Lee earlier in the season.  Given the outcome of the team evaluation, I'll likely stand pat at this point and just try to ride this roster out.  Hopefully Arod will get hot at some point and carry whichever players end up slumping and underperform my expectations (his current projection is 23 HR and 5 SB.  I can't see that happening). 

What do you all feel about this?  Am I crazy?  Is this useless?  Or am I a genius?

In my main league I made a trade yesterday that I've been working on for about a week.  5x5 rotisserie, 10 teams, 7 keepers.  This league is interesting because you only have 5 active SP, in an effort to reflect a real rotation.  I'm currently in 3rd.  My rotation is Felix, Ubaldo, Wandy-Rod, Hughes, and Ricky Romero.  I also have Kazmir and Brett Cecil reserved (they cannot enter the rotation unless I outright drop or trade one of my other starters).  Though my rotation is doing well thus far, I decided to go after Cliff Lee for some stability.  I ended up trading Hughes, Cecil, and a 5th round pick next season (essentially 12th because of the keepers) for Lee.  I may have given up too much, but hear me out.  Hughes' ceiling is certainly higher than Lee's, but it's almost a lock, IMO, that Lee will outperform him this year.  As for keeper potential, I'd say it's about even.  Lee is a FA after this year, and if he goes back to the NL, he could be in for a very big, Halladay-esque season.

I participated in my 4th and final draft this morning.  This is a "league" that a few of my friends and I threw together at the last minute.  4 teams, auction, 4x4 (standard 5x5 minus runs and wins), and AL Central only.  Believe it or not, after 7 years of fantasy baseball experience, this was my first auction draft.  The results showed my inexperience, I think.  Here's my roster with thoughts:

C - Mauer - 33

C - Castro - 1

1B - Cuddyer - 22

3B - Gordon - 7

CI - Nix - 1

2B - Beckham - 21

SS - Peralta - 11

MI - Casillas - 3

OF - DeJesus - 12

OF - Pierre - 22

OF - Span - 30 (!?)

OF - Kearns - 1

OF - J. Guillen - 1

Util - Fields - 1

P - Buehrle - 13

P - Peavy - 18

P - Jenks - 14

P - Bonderman - 5

P - Valverde - 17

P - Zumaya - 2

P - Garcia - 4

P - Neshek - 1

P - Laffey - 1

What I Like:

I thought I got good value in Alex Gordon at 7, Casillas at 3, Peavy at 18, Neshek at 1, and Bonderman at 5.  Mauer was far and away the best catching option, with only Pierzynski even plausible beyond that.  I should lock up saves, being the only team with 2 closers.  Also, Valverde and Jenks  don't have very much injury or job security risk. 

What I Don't Like:

DENARD BLEEPING SPAN FOR 30.  In my defense, the reason I ended up with this is that one other owner and myself ended up with too much money and not enough OF'ers.  I only did this because there was literally nothing else to throw money at.  This showed my inexperience with auction style drafting.  I simply waited too long and ended up with a horrible outfield. 

All in all, I think I did decently.  I'm probably the 2nd best team of the 4.  How do you think I'll finish?

Tier 1:

1 - Chase Utley

2 - Ian Kinsler

3 - Dustin Pedroia

Tier 2:

4 - Robinson Cano

5 - Brandon Phillips

6 - Brian Roberts

7 - Aaron Hill

8 - Ben Zobirst

Tier 3:

9 - Gordon Beckham

10 - Howie Kendrick

11 - Jose Lopez

12 - Dan Uggla

13 - Rickie Weeks

14 - Ian Stewart

15 - Placido Polanco

16 - Asdrubal Cabrera

Not really much to comment on here.  The tiers seem to be pretty clear cut across the board.  One thing I'd like to note:  If you're in keeper leagues, Gordon Beckham should be moved up a few pegs.  He has the most upside at the position by far.  Ray has already posted that he could be the next Chase Utley for 2B fantasy purposes.  Temper your expectations a bit for this year, as there will certainly be growing pains, but this time next year Beckham should be about ranked in the top 5 at 2B.

I actually had two drafts yesterday, one at 11 AM and the other at 5 PM.  This league is my favorite, and longest running league.  Standard 5x5 roto, 10 teams with 7 keepers, no snake draft.  It has a bit of an interesting pitching setup, however.  Intending to simulate a real pitching rotation, you can only have 5 SP's accumulating stats for you at any one time.  If you want to remove one of your starters from the rotation, he has to be either traded or dropped, and he has to make 3 starts for you before you can do anything with him at all.  He CANNOT just be moved to the bench and replaced by a different pitcher.  This rule makes starting pitching very important, as a bad pitcher can really set you back.

I did very well in this league from '05 to '08, coming in 4th, 1st, 3rd, and 1st respectively, and then last year had pretty much everything go wrong that possibly could, and came in dead last.  My keepers are Arod, Crawford, Granderson, Bruce, Pedroia, Felix, and Jubaldo JImenez.  I had no 2nd round pick and an additional 8th round pick as a result of various trades.  On to the results:

1 - Wandy Rodriguez

2 - No pick

3 - Broxton

4 - Pena

5 - A. Soriano

6 - Edwin Jackson

7 - Webb

8 - R. Soriano 

8 - Kazmir

9 - S. Drew

10 - Heyward

11 - G. Jones

12 - Soto

13 - Maybin

14 - J. Rivera

15 - Wagner

16 - Hughes

17 - Dye

All in all, I think I did well.  My one worry is that I don't have any bench players that aren't OF'ers.  Towards the end of the draft there just wasn't much available and there was still value in the outfield.  I'll have to explore trading some of these OF'ers once the injury bug starts hitting people.

I drafted my first of 3 leagues yesterday afternoon.  This is my least favorite league because it's head to head, which I hate, and I don't know most of the guys that are in it.  The buy-in is sizeable enough for me to care, however, so it makes up for everything else.  This year I decided to go pitching and steals.  It's a 12 team 6x5 league (standard 5x5 plus QS) with 4 keepers.  I made the strategy decision at the end of last year and dumped Pujols, Granderson, Bay, etc. and ended up with Haren, Felix, Lester, and Ellsbury as keepers.  Not a bad start if you ask me!  On to the results:

1.  Broxton

2.  Jimenez

3.  Papelbon

4.  Billingsley

5.  R. Soriano

6.  Pierre

7.  E. Cabrera

8.  Garza

9.  Fowler

10.  Harden

11.  Jenks

12.  Podsednik

13.  Castillo

14.  Webb

15.  Capps

16.  Y. Molina

17.  Kennedy

18.  Loney

19.  Crisp

20.  Taveras

21.  Gomez

Considering the pitching-heavy categories I don't really see any weakness barring injury problems.  I should get 140 SB from my OF alone, as well as taking my share of weeks in BA and R.  Pitching should be a gimme as well.  If I can win every week 7-4 I'll make the playoffs and be impossible to beat, right?

Here's my take:

Tier 1:

1.  Pujols

2.  Teixera

3.  Fielder

Tier 2:

4.  M-Cab

5.  Howard

6.  Morneau

7.  A-Gonz

8.  Reynolds

9.  Youkilis

Tier 3:

10.  Votto

11.  Sandoval

12.  Berkman

13.  Morales

14.  V-Mart

15.  Dunn

16.  Pena

17.  Butler

18.  D-Lee

Tier 4 (Just missed):

Cuddyer, Jones, Loney, Laroche, Konerko, Davis, Helton

The big argument at first base this year seems to be the order of the guys after Pujols and before Morneau, Gonzalez, Youkilis, Votto, etc.  I really think you have to take Teixera over Prince, Howard, and M-Cab.  Teixera has zero injury risk, is in the prime of his career, in the best lineup in baseball, and in a launching pad of a home park.  Sure, the other 3 guys are all more capable of putting up the monster season, but you have to go with Teixera's consistency over the other 3.  I'm worried about Howard's batting average downside and struggles against lefties.  I'm worried about Cabrera's drinking problem.  And I'm worried about Fielder eating himself out of the league or getting hurt as a result of his weight, similar to how it ended for his father.

My goodness, talk about a mixed bag here.  This could be the craziest player profile I've seen in the last 5 or so years.  Some guys have been just as unpredictable, but not with the ceiling Upton has, and not with the floor either.  The spectrum is amazingly wide on this one.  On to the numbers...

The first thing we need to look at it is steals, as this is where he's expected to acquire the majority of his value.  In 2007 he had 22 steals, but had 56, 44, and 42 respectively in '06, '08, and '09.  I think it's safe to call '07 an outlier, probably based on some sort of injury or an attempts issue.  His wheels are just fine, so long as he gets on base, which is the 2nd issue.

His batting averages have been all over the spectrum as well, ranging from a career high .300 in '07 to a career low .241 last year.  He makes very poor contact and his walk rate dropped HUGE last season.  Big red flag.  His BABIP is another peripheral with a strange trend.  Last season he was getting hits around 31% of the time, down from 35% and 40% the previous two years.  That should indicate this will be a correction year, but then again his hit rate was 31% in back to back seasons in the minors in '05 and '06.  Where is his true number?

HR's is the last area of uncertainty.  His total of 24 in '07 was the result of a 20% HR/FB rate.  His best season otherwise is 7%.

I can honestly see Upton being a complete bust and falling off the fantasy radar.  The problem is that I can just as easily see him being a first round pick next season.  My best suggestion is draft for 40 steals and consider any batting average or power help a bonus.  Hopefully we get a better idea of what he's made of this season.

V-Mart is entering his first full season in the Boston lineup, where he OPS'ed .912 last season in 211 AB's (75 points higher than his career mark).  Expectations are high.  I'd like to temper them a bit. 

It's obvious that Martinez is one of the elite catcher options in mixed leagues.  If you throw out his injury plagued 2008 season, declaring it the outlier that it likely was, his peripherals are remarkably stable.  Walk rate, contact percentage, GB/FB splits, HR/F... all of them.  His value lies in his reliability, not his production.

The reason I'm not going bananas over V-Mart this season is primarily based on the Red Sox playing time situation.  In previous seasons, Martinez would play first base on his off days from catching, effectively adding about 50-100 AB's per season that most other catchers won't get.  That's going to be difficult to do with Boston this season.  I'm hard pressed to see them sitting either Youkilis or Beltre to make room for Martinez, considering their new emphasis on defense.  It doesn't make much sense to sit the "elite" defensive options in an effort to get a marginally better bat in the lineup.  So I expect him to get the usual catcher's worth of AB's, which, just by pure math, means he'll be less productive.

Now, the second thing that's got me a bit worried is Victor's production as a catcher as opposed to playing first base.  It's generally accepted that catching is a physically daunting task and it takes a toll on a player's offensive abilities (Well, unless you're a juiced up Mike Piazza... but that's neither here nor there).  Previously, Martinez never really played enough first base to get a big enough sample size to draw any real conclusions.  Last year was different.  He got 255 AB's at 1B and 317 at C, and the OPS split is remarkable, .942/.783.  I'm not saying he's going to OPS .783 for the whole year and leave owner's frustrated.  I'm simply saying don't expect that .942 either.

Nelson who?  Where did this guy come from?  He's how old? 29 going on 30?

Cruz appeared out of fantasy baseball obscurity in late 2008 to hit .330 with 7 HR and 3 SB in only 115 AB's.  I don't know if I'd go so far as to say he was "hyped" going into 2009 but he was certainly on the fantasy radar.  I can admit that I had little interest in him.  I'm very wary of guys that suddenly OPS 120 points higher than they ever have before at the age of 28 (which is what he did in 2008 between AAA and the majors).  Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like Garrett Jones this season... hmm...

Well, my doubts were proven wrong when Cruz posted a serious major league breakout in 2009, hitting .260 with 33 HR, 20 SB, and 151 R/RBI.  The relevant question now is, what is he likely to do this season?

Skill-wise, he has sort of a mixed bag.  His walk rate has been acceptable and sustained for 2 seasons but he struggles a bit to make contact.  That will probably supress his ability to hit for average.  His value lies in his power/speed combo though, and here is where he's looking great.  SB success rate was fantastic (83%) and his power is real, as he slugged .551/.524 in back to back seasons with similar hr/f percentages.  His flyball rate went UP last season, which is great news for his power prospects.

Cruz had only 462 AB's as he dealt with some nagging injuries along the way, but this was a great season fully supported by his peripherals.  If he can stay healthy all year, sustain that FB rate, and maybe make a little more contact he's in store for a big one... I'm talking .290/40/20 with 200 R/RBI.  That's probably about his upside potential. Weird that a guy that turns 30 in July is pretty much in a growth stage.  Realistically, I'd draft him with something like .260/30/20 in mind.

Following The Big Unit's retirement announcement last week, I took a look back at his numbers and compared him to other dominating fantasy forces of his era.  What I discovered was that he was, from a fantasy perspective, the greatest SP of all-time.

I began my research by first laying out the possible candidates for this distinction of "best ever".  The player needed to be a dominating force in all 4 categories, not just a contributor.  The obvious guys in the same class as Johnson are Clemens, Schilling, and Pedro.  There's a significant drop off from there.  Everybody else that I considered either had only a brief time in the spotlight (Wood, Prior, Schmidt, Johan), or were lacking in one category (Maddux). How many seasons did each of these guys have with at least 16 wins, a 3.00 ERA, a 1.20 WHIP, and 250 K's?  Pedro had 4 such seasons, '97 in Montreal, and '98-'00 in Boston.  Clemens also had 4, '87 and '88 in Boston, and then back to back in Toronto (yeah, remember that?), in '97 and '98.  Schilling had 3, '97 and '98 in Philadelphia and '01 in Arizona.  He narrowly missed having 2 more, however, in '98 and '02.

So how many did Big Unit have?  Try SEVEN.  His first 4 seasons in Arizona, at the ages of 35-38 (usually the twilight of a pitchers career), were absolutely mindblowing.  This was his average line: 21 Wins, 354 K's, 2.48 ERA, and a 1.05 WHIP.  He also didn't miss a single start during this stretch.  You literally just drafted him in the first round, plugged him into a SP slot, and forgot about him.  He had 372 strikeouts in 2001.  372!  That's the most in a single season since Nolan Ryan in 1973.  Almost 40 years!  That's effectively two pitchers worth of strikeouts.  After I finished crunching all these numbers, I also realized that he could honestly still be pitching.  He was injury prone last season with San Francisco, but he still put down an 8.0 K/9 and a 2.8 K/BB, at the age of 45.  It's time to recognize Randy Johnson as the greatest fantasy starting pitcher of all-time.

There's been much ballyhoo about the Red Sox being borderline obsessed with defense this offseason.  Whether or not this characterization is true, the fact remains that they will be fielding one of the greatest defensive teams of my generation.  Let's take a look at how they fare around the diamond:

The first number was their UZR/150 games in 2009, and the second number is where that UZR ranks within the rest of the players at their position.

1B - Kevin Youkilis, 15.2, 2nd

2B - Dustin Pedroia, 10.6, 6th

3B - Adrian Beltre - 21.0, 3rd

SS - Marco Scutaro - 1.0, 17th

RF - J.D. Drew - 15.7, 6th

CF - Mike Cameron - 10.3, 8th

LF - Jacoby Ellsbury - (18.3), 29th (Note - this number was his CF value)

That gives them 6 out of 7 above average defenders, with 5 of them being truly elite.  Even their bench is stacked with Jed Lowrie and Jeremy Hermida being well regarded defensively. 

Now, the obvious question from a baseball standpoint is:  Will they have enough offense and pitching to overcome this defensive approach?  It's a difficult question to answer.  Fortunately for us fantasy leaguers, we don't have to!  All we need to do is upgrade the Boston pitchers appropriately for fantasy baseball.  I'm willing to bet most of them experience career lows in BABIP and easily outperform their xERA or FIP (depending on which you tend to prefer).  We could see a truly fantastic season out of Beckett, Lester, or Lackey (read: sub 3.00 ERA), deserved or not. Even Wakefield will be useful considering all the balls he puts in play.

Chris Johnson - With a record breaking 2,509 yards from scrimmage and 14 total TD's, he's vaulted himself over Jones-Drew and Peterson as the number one RB in the league going into 2010.  Posting roughly 50 more fantasy points than number 2 (Peterson), he put up the best fantasy season since LT's '06 campaign. LenDale White's departure via free agency alleviates any lingering concerns over vultured touchdowns.  The system is the same, the personnel is the same, and there is zero competition for carries.  

Aaron Rodgers - For the first time since 2002, we're looking at the preseason number one QB being someone not named Brady, Manning, or Brees.  An argument can be made for Manning or Brees for sure, but for my money I'll take Rodgers' upside and his 300 rushing yards per season.  The skill positions in Green Bay are loaded and he's another year into the system.

Jamaal Charles - Out of nowere.  From bench fodder to a first round pick in 2010.  The same size as Chris Johnson with the same skill set, Charles put down an insane 1,126 yards from scrimmage and 8 total TD's in 8 games, with a 6 yards per carry average..  Double that for an entire season and he's the number one back in the league.  Obviously you can't just double it and call it a year, and 6 YPC isn't sustainable, but the simple fact that he did what he did with the same offensive line that Larry Johnson mustered less than 3 YPC with speaks for itself.

Miles Austin - In a similar vein to Jamaal Charles, Austin went from fantasy bench fodder to a unequivacle top 10 WR. Forced to rank him right now, I'll put him at #8 behind Johnson, Wayne, Fitz, V-Jax, Calvin, White, and Desean Jackson.  Considering the variables involved with Moss, Marshall, and Sidney Rice, he's a safe top 10 pick.

Ladainian Tomlinson - It's officially the end of an era.  Although he didn't let fantasy owners down as an RB2 with 900 yards and 12 TD's, he averaged a measely 3.3 yards per carry, which continued the 4 year slide from 5.2 to 4.7 to 3.8 to where he stands now.  LT is this years version of Shaun Alexander and Priest Holmes; former fantasy greats that went from stardom to the free agent pool in 2 calendar years.  Don't consider him more than a RB3 next year. 

In regards to this blog:

I'm a big SB Nation fan, I'm an active member at a bunch of them and I enjoy Fake Teams as well.  I have a gripe with the scope of its coverage however.  A few weeks ago there was a fan post asking why there hasn't been much fantasy football posting going on, and the response was that the main writers are almost entirely fantasy baseball enthusiasts and thus their writing and posting steers in that direction.  This is fine and I understand it.  But I also notice that since these writers are almost exclusively in NL-only leagues, the writing scope steers even narrower.  This is a big issue for me as well as most of your readers.  There was a poll a few months back asking what kind of baseball leagues we all participate in, and the response was overwhelmingly "mixed leagues", not NL or AL only.  For me at least, if the writing continues to be entirely dominated by NL-only talk, I'll be reading less and less.  I already have been reading less and less, for that matter.

I don't mean to come across as rude or threatening, just thought I'd let you know that I'm being alienated by the content, and I'm sure most of your readers are as well.  Thanks for the consideration.

My last draft of the year is tonight at a local restaurant at 6pm.  This league is a bit strange.  It's largely a group of middle-aged men, 14 teams, QB heavy scoring.  This is going to be the league's 11th season, and it will be my 3rd.  You have to keep 3 players, but once a player has been kept 2 years in a row, he has to go back into the draft pool. 

What they've done with team defense scoring drives me crazy.  In a misguided effort to make it more important, they make a point scored on your defense worth -1.  So, in any given week, your defense can light up your team to the tune of -20 or -30.  I understand their intentions, but what they fail to see is that no matter how you set up the scoring, the problem isn't that team defense is unimportant because it isn't worth anything, the problem is that it's still unpredictable.  Yet nobody realizes it.  One of the guys is KEEPING A DEFENSE.  Yes, that's right.  He's keeping Tennessee Defense over Jonathan Stewart or Ray Rice, because he thinks defense is important now.  

Also an interesting tidbit of information:  The keepers were due on Sunday and there is another gentleman in this league that is keeping David Patten.  Where is David Patten even playing this year, you may ask?  In fact, you probably are definitely asking yourself that because I was.  My initial thought was New Orleans or Washington.  He is actually about to be CUT by Cleveland.  And this guy wants to KEEP him.  I voted for a mulligan.  We'll see what happens tonight.

I'm in 3 football leagues this season, the first of which drafted last night.  12 teams, standard scoring (non-PPR), roster as follows: QB, (2) RB, (3) WR/TE, K, DEF.  Here are the results, how did I do?

Keepers: C. Johnson, A. Johnson, Brady

My roster, with the round each player was drafted in parenthesis:

QB - Brady

RB - C. Johnson, Bush (2), J. Jones (4), J. Lewis (5), F. Taylor (7), Norwood (8), Faulk (10)

WR - A. Johnson, Colston (1), D. Jackson (3), Crayton (6), Breaston (9), Winslow (11)

I think this team has potential, but it will live or die with the health of Brady, Colston, and Bush.  Colston when healthy is a WR1.  Brady is the best QB in the league if everything is fine with the knee, and if Bush can manage to play 14 or 15 games he's an acceptable RB2, in my opinion.  I'm lacking a good WR3, but I have alot of depth.  I'm hoping someone from that group can step up and contribute appropriately.  What does everyone think?

In one of my head-to-head leagues I'm going to attempt the all-pitching-and-steals strategy for next year.  This league has 4 keepers and the trade deadline is tomorrow so I don't have much time;  I have to take what I can get last minute to make this work. The only player I currently have to keep that fits the mold is Billingsley, so there's one.   I just moved Granderson and Washburn for Ellsbury, there's two.  I moved Pujols for Haren straight up.  I got robbed, I know.  Whatever, I don't care! Time is of the essence!  I'm attempting to get Halladay/Felix/Lester/Johan/Beckett right now for my last remaining assets (Damon, Bay, Votto, Lilly, Valverde, Sizemore), but nobody is budging.  If that doesn't work, I know I can at least upgrade Billingsley to Felix by throwing in someone.  Felix/Haren/Ellsbury and a PTBN would be a good start, no? 

This rule being that RB's are your bread and butter.  They're the dressing in your salad.  Grab two and grab two EARLY.  Why?  Is it the consistency week to week?  Sure, they are more consistent than WR's.  Are they more consistent than QB's?  No, I don't think so.  They're also more injury prone than QB's.  Predictability?  I'd say it's about even.  I'm currently in 3 fantasy football leagues, all keeper leagues.  I've been in one since 2004, another since 2005, and the 3rd since 2007.  I'VE NEVER WON A PLAYOFF GAME.  I think it may be due to my overall approach regarding QB's, which is basically, "to hell with them".  I dominate fantasy baseball (4 straight money finishes in my main league), so it's not my approach to fantasy sports in general. 

I researched my 3 football leagues to find out who comprised the top 20 last season.  3 leagues X 20 players = 60 players.  Of those 60, here's the breakdown:

40 QB's

18 RB's

2 WR's

So what gives?  Why is there a perpetual emphasis on RB's?  Are QB's really more important?

I'm in a 14 team league with some interesting keeper rules.  A player can only be kept twice in consecutive years, and then he goes back to the draft.  You must keep 3 players.  This is a bonus-heavy league (yardage bonuses and long TD bonuses) so QB's are king.  I'm already decided to keep Schaub.  Usually 12ish QB's are kept and it's just hell if you don't have one.  There's never usually even a starter in the FA pool week-to-week.  The format is QB, RB, WR, WR, RB/WR, TE.  I just traded Welker and my 4th round pick for Chris Johnson.  And my last spot is difficult:  I have Gates, who I kept last year.  Therefore he has only one year left of eligibility.  Or I can go with Ward, and his 2 years of eligibility.  I love Ward's talent level but he's got Graham challenging for carries (especially goal line) and Cadillac is still in the mix.  Ward has better overall skills so I expect him to be on the field more, but the Bucs should be pretty bad this year and it's just a dicey situation.  Gates is the sure thing, as far as I'm concerned.  I'm picking around 9th or 10th and it's not a snake draft.

In celebration of Delwyn Young turning 27 yesterday, I tried to take a hard look at what we might have here...

The Delwyn Young trade made in April was viewed mostly as a shoulder-shrugger; the Pirates didn't give up much, and didn't recieve much in return.  I'm not so sure I agree with that assessment.  Let's take a look at his minor league track record:

In 2005, at the age of 22/23, he split time between AA/AAA and hit 305/350/492 in 531 AB's.  A pretty solid season overall but nothing extraordinary.  In 2006 (age 23/24), he hit 273/326/457 in 532 AB's.  At face value this looks like a regression, but if you take a closer look at his skills, you see that he improved.  His contact rate went up from 77 to 80, his walk rate went up from 6.1 to 7.3, and consequently his BB/K ratio went up from .29 to .40.  The stat line regression was due in part to a .310 BABIP as compared to .364 from the previous year.  In 2007, he again repeated AAA at the age of 24/25, and hit 337/384/571.  Skills-wise he treaded water or regressed slightly, but he showed much more power and his BABIP was wildly high at .402.  At this point, he's probably still considered an intriguing young player.  Then last season, in my opinion, his development was inexplicably halted by the Dodgers decision to let him literally rot on their major league bench.  He stayed on the roster for almost the entire season and accumulated 126 AB's, mostly as a pinch hitter.  His problems were also compounded by a second half oblique injury. 

Now, he needs to hit a ton more than he is to make up for the fact that he's playing average to below average defense at a corner outfield position, but I think there's more upside here than most think.  After all, the guy only had 165 major league AB's before this season.  I can't for the life of me understand how the Dodgers rationalized their treatment of Young.  He's a former 4th round pick with a career minor league OPS of .878... and you've given him 165 TOTAL major league AB's by his age 25/26 season?!

As for this year, his line is decent (318/392/411), but the BA is owed to another ridiculous BABIP of .421.  While he's drawing more walks (walk rate of 10.1), he's not making good contact (73%), so he's got sort of a mixed bag so far.  In light of the recent Hinske/Morgan trades, I'd like to see him play OF exclusively for the rest of the season, as his contract is favorable and the Bucs have control for at least a few more years.  Am I out of my mind here?

He's arrived for good.  Still only 22 years old with just under 600 Major League at-bats, his stats, and more importantly his skills, say he's here.  His current projected line is .241, 51 HR, 102 Runs, 105 RBI's, and 11 SB's.  Age 22!  AND... that BA is going to go up inevitably because of his 23% hit rate.  I know projections have to be taken with a grain of salt because anything can happen throughout a season (injuries, slumps, lineup changes, etc.),  but that's just a gaudy line. 

Take a look at his skills, they're all taking steps forward from his rookie season:  CT% up to 78% from 75% last season, BB% up to 9% from 7%, and batting eye (BB/K) up to .43 from .29.  The only real blemish is that he still can't hit lelfites yet, currently at .196 with a .606 OPS.  

One can reasonably expect him to finish this season at .270/ 35-45 HR, 200 total runs/RBI's, and 10ish steals.  That easily makes him a top 3 OF going into next year, especially in keeper leagues, no?  Try to acquire him while his BA still surpesses his value.  

Anyone read Deadspin.com?  It's downright hilarious, I check in everyday.  The intro to a column this morning has to do with the Pirates.. kind of:

http://deadspin.com/5245960/this-column-must-register-with-the-local-authorities?skyline=true&s=i

Need more words need more words need more words need more words Bob Kipper Sid Bream Cecil Espy R.J. Reynolds Randy Tomlin Bill Landrum Zane Smith Peter Paul and Mary Ben Roethlisberger

My main money league, 10 teams mixed, standard 5x5 roto, 7 keepers... I have Carlos Lee, Alfonso Soriano, and ARod, so my team is aging.  I really want to deal Lee midseason, and I'll sit on Arod and Soriano for another year unless a good opportunity comes along. 

I've made an offer right now for Hunter Pence straight up, and, if that doesn't go through, I'm going to seek Curtis Granderson.  That seems about fair, no? 

Here's the dilemma.  If neither of those work out, would you try to move Lee for someone like Alex Rios, Shane Victorino, Nate McLouth, Joey Votto, etc.?  I'm inclined to sit on him at that point. 

Thoughts?

My friends and I have had this discussion before, I'll propose it here:  What percentage of fantasy baseball is luck as opposed to skill?  I'm talking beginning to end; It starts first and foremost with player evaluation and then delves into such things as assigning keepers (if applicable), drafting, daily lineup selections (appropriate matchup selection, etc.), and roster management (adds/drops, trades).  For the sake of argument let's assume standard rotisserie 5x5, not head to head or points.  I think it's tough to make a case against it being more skill than luck, but just how big is the dispartiy? Maybe 70/30?

I have them both in my main money league.  I drafted Jay Bruce so I'm hoping he moves into the elite group of OF's allowing me to trade one of these guys mideason while they still have value.  The league is SHALLOW: 9 teams mixed (going to 10 teams for next season), standard 5x5 with 7 keepers. Draft pick trading is allowed.  They're both still top 10 OF's no matter how you slice it, but how long will they be there?  With Lee, I'm scared of his body type and the decreasing SB output, and with Soriano I'm scared of the injuries (and how old is he REALLY??). Obviously if one of them falls off this season before I have the opportunity to make a move, or if neither of them do and Bruce isn't performing, this is all moot.  But assuming all 3 are producing as expected, who do you dump and why?

In light of the recent admission by Alex Rodriguez that he knowingly took illegal PED's from 2001-2003, I think it becomes even clearer than previously thought that we are, indeed, comparing oranges to oranges. 

When Barry Bonds walked away from the game he brought with him an amazing amount of records and jaw-dropping stats, and all kinds of other unbelievable anecdotes (I remember about 5 years ago he had more homeruns than swings-and-misses through May, or something crazy like that).  Everybody was so quick to blow it all off because of his obvious steroid/HGH use. While some indirectly eluded to it, nobody came out and said, "who cares what he was on, they were all on it... it's a somewhat level playing field".  I think this was mainly for two reasons: First, people hate Barry Bonds.  I mean, people really freaking hate him.  Even if they thought that he was without a doubt better than anybody else, it would be a cold day in hell when they'd admit to it.  And this isn't necessarily without good cause.  He's proven time and time again how big of a raging a**hole he is.  I'm sure we all remember the now infamous spring training screaming match between he and Leyland in the early '90's.  Yeah, even back then he was 'roid ragin'.  The other reason nobody came out and said he's better than everybody else is because it wasn't always apparent that everybody was juicing.  And now...

A-ROD took them for 3 years (I don't buy for a second that he only took them for 3 years, but that's really neither here nor there).  Let's take a look at Rodriguez's averages from '01-'03: 615 SLG, 1010 OPS, and 52 HR's.  This was in the prime of his career (ages 26-28), and playing in a hitter's park.  Bonds slugged 607 FOR HIS CAREER.  He slugged 800 THREE TIMES!! 800!!  He OPS'ed 1000 FOR HIS CAREER.  He OPS'ed 1000 or better for 14 straight seasons, including 1278 or better 4 times.  So, let's get this straight.  Quite possibly the single most gifted baseball player ever to step onto a field was on PED's for 3 seasons, in his prime, playing in a hitter's park, and he wasn't even in Barry's league. 

I'm not trying to say Bonds is the best ever, that he's better than Ruth, or anything like that.  Yes, Bonds took steroids and Babe Ruth did not. (Ruth also didn't have to hit the split finger, or deal with HOF-caliber pitchers... on steroids.  I'm digressing again).  I'm just saying he's been better than everybody else for the last 20 years, and it isn't even close... at all.

My 3rd league has an odd (read: ridiculous) scoring format for Team defense.  You LOSE 1 point for every point your defense gives up.  So, you could have the TB defense, record 8 sacks, 4 INT's, 6 fumble recoveries and give up 20 points and STILL lose points.  It's insane and dumb that Team Defense can affect your weekly performance in such a large way, but that's how it is!  I've been trying to figure out how to draft a defense here though... obviously points allowed is the key stat... to hell with turnovers and sacks.  How would you try to predict this?  The fantasy defense rankings that are readily available across the internet are more or less useless because they rely largely on a different scoring system.  I was thinking of basically going through the divisions and determining which teams are likely to be anemic on offense this year, and then try to take defenses on good teams that are in those weak offensive team's divisions.  Confusing? Does it make sense? Anyobdy have a different idea?

I'm not so sure what my obsession is with Ollie. I feel like I comment and post about him far too much considering he's no longer with the Pirates.  I have to assume it's twofold:  He's on my fantasy team in my main money league, and the Bucs traded him for almost nothing.  Regardless, here's his season synopsis:

63.2 IP, 2.69 ERA, 61/18 K/BB, 47 H, 9 HR.

First things first, it needs to be said that Ollie has the skill set to excel in the majors.  He did it for an entire season in 2004 and he's only 25.

When he struggled mightily in '05 and '06, he had 2 main problems which we're all too familiar with: lack of control, and lack of velocity.  He still isn't throwing hard, as I've generally seen him around 90-92, and he's still susceptible to the long ball, but my god, look at those command numbers.  He's still striking out 8.6 batters per 9, which means his slider is filthy as ever, and his main nemesis, the base on balls, isn't even remotely a problem thus far, with only 18 through 63 innings.  That's only 2.5 per 9, which is stellar... almost as stellar as his 3.4 K/BB ratio.  

If you want to really get sick, look at him thus far in '07 compared to his dominating 2004:

'04: 11 K/9, 3.7 BB/9, 3 K/BB
'07: 8.6 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, 3.4 K/BB

He's actually probably marginally better WITHOUT throwing 96.  Go figure.  Now his hit rate is low at 24%, and his strand rate is high at 82% (league averages are 30% and 75% respectively), so his ERA is slightly unearned, but those skills are strong, and he should continue to pitch well barring any control setbacks.  

I understand he had little to no value when the Bucs dealt him, and he sure as hell wasn't turning it around with the current coaching staff, but I think this further strengthens the argument that this organization is a disaster, top to bottom.

Via Rotoworld, Mike Gonzalez is out for the season.

Well, it certainly looks like the Bucs got the better end of this deal, even if Adam LaRoche doesn't turn out to be terribly productive.

I posted this on BTBS but no luck.  I'm looking for solid research done on pitcher's success/failure upon switching leagues.  Anybody have any suggestions on where to check?  The obvious routes have been traveled already (BP, BaseballHQ.com, BTBS, etc.)

crap crap crap more type needed more type crap crap crap blah blah blah randy tomlin blah blah