2008 FantasyMLBTips Fantasy League Update

League parameters: 12 team mixed roto. C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, 3 OF, UTIL, 2 SP, 2 RP, 3 P and 5 BN. Categories are standard 5x5. 

Still no news on the trade front. It’s been about as active as Ralphie May on a hot day in July. If you don’t know who he is, go search for him on YouTube and you’ll see what I mean. There hasn’t been anything on the message board this week except for Trading Block posts by TIPS writer, Ron Vackar, of the Rosin Bag Grenadiers. RBG has been trying to upgrade his first base position since early in the season. He’s been trying to make a two-for-one trade, where he gives two players to upgrade at either 1B or SP, and he’s offering up the following players: Ervin Santana, Raul Ibanez, Rick Ankiel, Paul Konerko and Joe Saunders. I’m a huge Santana fan and you can check the hitting stock report for my thoughts on Ibanez. I own Ankiel on another team and am expecting big things this year. He should be able to hit around 30 homers and drive in 90-100 runs. His average won’t be great, but it won’t be awful either. Somewhere between .265 and .275 would be reasonable. Joe Saunders is a fantasy darling at the moment — winning another game Friday, his third of the season. However, I don’t see that lasting for a couple of reasons. The first is his meager 3.68 K/9 ratio. That’s Carlos Silva territory. You generally want your pitchers to have a K/9 of 6.00 or higher. His batting average against (.196) is more than 100 points lower than it was at this time last year, so it may be a little smoke and mirrors here with Saunders. Midnight is coming for this Cinderella story. RBG has some solid trade chips here, but I’m not sure if it’s enough to land him that elite SP or upper tier 1B. 

There were many free agent pickups since the last blog update was published on April 16th, 36 to be exact. There has been a tremendous amount of spot starting going on in the league, some with good results, some with bad. Boof Bonser, Gavin Floyd and Edwin Jackson are just some of the names listed on the transactions pages. Dustin McGowan was dropped and promptly picked up by UMustveMisremembered. Rich Hill, formerly of UMustveMisremembered and pegged by All Eyez as last week’s worst drop, was picked up by Fear the Nut. Players such as Billy Butler, All Eyez favorite Ryan Doumit, Casey Kotchman (read the Hitters Stock Report) and J.D. Drew were recently dropped and all have been performing. None of them should be outright dropped. This league has been very active and there has never been a day without a transaction by one team or another. We’ll see how long it lasts though, it’s still early. 

Here are the standings as of the end of play Monday, April 21, 2008. The writers in this league own the following teams: Rosin Bag Grenadiers (Ron Vackar), UMustveMisremembered (myself) and All Eyez (Jeff Lowe). Check out the other blogs about the FantasyMLBTips league to view draft results and draft commentary by both the writers and the other owners.

 

WEEKLY ANALYSIS:

UmustveMisremembered says:
Best Pick Up — [4/19] Dustin Pedroia; Fantasy Uber Wizards — If you're going to replace Howie Kendrick, I can't think of a better Free Agent

Worst Drop — [4/20] Casey Kotchman; Standard Errors — Errors had an abundance of first basemen, so I guess an argument could be made for getting rid of two(Kotchman and Billy Butler) — but those guys have value in 10-team leagues, let alone a 12-team league like this, so outright dropping them wasn’t the best way to solve the problem. Kotchman is raking right now and there’s no indication that it’s an aberration.

Best/Worst Spot Start — [4/17] Boof Bonser; UMustveMisremembered — Went back to the well one too many times: L, 4 IP, 6 ER, 7 H, 2 BB, 0 K

Best Move/Non-Move — [4/17] Pickup of Brandon Morrow; Vaporizers — Prior to his spring training injury, Morrow was the heir apparent and #1 set-up man for J.J. Putz; Vaporizers picked him up the day before he was called up. 

All Eyez says:
Best Pick Up — [4/18] Dustin McGowan; UmustveMisremembered — Umustve’s dropping of Rich Hill looks a lot better now that D-Mac has essentially replaced Hill on his staff.

Worst Drop — [4/15] Dustin McGowan; Standard Errors — Dropping D-Mac for Justin Germano? I don’t get this move at all. D-Mac’s 2007 Post All-Star stats: 7-6, 98 IP, 87 K’s, 3.67 ERA, 1.14 WHIP; Germano’s 2007 Post All-Star stats: 2-7, 68.2 IP, 45 K’s, 4.98 ERA, 1.46 WHIP. To me, Germano has always been a “smoke and mirrors” kind of pitcher. His 6 K’s this year in 20 IP leaves a lot to be desired.

Best/Worst Spot Start — [4/19] Scott Olsen; Standard Errors — W, 7 IP, 1 ER, 3 H, 2 BB, 3 K; Yeah, he may have some mental issues, but I’ve been an Olsen fan for a while. He has better stuff than Jeff Francis — yet Francis is owned in nearly 51.8% of ESPN leagues, while Olsen is owned in only 17%.

Best Move/Non-Move — [4/16, 4/21] managing Clay Buchholz; Papelbong Hitters — Very impressive management by Papelbong Hitters. He resisted the temptation to start Buchholz at NY, even though Buchholz had pitched great against the Yankees the week before (6 IP, 1 ER, 4 H, 3 BB, 3 K). As you know, both Buchholz and Chien-Ming Wang got bombed on 4/16, with Buchholz having a line of: 3.2 IP, 7 ER, 8 H, 1 BB, 2 K. Today, Papelbong Hitters starts him in an afternoon game against the Rangers and is nicely rewarded: W, 6 IP, 0 ER, 5 H, 2 BB, 6 K.