Monday's Forum: Stats to evaluate hitters. Part 1 of 2.

What the hell is slugging percentage? OPS? Why would I look at a guy and watch how many strikeouts he has? Look there are a lot of reasons to play fantasy baseball. No girlfriend. Bad hygiene. A bunch of old hacks that couldn't cut it in little league.
The Jon, being a winner and a new breed of fantasy baseballer doesn't bother with minute discussions about the difference between having a .459 slugging percentage compared with his .439 on base percentage. Is that even good? Sure I look at those stats, I don't know what the mean, but anything over .400 is probably good. Who "the I can't cuss on this blog" cares?
Babe Ruth is the best player of all-time, but if I had to draft an all-time fantasy team, my first pick would be Ty Cobb baseball's contact hitter. I am a sucker for hits.
What can a hit be: a single, double, triple or homerun.
When a person gets on base what can happen: a steal or a run.
If the hit is a double, triple, or homer, what can happen. An RBI.
What does a player with 185 to 200 hits-plus get: A high average, OPS, SLG and a chance to be on The Jon's team.
Why do I target Ichiro, Vladimir Guerrero, Manny Ramirez, Grady Sizemore, Alfonso Soriano, Michael Young, Juan Pierre and Derek Jeter? Because they are champions ... sorry, Four Horseman moment. Look at those guys. You can find five other offensive categories to select those guys, and it all starts with hitting.
When you are in the dregs of the middle and late rounds, you will still have guys such as Lyle Overbay, Mark Loretta, Edgar Renteria and Carlos Guillen to pick. They are not teams to build around on, but the provide the foundation to support the top hitters that you picked in the early rounds.
Power comes and goes. There are only a couple of hitters that you look at for quantified power: Albert Pujols, Soriano and David Ortiz. You know they will get 40 homers. A guy such as Vladimir Guerrero? He'll be lucky to get 35 homers, but I'll take his 200 hits, 100 RBI and 100 runs. Thanks.
In a week-to-week format that counts hits, all you need is Ichiro and you are set. He gives you 12 hits by himself. Add your other hitters, and you have hits, average, OPS all set. Since hits indicate multilevel greatness in a player, you usually will nab the runs and RBI categories. That is three guaranteed stats with the ability to grab two more stats. Since high hits guys can also be top homerun producers (Pujols has fantasy baseball MVPs because he hovers around 180 hits ... you already know about his power) you can have power as well.
Look, target those other stats as well, but your first entry point to any player is hits. You have the first pick in the draft: Purple Lips, Albert Pujols or Ryan Howard?
Purple Lips is out of contention with his 166 hits last season. Pujols had 177 but was hurt for a couple of months. Ryan Howard had 182 hits plus his power. So Pujols or Howard? Read on.
Look at The Baseball Stars opinions and decide for yourself.

Any Jon can look at HR totals and decide who was the best power hitter in baseball last year: Ryan Howard.
His 58 HRs were the best nonsteroid tainted total since Roger Maris in 1961.
But I’ll actually argue Albert Pujols was more productive and more likely to repeat his statistics. While this may not come as a crazy notion, the reason for it may be: Pujols’ .671 slugging percentage was considerably better than Howard’s .659.
When it comes fantasy stats and projecting future performances, I focus on the “percentage” stats (on base and slugging) and try my best to ignore “dependent” stats (RBI and runs) when evaluating hitters. I also pay some attention to bb/k ratio, but don’t worry so much about totals.
The thing I like about percentage stats is that they simply don’t lie. How good a player’s teammates are has little bearing on how often he gets on base or gets an extra-base hit. Of course, most fantasy leagues don’t reward those stats, but they are solid indicators when determining a player’s future performance.
While this probably sounds overly complicated, I actually think it makes things easier. Stay with me here … There’s no saying how many opportunities someone like Howard will get next year with runners on base (you’re forced to predict too many other factors like how good the guys ahead of and behind him in the order are going to be). But, you can take one look at his .425 OBP and .659 SLG and safely assume he’s going to get on base and hit for power. Will he equal his totals of 149 RBI and 104 runs? Who knows. Will he hit close to 58 HRs and walk 108 times? I’d say there’s a good chance.
It might be more effective to illustrate my point with someone whose “total” stats weren’t so gaudy: Manny Ramirez, whose 35 HR, 102 RBI and 79 runs could be considered a disappointment. Look a little deeper though -- .439 OBP, .659 SLG and a 100/102 BB/K ratio. Those numbers tell me Ramirez was hardly falling off, and is primed for a bounce back year if he has a little more luck and stays healthy.
If you were to base your analysis simply on “dependent” stats you could be excused for thinking someone such as Raul Ibanez deserves to be drafted around the same time.
It can work in reverse too: I’ll offer Ibanez as a prime example. Ibanez drove in 123 runs last year and scored 103 yet posted a .869 OPS, the same as Reed Johnson. Ibanez has proven he’s a solid player but don’t believe for a second he’ll put up numbers anywhere near last year’s. He took advantage of his opportunities and whenever he was on base his teammates picked him up, but people far smarter than me have proven neither of those things are repeatable skills. He also struck out almost twice as often as he walked (65/115).
This is hardly the only way to evaluate players, but if you’re looking for a way to differentiate yourself from the herd, looking at stats not directly rewarded by your league is a great place to start. Often times, they’re better indicators too.

So our crew is set to discuss the importance of various offensive categories for building your squad. Of course, the biggest cliché, acquire power, comes to me. Any hump can tell you that you need a balanced attack to win and this is no doubt true. In recent years power has started to fall into that category of being called “overrated”. Others have come to the forefront to emphasize other statistical categories, homeruns have taken a back seat. Those OBP snobs like FreeSanJose want to make you feel guilty for looking at somebody with 50 homers and 100 RBI and a crappy average. You want to be a man and draft somebody that goes up there and takes his hacks. Well I am your advocate old school power guy. I will reassure you that it is OK to draft a “one dimensional power hitter”.
A few factors have swung the pendulum back towards guys with pop. While it's true, guys such Barroid Bonds are still out there, I do believe that the steroid bubble has burst a little bit. The majors are no longer the anarchist free-for-all of the 1990s. Since we don’t have 15 fifty home run guys per season anymore, true power hitters are harder to come by. Everyone will have a couple of high thirty or low forty homer guys, but you can really make some headway if you get one of the handful of sluggers. There were zero 60 home run hitters last season and exactly one over 50.
In no way am I saying to avoid an across the board stud like Pujols or Ryan Howard for Andruw Jones. Just don't shy away from a Jones or Jim Thome type player in the early rounds because he might hurt you average. Don’t forget that a dinger is also a run, a hit, and an RBI.
In the event that you can’t get enough pillars of power at their traditional spots — 1st base, DH, outfield — you can still fill these categories piecemeal. Get power out of your middle infielders. Chase Utley, Dan Uggla, Ray Durham, Bill Hall, Jimmy Rollins, and Miguel Tejada all ranged from 24 to 35 homers last season. Put that up against whatever slappy middle infielder you opponent is throwing out on a weekly basis. and you can close the gap with other teams that are getting power out of more conventional positions.
The bottom line: true power hitters are at a premium. You need these guys to win. You can always find a punch ‘n’ judy hitter to fill up hits, average and the like, but power will run out sooner than most think. Be a man. Draft a slugger.

There are many “sexy” categories that fantasy owners use to measure talent. Some like batting average, others like homeruns.
Personally I like strikeouts.
I suppose this falls into the Money Ball theory, but when viewed in the right context, strikeouts can help determine if, or when, a player should be drafted.
First example: Adam Dunn.
Everyone loves a slugger because homeruns are a multi-category helper, but does everyone really love Adam Dunn? Sure the guy has value. He hits 40 homeruns every year and is a lock for 100+ RBIs and runs. But he strikes out almost 200 times every season which kills his average (he hit .230 last year), and that in turn drags down your team’s average. Last year Dunn whiffed 194 times in 561 at bats, or 35 percent of the time. Is that really a guy you want to depend on week in and week out? A guy who gives up at least one at bat per game?
I sure as hell don’t, unless I’ve decided to forgo the ratio categories and target power, which is a bad move. This is why I haven’t drafted, or made a run at, Dunn since his rookie season.
Simply put, the number of strikeouts a player accumulates helps you determine how often he puts the ball in play. And the more likely a player is to make contact (less strikeouts), the better his chances are that he could get an extra hit or two a week. Hypothetically, that could add an additional 15 to 20 hits over the course of a season.
In Dunn’s case, that could increase his batting average by 15 points, put him into the neighborhood of respectability, or jettison him into the tier where Andruw Jones resides.
Dunn and Jones are top-notch sluggers who aren’t first-round selections because their low averages. But Jones is ranked higher than Dunn because his .260 to .270 average is much more tolerable than Dunn’s .240.
The same method of evaluation can also be helpful when trying to determine the difference bench guys (fourth or fifth outfielders), players at shallow positions (catcher) or between two speedsters. Look at Juan Pierre and Scott Podsednik.
At some point before or during your draft, you’re likely going to realize that you need speed and the two best options (after Jose Reyes) are Pierre and Podsednik.
The strikeout category is extremely helpful here because you’ll realize that Pierre, who struckout 38 times last year in 699 at-bats (toughest in the majors), is probably worth drafting at least three rounds higher than Podsednik, who struckout 98 times in 524 ABs.
And because the K total affects the On-Base Percentage, this hurts Podsednik’s value as a leadoff man, which then could make him worth that Dave Roberts. Roberts generates similar stats, when playing fulltime, while striking out a third less.
And finally, the stat also helps judge a player’s ability to avoid lulls. Nothing will hurt a team from week to week more than a player who is incredibly inconsistent and prone to slump. Consistency is key in fantasy baseball.
Some could say that on-base percentage measures the same area, but that’s not entirely true. OBP takes into account walks, which may or may not help a player get back into a groove. Walks also may not be a category that your league keeps.

The Thursday Hypness: Garrett Atkins: exposing a players true value every Thursday

Let’s get a few things straight.
First off, Garrett Atkins is not Clint Barmes.
He’s not an overrated Colorado Rockies hitter who has had one good season (or half of one anyway), causing pundits to prematurely jump on the bandwagon and then leap off the next year without making a peep.
And secondly he is not Vinny Castilla or Jose Hernandez – two former Colorado Rockies who played third base and were vaulted into fantasy relevance because they hit for (some) power, played a shallow position and got to take the field half of the season at Coors Field.
What Atkins is is a talented baseball player whose track record suggests that he’s going to be one of the better third basemen in fantasy baseball.
Does that mean he’s going to be keeper material or even be placed in the same tier as studs like Alex Rodriguez, Miguel Cabrera or David Wright? No. He probably won’t ever reach that level. But he’ll have value.
Let’s face it, his 2006 season was special. He hit .329 in 160 games, crushed 29 homers, drove in 120 runs, scored 117 times and posted an on-base percentage of .409.
And while I fully expect that he’ll continue to be a .300 hitter, draw his share of walks and post a nice on-base percentage, I certainly do not expect him to match the 29 homeruns he belted last season, therefore not matching his RBI and run totals, even though he is at that “golden age” of 27.
And those homeruns (some publications are projecting him to eclipse the 30-home plateau) are what people will be counting on when draft day comes along. Everyone is just waiting to find the next Albert Pujols, or any of the aforementioned third sackers, so they will reach and take Atkins pretty high in the draft. They think he’s only going get better.
But before you start thinking that he’s going to go Mike Schmidt on you, look at this guy’s career numbers. Prior to 2006, the most homeruns he’d hit in a single season was 15, and that was in the minor leagues in 2004. Even in college, where he was allowed to use an aluminum bat, he only slugged 17 during his senior year at UCLA.
That said there are two things that could prove me wrong in terms of his power in 2007: 1) if MLB decides that the humidor needs to go, and 2) if Atkins can maintain the number of doubles (48) he hit in 2006.
What I do like about Atkins is his size and his plate presence, which some could argue are correlated.
Standing 6-foot-3 and weighing 220 pounds, Atkins is in the mold of slugging third baseman Troy Glaus. But what’s especially attractive to fantasy owners is the way he uses his size to be better hitter, not just a masher.
In ’06, he drew 79 walks (second on the team behind Todd Helton’s 91) and struck out 78 times, which isn’t bad for a player in only his second full season in the Big Leagues. I love the on-base percentage: .409. I’m a firm believer that if a player can put the ball in play that he will always give himself a chance to be valuable in fantasy leagues.
I think Atkins will be a fine fantasy third baseman this year, just don’t draft him expecting to get 30 homeruns. I suspect that he’ll have a season along the lines of 90 runs, 160 hits, 18 homeruns, 100 RBIs, and hit in the neighborhood of .315. Not too shabby, but exactly “elite.”

I've had Garrett Atkins every year he has been playing in the league. I would look at the waiver wire for my annual, "My third baseman sucks" kickoff and would see Atkins sitting there being a decent option and would pick him up. He would sit on my bench for a while and then I would usually drop him. In 2006 I had him in May his worst month where he had 27 hits, 3 homers and 8 RBIs, so picturing another year of the Rockies offensive hype being overvalued and overrated, I dropped him.
So what did Atkins do? He only had one of the most consistent seasons where he totaled 30 hits or more for the rest of the season. He was sparse in homers with his highest total in a month being 7. Why am I looking month to month? It's the format I play, son. With week-to-week matchups Atkins leaves a lot to be desired if you don't have any power in your lineup. He provides hits and RBIs week-to-week, and that is about it. I pretty much fall asleep with this guy and I don't know why his stats don't floor me like everyone else. I look for hits in a player. He has 198. And I am trying to get excited, but I am not. September's hit count during fantasy playoffs? 39. Home runs? 6. Spread that over 4 weeks? Only 1 to 2. Now I get it. Atkins is a Punch and Judy hitter in disguise. Atkins is a fall back player, nothing more. When a guy such as Jorge Cantu bombs, you can always have Atkins. Well not anymore. Atkins with his 2006 numbers will transform into a top-third hitter for most fantasy teams. Atkins is nothing more that a complimentary hitter, he should not be looked at as a hitter that can carry your team offensively. Have Ryan Howard, Travis Hafner and Andruw Jones? Then get Atkins. His hits, runs and RBIs will be gravy and his moderate power won't hurt you. Have Derek Jeter, Juan Pierre and Joe Mauer? Then stay away for Atkins. He is more hits and does nothing else. At least you get an all-around game with Jeter, steals from Juan Freedom and average from a weak position at catcher with Mauer. Atkins is hits and no fire. Let someone else grab him.
"But The Jon, Atkins hits in Coors Field."
Look, I've been to that park and have seen more games on TV that has put me to sleep. That Colorado outfield is one of the most spacious in baseball. With the humidor they now employ, Coors Field is perfect for doubles. Take away the humidor and you might have something with Atkins. Watching Atkins hit, you are never blown away by him. You never stop what you are doing to watch his at-bats. He gets a hit, and I am getting mad that I had to finish my beer after his at-bat and that I am stuck watching the Rockies. Yeah, I am prejudiced against watching bad baseball. Atkins is boring to watch. And doesn't really inspire future tales of how I've seen him play in person. I just can't justify picking a Colorado player after being forced to watch them because of my job for three years. Atkins just doesn't do it for me. Will he be good? Most likely. Can he help your team? Of course. So why don't I like him? I just think he sucks.
If he puts three years of the same type of numbers he will be a reliable source of stats when the real third baseman that you want are gone. At this same pace, he isn't even a top 25 hitter. He is 8th to 11th round fodder.
He is no Matt Holliday. I hope he proves me wrong this season. But, I won't lose any sleep if he does.

There’s a little game I like to play, I call it “Which player would you take?”
It’s real simple. Basically, you tick off a handful of anonymous stats then ask … which player would you take?
Here we go:
Player A (24 years old): 96 runs, 181 hits, 40 doubles, 26 HR, 116 RBI, 20 SB, .311 BA, .381 OBP and .531 SLG.
Player B (27 years old): 117 runs, 198 hits, 48 doubles, 29 HR, 120 RBI, four SB, .329 BA, .409 OBP and .556 SLG.
Aside from age and SBs, these players are about as similar as you’re going to find. Both will help you in a variety of stats and have very solid peripherals. Even better, they both play 3B and play in hitter-friendly parks.
Still, Player B probably gets the edge … right?
OK, enough suspense, these two players are David Wright (certified fantasy stud) and Garrett Atkins (huh?).
Unless you were in a coma, you know about Wright. He plays in the heart of the media empire and has youth, good looks and a highlight-reel glove. If you’re in a keeper league, he is not available.
Atkins? You’ve probably heard of him, too. You may even realize he had a pretty good season last year. I’m going to go ahead and assume that, like me, you didn’t realize quite how good: he was among the NL’s top 10 in avg. (4), OBP. (7), ops (8), runs (9), hits (4), total bases (6), 2b (4), RBI (5), Extra base hits (8) and times on base (3). People, those are MVP-like numbers.
But, you say, this guy is a fluke, right? He’s playing in Coors Field, he’s having his breakout year in a little late, he’s never done anything like this … he’s Garrett Atkins.
I’m going to go ahead and agree with you on all points, but I’m also going to say this: You can do a lot worse.
Let’s assume the word is out on this guy. Someone in your league is just dying to take him two rounds earlier than everyone else (let’s call him Don). Don drank the Kool-Aid at Jonestown, he bought the hype on Joel Pineiro, picks closers too high and pisses everyone off on draft day because he always takes “sleepers” without really knowing who they are.
This guy will make sure Atkins does not fall into a “safe” round -- you know sometime after the 9th when you’ve already locked up your studs and everyone is some sort of gamble.
My point: If you are at all intrigued by Atkins, be prepared to take him high – maybe not top five high, but certainly before the 10th.
Me? I may have just convinced myself he’s worth the gamble.

Monday's Forum: Draft talent or position scarcity?

Joe Mauer or Manny Ramirez?
Derek Jeter or Travis Hafner?
Rafael Furcal or Roy Halladay?
These are the kind of questions you’ll likely be forced to make during your fantasy baseball draft, and it’s best to be prepared for them now.
In other words, how much does scarcity at a particular position affect where you draft a player?
Looking at the above comparisons, I think the choices are obvious. Give me Ramirez, Hafner and Halladay any day.
The way I look at it, every position counts the same. A season consisting of 45 HR, 120 RBI and .300 BA helps your team regardless of the position that particular person plays. Of course, it’s great if it comes from your catcher, but it won’t hurt you if it’s your first baseman.
I stick to this particular strategy for at least the first 10 rounds of a traditional draft: I’d much rather lock up the guys I feel like have the best potential to put up big numbers, regardless of their position. In rare instances, I’ll even take multiple guys at certain positions and just be prepared to play one of them at the utility spot. Too much of a good thing is almost never bad.
I change it up as the draft winds down, though. Drafting for need becomes a, well, necessity, as you get closer to filling out your roster. Still, I’ve been known to forgo drafting a catcher if I don’t feel like there’s anyone worth spending a pick on, and waiting a week or two to find a free agent I like.
And that’s something to always remember before going nuts over a player just because you think he’s the third or fourth best player at his position – when you otherwise wouldn’t draft him until several rounds later. Every year there are numerous players at shallow positions that seem to come out of nowhere – think Freddy Sanchez and Brian McCann last year or Michael Young and Victor Martinez three years ago.
More important that position scarcity is statistic scarcity: consider how much more valuable a 40 HR hitter is compared to one who collects 200 hits. Whereas that power hitter is basically guaranteed to collect more than 100 RBI and score 100 runs (8 of 11 did it last year and all of them had at least 90 runs and 90 RBI), the guys with 200 hits are really only guaranteed to hit .300 (one of the eight MLBers to collect at least 200 hits also drove in 100 runs and scored 100 runs, although five had at least 90 of each).
Here’s my point, don’t get too wrapped up in what position a guy plays. Obviously, it needs to factor into your decision-making, but don’t feel the “need” to do anything other than compile the most stats.

It's easy for me to tell you (with my chest all puffed out and in a booming voice), "You should always go with talent over position scarcity." But who are we kidding? Nobody can go through a draft and not look at position scarcity, or what spots you need to fill. Purple Lips is ranked so high because he plays third base. If you went on overall talent, he would be picked after Ryan Howard, Alfonso Soriano and Vladimir Guerrero. But Purple Lips plays third base, so he is a top three pick.
So what is my advice? There is none. The advice would be to go with talent every time, but it won't happen. I'm pretty bitter about this and I will explain ... right about now.
The Year was 2001. The year of our first keeper league draft, man, I was ready. I was keying on Vladimir Guerrero, Manny Ramirez, pre-MVP Albert Pujols and Roy Halladay. I swing for a first-round trade to grab Vlad (a story unto itself) grab Manny in the second round and am sitting there with my third pick just fiending over my luck on grabbing Vlad and Manny. There is Pujols available and there is Roberto Alomar sitting nicely at second base with his 193 hits, 20 home runs, 113 runs, 30 stolen bases and a .336 average. So I take Alomar because he was the best second baseman at a thin position. I thought that he would round out my stats, even though I knew a young Pujols would be good someday. Instead I let position scarcity get in the way and I grabbed the spitter. So what happened? Pujols got picked three picks later, kicked major a$$ that year, and Alomar started his fast decline hitting. 258. If it wasn't for my managerial skills, Alomar could have set me back five years. Unfortunately, I can't guarantee that you can be me, but I will help you try to be by telling you the truth.
Position scarcity and its temptations will always be there. So instead of telling you to go one way, I will do something else. Go with the safest pick and with the guy that you originally targeted. Don't bother with the first baseman or outfielders are deep theory. Don't look at the scarcity and second, catcher or third base. Look at the players you want. Do you want Chase Utley? Then pick him in the first or second round. Don't look at Utley when he falls to you and say, "I really want David Ortiz, but he only plays DH. If I get Utley, I will have a leg up on everyone else at second base ... even though Ortiz produces." Don't listen to that guy.
If you have to start justifying a pick with excuses, you made a wrong pick.
In that same spitter draft, I selected Roy Halladay as my first pitcher with my 10th pick. FreeSanJose started spouting off how Halladay was in Triple-A working on his control. Everyone else was looking around to see who that guy was. I didn't say, "I heard he was going to be good. Besides, I like young arms and he was the best available."
Screw that, I said, "This guy is a stud. I wanted him. I know exactly what I am doing."
No excuses. No regrets. Which is more than I can say about my Alomar pick. A pick that was met with applause as a coup when I drafted him. Which response would you rather have? Call it a fault, but I'd rather lose with a team that I have faith in than lose with a team where I make excuses of having to fill position scarcity and those guys tanked while guys that I originally wanted are MVPs somewhere else. Screw Alomar and his stupid fantasy brother that has been killing teams for the past five years.

Position scarcity can make a person do crazy things. Closers and catchers are the positions
where people think they can make up the most ground. The topic of best player available vs. thin talent positions is always in flux throughout a draft. In the early rounds, you have to go best available player. Sometimes, you can get both (A-Rod), but not often. Don’t pass on guys like Manny Ramirez and Vladimir Guerrero in the first rounds because the outfield is a deep position. You’ll just be allowing the other managers to stack up outfielder that your above average middle infielders will never outproduce anyway.
Positions that have traditionally been considered thin offensively, no longer are. You will get 20 homers & 80 plus RBI from Dan Uggla, but he can be had well after the bigger names. You can also look to fill specific categories with lesser-known players as the thin positions. Get your steals from a second baseman or shortstop to go along with the power numbers you get out of first round picks at first base or in the outfield.
The strategy. In the early rounds, go best available. In early middle rounds, start going for the position scarcity. If you’re in the 5th round and can get the best catcher while others are going for their second outfielders, now is the time to pull the trigger. The trick is be the guy that starts the position run, not the one who’s hand is forced. It also helps to know what positions the other managers have already filled. Keep a record during the draft so you can predict who others will be targeting. In the late rounds, go back to best available players.
Another trick is to look for players who qualify at multiple positions. Last year I had Chone Figgins and Miguel Cabrera. It allowed me to pick the best available throughout because I could move either one of them to 3rd base, or outfield. Chone played 2nd as well. Granted, Figgins played like crap last season, but the theory is sound. Know who has multi-position eligibility in your league and get them.

When it comes to fantasy baseball, there is no shortage of draft strategies. Certainly the most discussed has to be here ... Shameless plug.
But perhaps the most intriguing strategy to me involves the use of high picks to select the best player available or using such picks to target the best player at a certain position.
No matter what fantasy sport you play, you’re always going to find one or two positions where the talent level drops off so fast that it seems logical to use a high pick to take a top guy at said position.
And in baseball there are four positions – catcher, second base, shortstop and third base -- where depth is an issue. Yet there are definitely two other positions (outfield and first base) where the talent pool is so deep you can afford to wait.
And that is what this debate is so interesting. Do you continue taking outfielders and first basemen, or do you go after a top catcher or another infield position?
In my nine years of fantasy baseball, I have yet to determine if it is more profitable to select the best player available, or to fill certain positions.
I tend to lean toward filling positions because I can’t stand it when I’ve built a killer outfield, yet I’m bogged down because I’m left playing losers like A.J. Pierzynski or Ray Durham.
And that has furthered my belief that a team full of solid players will do better than a handful of studs.
I think arguments can be made for using your picks in either fashion. If you continue taking the best player available you’re more than likely going to maximize the value or each pick. If you decide to fill certain positions early, this should give you some flexibility later on.
This issue has lost a little steam because shortstop and third base have seen resurgences in talent. But with catcher and second base, there are one or two clear-cut studs, and then everyone else. At catcher you have Joe Mauer and Victor Martinez, and at second base, Chase Utley stands alone.
Utley is a no-brainer top selection because his stats are magnificent and compare favorably with outfielders. But when it comes to Mauer and Martinez, one really has to decide what they are worth because their overall stats are not as good as players at other positions
This then begs the question: Where should they be drafted? Do they go before the likes of Paul Konerko, Derrek Lee or Carlos Delgado? How about Jermaine Dye, Gary Sheffield or Adam Dunn?
In keeper leagues Mauer and Martinez undoubtedly should be selected higher than those guys, but in traditional turnover leagues where the talent pool is replenished each season it will really depends on if you believe that a group of three or four studs will outperform a team of solid performers.

The Thursday Hypness: Barry Zito: exposing a players true value every Thursday

I’ve been fortunate enough not to think too much about Barry Zito in the context of fantasy baseball for several years. See, myself and a few of the owners in our keeper league live in the Bay Area and four of them are hardcore Oakland Athletics fans. That of course means that some of them are homers, so for the betterment of the rest of the league they’ve overvalued the likes of Zito and Eric Chavez for years and kept them away from us. For that, I thank them. But nowadays it’s not so simple. Zito has signed with the cross-bay (estuary) rivals – and there is a likelihood that he could be left unprotected – and I am left evaluating his career and debating what he could be worth in 2007.
To me, Zito is an impressive force on the mound when his curveball is breaking 11 to 5. When it breaks, he rolls to victory. But when the ball is slow-rolling, he falls off the table -- like his pitch should -- and that’s when he looks like a Little Leaguer throwing batting practice to Manny Ramirez. (Take that, A’s fans)
For that fact alone, I’d usually write him off because he’s too much of a wild card to justify spending a high pick on him. But the reality is you can’t just dismiss him. He’s got a career ERA around 3.50, has 103 wins in six seasons and has a Cy Young award to his credit. AND he’s in a new league, with a new group of teammates behind him and he’ll be out to impress ownership, which has given him $18 million per year. That said, I still think Zito will be highly overvalued on draft day. People will see him as a young (28) lefty in a new league and think that automatically equates to success. They’ll even look at his career numbers and see the 3.55 ERA and think he’s easy at the top of the league. He’ll likely be drafted in the second-tier of pitchers.
But when you look past his career numbers, you’ll see this is a pitcher who has been hittable (1.33 WHIP) in the last three years and has declined (even though he still wins), even at his young age. His career ERA is misleading. Over the last three seasons he’s had a combined ERA of 4.04, giving up nearly 100 earned runs in each of those campaigns. And to top it off, his walks are up and his strikeouts are down. He hasn’t come anywhere near the career-high 205 punch-outs he enjoyed during his 2002 Cy Young season. Yet he walked 99 batters last year.
Zito reminds me of Mike Hampton and Al Leiter, two serviceable lefties who are always remembered by fantasy owners for their best seasons. And because of that he will always be worth something to someone.
Now that’s not to say that Zito won’t enjoy success, either this upcoming year or in the future, but the problem we’re left with is his inconsistency. He’s got value and upside, but don’t over pay for him on draft day. I put him in the same tier (third) as John Lackey, but slightly behind him.

Barry Zito of 2001 and 2002 is not walking through that door, fans. His 2001 17-8 record is not walking through that door. His 2002 23-5 Cy Young campaign is not walking through that door. — The Jon courtesy of Rick Pitino.
I blame Allyssa Milano, that stupid guitar Sports Illustrated cried over in its story about the lefty and a friend's friend.
But I digress; Zito had a great two-year run as a dominant pitcher. His 205 strikeouts in 2001 primed Zito to be the next dominant pitcher for the next 10 years. PoiDog kept that guy, and in 2002 he rolled off his 23 wins this side of Bob Welch. When me and PoiDog held or weekly "We have no life Fantasy baseball teleconference," He stated that he could live with his 182 strikeouts because of the wins and his ERA dipped from 3.49 to 2.75. Then there was the big Mexican clinic scare where PoiDog heard from a friend's friend that the said friend saw him at a Mexico clinic and could have been Barry Bondsing. I told PoiDog to shut up and not worry about Zito; the fool's fastball clocks in the 80s.
Thanks to PoiDog's bad karma Zito was off his team in a year. Zito stopped producing. He now is a teen/teen pitcher. Here are his win counts after those two years: 14-12, 11-11, 14-13, 16-10.
Oh yeah, I'm all about stats today. I've gotten hundreds of e-mails from our loyal readers that they want stats. Check this out:
ERA: 3.30, 4.48, 3.86, 3.83.
But one stat that makes Zito viable is his inning count. He has topped 200 inning-plus every year he has been in the league except for his call-up year in 2000. He is a workhorse, a backbone for your staff. I always try to get a pitcher that you can rely on to give you quality innings. I call it the Andy Pettitte strategy. You have three pitchers you rely on to carry wins, strikeouts, ERA, and WHIP categories. After that, you need to pitchers like Pettitte, Livan Hernandez or Chien-Ming Wang with sub-ERA who give quality 6-plus inning starts to maintain or lower the ERA that your three top pitchers gave you. Zito fits into that category. But he won't be drafted that way. That stupid contract the Giants gave him has made Zito a top 10 pitchers to fantasy players. I feel a Pitino coming on: "I wish we could buy the world. We can't ... "
Naw, forget it. Zito is a fourth-starter pitcher, but will be forced to be a third-starter if you want him. Let me explain: You should spend two rounds getting the upper-echelon of starters once those guys are gone, then come the Schillings, Randy Johnsons and Dontrelle Willises, after that Zito should be available. After you get Zito, you can pine for the sleeper pitchers headed by Scott Kazmir and Jonathan Papelbons (who would really be your third starter), get another workhorse and your staff looks pretty good.
That won't happen. Zito will go high and be a second or first starter for some owner who didn't read the Thursday Hypness.
And I'll hear it from a friend's friend on how much you suck for being stuck with Barry Zito as your staff ace.

What have you done since 2002?
I've changed jobs twice and moved four times.
Britney Spears has gone from pop princess to poop.
The Patriots have won two Super Bowls.
The complete X-Men trilogy has been released, and like eight sequels to the World of Warcraft series.
And Barry Zito has averaged about 14 wins, 160ks, a 3.80 ERA and 1.30 Whip. Not bad numbers, but hardly anything approaching his Cy Young season of 2002.
My point, it's been years since Zito has been a legitimate fantasy stud. These are the kind of numbers you expect from your No. 4 or No. 5 starter, not a fantasy ace.
Sure, you can argue that Zito was the best pitcher on the free-agent market this past offseason. Maybe you've even deluded yourself into believing he was worth the $2 zillion contract he got from the Giants. But don't even think for a moment about drafting this guy before the ninth or 10th round.
Yeah, he'll probably put up better numbers because he's playing in a weaker hitters league and is pitching in a more forgiving ballpark, but he's not going to carry your staff.
Ever since Zito produced that career year during his second full season, fans, fantasy owners and general managers have been waiting for him to do it again. I've got news for those people: 2002 was an aberration. It was the only year he has won as many as 18 games, the only time he's posted a sub-3.00 ERA during a full season, and has never exceeded his stats in any other meaningful category since then.
Will Zito kill your staff? Depends on which week he's pitching. He had eight games last year in which he posted a 2.00 Whip or worse and four times his ERA was 9.00 or worse.
For the most part, though, Zito will be a solid pitcher. I don't think it's far-fetched for him to improve on his numbers from the past four seasons, but even marked improvement won't put him in the top 10-15 among fantasy starters and to even see him break the top 25 he'll need to start striking guys out again.

So by now, I’m over the pain of losing the most established pitcher from my favorite team to the team I hate above all others. Zito went to the one team I will never be able to root for. However, we all know you can’t be successful in fantasy sports by being a homer. All bias aside, I know this guy and these teams well so here goes the BZ breakdown.
First & foremost, Zito is a talent. He knows how to pitch and clearly has the best Uncle Charlie in the game. Facing the National League & the sad sack NL West will be a boon for Barry. The relatively weaker lineups, and the fact that these hitter don’t know him, will keep Zito’s era in the mid to low 3’s once again. Playing in the cave that is PacBell or SBC or whatever the hell they are calling that park this week won’t hurt either.
Probing deeper, everything doesn’t look so good. The Giants suck. Their offense is atrocious as is their bullpen. Benitez can’t hold a candle to my boy Huston Street. Zito is a flyball pitcher in the second largest outfield in the majors, SBC Park. This sounds good until you imagine Barry Bonds & Ryan Klesko trying run down gappers. On top of that, Durham & his frying pan at second base won’t do Barry any favors either.
So where does that leave us? Barry Zito will not be as good of a fantasy pitcher as he will be in reality. His K’s are no great shakes and he won’t get 15 wins with that coterie of geezers supporting him. The 4th or 5th round is where he should go. Zito won’t hurt you, he’s too good. However, his supporting cast won’t allow him to be a true ace in '07.

Monday's Forum: The great closer debate

Closers, the necessary evil. This position can screw with your draft more than any other. There is always an early closer run that forces a manager to make a decision. Stick with the plan, or get a good closer before they are all gone? As with everything, it depends on how your draft is playing out, but here are the guidelines to follow.
There are not many top-flight closers. These are the guys who have great ERA & WHIP numbers, plus get a lot of saves & K's. The strikeouts are the critical stat here though. Closers that get around 100 punch-outs are invaluable because they are like an everyday player & can pick up the slack for your starters. I would reach high for a dominant closer if he gets K's as high as the 6th or 7th round.
Know where the 1st tier stops & the 2nd tier starts. The last thing you want to do is take some ham 'n egger with a high pick. Every year there will be viable closer options on the waiver wire through the early parts of the season. This is truly a position you should wait on if you don't get the best of the best.
I prefer to load my staff with starter & only use the minimum closers weekly. This is because closers don't get you wins, innings, or strikeouts typically. I know some who try to overload on closers to win era, whip & saves but I personally don't like that strategy unless the starter you have are all studs.
Heading into this season, the top closers are Joe Nathan and Francisco Rodriguez. These guys are sure to go across the board. On the next level, you have Huston Street, Mariano Rivera, Billy Wagner, Chad Cordero, & BJ Ryan. I think there is too much risk involved in Eric Gagne & Brad Lidge. Take them if they fall to you late, but don't go high on them. My sleeper is JJ Putz. He finished strong last year & got K's like a champ. He won't get many saves with that the Mariners, but his other numbers will be very nice.

Just get Mariano Rivera and you will be fine. With closers, everyone is worried about stats: A sub-ERA compared to the walk ratio divided by the number of appearances multiplied by his WHIP when it is a full moon plus how many times some fantasy geek looked at his stats online. Just get Mariano Rivera. Get him in the 7th round. If Mariano Rivera isn't your guy, then get Joe Nathan. If you don't like Nathan, get Francisco Rodriguez. Are you starting to get the point?
With closers, you want to have at least one you don't have to worry about. Pick the guy that you like. I hate having to look at my lineup and make decisions on who I should have to play week in and week out. Just get a stud.
If those three guys aren't available, then look at who you will be happy with given their limitations. You have already missed out on Rivera, Nathan and K-Rod, so wait a while when picking your closer. Just have a list of six guys you can live with. When four of them have been drafted, pick No. 5 or No.6 on your list.

Every fantasy writer and his dog will tell you to avoid closer runs. And they will probably say it like this, like they are Mary Poppins with those stupid penguins behind her, "Don't get involved in a closer run. Don't be susceptible to peer pressure. The other owners shouldn't mess with the strategy you have prepared for yourself. I am a good writer and am giving you sound advice."

Look, I would probably pursue a relationship with Mary Poppins, but if a closer run happens, get in it and get the guy you can live with. You need one solid closer. After your selection, stay away from them. Fill out your squad while keeping an eye on the third-tier closers or closers on bad teams. Fantasy owners hate closers on bad teams. I like them. Bad teams usually play close games and you can get a save out of them from week to week. If you missed out on Rivera, Nathan or K-Rod, two saves a week will all you will really get. After that, you are nickel and diming. The first few weeks of the season, you will be searching the waiver wire for a closer that comes out of nowhere. I got lucky enough two seasons ago to get Derrick Turnbow, and he ended up being the only closer I needed. I was able to fill up my last relief pitcher spot with a starter that qualified there. I played six starters and dominated the pitching categories to my title. I will play that strategy every chance I can get. What happened to Turnbow last season? He bombed. Just get Mariano Rivera.

There was a time in my fantasy career that I absolutely had to have Billy Wagner every year, no matter what it took to get him.
But as I’ve grown as a fantasy player in the last few years, I’ve realized that there are plenty of other closers who are just as good, if not better, and they come at a much cheaper price on draft day.
That said, I do not think there is a steadfast rule as to when relievers should be drafted. For a year or two, Eric Gagne and Brad Lidge were borderline keepers, but we’ve seen how short-lived their dominance was.
While it’s definitely a no-brainer to not protect a reliever in most keeper leagues, I think your strategy, and sometimes circumstance, will dictate when one, or two, closers should be drafted.
Last year I tried something different: take two top-notch relievers (Francisco Rodriguez and Joe Nathan) kind of high, after I sewed up a few loose ends (read: other stats). I was pleased with the end result as I finished in first place during the regular season in that league.
I can’t exactly attribute their stats to locking up the top slot, but it definitely didn’t hurt. But even with the success I had, I’ve also learned that it may be a slightly flawed strategy because I could have taken similar relievers later and used those higher picks to select more bats (I definitely could have used more power last year) or taken a starter.
I tend to use three categories to initially evaluate closers: The locks (the Riveras, Hoffmans and Nathans of the league), the guys who won’t hurt you (like Bob Wickman, Chris Ray and Chad Cordero) and the guy(s) who will absolutely kill you (Armando Benitez.)
The next level of evaluation for me is save opportunities. If a team can’t be competitive, its closer has little value in fantasy baseball. See Joe Nathan during the first two months of the 2006 season.
I do think there is one golden rule when discussing closers: Don’t get sucked into a closer run during the draft.
During a closer run, turn your attention to the starting arms or bats while the other teams are fighting to draft that middle-of-the-pack closer. Think about it this way: Will a mediocre closer (like Chris Ray) really make that much of a difference at the end of the week?
More times than not you’re going to regret your decision when you realize during the season that you could have drafted another solid bat or arm to provide depth. You’ll also be frustrated when the mediocre closer you drafted loses his job.
Which then leads to my next point: Try to carry three closers, just don’t overspend to get them. The reason to carry that many closers is because I really do think that matchups do play a factor when determining the value of reliever.
And finally, when you’re looking for a closer, look for the closer who will get the save opportunities but likely won’t hurt you in your ratio categories (ERA and WHIP). Don’t over value strikeouts at this position, especially if your rotation is not built on that stat.

Once upon a time, I fell in love with a closer. His name was Eric Gagne...
The season was 2003, or maybe it was 2003, and I decided that he was the most dominant pitcher in the game. I even told a friend of mine, who owned Gagne in our keeper league, that he would be the only reliever worth keeping. Being a numbers guy, his were just making me drool.
From 2002-2004 his average season looked something like this: 82 innings, 125 Ks, 50 saves, 0.90 Whip, 1.90 ERA and a couple of losses. Numbers like that win fantasy league titles. Or so I thought.
In 2004, I found my Gagne ... his name was Brad Lidge. After earning the closers job after the all-star break, Lidge threw up some of the sickest numbers you'll ever see. He saved 29 games, struck batters out about 1.5 batters per inning, tossed 94 innings, posted a 1.90 ERA and .92 Whip and even won six games. In the postseason, he was pretty much unhittable. He struck out 20 in 12 innings, allowing one run and eight baserunners while leading the Astros to the World Series.
After a little internal debate, I decided that I had no choice but to keep Lidge. I even traded away guys like Mark Teixeira, Michael Young, Adam Dunn and Tim Hudson to make room for him. (Although I have to admit that I also kept Oliver Perez, but that's a different story).
On draft day, I figured that if I was going to make my Lidge investment pay off, I needed to get him a solid running mate and since Gagne wasn't available I took the next best thing: Francisco Rodriguez. I did that with the seventh pick of our first round (we also keep five players).
Despite outstanding 2005 seasons from both Lidge and Rodriguez, I finished last.
Was it their fault? Of course not. I made plenty of other bad decisions, like keeping Oliver Perez. While it is definitely not their fault that I had such a bad season, their dominance (both saved more than 40 games, posted sub 2.30 ERAs and 1.20 Whips and struck out nearly 200 batters between them) did nothing to save my season. Let's say I spent those two picks on similarly upward-bound hitters — Teixeira and Young, for example. Surely, last place would not have been such a concern.
The lesson here: Even the best closers are just good window dressing. Sure, they make your team look great on paper and maybe you can trade them if the hype really gets out of control, but no closer is going to have an impact on your team the way a great starter of position player will.
At their best in a head-to-head league closers get you a couple saves, help lower your ERA a few points and add a handful strikeouts. A good hitter can help you in every category. A good starter can help you in most pitching categories and a great one can win two or three almost by himself.
Here's my advice: Never take a closer earlier than the 10th round in a traditional draft and you can definitely wait until the 15th and still get quality arms; Only draft closers that strike guys out, they are less likely to slump and more likely to help in multiple categories; Try to draft closers whose managers aren't against letting them go more than one inning at a time; Don't be afraid to stash a great middle-reliever on your team just because he's not currently the closer, there's a good chance he will be.

The Thursday Hypness: John Lackey. exposing a players true value every Thursday

I hate the word "overrated." It's such a loaded term. The thing I hate most is that it's almost always used in a strawman argument, in which the author simply states that a player/team is overrated just so they can tell you how they are or aren't. Usually, the pundit just grabs the "overrated" distinction out of thin air.
It's a largely irrelevant term, because it requires a third party's opinion. Ultimately, when it comes to your baseball draft, your only concern should be where do YOU slot any given player. Whether others think more or less of that player is essentially irrelevant.
With that said, I'm not quite sure what to make of the "hype" one Mr. John Lackey is receiving. ESPN rates him as the ninth best starting pitcher in baseball, which seems a little high to me. On the other hand, Brandon Funston of Yahoo has him slotted as the 70th best player, 17th best pitcher and the 11th best starter, which seems a little low in regards to his overall and pitching, but just about right among starters.
So, I don't know that I'd say he's receiving a whole lot of hype, to begin with.
But his relative level of hype is not the real point, which is: Where do I think he should be drafted?
For my money, John Lackey is a solid pitcher who has the ability to be dominant (he averaged a strikeout per inning in 16 of 33 starts and gave up one run or less 10 times) and rarely gets shelled (he gave up more runs than innings pitched six times in 33 starts and never gave up more than twice as many runs as IP). He only won 13 games last year, but suffered from horrible run support, tossed 217 innings (averaging 6.7 innings per start, 13th best in MLB), struck out 190 (7th in MLB), posted a 3.56 ERA (11th best in MLB) and had a 1.24 WHIP (18th). Add those things together, consider the fact that the guy is 28 and I think you could do a lot worse if you can pick this guy sometime in the sixth round or later.
Most of his peripherals (WHIP, Batting average against, k/bb ratio, HRs allowed) were all pretty strong and there's no reason to believe this guy is going to get worse.
Is he the kind of guy you build your starting staff around? You shouldn't bank on it. Is he a real danger of messing up your draft because you took him too high (like the fourth round)? I doubt it.
John Lackey is the kind of pitcher you take when all the real studs are off the board and you need someone that won't kill you, but could help you a lot. He's not someone I suggest targeting, but if he falls into your lap and you're choosing between someone like him and Dontrelle Willis or Aaron Harang, I wouldn't bat an eye at taking him.
Sure, the guy looks like the dude from "Slingblade" but he's a pretty solid No. 2 or 3 fantasy starter.

When you look at John Lackey’s 2006 performance, he looks like an emerging stud, a
front-end-of-your-fantasy-rotation kind of guy.
What’s not to like? Nearly 200 strikeouts, an ERA that hovered near 3.50 and a WHIP a tad over 1.20. And he plays in the American League West for a team that has Vlad Guerrero in the heart of its order.
But when you think about Lackey’s 2006 campaign, there are two things that really stand out: his amazing stretch of games from June 15 through July 14, and his post-all star-break performance.
There was no better pitcher from mid June through mid-July, a stretch in which Lackey pitched 46 2/3 innings and only gave up four earned runs while striking out 44 hitters. That period also encompasses three straight scoreless starts in which the 6-foot 6-inch righty struck out 30 hitters.
But by the time Lackey toed the slab for his second start (July 19) after the break, he returned to mediocre form, and gave up five earned runs on 10 hits over just 4 2/3 innings against Cleveland. That really was the beginning of a nasty downward spiral in which he’d go on to allow more than nine hits in nine of his last 14 starts. Opposing batters hit .304 against Lackey during the second half.
And that, my friends, is why you should not over pay for John Lackey.
I’m not a Lackey hater, I’m just not a Lackey (over) appreciator. I think his size is an asset and his mechanics are solid (and I’d take him if he’s still around in the fourth or fifth round of a keeper league, somewhere near the 10th for traditional turnover leagues), but this guy is just too damn inconsistent for me to justify spending a high pick on him.
Some times he looks like Nolan Ryan (that’s when you trade him), but most of the time he’s just another Freddy Garcia or Kevin Millwood (that’s when you hate yourself) – guys who enjoyed success early in their careers, and always look like their on the verge of regaining their dominance, but never fully do.
The 28-year old is going to be a popular pick this year because many think he’s finally going to put it all together. But if you’re looking to take him early, you better be prepared to love life during one half of the year, and then hate it during the other. It’s a trend that he’s shown in his brief career. And to make things worse, there is no telling in which half of the season he’ll actually perform well.

Screw John Lackey. Fantasy players can hide around Lackey's numbers and then rank him high because of his potential. Yeah he had a great stretch of a couple of months last year where the player that picked and expected him to be an ace looked like a genius, but Lackey took a dive. He was unusable for the second half of the season giving up anywhere from 4 to 6 runs. When I get a pitcher, I want to know what I am getting every start. If a guy gives up three runs a game, while lowering my overall ERA and whip, I am happy with that. If he gets a win and strikeouts, more lumpy gravy for me. I don't want a hump like Lackey that can by Santana-esque in one start and the transform into Russ Ortiz for the next three starts. I don't want to decide week in and week out whether to play him. I shouldn't have to look at matchups either. I want pitchers that I can play every week, regardless of what offense they play. If I get beat, I want to lose with my best players. Not some girl like Lackey.
Who the hell are you John Lackey? A two consecutive start stud, or a three consecutive start 6 earned run female dog?
Bitter? You know it. I traded for that schizophrenic after his stretch run mentioned by Newspaperman.
Newspaperman. Screw him too. I only got Lackey because Newspaperman wouldn't trade me Grady Sizemore after I gave him an offer he couldn't refuse. How good was that offer? Newspaperman was crying to me like that singer guy in the Godfather (notice the offer he couldn't refuse reference above) you know the one:

Newspaperman: Oh, Godfather, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.
The Jon: You can act like a man!
What's the matter with you? Is this how you turned out? A Hollywood finocchio that cries like a woman.

Since Newspaperman wigged out, I blocked him by trading for Lackey. Newspaperman had some punk deal where he didn't have to give anything up for Lackey and I swooped in and grabbed up Lackey, because the guy that had the good for nothing hurler was tired of Newspaperman's crap. Lackey gave me one good start. So after about having him for a two weeks, I traded him to PoiDog and let that fool deal with Lackey. If Lackey falls to me in the 11th round (Second for keeper leagues where I traded away my second round pick) I'll grab him. But until he becomes a performer where I'll know what he'll do every week, Lackey is nothing more than trade bait. Stupid Newspaperman.

There are two sets of issue you need to look at when evaluating and ranking pitchers entering a draft. Things they can control, and things they can't. When I look at John Lackey this season, I like both.
Lackey has strong numbers in the main categories that you need to get from frontline pitchers. He has a good era & whip & can get you K's also. These stats are all talent based. He's still young though. He's been around so long that the Giants were actually good when he came up. The point being he's got the experience but is still relatively young at 28. Lackey has steadily improved each of the past three years and considering his health and age, that trend will continue.
The things that are out of Lackey's hands look just as good to me as well. He's on a team with a lot of pride who is going to contend for a division title. Two of the three division opponents, have horrible offenses. Remember, the unbalanced schedule will favor him during fantasy playoffs. He's got a good offense in to support him and premiere closer to back him up. All these factors point to a good win-loss record at seasons end. The home stadium is moderate so there is no disadvantage there.
If you've played for any length of time, you know the same guys get injured year in and year out. Given the lack of quality starters & the fragile nature of a pitcher's arm anyway, you can't recover from drafting an injury prone pitcher early if he goes down. All the more reason why someone like John Lackey is a good guy to have.
I'm on board with Lackey this year as a solid #2 starter. This guy is prime for a career year. He is somewhere between the 10th & 15th best starter and should be selected accordingly. Don't take him as your number one starter, but a good #2 or great #3 if you're lucky.

Monday's Forum: Hitting vs. pitching. Which way should you go in the draft?

One could argue that if you select the best player available at all times in the draft, regardless of position, you’ll always set yourself up to be in the hunt for a title. But we know it doesn’t work that way. There is a method to this madness. And one of the strategies that are often debated is whether to target pitching or offense on draft day. I’m a believer that offense leads a team to a championship. I don’t discredit the importance of pitching. I just think that unless you’re prepared to use the first four picks of your draft to select the best arms available, regardless of how mediocre you really think they are, taking a pitcher will backfire more times than it will work. Johan Santana and Roy Halladay can definitely lead a team to victory, but unless you’ve got them both – or a rotation built on three or four upper tier pitchers – the back end of your staff (or a closer like Armando Benitez) can nullify their super-human efforts and ruin your chances of victory.
See, that’s the way pitching works. Your staff won’t be successful if you have one solid performer and a bunch of mediocre players supporting him. This isn’t Major League Baseball, where an ace can be the stopper for his team and use a strong performance to will his squad to victory. This is fantasy baseball, where your staff is only as good as your fourth and fifth starter. Yeah, that’s a cliché, but it’s true. How good can your rotation really be if you’re starting Johan Santana once, but Gil Meche, Horacio Ramirez or Paul Abbot twice in any given week based on scheduling? Any of those three can, have and will (often) have days where they give up 5 ER in 3IP, and rack up a WHIP near 2.0 -- killing the effectiveness of Santana’s 8-inning scoreless gem. What you have left is a mediocre box score, the same
that can be obtained by drafting pitchers in middle or later rounds. The same cannot wholly be said for a team based on hitters. While having a batter on a cold streak can definitely hurt a team, he is unlikely to singlehandedly ruin your chances. Furthermore, if a player has a bad game, he has more opportunities to redeem himself throughout the week, all the while adding toyour team’s totals.
This doesn’t happen with pitchers. Whey they are bad, they are yanked. And when they are pulled from a game, you’re left with a nasty line that can automatically kill four categories in a head-to-head league.
I realize that the same argument can be made to make a point FOR drafting pitching. Unless you’ve gone balls to the wall and selected all aces, that line of thinking won’t get you anywhere.
There are lots of arguments for both methodologies, many of which we could write entire books on, but when it comes down to it and I assess a head-to-head league, I find myself gravitating toward batters because they are easier to predict. Remember, the goal
is victory, not annihilation.

The most difficult task in constructing a fantasy baseball team is trying to balance your offense and pitching. Most people favor offense because hitters go every day. There is a lot of validity to this point, but it is more complicated than that. In Yahoo! Leagues, the first tiebreaker is ERA. Nothing makes you bitterer than getting bounced from your fantasy playoff because of a tiebreaker loss. It's no secret that good arms are harder to find than good sticks.
There are about 15 legitimate aces in fantasy baseball. These are guys that get you great numbers in all the major categories every start - your Johan Santanas, Roy Halladays and the like. You have to aim to get a couple of them within the first three rounds. There will still be top-notch offensive players you can fill out your roster with later. After the top tier pitchers go, there is a steep drop off. Don’t start reaching for 2nd & 3rd tier pitching talent now. This is where you get your o-fence. While you are pulling in the mashers to balance out your horses, the other managers will be trying to cobble together their staffs with middle of the road pitchers at the top of their rotations.
Another important factor is how well you know your league. If you know your opposing managers and their tendencies it can help you gauge how long to wait on certain players. Every league has a couple homers that take a player from their favorite team higher than he should go. Knowing when this is going to happen can allow you to reach or wait on a player you need in some situations.
Finally, let me speak on the topic of keeper leagues. Most keeper leagues are thin in pitching. Unless somebody messes and drops a good hurler or the guy who was stacked in pitching can’t pull of a pre-draft trade, you should go with hitters early. There will be mid-tier pitchers and sleepers for several rounds without much drop off. Hitting is at a premium here.

Everyone loves hitting. I once loved hitting back in my fantasy youth, when I was scratching for 6th or 7th place. My hitters were legit: Along with Vlad Guerrero, Manny Ramirez, Ichiro Suzuki, I had the best offense in our league. But I was in 7th place. Pitching will win you fantasy baseball. Hitters are deep. Pitching is thin. Get three top starters and you will contend every year. This doesn't mean you go for a pitcher in the first round. You need three franchise hitters to carry your team on any given week (if you are playing in a points league and not a week by week rotisserie, it's time to stop breastfeeding). In the first round, get your Albert Pujols, Purple Lips, Soriano, Manny Ramirez, Jose Reyes or Vlad Guerrero. In the next round go for your ace. If a hitter doesn't do anything for you in the third go ahead and get another one.
Use the 3 to 2 ratio in the first five rounds. Three hitter selections to two pitchers. Then go pitching heavy, while selecting proven hitters that have fallen or are too good to pass up.
How many times have you kept your offense intact after your draft? You will always be able to pick up a Robinson Cano, Dan Uggla or even Travis Hafner when they had their breakout years. Carlos Guillen was a guy that never got drafted late or never until a season ago and was able to fill in for people who went high on Jimmy Rollins or Edgar Renteria. Offense is easy to come by.
You get three top pitchers (Santana, Halladay, Oswalt) an up and coming ace (Carlos Zambrano, John Lackey) and workhorses that can eat up eight innings while giving up three to four runs (Pettitte, Zito, Livan Hernandez) and you will win pretty much every pitching category from week to week.
And what about offense? You still have the three studs you picked early, plus you drafted solid performers from a deep talent pool and you keep up on the waiver wire and pick up the one or two players who were never in your plans, but will lead you to the title. Winning. It didn't take me long to get used to. How long will it take you?

At heart, I am a contrarian. In the world of fantasy baseball, this is an important thing to admit, especially when preparing to construct your team. Hear me out on this one...
If, like me, you always prefer to go against the grain, then it is of the utmost importance to be able to gauge the direction of your league. If you can do this during the offseason and be prepared before the draft, perfect, but you don't need to be a mind-reader to use this tactic. It doesn't take much powers of observation to figure out which way any given draft is headed: pitching or hitting.
While my cohorts have all given reasons why one way is better than the other, I'm here to tell you that you can win just as easily using either tactic, although it is important to pick one.
If, for instance, you're in a league in which eight hitters are off the board in the first round, that probably means there is going to be more value at pitching, so go that way. The opposite is also true.
The important thing in both cases is to make sure you go heavy on guys with big upside at the area you have neglected. Example: You've taken pitchers with your eight of your first 10 picks, do you grab someone like Raul Ibanez who you know will hit at least 20 HRs but not more than 30 or someone like Joe Crede who could totally flop or have a MVP-caliber year? I say roll the dice.
The important thing is to figure out your strategy no later than the second round of your draft (before the draft in keeper leagues).
Don't let anyone tell you that one way is inherently better than the other.

Men behind the curtain

Here is a quick look at the contributors to The Baseball Stars:

THE JON is many things -- arrogant, conniving, unstable -- but first and foremost, he's legit. As much as it pains me, he knows what he is doing. No matter what sport, the man has a knack for finding hidden gems -- he still reminds us about "discovering" Johan Santana -- and knowing when players are about to peak or valley.
I don't know how he does it.
While I tend to rely on statistical analysis and research, Jon at least gives the impression he goes on gut instinct. I'm sure that's not entirely accurate, but you'll never see him carting around something like Baseball Prospectus. Heck, I'm not even sure he knows what that is. Here's an example of a conversation I would expect he and I to have:
FreeSanJose: Have picked up the latest Bill James baseball extract?
The Jon: Dude, you know I don't swing that way.
FSJ: Oh, that's right, you don't like books because there "All facts, no heart."
TJ: Books? Oh, I thought you were talking about man juice. Now that that's established, I suppose I think Bill James is an old white guy with a beard and glasses. Am I close?
FSJ: Actually, that's almost exactly what he LOOKS like. But do you know who he IS?
TJ: You always have to be right, don't you? No, I don't know who he is.

And that's my point. I know who Bill James is and will probably use his book and others like it to help me pick my team. The Jon will look at everyone, read the hype and somehow determine if he believes it or not. Somehow, he manages to be right more often than not.
Of course, his team will always look similar (a few Latin studs, maybe a Japanese guy and couple young white pitchers and middle infielders and some up-and-coming types). But I think most of us have teams that always LOOK similar....
So that's The Jon. As far as WHO he is ... that's another story, and one I really can't do justice now. By FreeSanJose

FREESANJOSE
I hate FreeSanJose. I hate his posts. I hate his trade offers. And I hate how I usually have to go through him whenever I win one of my numerous titles. FreeSanJose is a gauge to see how well you will do in fantasy baseball. If you have a comparable team to his (you will hardly ever have a better squad then the one he drafts, trades and uses astute waiver wire pickups for) you will pretty much have a season where a top three finish is a given. Always quick for a fight, FreeSanJose can ramble off a post like the one you just read. Arguing with him is a chore, trying to get a deal done with him becomes a two-week affair. And The Jon wouldn't have it any other way. He is the polar opposite of me in terms of baseball strategy and execution. Who's the better player? It really depends on the alignment of the planets. He is the Joe Frazier to my Ali. He is the Red Sox to my Yankees.
He always shoots for young pitchers, picks them too high and then produces our league's best pitching staff. When our league was first starting, I went offense, offense, offense. He went pitching, got some lucky up and coming bats, pulled off ridiculous trades where the other party bent over backwards for him, and won a title. Six years later, I have the two best pitchers in baseball as keepers to counteract anything FreeSanJose does with his hurlers. On the other side, FreeSanJose has great offensive keepers to counteract anything I do. I wouldn't be the most successful player in our leagues without FreeSanJose. And he wouldn't be the bitter loudmouth if it wasn't for me. FreeSanJose ... bring it. By The Jon

NEWSPAPERMAN
To get this blog rolling, I was given the task of talking about Newspaper Man's fantasy baseball exploits. After being in leagues with this guy for about 6 years, I think I am up to the task. There are two things you need to know about this guy. One, you won't like him in your league. Two, you want him in your league. NPM is that guy in your league that is constantly throwing out garbage trade offers hoping somebody who doesn't know better accepts them. NPM has the so little game in the area of smack talk that it's borderline criminal. NPM is the guy doing all of the picking up and dropping on the waiver wire. Beneath all these vagisil-ian fantasy traits, however, is a guy who knows what the hell he is doing. This guy knows how to draft. He doesn't waste picks. He hits on his sleepers and he knows how to construct a team with balance across his offense and staff. His only weakness is his man-crush on Roger Clemens. Bottom line, to have a competitive fantasy league, you need a couple Newspaper Mans. What he lacks in gonads, he more than makes up for in knowledge of how the game is played. By PoiDog

POIDOG
Dreamer. Overly confident. Bridesmaid.
These words best describe PoiDog, who each year seems to make some bold move at the draft by gambling on sleepers and then proclaiming that he’s just taken“the steal of the draft.”
Sure he’s had the likes of Johan Santana, Manny Ramirez and Miguel Cabrera in our keeper league. But he’s also traded the first two, and spent mid- to high-round picks on duds like Juan Uribe, Jody Gerut and Jorge Cantu.
Nonetheless, he remains competitive every season because he’s a relentless waiver wire shopper and dealmaker, and often tweaks his strategy.
But one problem still remains: He’s never won a baseball league. Two-time runner-up, zero-time champion. He is essentially the Oakland Athletics (post-Bash Bros.) of our leagues: consistent, always in the playoffs, but never a champion. By NewsPaperMan