I have to turn in my keepers by Saturday.  10 team, 5x5 mixed roto, standard yahoo league with 4 OF'ers, $260 starting salary.  We keep 4 with $1 in flation for every $10 of cost (rounding up), i.e. a $24 becomes a $27 or a $41 player would become a $46 player.  I pretty much had the all rookie team last year, or HS varsity team, so here are my best values:

Longoria       $1, Becomes $2

Kemp            $1

Alexis Ramirez   $1

C. Davis        $1

Quentin         $1

Votto              $1

Soriano        $27, becomes $30

F. Liriano     $1

Billingsley    $4

Brian Wilson $1

 

Given that only 10 teams are in the league and its mixed, I doubt if I will keep SP's/closers.  I am leaning towards keeping these 4 keepers:

Longoria, Kemp, Davis, Votto.

Thoughts?

Thanks for the help.

 

Alright, this is pretty darn cool.  This is the super-information-highway working as some invisioned a few years back.

The Cardinals know that while our old GM, Walt Jocketty had a very successful run as GM, he was never good at developing our farm system (this is me editorializing...not the Cards).  We have one of the weakest farm systems in the majors.  With the new administration, they are focusing on replenishing this farm system.  This is where you come in.  They have started a contest for any and all to make submissions for "Under the Radar Players" that they may not have found on their own.  See the full request of this contest on the Cards home page:

http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/stl/fan_forum/oneforthebirds_index.jsp

Also see this:
http://futureredbirds.com/2008/02/27/a-letter-from-sig-mejdal-to-fr-readers/

Its a letter from the Scouting department of the Cards.

If this is successful, this has the possibility of catching on with other clubs and may make a meaningful impact in how scouting departments do business in the future.

Not really fantasy related, but who doesn't love a good "fun poking" article of the blogosphere vs. the daily rags.  Leave it the guys over at FireJoeMorgan to have one of the funniest articles I have read this year.  Well worth a visit:

http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/02/i-just-made-man-invent-derogatory-term.html

Got your attention...and it's always fun to reference an old AC/DC song.

I was talking (well, actually emailing) with Eric about having our own personal mock draft and he was all for it.  I feel that the default rankings of any mock draft site one uses heavily influences the mock draft, thereby diminishing the value of the mock.  To overcome this I am proposing our own email based Mock.  This way we are left with our own cheat sheets and lists and won't have any missteps because the clock is counting us down...or in my case my daughter isn't giving me her exceptionally cute stare wanting attention.

This is how it will work:
> Leave your email address if you wish to participate and your preferred draft position...I will want the 12th spot since my main league has randomly assigned positions already for our draft in March.
>Once I have 12 teams, I will begin the draft the following day.
> I will email all teams that the draft is starting and the first pick will email his pick to all other team owners and so on.
> I am hoping to get through at least 4 rounds a day.  If you have a commitment at work or home, don't worry about missing your turn, unless it's going to be greater than 2 hours, then just email me privately for your next round pick (have several ready please) and I will put it in for you.
> This will be a standard 12 team, mixed, 5x5 mock.  Also I am undecided if we should have 1 or 2 catchers...please put that in your post below on which you prefer...depending on the number of C's, this will be either a 22 or 23 round draft:  1 or 2 C's, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B,CI, MI, 5OF, UTIL, 9P.
> I am open to any other suggestions you may have to make this a valuable exercise for our upcoming seasons...just post any suggestions you have.

If you wish to email me, use:  jack_straw90@yahoo.com

and no, my name is not Jack...it's actually Ed

Ok, I posted this same question a few months ago, regarding my keepers for my main league.  Mostly middle of the road keepers...no 1st rounders here...but I have always made the playoffs, so I apparently draft better than my league mates  :)

Anyway, here are my for sure guys (we keep 6, mixed 12 team league: 1C, 2-1B, 2-2B, 2-SS, 2-3B, 5-OF, 1U, 11-P, with 5 BN):

C. Lee
Jeter
Markakis

Now it gets murky:
CB Young
Kinsler
Konerko
M. Kemp
Russell Martin
Chipper Jones
Tejada
Smoltz
Gallardo
Lincecum

With 3 spots to fill, I am thinking:
CB Young
Konerko
Kinsler

What are your thoughts?  I have to decalre my keepers in a couple weeks.

Well it has finally been posted:

http://games.espn.go.com/frontpage/flbdraftkit

Some interesting movement on rankings from what I have seen so far:
Rank    Name    Team    Qualifies    $ value
28    Chone Figgins    LAA    3B    $20
34    Eric Byrnes    ARI    OF    $18
56    Russell Martin    LAD    C    $15
66    Matt Kemp    LAD    OF    $14
73    Corey Hart    MIL    OF    $13
94    Chris Young    ARI    OF    $11
117    Ryan Garko    CLE    1B    $10
132    Pedro Martinez    NYM    SP    $12
133    Nick Swisher    CHW    1B/OF    $9
150    Bengie Molina    SF    C    $8
154    Kevin KouzmanoffSD    3B    $8
195    Zack Greinke    KC    SP    $9
205    Jeremy Hermida    FLA    OF    $4
224    Evan Longoria    TB    3B    $4
285    Jarrod Saltalamacchia    TEX    C/1B    $1
339    J.R. Towles    HOU    C

Biggest surprises in the above list!?!
Figgins @ 28: Guess they think the BA is real and no drop-off in last yrs steals...too high for me

Kemp @ 66: This puts him at the 19th best OF....better than Hart, CB Young, Dunn, Hawpe and Swisher to name a few...not sure I believe that.

Garko @ 117: This rank places him as the 15th best 1Bman...better than Loney and Swisher.  With V- Mart sharing time, I am not on this band-wagon and I have my doubts if he has the power for > 30 bombs.

Pedro @ 132: Ranks him as the 33rd best SP.  So in this ranking he would be a #3 starter on a standard 12 team mixed league.  He may have that upside, but I am not taking him there with the likelihood of him pitching beyond the 6th being being less than 30% imo.

Kouzmanoff @ 154: Ranks him as the 14th best 3Bman...better than Glaus (I agree there), Blalock (hmmm...he is intriguing) and Longoria (he's at rank 20).  If people buy into this, I will not be able to get him in the 19- 21 round like I was hoping.

Those are just of few of the ones that jumped out to me.  I am happy to see some movement than all the other rankings we have seen this year.

I had a bet with another team owner last year on who would have the better fantasy regular season.  It was an epic battle, but I persevered in the end.  What were my spoils of war from this victory?  Well I received $20 bucks and more importantly, I get to name his team for this upcoming year.  

So I am requesting help in naming his team.  To help you in this endeavor, here are a couple of things to know about this team owner:

Name:  He usually goes by his nickname of Laz (which is a bastardization of his last name).
Present Team Name:  Kramerica
Personality Traits:  He loves to stir up crap on the message boards.  He talked trash to me the entire season, so it was very satisfying to win our bet.  At the beginning of the season, he proposed what he would name my team if he won the bet:  Please do not read further if you are easily offended :) cum guzzlers.  I am adding this sentence at the end so the name does not stand out.

So any help you all can provide in the naming of his team should be fun.  Be clever, crass, funny...whatever.  Thanks in advance!

Minor League Baseball has put out there top 50 prospect list. If you wish to see the site and accompanying commentary go to this site:

http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/news/top50/y2008/

Here is the list:

Top 50 Prospects   

1. Jay Bruce   
   
2. Evan Longoria   
   
3. Cameron Maybin    
   
4. Clayton Kershaw   
   
5. Joba Chamberlain   
   
6. Clay Buchholz   
   
7. Colby Rasmus   
   
8. Andrew McCutchen    
   
9. Homer Bailey    
   
10. Adam Miller    
    
11. David Price   
    
12. Wade Davis   
    
13. Jacoby Ellsbury   
    
14. Rick Porcello   
    
15. Travis Snider   
    
16. Franklin Morales   
    
17. Fernando Martinez   
    
18. Nick Adenhart   
    
19. Brandon Wood    
    
20. Jacob McGee   
    
21. Matt Wieters   
    
22. Mike Moustakas   
    
23. Carlos Gonzalez   
    
24. Gio Gonzalez   
    
25. Eric Hurley   
    
26. Ian Kennedy   
    
27. Matt Antonelli   
    
28. Carlos Carrasco   
    
29. Chase Headley   
    
30. Josh Vitters   
    
31. Chris Marrero   
    
32. Reid Brignac   
    
33. Andy LaRoche    
    
34. Joey Votto    
    
35. Max Scherzer   
    
36. Scott Elbert    
    
37. Ross Detwiler   
    
38. Elvis Andrus    
    
39. Chris Volstad   
    
40. Luke Hochevar   
    
41. Ian Stewart    
    
42. Alcides Escobar   
    
43. Jeremy Jeffress   
    
44. Tyler Colvin   
    
45. Radhames Liz   
    
46. Jeff Clement    
    
47. Johnny Cueto   
    
48. Carlos Triunfel   
    
49. Austin Jackson   
    
50. Dexter Fowler   

I feel they have rated the 5-tool guys too high and bought into the Ellsbury mania.  Also what is up with Miller being at #10?  He was hurt most of last year and his avg against is not in-line with a top 10 prospect.

Saw this thread over at Fantasy Cafe and found it very interesting.  The following was my comments.  Anyone else have thoughts?

Re: This year's James Shields??
by Ratdog90 on Wed Jan 23, 2008 1:01 pm

Aside from Sonnanstine, all the other guys I have seen listed will be drafted much earlier than Shields was last year. According to MDC's ADP from last year, two SP's I had on most of my teams were: O. Perez (337) and Shileds (506!). To get similar value as we got from Shields last year, I will be paying close attention to the following in spring training and likely to have a few on my teams this year:

Scott Baker-Minn
Adam Lowen - Balt
Ervin Santana - ANA (he has to turn the corner some time!)
J. Saunders - ANA
M. Chico - WAS

Some returning from injury guys I will be studying up on:
Zake Duke - Nice Perez comparison from last year
Schmidt - If he has an awesome spring, may not have the value that I would need to get him
Kuroda - Already working his way up the ADP
A. Sanchez - He will be someone I monitor early in the season since I want him on my team right before he comes back.

Of course I look brilliant having had Shields and Perez last yr, but I also drafted Clay Hensley and John Patterson. So all I really hope for is a 50% return, and last year I got that.

Yes, it's that time of year again; time to begin my annual baseball prep.  The joy and elation of the recently completed Fantasy Football season is becoming a deem memory, or in my case, the burr in the saddle hurts a little less (since I lost both Championship games I was in bangs head on desk...for the umpteenth time).  If you're anything like me, you prefer a more strategic game and I find the difference between fantasy football and fantasy/roto baseball to be akin to the difference between checkers and chess.  I not only need to understand how each piece moves, but the nuances of the game.  I have to have an opening strategy that can ensure a position of power by mid-game.  I have to be able to modify my strategy at any given moment based on my opponent's position.  And I have to have a finishing strategy to take home the brass ring.  Yeah, if you're like me you can roll out of bed and play a game of checkers.  But to really feel the accomplishment of winning, you need a heated battle of chess, or rather fantasy/roto baseball.

I want to share what I do to prep for fantasy baseball.  I will be adding to this as the preseason progresses and encourage others to post their thoughts as well.  I am all for a collaborative take on what is the best prep method for fantasy baseball.  In case you were wondering, the following is a quick synopsis of my fantasy baseball career:

Played for the first time in 2004.  It was a H2H league, where I took over a team having to keep four players from the previous year.  I prepared that year like I had for my previous football drafts (having played football for 15 years).  As could be expected, I faltered out of the gate, but quickly understood the importance of FA adds and turned my team around.  Went to the championship game that first year and lost.

For numerous reasons, dropped out and did not play in 05'.

In 06', my previous league recruited me again and I took over a different team, now with 6 keepers.  Made the playoffs and lost in the second round.

Last year (07') is where I came to love and appreciate the game of fantasy baseball.  Last year is when I began to believe all that garbage I wrote up at the beginning of this article.  I purposely sought out different formats of leagues to play in.  I ended up playing in 4 leagues last year.  My mainstay H2H league, a local auction, roto league, an anonymous H2H Yahoo league (14 teams) and another roto league with players from the old Talented Mr. Roto site, where we had 20 teams in this league....we are talking a very deep league: 14 hitters, 11 pitchers on the active roster and 5 more on the bench.  That's 600 players drafted!  

Anyway, this was how I finished in each:

Mainstay H2H:  Made the playoffs, lost in the first rd
Local Auction Roto:  Won it all!!!
Deep Mr. Roto League:  Finished 4th out of 20.
Yahoo H2H league:  Lost in 2nd rd of a 3 rd playoff

All in all, a very good year!

So what did I do last year to give me the greatest chance of success?  I attribute it to two things:  Preseason prep and not falling in love with my team.  In the short time I have played this game, I have seen in myself and even more in others, owners hanging on to players too long, especially when it comes to prospects.  I hung onto Adam Lind last year instead of grabbing Braun.  Examples like that have happened to all of us, I would imagine.  The key thing is, do not hang onto players too long hoping to justify your early pick or be worried about another owner picking him up right when he gets hot.  Flexibility is key in continually giving your team the best chance to win. If all your bench spots are clogged with either huge upside prospects or over the hill veterans (hoping for that one last hot streak), you limit your flexibility.  This is especially important in a H2H league where weekly strategy is critical.  But I digress.  I really wanted to write about draft prep.

Pre-preseason:

Familiarize yourself with all the off season moves and casually keep up on the latest news coming out on players.  Put together your list of trusted sites that you will be referring to over the course of the season.  The ones I like to view as I am on the phone at work, or just catching up during lunch.

These are all free by the way:

http://www.rotoworld.com/content/home_MLB.aspx    This has the fastest up to date news on all fantasy relevant info.

http://www.lennymelnickfantasybaseball.com/     An old Tout war guy.  Love his podcasts.  While Lenny does not take a sabermetrics view, he has an inherent feel for the ebb and flow of fantasy baseball.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main     Love this site for both the love of baseball and their fantasy content. They added Derek Carty last year as their main fantasy writer.  Derek, by way of some sabermetric analysis, steered me to both James Shields and Oliver Perez, two players on almost all my clubs last year.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/    This site does all the work for me in identifying potential trades before they happen.  I have been able to pull off two trades that have improved my position because I knew of a potential trade before it was announced.

http://www.rotoauthority.com/    This one I use more for a second opinion.  Don't know much about the author, but his take seems solid enough.

So basically late January and early February is just keeping a casual eye on the happenings of baseball.

Right before Preseason:

This is the time I start to ratchet my prep up.  Now I begin to look at projections.  I need to familiarize myself with these projections, so that when I begin to tier the players, I will have some datum from which to move.  Sites that I like for projections (note that I prefer the free ones since I believe there is nominal difference between them and the pay ones, i.e. Baseball HQ and Baseball America):

http://lanaheimangelfan.blogspot.com/     Home of Chone Smith, author of the infamous CHONE Projections.

http://www.fangraphs.com/    Love this site for a multitude of reasons.  For projections, you can quickly see the three (3) free ones project for almost all players, i.e. CHONE, Marcel and ZIPS.

Preseason:

 This is the time to put together your tiers.  It really is rather easy to do this.  Just cut and paste any list you like into a spreadsheet and begin to fiddle.  Move players up and down for a multitude of reasons.  Certain stats I like in helping me with my tiers:  BABIP, OPS are a couple of key ones for me.  I really like The Hardball Times Stat section at this time.

Another thing I do at this time is spend the only money I will spend all season (less entry fees into the various leagues I am in) on prep.  I buy a membership to Mock Draft Central.  I believe it is about $2 or $4 bucks a month that will be automatically deducted off your credit card each month.  I always cancel my subscription as soon as the season starts.  This is where I do my mock drafts.  Last year I participated in 30 - 40 mock drafts.  I cannot overstate how much this helped me.  I know ESPN has a free mock draft site, but I feel that it is actually harmful in your prep, since there are so many nimrods using their services.  The drafts are essentially useless after the 5th round.

The value in mock drafts is to know, or get a feeling for where others perceive the value of players.  The consensus will likely be different from mine and this information is critical to my success.  It is not where I value a player, but where I believe my opponents value that player that is important.  

Here is the link:  http://www.mockdraftcentral.com/index.jsp

Draft Time:

I will write up this section tomorrow.

Hope you enjoyed the read.

Finally made it to the big dance in a league that is very important to me.  Knocked off the points leader last week from a good effort from Brees/Colston/Graham/A. Johnson/A. Gonzalez

Fortunately my opponent knocked out the Brady team last weekend as well.  So I have a pretty good chance of winning (something I have never done in the 6 years I have been in this league).

So, my line-up choices:

Have Addai vs. Houston (concerned about resting 2nd half)...would not have thought of this a few weeks ago.
Could play K. Smith v Detroit

Also I have choices on Def/ST:
I have Colts vs Houston
or could pick-up either of the following:
Cardinals vs. Atl (this looks attractive)
or
Titans vs. NYJets (maybe Pennington has a last hurrah to get a decent deal for next year...so a little concerned here as well)

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
Graham is a must start for sure

It's a 12 team, mixed league, standard 5x5, h2h.  We keep 6 players each year, no value/draft round restrictions.  The following is my present roster:

Active Line-up: Hitters    Pos
Martin, Russell C LA     CU
Gordon, Alex 3B KC     1B3BU
Konerko, Paul 1B CHW     1BU
Johnson, Kelly 2B ATL    2BU
Kinsler, Ian 2B TEX     2BU
Glaus, Troy 3B TOR     3BSSU
Jones, Chipper 3B ATL     3BU
Jeter, Derek SS NYY     SSU
Tejada, Miguel SS BAL     SSU
Bradley, Milton OF SD     OFU
Kemp, Matt CF LA     OFU
Lee, Carlos N. LF HOU     OFU
Markakis, Nick RF BAL     OFU
Young, Chris B. CF ARI    OFU
Thomas, Frank DH TOR     U

Active Line-up: Pitchers   
Accardo, Jeremy RP TOR     P
Cordero, Francisco RP MIL P
Escobar, Kelvim SP ANA     P
Gallardo, Yovani SP MIL P
Gregg, Kevin RP FLA     P
Lincecum, Tim SP SF     P
Perez, Oliver SP NYM     P
Schilling, Curt SP BOS     P
Soria, Joakim RP KC    P
Soriano, Rafael RP ATL     P
Vazquez, Javier SP CHW     P

Bench   
Wigginton, Ty 1B HOU    1B2B3BOFU
Pierre, Juan CF LA     OFU
Shields, James SP TB     P
Smoltz, John SP ATL     P
Miller, Andrew SP DET    P

The above was my team the final day of my season.  It ended prematurely, being bounced out in the first round of the playoff's.  

Given this is a H2H league, I tend to favor hitters.  

These are my absolutes (will follow with on the bubble guys):
Gordon
C. Lee
D. Jeter

Bubble Guys:
Tejeda:  Can he do better next yr than this yr?
Markakis: Is he really a source for SB's and his power should improve since he is only 23/24.
Kemp:  Similiar to Markakis, does he have enough track record?
R. Martin:  If we played 2 C's, then for sure, but we only play 1, therefore not much of a commodity.
Kinsler:  Will he improve his swing?  Positional scarcity makes him attractive.
C. B. Young:  If his BA were higher he would be a "lock" for a keeper...will he be a 6th rounder or higher in years to come?
J. Pierre:  If Roto, I would probably keep him.
Konerko:  Too old?  Can he maintain or improve from this yr?
Chipper Jones:  Just too old and gets injured.

I really don't think any SP's I have are worth keeping.  Very few are kept by all the other teams in the league so drafting pool is full of good arms and I will not keep a closer, even if I had K-Rod.

Any thoughts would be helpful.

Thanks

I think Rick can make a good 4th OF.  I doubt he will have the same jitters an "old" (over 25 rookie, i.e.) call-up would have.  Over the next 7 weeks I can see him smaking 10 HR's and batting around 280 to 285.  To hard to project runs and RBI's until we see where he bats in the order. I wonder where he will bat?  Would love to see him in the 2 spot.  It's either that or the 6th or 7th.