FantasyMLBTips

2008 FantasyMLBTips 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 (1 DL spot also available). Categories are standard 5x5. 

Sorry to be a few days late with the update fellas, but I was away at a baseball tournament and didn’t get a chance to write it. Anyway, now onto the article you’ve all been waiting for. 

There have been two more trades made, both involving TIPS founder, Jeff Lowe, and his team, All Eyez. All Eyez traded away Prince Fielder to Gordon’s Fisherman for Jose Reyes. GF needs power even more than I do, and All Eyez could use some help in steals. The trade works out well for both owners. The second trade saw All Eyez send Joe Mauer to the Vaporizers for Joe Nathan. All Eyez added a third closer and replaces Mauer with a more than capable, Ryan Doumit. The Vaporizers replaced Jason Kendall with Mauer and still has three solid closers without even including Troy Percival, who returns this week. Both trades are fair and make sense for both sides. 

There weren’t any youngsters brought up to drool over, although Charlie Morton is supposedly on his way up with the Braves. Yahoo! ought to be about a week late on that one too, so get your claim sheets ready. One thing you’ll notice on the waiver wire is that while spot-starting pitchers seem to be constantly moving from roster to roster, catchers and multiple position eligible players are also scattered throughout. With one starting catcher, owners can plan for a catcher having a day off and pick up a replacement. Players like Miguel Olivo and Kelly Shoppach have been picked up in this manner. Multi-position guys are also valuable because you can manipulate your roster around them. They can play almost anywhere for you, allowing an owner to keep his best lineup in there. Players like Mark DeRosa and Alexi Ramirez have been used this way. 

The message board featured a lot of trade talk and also some information about a beta test of a new site. I am really excited about it, but don’t want to say much about it yet. I do believe it is going to dramatically change the way people play this game though. Personally I liked Stadard Errors’ opinion on trades and vetoing. The fact that someone makes a bad deal for themselves doesn’t mean that we should save that owner from his own inexperience or stupidity. Too many people use the veto with a bitter taste in their mouth over not being able to pull off the deal themselves. 

A trade in another league was posted for advice by Mr. Met. He was offered Jon Lester and Jacoby Ellsbury for Aaron Harang and Todd Helton. My thoughts were that Helton and Ellsbury are pretty close in value from this point on — it just depends on what you need out of the spot. That makes the trade basically Lester for Harang and even with Harang’s struggles to get wins this year (he has thrown a lot of innings and pitches as well), I still like him better than Lester.   

Here are the standings as of the end of play Wednesday, June 11, 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 — [6/7 & 6/8] Vernon Wells and Jose Guillen; Fence Riders and Vaporizers — Both players are hot right now. I’m still kicking myself for not picking up Wells a while back.

Worst Drop — [6/4] Max Sherzer; Papelbong Hitters — He used his number one waiver priority to get the guy and now just outright drops him. He hasn’t been that bad and could have been used in trade to get another RP.

Best/Worst Spot Start — [6/5] Jason Bergmann; Standard Errors — Edges out Scott Olsen by SE as well. 3 IP, 8 runs, 5 earned, 0 K and the loss.

Best Move/Non-Move — [6/4] Picking up Brandon Morrow; All Eyez — J.J. Putz recently couldn’t finish the game and Morrow came in to clean up his mess. Look for the youngster to take the job if Putz falters further or is injured. 

Rosin Bag Grenadiers says:
Best Pick Up — [6/7] Vernon Wells; Fence Riders — I'm not so sure if this is the best pick up of the week or the biggest flub by the 11 other teams in our TIPS league.

Worst Drop — [6/7] Darrell Rasner; Fear the Nut — Five of his six starts have been that of quality status.  This is the diamond in the rough that is the Yankee rotation and no, it did not slip my mind that they now have the jolly round fella named Joba in their rotation.

Best/Worst Spot Start — [6/7] Jeremy Guthrie; Papelbong Hitters — 7 IP, 6 K, 0 BB, 6 H, 1 ER W. Plucking Guthrie from the free agent pool to start against the poor hitting Blue Jays was a solid move that paid off with a nice ending line.

Best Move/Non-Move — [6/4] Picking up Alexei Ramirez; All Eyez — Tips founder, Jeff Lowe, was high on Alexei Ramirez at the start of the season so it comes as no surprise that he's picked him up as he's starting to show off his Alfonso Soriano-like talent.

2008 FantasyMLBTips 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 (1 DL spot also available). Categories are standard 5x5. 

I’d like to give a shout out to Mr. Met and Standard Errors since they’ve given me some props on this weekly blog on our message board for the past two weeks. I’ll take it easy on you fellas in the add/drop section for the time being. Thanks for the support of not only this weekly update, but also of the whole FantasyMLBTips.com site in general. 

Waiver wire activity has been furious this past week. From May 28th to June 4th, there were 53 adds. I have to say that I was a little surprised to get my hands on Clayton Kershaw, seeing as I had the 4th waiver claim position. I tried picking up Kershaw when it was rumored that he would be brought up the week before, but due to the infinite wisdom of Yahoo!, he wasn’t actually placed into the system until after his first start when he went six innings while striking out seven. I could have sworn that would have boosted his value. Maybe people have soured on young pitchers because of the anticlimactic month for Max Scherzer or Johnny Cueto’s recent struggles. Either way I was happy to be able to snag Kershaw. 

With not much to write about on the trade and message board front I am off to clean up the front lawn. My daughter and I were taking her first swings off the tee. She laughed each time she hit the ball — all line drives up the middle by the way from both sides of the plate. Oh, I forgot to say, she’s one year old, so those line drives were probably all me. I’ll get her added to Yahoo! before the next article. 

Here are the standings as of the end of play Wednesday, June 4, 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 — [5/28] Dan Wheeler; Papelbong Hitters — With Brandon Lyon and Manny Acosta as his other relievers, Pap really needs a few saves.

Worst Drop — I swore off the bad drop this week because the only guy I could put down was dropped by one of my supporters.

Best/Worst Spot Start — [5/28] Jesse Litsch; Fence-Riders — 7 IP, 3 K, 1 BB, 7 H, 0 ER W. A low strikeout rate, but he doesn’t walk anyone so he can minimize damage. Nine homers and nine walks means that you have to hit him to score and he only gives up a hit per inning.

Best Move/Non-Move — [6/1] Starting Greg Smith; Standard Errors — Starting a young pitcher going into a Texas against a hot hitting team. Not the recipe for success. Check that Magic 8 Ball. 

All Eyez says:
Best Pick Up — [5/29] Jose Contreras; Vaporizers — In a league this active when it comes to picking up starting pitchers, I don’t know how Contreras was available. He’s been red-hot of late, allowing just six earned runs in his last 35 innings pitched. It wasn’t that long ago when he had that sizzling first half, going 9-0 before the 2006 All-Star break, with a 3.38 ERA and 1.18 WHIP. Even if Contreras pulls a Brad Penny, and has a great first half before falling apart in the second hal, that still means a handful of nice outings for Vaporizers.   

Worst Drop — [5/31] Matt Cain; Vaporizers— I know Cain has been a disappointment this year, especially when compared to teammate, Tim Lincecum… but his arsenal is arguably better than Chad Billingslesy’s, and the preseason theory that you should avoid Giants pitchers because of the team’s lack of offense seems to be rather weak this season. See Lincecum’s record, Justin Verlander’s record, and the surprising offenses of the Rangers and Marlins.

Best/Worst Spot Start — [6/2] Jason Marquis; Standard Errors— This move took some balls, and while the numbers weren’t pretty, a win is a win: W, 5 IP, 3 ER, 4 H, 5 BB, 2 K. By the way, TIPS writer Matt Bair called this spot-start perfectly in his Daily TIPS section, “Marquis has a 1.76 ERA and the Pads are hitting just .216 against Marquis at PETCO over the last three seasons. Going against the Padres’ abysmal offense — .679 OPS vs. RHP — should also help."  Another nice roll of the dice by Standard Errors.

Best Move/Non-Move — [5/13] Stashing away and holding onto Jay Bruce; All Eyez — No commentary needed.

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 (1 DL spot also available). Categories are standard 5x5. 

With his finger hovering over the mouse, he’s ready to click send. The email consists of just four words, “Stop pimping me out!” His name is Jorge Posada, and the email is directed at the FantasyMLBTips.com Fantasy Baseball League. All joking aside, last week I said that I would not waste a waiver claim on Posada because I had Russell Martin — and I stuck to that statement… well sort of. When Posada actually cleared waivers — possibly thanks to Ron Vackar’s prostitution statement — I snatched him up and placed him in my DL spot that was previously occupied by Chone Figgins. At this point (still in 9th place) I need all the help I can get and have no problems taking on extra risks. It can’t really get much worse. I may have to make my team logo a red cross seeing as I’ve  pretty much witnessed my whole team get injured this year. 

Roster turnover continues to be high, and I was also able to pick up the hotly debated Kelly Johnson after he cleared waivers. He’ll serve as added depth for me at 2B, and now that Figgins is struggling to come back from his hamstring injury, KJ may play an even bigger role for me… With the spot-starting strategy being employed by many teams, it places an increasing emphasis on finding the right guy to run out there each time. In Yahoo! Leagues, you have to pick up players a day in advance to get their stats, but spot-starters are now being picked up two to three days in advance so that owners can ensure that they get the guy they want. Jonathan Sanchez and Randy Wolf were recently picked up this way… Other players picked up this week include Andre Ethier, Ian Stewart, Edwin Encarnacion, Chris Perez and Milton Bradley. Players that were sent packing include Jim Thome, Clint Barmes, Kevin Kouzmanoff, Eric Gagne, Lastings Milledge and Johnny Damon. 

The second TIPS league trade went down this week and saw Chase Utley and Carlos Pena get shipped from Fence Riders to Standard Errors in exchange for Brian Roberts, Ichiro Suzuki and Billy Wagner. Fence Riders then dropped Willy Taveras from his roster to complete the trade. I’m never one to like giving up the best player in the deal, especially one that is a top-five fantasy player, but this is a fair trade and addresses the needs of both teams. Fence Riders needed speed and got it in the form of Ichiro and Roberts, while Standard Errors needed power. It’s a fair trade and meets the needs of both teams, so have at it boys. 

On the message board there was a comment by Standard Errors singing the praises of this weekly article, so I thank you for that sir. One word of advice though, knock on wood after your comment about your Magic 8-Ball that you use to choose your pitchers. 

With no veto system in place, our league commissioner, Ron Vackar, had put out a post about the recent trade. If anyone had a problem with it, they could voice an opinion on the board. Nobody had a problem with the trade so it went through without a problem. And then there was Placido Polanco. Hopefully now we can put the KJ vs. Polanco debate to rest. Mr. Met dropped Polanco this week and the debate has ended. Both owners have given up on their chosen second baseman and moved on to hopefully greener pastures. Following the drop though, Polanco had a great night in the game when the Tigers scored 19 runs. Polanco went 4-for-5 with an RBI and four runs — prompting some foul language from Mr. Met. 

Here are the standings as of the end of play Tuesday, May 27, 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 — [5/24] Ian Stweart; UMustveMisremembered — A rare non-waiver call up who had been killing it in AAA. 12HR, 43 RBI and 6 steals. If he can do 3/4 of that I’ll be ecstatic.

Worst Drop — No bad drops this week in my opinion. Just spot starters and off day fill ins.

Best/Worst Spot Start — [5/19] Jon Lester; Standard Errors — 9 IP, 9 K, 2 BB, 0 H, W. I wrote my part of the article before the Lester start so I had to give it due press here at this point. Good pickup SE.

Best Move/Non-Move — [5/21] Chris Perez; All Eyez — If you think that Ryan Franklin, Russ Springer or Jason Isringhausen will end this season as the Cardinals closer you are probably in the minority. He hasn’t given up a run and has a win in five appearances. 

Rosin Bag Grenadiers says:
Best Pick Up — [5/26] Kevin Kouzmanoff; Standard Errors — It pained me to drop “Kooz” earlier in the week. It almost made me consider putting David Wright on the block in an attempt to strengthen my 1b position which has plagued me through the season’s first two months. This was about the time “Kooz” started picking it up last year and if the past week’s production is any sign of things to come, you’re going to want him on your roster for the duration of the season.

Worst Drop — [5/25] Willy Taveras; Fence Riders — This was supposed to be the spot where I continued my feud with Mr. Met regarding the Placido Polanco/Kelly Johnson dispute. That’s old news now, so it’s time to start another controversial dispute. I get the trade that Fence Riders made for Ichiro Suzuki and Brian Roberts; he needs sb’s. But, why then would he drop Taveras? At the very least, Taveras could have been used as trade bait to another speed hungry team.

Best/Worst Spot Start — [5/23] Oliver Perez; UMustveMisremembered — 5 IP, 4 ER, 14 BB+H. Perez represents the MLB’s version of Jekyll and Hyde. UMustve got the bad end of Jekyll and Hyde-like Perez this time around.

Best Move/Non-Move — [5/26] Cutting Ian Snell; All Eyez — Cutting your losses is tough to do. Over-committing to a player you trade for can backfire at times. All Eyez’ decision to cut this piece of his early season trade will go a long way to preserving his ERA and Whip standing which has slipped in recent weeks thanks in part to Snell’s impersonation of Jose Lima. 

All Eyez says:
Best Pick Up — [5/27] Scott Podsednik; Standard Errors — I like what SE is doing here. He may not have Pods on his roster for long, but while Matt Holliday and Brad Hawpe on are the DL, Podsednik will get increased playing time and could easily yield SE a handful of steals. Temporarily grabbing a former 70-SB guy is a good gamble for those teams looking for a boost in steals.

Worst Drop — [5/25] Jim Thome; Fear the nut — I know Thome has at times looked awful this year, striking out at Ryan Howard-like rate. But he’s still a career .280 hitter, and when healthy, he’s almost a guarantee to get 35+ HR and 100+ RBI. Knock on wood, but I haven’t heard of any back problems so far this year.

Best Move/Non-Move — [5/26] Dropping Ian Snell; All Eyez — As Ron points out, it just doesn’t look like Snell is going to take another step forward this year. Yes, he’s very talented… but owners (including myself) can sometimes get blinded by talent. Snell has been pitching poorly since the All-Star break of last season. In the first half of 2007, he had a line of: 7-5, 116.2 IP, 93 K’s, 2.93 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, .239 BAA. After the break, he had a line of: 2-7, 91.1 IP, 84 K’s, 4.83 ERA, 1.53 WHIP, .294 BAA. In 2008, Snell has picked up right where he left off and now has a line of: 2-4, 62.2 IP, 44 K’s, 5.46 ERA, 1.77 WHIP, .310 BAA.      

 

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 (1 DL spot also available). Categories are standard 5x5. 

Another week in the very active FantasyMLBTips Fantasy League bites the dust. My team has managed to move up from 10th to 9th in the last week, but more importantly, I’ve gained six points. I also got Harden and Lackey back in my lineup, so I’m ready to make a push. Maybe not for the title just yet, but at least into the top half of the league. 

“I'd like to dub Jorge Posada the league prostitute.” These are the words of Ron Vackar, TIPS writer and current league leader (Rosin Bag Grenadiers). Basically, teams in this league have gone through Jorge like Hugh Hefner goes through women. I couldn’t agree more. I am one guy who would like to own Posada, but I won’t waste a waiver claim on him. I have Russell Martin and Posada would be good depth, but I don’t really need him. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Met was looking for advice on the message board and wondering what player he should drop to pick up Johnny Damon in his other league. He was thinking Ken Griffey Jr., but the consensus was that wasn’t the right play. Don’t get me wrong — Damon should be owned. He’s not the player he used to be, but he is on pace to score 100 runs, hit 18 homers and steal 18 bases — and that has value. My opinion was that Mr. Met should drop Joe Saunders. The guy has a putrid 3.66 K/9 and a 1.56 K/BB ratio. Both have been decreasing over his last few starts, and over his last 13.1 innings, Saunders has walked six and only struck out only four. That’s not a recipe for success. You can’t trade him because nobody believes in him, and you’ve already gotten the best part of his season out of him. To me it’s easy: Pick up Damon, drop Saunders. 

The Kelly Johnson debate also continued. After RBG dropped Johnson this week following his glowing support of KJ as a stat stuffing second baseman, he was called out by Mr. Met for bashing Mr. Met’s drop of Johnson last week. RBG’s reasoning for dropping the Braves’ second baseman was that he had Brandon Phillips, and didn’t need the talented Johnson. According to RBG, it was a worse drop by Mr. Met because Johnson was Mr. Met’s primary 2B, a point that Mr. Met refutes by pointing out his ownership of Ian Kinsler, a stat filler in his own right. Nobody can really say anything to RBG at this point because he’s killing this league — but it’s still early right now and anything can happen in the world of Fantasy. Let the bickering continue. 

There have been a ton of moves once again this week, with a few owners using their last starting pitcher spot like a revolving door, spot-starting pitchers time and again. Among the surprising drops, besides Johnson and Posada (twice), were Andy Pettitte and Justin Duchscherer. Over the last month, All Eyez was just spot starting Duchscherer on his deep pitching staff, but Duch is no longer simply spot-starting material. He should be owned in most leagues, and Fear the Nut now has the former setup man in ours. While Pettitte could have helped Vaporizers, he simply didn’t have room for the Yankee because he’s carrying five closers. Can someone say trade? I know RBG is looking for a closer.   

Here are the standings as of the end of play Tuesday, May 20, 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 — [5/16] Justin Duchscherer; Fear the Nut — FTN picks up a good pitcher off the scrap heap and adds a much needed fifth starter to his team.
Worst Drop — [5/18] Kelly Johnson; Rosin Bag Grenadiers — When you make such a big deal about Johnson being dropped, you shouldn't drop him yourself a week later after the guy goes 8-for-19 in a five game hitting streak.
Best/Worst Spot Start — [5/16] Shawn Chacon; Standard Errors — 3.1 IP, 0 K, 4 BB, 3 HR, 8 R (5 ER), L. Should have known better than to get water from that well.
Worst Move— [5/17 and 5/19] The quick pickup and drop of Jorge Posada, does anyone really want this guy? 

Rosin Bag Grenadiers says:
Best Pick Up — [5/14] Eric Gagne; Fence Riders — Don't count me as a Gagne fan, but for someone who truly appreciates the service of Todd Jones as my number three closer (I never thought I'd feel that way), Fence Riders may also come to truly appreciate this pick up, as Gagne becomes his badly needed third closer.
Worst Drop — [5/18] Kelly Johnson; Rosin Bag Grenadiers — After bashing Mr. Met for his drop of Kelly Johnson a couple weeks ago, it’s only fair that I punish myself a little for dropping that same Mr. Johnson.  I still stand by Johnson as a top-12 second baseman and feel that someone should make use of him on their roster.
Best/Worst Spot Start — [5/18] Jon Lester; Standard Errors — No stat line needs to be provided here, as we all know what Lester did in carving up the Royals. I sure wish I could have claimed this no hitter as a piece of my squad, having drafted him and all.  Some expert I am!
Best Move/Non-Move [5/16] Jered Weaver; Vaporizers — Little Weave is a solid compliment to an otherwise lackluster supporting cast that the Vaporizers has put together behind Johan Santana.

 

 

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 (1 DL spot also available). Categories are standard 5x5. 

Placido Polanco or Kelly Johnson… that is the question. Or at least it was the question on our message board this past week. Polanco made it on my “Stock Up” list this week because he’s been on fire — we all knew that his batting average wouldn’t stay that low for that long. RBG and Mr. Met were going back and forth arguing over who they would most want, with Mr. Met trying to defend his dropping of KJ for Polanco. Polanco and Johnson have similar overall value for non-keeper leagues — it just depends on what you need most out of your second baseman. Johnson gets the edge in homers, while Polanco is better for average. Both players have produced about the same number of runs, RBI and steals since the beginning of 2006. It really just depends on your preference. 

The league continues to see a lot of activity on the FA wire; there have been a total of 92 adds and drops since May 5th. There’s also been a lot of spot starting going on with starting pitchers and catchers. Owners with a roster spot available are streaming players through their empty spot in an attempt to fill their roster every day. Those light Mondays and Thursdays where there aren’t many games scheduled make for good days for teams to get an extra game out of their catcher spot. 

 Here are the standings as of the end of play Tuesday, May 13, 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 — [5/6] Kelly Johnson; Rosin Bag Grenadiers — Johnson provides depth behind the talented Brandon Phillips.
Worst Drop — [5/11] Vernon Wells; Mr. Met — Wells was on his way to a bounce back year with 5 HR and 24 RBI and a .281 average this year. Pedro Martinez should be back within a month and Wells can take up the DL spot.
Best/Worst Spot Start — [5/6] Jonathan Sanchez; Fear the Nut — L, 4.1 IP, 4 K, 7 ER. Young pitchers are inconsistent and this was just an example of that.
Best Move/Non-Move — [5/8] Jorge Posada; All Eyez — Nice job by All Eyez of stashing away a top catcher when he got the chance.   

Rosin Bag Grenadiers says:
Best Pick Up — [5/8] Mike Lowell; Fear The Nut — Lowell was an RBI machine a year ago, and just like the cream in your coffee, he too will rise to the top. The warmer the weather gets, the more we start to see things balance out in fantasy baseball.
Worst Drop — [5/11] Scott Olsen; Vaporizers — Olsen pitches for what apparently is a far underrated or far overachieving Marlins team. Whichever it is, he's pitching well, hitting spots like never before and looks like a fantasy ace. When you catch a fish like this one, you don't throw it back!
Best/Worst Spot Start — [5/10] Gavin Floyd; All Eyez — 3.2 IP, 5 ER, 0 K's, 11 BB+H. That's the Gavin Floyd we all know. Who was that other guy borrowing his skin and taking no-hitters into the late innings?
Best Move/Non-Move — Jason Isringhausen; Standard Error — We saw another owners bail on Eric Gagne, which may not have been the right move after seeing Gagne back in the closer role last night. The decision to not drop Isringhausen will prove to be a good one in the long run. Weather the storm, there's still a reliable closer to be had in Jason Isringhausen. 

All Eyez says:
Best Pick Up — [5/10] Ryan Franklin; Fear the nut — I fully expect Izzy to get his job back, but Fear the nut did a good job of reacting quickly and grabbing Franklin, who could get him a few saves while Izzy works on his mechanics.
Worst Drop — [5/5] Mike Lowell; All Eyez — I was gift-wrapped Lowell after Blalock went down with his injury, and I messed up by dropping Lowell in order to make some spot-starting moves. He was batting .204 when I dropped him and now he’s up to .263 and coming off of a week where he was nominated for the American League Player of the Week Award.
Best/Worst Spot Start — [5/9] Aaron Laffey; Standard Errors — W, 0 ER, 6 H, 1 BB, 2 K. Another nice spot-starting move by SE.
Best Move/Non-Move — [5/10] Not picking up Salomon Torres; All Eyez and Fence-Riders — I couldn’t believe how many ESPN “experts” were telling people to pick up the former Pirate. Torres is better coming in with men on base, so coming in to close games in the 9th with no one on base just doesn’t make sense. Mota has been pitching better of late, so I made a speculative pickup and stashed him on my roster (this was before the news came out about Gagne being removed from the closer role).  Of course, it looks like Fence-Riders made the better move by using a waiver claim on Gagne, who was suprisingly back in the closer seat last night.

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 (1 DL spot also available). Categories are standard 5x5. 

This week we had some more Yahoo bashing, making it easily the most hated and worst fantasy site that we as a collective group have experienced. Most of the discussion centered around the DL status of Troy Tulowitzki and Michael Cuddyer and the callups of players such as Max Scherzer and Jeff Clement. Yahoo is painfully slow at reacting to changing fantasy news and notorious for having players unavailable for pickup. All fantasy league hosting sites should have at least every player on the 40-man roster available for pickup at all times. Everything from position eligibility, player availability, DL status, draft room and paying for live stats was criticized. I never have had such bad fantasy experiences than on Yahoo. 

The most popular fantasy pickup this week was Max Scherzer. He was called up on April 27th and was finally available for pickup by Papelbong Hitters on May 2nd. Another host site miracle. Other key acquisitions included Chad Billingsley (who trails only John Smoltz among qualifying starting pitchers with his 11.76 K/9), Jeff Keppinger, and Ryan Garko. Big name drops included first and foremost minor leaguers, Francisco Liriano and Rich Hill, whom I was chastised for dropping. Maybe we can edit that blog. Also dropped were Homer Bailey, Jay Bruce, Yovani Gallardo, Jorge Posada and Kevin Kouzmanoff. The league size and the number of starting roster spots have made for a good deal of roster movement. 

Here are the standings as of the end of play Tuesday, May 6, 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 — [5/2] Jeff Keppinger; Vaporizers — Keppinger has multi-position eligibility and has always been able to hit. He’ll be a valuable asset to fill in empty spots for injuries and off days for your studs.

Worst Drop — [5/4] Jorge Posada; Vaporizers — The guy is still a top- 5 fantasy catcher when healthy. Weather the storm until he comes back.

Best/Worst Spot Start — [5/2] John Lannan; Fence Riders — L, 3 IP, 5 ER, 0 K’s. Only a matter of time if you look at the peripherals — 22 K’s and 15 BB coming into the game.

Best Move/Non-Move — [5/2] Max Scherzer;  Papelbong Hitters — A must move to make, but let’s see what he does from here. Will PH take the opportunity to sell high if presented with an opportunity like All Eyez was with Johnny Cueto? 

Rosin Bag Grenadiers says:
Best Pick Up — [5/4] Juan Pierre; Vaporizers — While all of us were enthralled with the likes of Willy Taveras, who is in a semi-time split, and Michael Bourn, who is just barely gasping for air above the Mendoza line, Pierre is doing what he’s always done. The more boos that get poured down on Andruw Jones, the better this pickup looks by the day.

Worst Drop — [5/3] Kelly Johnson; Mr. Met — The reason I don’t like this drop is largely due to the player picked up to replace Johnson. Placido Polanco will never be the stat filler that Johnson can be and for that reason he’s fairly two dimensional as a run scorer/batting average balancer type. Johnson could realistically go 20/20 or better in the HR/SB categories and hits at the top of a lineup that may be just as good as the Tiger lineup that Polanco finds himself in.

Best/Worst Spot Start — [5/2] John Lannan; Fence-Riders — 3 IP, 5 ER, 0 K’s, 8 BB+H.  John Lannan finally looked like, well, John Lannan. Bad pitcher, bad team, bad spot start.

Best Move/Non-Move — [5/4] Greg Smith and [5/5] Dana Eveland; Standard Errors — Standard Errors keeps going back to the well with these two parts of the Dan Haren off-season trade from Oakland to Arizona. This is a great use of the free agent pool which Standard Errors has essentially used as an extension of his roster with these two pick ups. 

All Eyez says:
Best Pick Up — [5/1] Chad Billingsley; Rosin Bag Grenadiers — With both Billingsley and Max Scherzer sitting on the waiver wire, I was hoping that the six teams that had higher waiver priorities than mine would all hold out for a chance to nab Scherzer and bypass Billingsley, who was eligible to come off of waivers a day before Scherzer. Of course, RBG probably had the same strategy as he used his 5th waiver position to grab the up-and-coming Dodger ace.

Worst Drop — [5/2] Jair Jurrjens; Vaporizers — It’s not like Jurrjens is the next Brandon Webb, but he’s had five terrific quality starts in a row, and he has the third most K’s among rookie pitchers. I don’t know if Vaporizers tried to trade Jurrjens, but I would have either tried trading him or simply held on to him rather than dropping him and that 2.84 ERA and 1.08 WHIP.

Best/Worst Spot Start — [5/4] Greg Smith, [5/5] Dana Eveland; Standard Errors — I hate to be a copycat, but I can’t argue with this one. Standard Errors has simply mastered the art of spot-starting. He didn’t get a “W” out of the two Oakland hurlers, but he did get: 13 IP, 1 ER, 6 H, 6 BB, 14 K’s.

Best Move/Non-Move — [5/3] Aaron Cook; Fence-Riders — Cook has now won five games in a row. The lack of strikeouts leave more to be desired, but Cook has been consistently strong all season — more so than supposed ace Jeff Francis. Fence-Riders has done a nice job of strengtening his rotation through free agent picks up such as Cliff Lee and now Cook.

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. 

There’s a lot to talk about this week in the FantasyMLBTips fantasy baseball league. We’ve seen a flurry of add/drops, the first trade in the league, an active message board, and trade feedback from ESPN’s Jason Grey:

So the first TIPS trade saw All Eyez send Gary Sheffield, Cole Hamels and Johnny Cueto to the Fantasy Uber Wizards for Matt Holliday, Ian Snell and A.J. Burnett. On the surface, this looks to me like All Eyez won the trade, although only time will tell. All Eyez traded away his number one and three starters in the deal to form an elite outfield that now consists of Holliday, Carl Crawford and Adam Dunn. A point was made that FUW did not necessarily need the power that Holliday brings with an abundance of power already on his team (Geovanny Soto, Albert Pujols, Lance Berkman, Justin Morneau and others), so he could afford to lose some power to gain in pitching. Really though, is the upgrade from Burnett and Snell to Hamels and Cueto worth the downgrade from Holliday to Sheffield? ) I don’t believe so. (BTW, this deal was made before Cueto’s shelling last night) Holliday is a top-ten fantasy player and none of the other players in the deal are  worthy of being drafted in the first four rounds. In order to trade Holliday, you simply have to get a player of similar value back. If you need pitching, you go get Johan Santana, Jake Peavy or Brandon Webb for Holliday. As far as Sheff goes, FUW said that he was thinking of dropping him, so if that’s the case, it makes the deal all that more out of balance. If you were leaning towards dumping Sheff immediately, why didn’t you ask for Dunn or Crawford? Even if you keep Sheffield, his shoulder is already barking and it could turn out to be a season-long problem like it was a few years ago with the Yankees. Sure, he put up solid numbers that year, but now he’s three years older and his body is ever more worn down. All Eyez now has a pitching staff that included perennial DL performers like Ben Sheets, Scott Kazmir and Burnett, in addition to a supremely aged Randy Johnson and “minor league prospect” Francisco Liriano, who’s currently proving his worth in Triple-A. Honestly, if those guys all do what they can do, All Eyez should have a great staff with a ton of strikeouts. You just hope they all don’t get hurt at the same time. As for FUW, his OF now consists of Berkman, Hunter Pence and Delmon Young, which is solid. Sheff is languishing on his bench. Hamels slides into the number one starter spot ahead of C.C. Sabathia, John Maine and Cueto. These are some other good fireballers to rival those of All Eyez. I just don’t think that the return will be what FUW was looking for. 

The free agent wire has been active as usual this week. Spot starting is a strategy the many owners are using at this point, some effectively and some not. The most prized waiver pickup this week was Brian Fuentes, who was unceremoniously dropped to pick up Edwin Encarnacion on April 22nd, just days before he regained the closers role in Colorado. It was a move I’m sure that FUW would probably like to have back, but at the time it was the right decision. With Bobby Jenks, Kerry Wood and C.J. Wilson already on his team, an eighth-inning Fuentes was expendable; Vaporizers had the highest waiver claim and won the Fuentes-lottery. Other players of note that were dropped and then picked up off waivers were J.D. Drew (Gordon’s Fisherman) Casey Kotchman (Fear The Nut) and Billy Butler (UMustveMisremembered), all dropped by Standard Errors. Mike Cameron, back this week from his suspension, should add depth to Mr. Met’s OF that includes Brad Hawpe, Grady Sizemore, Vernon Wells and Justin Upton. Hitting in Miller Park will be an improvement from PETCO Park so a slight boost in production should be in order. 

The message board has been ripe with activity. The All Eyez/Fantasy Uber Wizards trade was a hot topic with most people believing that All Eyez got the better of the deal. Ron Vackar of the first-place Rosin Bag Grenadiers wrote an article touting his own draft skills and his fantasy performance earlier this week. Check out “The House that Vack Built” to read it. There were a couple of posts about the article. One was by All Eyez asking the group if it was Ron being cocky or just confident, and then the other was by Ron himself — begging for forgiveness from the Fantasy Gods who dealt him some negative movement in the standings following publication of his article. Just remember this everyone — it’s April. The Orioles, Marlins and Rays are in first place. Last year the Dodgers were in first place on April 27th with the Giants a game back. They finished the year a combined 27 games out of first place (4th and 5th places) in the NL West. Mr. Met was offered Carlos Zambrano and Conor Jackson for Ryan Howard in another league, and was told by a few people in our league to let that trade pass. Howard will get his numbers, and he’ll be much more valuable than the combination of Zambrano and Jackson. 

Here are the standings as of the end of play Tuesday, April 29, 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 — [4/25] Mike Cameron; Mr. Met — Mr. Met jumped on this one early and could see a good return on a low risk investment. Cameron could still put up 20 homers and double digit steals.

Worst Drop — [4/22] Brian Fuentes; Fantasy Uber Wizards — Not really the worst because as I said before, without a crystal ball nobody could really be sure about the Colorado closer situation. This one was just unlucky and probably feels the worst in hindsight.

Best/Worst Spot Start — [4/17] Jonathan Sanchez; Fear the Nut — 8 IP, 10 K, 1 ER, W. A great start by a talented youngster.

Best Move/Non-Move — [All Season] Barry Zito as a Free Agent; The entire league — Let’s all agree to leave Barry Zito and his ridiculous impersonation of a major league pitcher on the free agent list where he belongs in all leagues outside of 20 team San Francisco Giants only leagues with 30 man rosters. Another 8 earnies on Sunday brings his ERA to 7.53 and his K/9 drops to 3.45. GROSS performance for 126 million dollars. 

Rosin Bag Grenadiers says:
Best Pick Up — [4/25] Brian Fuentes; Vaporizers — I know, how weak of me to go with the obvious? Honestly though, I see him holding this job for the duration. He's only had one bad week in his career and that's a lot better than most closers in the game can say for themselves.

Worst Drop — [4/28] Chad Billingsley; Papelbong Hitters — There's a hanging chad joke somewhere in this curious waiver move. I know Chad Billingsley doesn't have the most attractive numbers, but there isn't a pitcher in the game with a better k/9 ratio through the first month of the season. Dumping one Chad for another (Chad Gaudin) wasn't wise for the long haul.

Best/Worst Spot Start — [4/24] Greg Smith; Standard Errors — W, 7 IP, 2 ER, 3 K’s.  Looks good to me!

Best Move/Non-Move — [4/29] claiming Melky Cabrera; Gordon's Fisherman — Melky may be better than we all anticipated.  He's hit anywhere from first to ninth in the Yank's order and has been productive regardless of his position in the order.

All Eyez says:
Best Pick Up — [4/25] Mike Cameron; Mr. Met — I’m still kicking myself. I was about to pick up Cameron the day before Mr. Met did, but I was waiting for my trade to go through and I couldn’t figure out who to drop. Cameron will benefit by batting second in between Weeks and he’ll also enjoy playing half his games outside of PETCO. Yeah, he has a poor average.. but he’s a near automatic 20/20 guy who even put up those numbers while playing at PETCO.

Worst Drop — [4/26] Melky Cabrera; Vaporizers — I just think this guy is an underrated 20/20 candidate. His chances at 20/20 aren’t as good as Cameron’s.. but he’ll end up with a higher batter average.

Best/Worst Spot Start — [4/24] Aaron Cook; Standard Erros — At home, versus the Cubs: W, 8 IP, 2 ER, 4 H, 3 BB, 5 K

Best Move/Non-Move — [4/28] picking up Carlos Quentin; Fence-Riders — Another move that I’m kicking myself for. I could have snagged Quentine hours before Fence-Riders did, but I couldn’t pull the triggers and drop Griffey. Quentin hit another homer today, bringing his total to seven. He’s the real deal and should start appearing in All-Star games in the near future.

The House That Vack Built: Luck or Skill?

Right now you might say I’m having a little coffee with my sugar in our FantasyMLBTips Yahoo league. My ego tells me it’s all skill baby, but there’s that evil demon on my shoulder that keeps telling me it’s mostly luck. So what is it really? 

Okay, here’s the skill part of my mastery thus far. Offensively, I have six lefty sticks to choose from between my utility slot and three outfield slots. What’s the big deal with that you might ask? It’s obvious really — a glaring majority of major league starting pitchers are right handed, making it so easy for me to exploit the best match ups at all times. Here are the six players I’ve been rotating, and next to their names are the stats I’ve gotten from each of them while playing the match up game: 

Josh Hamilton — 87 AB, 11 R, 4 HR, 21 RBI, .310 AVG
Nate McLouth — 71 AB, 10 R, 2 HR, 12 RBI, 2 SB, .324 AVG
Nick Markakis — 71 AB, 15 R, 4 HR, 10 RBI, 4 SB, .310 AVG
Rick Ankiel — 29 AB, 5 R, 2 HR, 5 RBI, .276 AVG
Raul Ibanez — 56 AB, 8 R, 3 HR, 13 RBI, .339 AVG
Michael Bourn — 36 AB, 5 R, 2 HR, 3 RBI, 8 SB, .250 AVG 

The skill part of this can be seen in many different areas, probably none more glaring than what I’ve been able to do with Mr. Bourn. Aside from being a lefty, he’s out to the early races as a guy who may see his name mentioned in the history books with guys like Ricky Henderson and Vince Coleman. I’ve enjoyed eight of his 13 steals to go along with a couple of unexpected home runs in just 36 at bats. Playing Bourn based on match ups is too obvious. He isn’t going to hit for a high average, but he will certainly hit for a higher average against RHPs. Not just that, but he’s also going to steal more bases against a RHP who can’t see him taking off. The fact that 12 of his 13 swipes thus far have come at the expense of a RHP would seem to support that notion. 

Foresight also has to be taken into account when speaking of such players as Nate McLouth. Is he going to hit at a .349 clip for me all season? No way! Is .290 out of reach? Certainly not! McLouth is a stat filler — how hard do you really have to think about that when a diamond in the rough hits a hard working man’s town like Pittsburgh? Couple that with the fact he’ll only help to make, not break me in the standings, and really he’s a great “play while he’s hot” type of player. Sure, the 19-game hitting streak ended, but I’m still basking in the McLouth glory and loving every second of it. The scary thing for the rest of the league is that while he’s shown more power than speed this season, I actually think a 20/30 season is in his reach. Tack on a few more runs and we may have another Grady Sizemore on our hands, people! 

Take a look at the the infield portion of my roster and you’ll see that I’ve been fortunate in a couple of areas. Brian McCann, for instance, is back to his 2006 form and Miguel Tejada is sporting a .360 average despite having to deal with the distractions of steroid and age issues. Both of these guys had mini question marks attached to their names heading into the season, but now they’re looking like draft day bargains. But as lucky as I’ve been thus far with players like Tejada and McLouth, it hasn’t all been roses for me. Both Paul Konerko and Brandon Phillips are off to less than impressive starts for instance. Fortunately for me, I have a guy named David Wright to pick up their slack until they can get it going. 

Perhaps my favorite part of building a team is putting together the pitching staff. We all have our aces and those balance out over the course of the season, but you really need your 3rd, 4th, and 5th starting pitchers to step up and create space between you and your opponents. Or, as TIPS founder Jeff Lowe puts it, it’s all about making the most of your pitchers drafted in the double digit rounds. In our Yahoo TIPS league we’re limited to 1,250 innings pitched, no mas. Barring injury to my otherwise reliable and healthy pitching staff, here’s how I plan on filling up those innings: 

Jake Peavy — 210 IP
Roy Halladay — 210 IP
Yovani Gallardo — 160 IP
Ervin Santana — 120 IP
Joe Saunders — 120 IP
Hiroki Kuroda — 100 IP
Spot Starters — 130 IP
Closers (4 of them) — 200 IP

Total= 1,250 IP 

My staff is built around two reliable guys in Peavy and Halladay, a promising future ace in Gallardo, and other pitchers with predictable match up outcomes, namely, Ervin Santana, Hiroki Kuroda and Joe Saunders. We all know that Santana has been horrible on the road when he leaves his blanket and glow worm back in Anaheim, but that he’s a top-20 pitcher at home. Kuroda on the other hand might endure a slighly different +/- split, and I’ve allocated his innings accordingly. I’m planning on having him log a lot of his innings for me during starts he makes during his first time around the league when teams still haven’t quite figured him out. And then I have 120 innings going to Saunders, who’ll spot start for me against teams that struggle against LHPs. 

You’re probably thinking it’s easy to write this now that I’m experiencing success — but to be honest, building teams is my passion and I’m damn good at it. Sure it’s only three weeks in, but I only play in three leagues and I’m in first place in all of ‘em — doing it with rosters that don’t overlap too much. Besides this 12-team Yahoo league, you must be thinking that I play in two others against some bums that show up to the first five rounds of the draft and then go on autopick, right? Wrong! One is a 15-team, in-person draft, 5x4 roto, CBSSports league in its 22nd year of existence. The other is a ten-team H2H ESPN league. The activity level is high in every league I play in and I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Of course, the fact that I had the arrogance to write this piece will probably come back to haunt me. It’ll probably motivate my fellow league owners to step up their game… and like a bad Sports Illustrated Cover Curse, I too will suffer the consequences and soon see my lead vanish like everything Barry Bonds related up at AT&T Park.

 

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.

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. 

2008 is the inaugural season of the FantasyMLBTIPS.com Fantasy Baseball league. The league consists of three of TIPS’ own writers (Mike Navarra, Ron Vackar and Jeff Lowe) and nine selected readers. The league has been active so far this year with each team averaging close to eleven transactions in the early going. Each of the writers want to finish at the top of the league to prove his standing as a TIPS expert, while the other owners are trying to take down the big boys. Well fellas — bring it on. We can take it and so far our 1st, 2nd, and 3rd rankings show that we’re dishing it out pretty well (knock on wood). I’ll be taking a regular look at the league with updates on trades, key picks ups, standings updates and hot topics on the message boards. Let’s check it out: 

To this point there haven’t been any trades, but that shouldn’t last much longer. There are a few teams angling for stats they did not get enough of coming out of the draft. I am not one to make rash decisions early in the season, but trading for deficiencies in categories makes sense at any point in the season. Teams are looking to deal from strength to improve weaknesses, which is what all fantasy owners should do. Pulling off a trade in this league may be tough, however, because generally owners want to fleece their trading partner and that won’t happen in a league of this caliber. First rule of trading in this league: Don’t try and rip off a writer — we will blog about it. 

If you don’t know about our league, it is run by Yahoo — quite possibly the worst site in the history of fantasy baseball when it comes to minor league callups. Johnny Cueto had a rotation spot coming out of spring, so why was he not available on the site??? I was trying to pick him up every day from the draft until he was added into the system. He was not added until the day before his first start and then was on waivers for three or four days. I cannot be the only guy who has a problem with this. The only reason I’m spending so much time on this is because he has to be the biggest free agent pickup in fantasy baseball to this point. TIPS founder, Jeff Lowe, from All Eyez won the Cueto derby and promptly put him on the trading block looking for saves. All Eyez also won the race for Peter Moylan when the news of Rafael Soriano hitting the DL was first reported. Luckily for him, he was able to get Manny Acosta as well — now that Moylan is off to see Dr. James Andrews.  Somehow Jorge Posada was dropped by Mr. Met after only a week of baseball. I know Posada has struggled to throw runners out with his shoulder injury, but he can still DH and makes for a fine option at the catcher position — too good to be dropped outright. Several key players were added early in the season including Nate McLouth, Jeff Keppinger and Carlos Gomez. Every Seattle reliever short of Kaz Sasaki and Norm Charleton were picked up following the J.J. Putz fiasco. The transaction pages are littered with catchers, including Kenji Johjima at the moment. 

This week a couple of trades were the hot topics on our message board. Both trades involved one of our owners, but in his other league. The first trade was Erik Bedard for Curtis Granderson and either Edinson Volquez or Javier Vazquez. The owner also had Aaron Harang and Chris Young on his staff so he could afford to lose Bedard. His outfield of Ken Griffey Jr., Eric Byrnes and Brad Hawpe was a little weak so getting Granderson in this trade makes sense. Throw in the fact that you’re getting a solid pitcher in return, ultimately Vazquez, and it’s too good to pass up. Vazquez will put up high strikeout numbers at the expense of some ERA and WHIP, but the return is more than enough for Bedard. I actually think that our TIPS owner took his league mate for a ride on this one. 

The other trade that the owner brought to the group for opinions was Ryan Zimmerman for Aaron Harang in a 10- team mixed head to head league. Head to head leagues traditionally place a little more emphasis on pitching than on hitting so that bumps up Harang’s value a little bit. It’s not a bad offer overall, but the owner who would be receiving Zimmerman already has Chipper Jones and Kevin Kouzmanoff. I, and the other league members who responded, thought that the upgrade from Kouzmanoff to Zimmerman was not great enough to warrant giving up Harang. 

Here are the standings as of the end of play Tuesday, April 15, 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 — [4/11] Jorge Posada; Vaporizers — Posada needs to be owned in all leagues, regardless of injury

Worst Drop — [4/8] Jorge Posada; Mr. Met — To pick up Yadier Molina???

Best/Worst Spot Start — [4/12] Boof Bonser, [4/13] Greg Maddux; UmustveMisremembered — Combined 2 W, 11 IP, 0 ER, 6 K, 0.73 WHIP

Best Move/Non-Move — Evan Longoria; Fear the nut — His decision to not drop Longoria after he was sent down (and not expected back until June) could turn out to be huge. 

Rosin Bag Grenadiers says:
Best Pick Up — [4/10] Rafael Betancourt; All Eyez — Terrific foresight by All Eyez; this was five days before Borowski was placed on the DL.

Worst Drop — [4/8] Jorge Posada; Mr. Met — This is where you really hope you were one of the guys in the league that waited until the end of the draft to get your catcher

Best/Worst Spot Start — [4/13] Greg Maddux; UmustveMisremembered — An oldie but a goody. Of course he'd throw well right after I age bashed him last week.

Best Move/Non-Move — [4/16] Xavier Nady;  Vaporizers — This free agent pick up made a ton of sense. Vaporizers' outfield is certainly not the team's strength, but picking up Nady will give him better righty/lefty matchups where he can now mix in the left handed sticks of Johnny Damon and Corey Patterson, and the right handed sticks of Matt Diaz and Nady. In our Yahoo league where only 162 games per position are allowed, getting the most out of the right matchups is of the highest importance. 

All Eyez says:
Best Pick Up — [4/12] Ryan Doumit; Mr. Met —  Doumit has always had the talent; just needed the playing time. He launched a bomb off of the “invincible” Johnny Cueto.

Worst Drop — [4/15] Rich Hill; UmustveMisremembered — 200 K-potential pitchers don’t grow on trees. He needs to find his groove, but it’s not like he’s Daniel Cabrera.

Best/Worst Spot Start — [4/12] Boof Bonser; UmustveMisremembered — W, 6 IP, 0 ER, 3 H, 2 BB, 4 K

Best Move/Non-Move — [4/11] benching Jeff Francis; Fence-Riders — An easy decision but good management nonetheless; With Francis going up against AZ for a second time at AZ and against Webb, it didn’t look good. L, 5 IP, 7 ER, 7 H, 3 HR, 3 BB, 2 K