Earlier today, I was on ESPN.com's fantasy baseball site reading up on some stuff when I came across an Eric Karabell page. Now normally I am a big fan of his, but the page I read today I really have to disagree with.
He was writing about how you have to stay with your stars in the early season no matter what, meaning that even if your stars are struggling, keep them in your starting lineup so you dont miss their breakout game. He goes on to write about how back in 2003, an opposing manager in his league for the first time benched the struggling Shawn Green when he had his 4 home run, 7 RBI game and Karabell ended up beating that owner and winning the league by 3 RBIs.
It sounds like a smart move, but don't don't DON'T fall for it. If that owner would have benched Green earlier in the year, he could have picked up 8 to 10 more RBIs by making a shrewd waiver wire pickup, then starting Green once he got back in to the swing of things. If he would have followed this strategty, he would have won his league by 5 to 7 RBIs instead of finishing 2nd.
I am currently doing this in all of my leagues, sitting big name players such as Mark Teixeira, Jimmy Rollins, BJ Upton, and Brandon Phillips in exchange for lesser name players who are producing way out of their mind right now. Once my stars turn it around, they will definitely be back in my lineup, but I find it foolish to stick to your guns just because of their names.
Speaking of that...I may be posting soon about the importance of not following names in fantasy sports some time soon...
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Fantasy Baseball Advice:
Hot starters you should be trying to sell high on.
Michael Young-3B/SS:
Yes, I know he plays at 2 fairly positions and has been mashing to start the year (7 home runs, .324 batting average) but you can't expect an aging player (32 years old) who has hit a combined 21 home runs the last two seasons with a declining batting average to keep this up. A .300 to .315 average is likely, but you'll soon be seeing the home runs come few and far between. Try trading him for a Jimmy Rollins type or package him for the also struggling Jose Reyes.
Orlando Hudson-2B:
A 31 year old, career .284 hitter who is currently hitting .336? I'm not sold. Sure Hudson does have enough speed to reach 15 or 20 steals, but you'll soon see his average level off to at least .295 and he'll max out at 10 or 12 homers. Sell him high while you still can.
Nick Swisher-1B/OF:
He plays the two deepest batting positions there are which is a large knock on him already. I'm not saying its dumb to own him right now, he's mashing and you want as many players who are currently mashing on you team as possible. But he's a career .246 hitter who is hitting at a .300 clip right now, so obviously thats going to come down. Also, his homers won't keep on coming like they are right now. The Yankees are fairly deep in the outfield, at first base, and at DH, and Swisher's glove isn't worthy of extra playing time, not by a long shot. So sell him while he's still hitting so you can get a return for a guy who more than likely will be platooning within a month or two.
Kosuke Fukodome-OF:
I've said this before, Fukudome will be a monster first half player again this year as he was last year, but will fall off in the 2nd half. As bad? Probably not, last year was just terrible after the break, but he won't keep this up for a full season. Trade at the first sign of trouble.
Michael Young-3B/SS:
Yes, I know he plays at 2 fairly positions and has been mashing to start the year (7 home runs, .324 batting average) but you can't expect an aging player (32 years old) who has hit a combined 21 home runs the last two seasons with a declining batting average to keep this up. A .300 to .315 average is likely, but you'll soon be seeing the home runs come few and far between. Try trading him for a Jimmy Rollins type or package him for the also struggling Jose Reyes.
Orlando Hudson-2B:
A 31 year old, career .284 hitter who is currently hitting .336? I'm not sold. Sure Hudson does have enough speed to reach 15 or 20 steals, but you'll soon see his average level off to at least .295 and he'll max out at 10 or 12 homers. Sell him high while you still can.
Nick Swisher-1B/OF:
He plays the two deepest batting positions there are which is a large knock on him already. I'm not saying its dumb to own him right now, he's mashing and you want as many players who are currently mashing on you team as possible. But he's a career .246 hitter who is hitting at a .300 clip right now, so obviously thats going to come down. Also, his homers won't keep on coming like they are right now. The Yankees are fairly deep in the outfield, at first base, and at DH, and Swisher's glove isn't worthy of extra playing time, not by a long shot. So sell him while he's still hitting so you can get a return for a guy who more than likely will be platooning within a month or two.
Kosuke Fukodome-OF:
I've said this before, Fukudome will be a monster first half player again this year as he was last year, but will fall off in the 2nd half. As bad? Probably not, last year was just terrible after the break, but he won't keep this up for a full season. Trade at the first sign of trouble.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Fantasy Baseball Tip
I want you to think back on your last fantasy baseball draft, and think about when you selected your first and second relief pitchers. Hopefully, you didn't draft them earlier than the 12th round, and if you did, hopefully you've learned your lesson. If you haven't, I'm here to teach you a little something about the art of the fantasy closer pickup.
Out of the 52 Major Leaguers who have a save to their name, guess how many have over 15 innings pitched? The answer is, are you ready? One. One pitcher, Roman Troncoso. The majority of the players remaining have somewhere between 7 and 11 innings pitched. If you're in a head-to-head league, thats bad, but in a rotisserie league, that can be terrifying. A lot of people excuse there nonsensical drafting of a closer so earlier by saying it will greatly help their K's, WHIP, and ERA. In reality though, it won't. If a player will only get you 50 to 80 innings, the percentage of his innings to the whole won't make a signifigant difference, so neither will any of his other stats (aside from saves of course). You just shouldn't draft a player so earlier if he will only truly benefit you in 1 category and wont harm (or really help) you at all in the others. Instead, get players that can help you in 3 of 5 batting categories or piching categories.
Another reason to not draft a pitcher high is because you can always always ALWAYS find saves later, whether that later is a few rounds later in the draft, via free agency, or both. Example? The player with the most saves, Heath Bell (8 saves, 0.00 ERA, 9 Ks), went undrafted in several leagues and always went very late in the others. Same goes for Frank Francisco (7 saves, 0.00 ERA, 10 Ks) and Chad Qualls (6 saves, 1.80 ERA, 14 Ks). Compare that to players who went between 10 and 18 rounds before them like Jonathan Papelbon (6 saves, 1.74 ERA, 10 Ks), Kerry Wood (5 saves, 7.20 ERA, 16 Ks), and Brad Lidge (4 saves, 6.52 ERA, 12 Ks), and you'll find that there really is no advantage to taking closers earlier rather than later.
Out of the 52 Major Leaguers who have a save to their name, guess how many have over 15 innings pitched? The answer is, are you ready? One. One pitcher, Roman Troncoso. The majority of the players remaining have somewhere between 7 and 11 innings pitched. If you're in a head-to-head league, thats bad, but in a rotisserie league, that can be terrifying. A lot of people excuse there nonsensical drafting of a closer so earlier by saying it will greatly help their K's, WHIP, and ERA. In reality though, it won't. If a player will only get you 50 to 80 innings, the percentage of his innings to the whole won't make a signifigant difference, so neither will any of his other stats (aside from saves of course). You just shouldn't draft a player so earlier if he will only truly benefit you in 1 category and wont harm (or really help) you at all in the others. Instead, get players that can help you in 3 of 5 batting categories or piching categories.
Another reason to not draft a pitcher high is because you can always always ALWAYS find saves later, whether that later is a few rounds later in the draft, via free agency, or both. Example? The player with the most saves, Heath Bell (8 saves, 0.00 ERA, 9 Ks), went undrafted in several leagues and always went very late in the others. Same goes for Frank Francisco (7 saves, 0.00 ERA, 10 Ks) and Chad Qualls (6 saves, 1.80 ERA, 14 Ks). Compare that to players who went between 10 and 18 rounds before them like Jonathan Papelbon (6 saves, 1.74 ERA, 10 Ks), Kerry Wood (5 saves, 7.20 ERA, 16 Ks), and Brad Lidge (4 saves, 6.52 ERA, 12 Ks), and you'll find that there really is no advantage to taking closers earlier rather than later.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Fantasy Baseball How To
Trade for a top prospect
Trading for a big name prospect might be the the most difficult thing to do in fantasy baseball. You have to think through how you value the prospect, how the other owner values the prospect and depending on how your trade rules are set up, how your fellow league-mates view that prospect (because they can veto trades and such).
Normally the person who has the top prospect will value him a little higher than everyone else (maybe a lot more)-I mean, they did pick that player before anyone else, so seeing eye-to-eye on trade value could be difficult. The best thing you could do would be to talk to the other manager, see his value, and try to temper his love for said prospect by using obscure stats and skewing the advice of fantasy experts to your advantage-like saying that you heard Peter Gammons say they were going to keep this player down til at least July or something. Is this unethical? It just may be, but if you can land a potential top player for a lot less than you would have had to give up, then its better for you.
After you have seen the other manager's expectations of this player and have tried knocking those expectations down, begin talks with him about trade offers. Offer him players that you value slightly less than the prospect, sending messages with reassuring points about the player you are giving up.
You may have to do some tinkering with the player(s) you offer, maybe even do a package deal, whatever the case is though, don't go over your expected value of your potential newcomer. Don't fall in to the trap that many fantasy sports managers fall in to-getting their sights set on a player and doing whatever it takes to get the player, regardless of whether or not it hurts your team.
Hopefully following these tips can help you land a Wieters or a Price for a much lower...price (sorry, had to) and also can net you a few steals in trades that don't involve prospects.
Trading for a big name prospect might be the the most difficult thing to do in fantasy baseball. You have to think through how you value the prospect, how the other owner values the prospect and depending on how your trade rules are set up, how your fellow league-mates view that prospect (because they can veto trades and such).
Normally the person who has the top prospect will value him a little higher than everyone else (maybe a lot more)-I mean, they did pick that player before anyone else, so seeing eye-to-eye on trade value could be difficult. The best thing you could do would be to talk to the other manager, see his value, and try to temper his love for said prospect by using obscure stats and skewing the advice of fantasy experts to your advantage-like saying that you heard Peter Gammons say they were going to keep this player down til at least July or something. Is this unethical? It just may be, but if you can land a potential top player for a lot less than you would have had to give up, then its better for you.
After you have seen the other manager's expectations of this player and have tried knocking those expectations down, begin talks with him about trade offers. Offer him players that you value slightly less than the prospect, sending messages with reassuring points about the player you are giving up.
You may have to do some tinkering with the player(s) you offer, maybe even do a package deal, whatever the case is though, don't go over your expected value of your potential newcomer. Don't fall in to the trap that many fantasy sports managers fall in to-getting their sights set on a player and doing whatever it takes to get the player, regardless of whether or not it hurts your team.
Hopefully following these tips can help you land a Wieters or a Price for a much lower...price (sorry, had to) and also can net you a few steals in trades that don't involve prospects.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Fantasy Baseball How To
Know who, when, and how to pick up a prospect.
Everybody wants to be that guy. You know, the one who takes the risk on the soon-to-be-called-up guy, then have him turn to gold and he leads you to a championship. But in reality, the chance of this success happening more often than not leads to the destruction of a good team rather than the step up of good to great for a team.
So how exactly can you know when to pick up a player either still in the minors or who has just been called up? Well, there is no easy way really, if you truly want to find a unique sleeper who can help you out (think Blake DeWitt last season) you have to do some research.
First, you have to know which players are about to be called up or players who are dominating in the minors. Sites like http://www.scoutingbook.com/prospects/, http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/top-100-fantasy-baseball-prospects-5-1-09/ , and to see prospects stats, go to http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/. Checking these sites and many others will greatly increase your knowledge of who will be coming up when and how they should do (roughly) once they arrive.
After you learn when someone will be coming up and you have a fair barometer of how you think they'll perform, its time to get them on your team-maybe. If you have a player or two on currently on your team that you think won't produce much at all (less than the player you want to pick up) then obviously pull the trigger, but if you feel the player you want and the one you have will do roughly the same, keep the player you have because he is a much surer thing than a player with no big league experience.
Trading for prospects though is an entirely different monster though, so i will tackle that in a new post.
Also, check out my NFL blog at nflep.blogspot.com.
Everybody wants to be that guy. You know, the one who takes the risk on the soon-to-be-called-up guy, then have him turn to gold and he leads you to a championship. But in reality, the chance of this success happening more often than not leads to the destruction of a good team rather than the step up of good to great for a team.
So how exactly can you know when to pick up a player either still in the minors or who has just been called up? Well, there is no easy way really, if you truly want to find a unique sleeper who can help you out (think Blake DeWitt last season) you have to do some research.
First, you have to know which players are about to be called up or players who are dominating in the minors. Sites like http://www.scoutingbook.com/prospects/, http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/top-100-fantasy-baseball-prospects-5-1-09/ , and to see prospects stats, go to http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/. Checking these sites and many others will greatly increase your knowledge of who will be coming up when and how they should do (roughly) once they arrive.
After you learn when someone will be coming up and you have a fair barometer of how you think they'll perform, its time to get them on your team-maybe. If you have a player or two on currently on your team that you think won't produce much at all (less than the player you want to pick up) then obviously pull the trigger, but if you feel the player you want and the one you have will do roughly the same, keep the player you have because he is a much surer thing than a player with no big league experience.
Trading for prospects though is an entirely different monster though, so i will tackle that in a new post.
Also, check out my NFL blog at nflep.blogspot.com.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Fantasy Baseball How To:
Effectively improve your team via the waiver wire.
By this point in the season, you've probably come pretty close to recognizing what all your team is strong at, and what all categories they could use some help with.
If you aren't really sure, take a look at your accumulated stats (there should be a link for this somewhere on the league's homepage) and see what categories you need help with-I prefer writing down each category that I feel I need help with.
With this information at hand, you should start to focus on stats on the waiver wire instead of big names and/or numbers that you are already in good shape at.
For example, lets say that you are 2nd in your league in home runs but only ninth in stolen bases, but some one has just dropped Chris Davis whom you have had your eye on since before the draft. Obviously you would be tempted to pick him up, but instead try to find an unheralded speed guy. You can still make room to put Chris Davis on your team, but finding a speed guy needs to be your top priority.
Pitching, on the other hand, can be a little more complicated though, depending on your league's scoring settings.
If your league has a category for Innings Pitched along with all the other 'normal' stat categories, it may be wise to have an extra starter on your team in place of a reliever, but don't go overboard with this. Don't sacrifice your ERA, WHIP, Saves, and Walks just to try and gain an advantage in K's, Wins, and Innings. If you'll do the math here, you're hurting your team by doing so.
Slowly throughout the year, try and pick up starters who flying under the radar but performing very well and you may be able to pick up a clean sweep in pitching categories once in a while.
By this point in the season, you've probably come pretty close to recognizing what all your team is strong at, and what all categories they could use some help with.
If you aren't really sure, take a look at your accumulated stats (there should be a link for this somewhere on the league's homepage) and see what categories you need help with-I prefer writing down each category that I feel I need help with.
With this information at hand, you should start to focus on stats on the waiver wire instead of big names and/or numbers that you are already in good shape at.
For example, lets say that you are 2nd in your league in home runs but only ninth in stolen bases, but some one has just dropped Chris Davis whom you have had your eye on since before the draft. Obviously you would be tempted to pick him up, but instead try to find an unheralded speed guy. You can still make room to put Chris Davis on your team, but finding a speed guy needs to be your top priority.
Pitching, on the other hand, can be a little more complicated though, depending on your league's scoring settings.
If your league has a category for Innings Pitched along with all the other 'normal' stat categories, it may be wise to have an extra starter on your team in place of a reliever, but don't go overboard with this. Don't sacrifice your ERA, WHIP, Saves, and Walks just to try and gain an advantage in K's, Wins, and Innings. If you'll do the math here, you're hurting your team by doing so.
Slowly throughout the year, try and pick up starters who flying under the radar but performing very well and you may be able to pick up a clean sweep in pitching categories once in a while.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Closer watch
A handful of teams, whether the reason is injury or ineffectiveness, now have a different closer ending games for them. You should consider picking these players up and squeeze every save and strikeout you can out of them.
- Scott Downs-Replacing the injured BJ Ryan.
- Ryan Franklin-The main St. Louis closer, hasn't given up a run in 7 innings .
- Brad Zeigler-Teammate and would-be save stealer Joey Devine is out for the year.
- Todd Coffey-The interim closer til Hoffman gets back (which should be a week or so). still, could net you a save or two in the mean time.
- Rafael Soriano-Has been the Braves most effective closer thus far.
- Carlos Marmol-Sweet Lou likes him more in the 8th, but he will get a few spot saves every now and then and will help you greatly in Ks.
- Manny Corpas-Took over for Huston Street, hasn't been effective yet though.
- Chris Perez-Having some control issues, but he's the most talented reliever the Cardinals have.
- Dan Wheeler- Troy Percival isn't exactly the poster boy of durability. When he breaks down, Wheeler will be next in line for saves.
- Jason Grili- Newly appointed closer Manny Corpas has already struggled and Grili is posting a 1.29 ERA.
- Chris Ray-I know he's not doing well, but neither is George Sherril.
- Tommy Hunter-Could pull an Adam Wainwright and close for the Braves down the stretch (if they're in contention)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
