AL Overvalued
First, let’s explain something once more. This is not an overrated list in terms of production, but rather a list of people come fantasy draft day that you should let other people select in terms of using their pick too early for the production a guy gives. Here is my AL list!
AL East
David Ortiz – Why are you going to use one of your first six picks on a person who can only be used in your Utility spot? Not to mention he is blowing up worse than his waste band.
Scott Kazmir – Hello sir, where’s your health? If you draft him, you are drafting him as if he is a consistent 200K pitcher, rather than a one-time fluke healthy guy.
BJ Upton – His ceiling? A top 5 pick (as a 20 homer/45 steal candidate). The floor? How about 10 homers/30 SB…if you draft him, it will be around pick 15…that seems like you are drafting him too much closer to his ceiling to make him a value. Not to mention I just don’t trust him this year in that extremely tough division.
Carlos Pena – I feel like a TB hater, but seriously, how can you love a guy who HR/RBI categories are solid, but everything else sucks? Why not draft Delgado? He scores more runs, does the same power and hits for a better average (all while being drafted two-three rounds later).
Kevin Youkilis – He had a career year last year with incredible increases in every category. Now he is going late 3rd round and really, if you draft him, you are drafting for his ceiling, not his floor…and that is the key to not gaining the good value!
AL West
Chone Figgins – 5th-6th Round pick who excels in two categories (Steals/Runs). Does that sound like a lovely thing? Yea, me neither.
Rangers SP – *shiver*.
Howie Kendrick – But he hits for AVG and is very fast! Yea, but he doesn’t stay healthy either…let someone else waste an 11th Rd pick on him while you grab a decent closer.
Justin Duchsherer – Love his WHIP, I do…but he had a history of injuries as a relief pitcher. He has a great home park, but someone inevitably will look at the 2.54 ERA/1.00 WHIP last year and overdraft/overspend for him.
Mariners SP not named Felix Hernandez – Yes, this means Erik Bedard. You want to trust him? Go ahead…I’ll go after guys I feel better about.
Ian Kinsler – 130 G is the max in his career guys…stay away. He puts up good numbers, but one of these years he will get hurt earlier, and it will cost him his season.
Al Central
Victor Martinez – He will rebound…don’t question that! But why would a guy who needs to rebound go in the 6th-7th round? Because it is the mystery of the over/underrated…if you pay any attention to Bill Simmons at ESPN, he nails it. People become so underrated that they get overrated…and in this case Victor is case in point. As a C, you can’t get better value later, so draft a C later!
Seriously, that is about the worst that I can do for the AL Central. I think I am a fan of the AL Central this year! 
Carlos Quentin is about the next worst thing and that is only because I am scared of another arm injury.
Adam Dunn/Bobby Abreu fallout
Here’s the fallout, fantasy-wise, for each of these signing. Let’s start with Bobby Abreu:
The Anaheim Los Angelas Orange County The Hills Angels of Santa Barbara have quite a few OF’s…will it affect any of your fantasy choices? Honestly, no! The only thing it does is push Reggie Willits & Gary Matthews Jr back…and if you are thinking about drafting those guys…you need to rethink your ability to do a fantasy draft . There will be no change to the Vlad Guerrero/Bobby Abreu draft position. The more interesting one now!
Adam Dunn going to the Nats is intriguing because I have no idea how it will affect playing time. Here is the issue, they have Lastings Milledge, Elijah Dukes, Josh Willingham, along with guys like Willie Harris who played there as well last year. They also have the immovable object in Nick Johnson at first base. So, if they are going to put Dunn at 1B (that would be my suggestion) then they need to eat some NJ salary and go ahead and give him to Oakland. Nick can’t stay healthy, he has proven it consistently throughout his career, so give the OF slots to Willing/Mill/Dukes with 2B going to Willie Harris. They really do need to give consistent playing time to Dukes & Milledge…if they do not, they are asking for trouble and will stunt the growth of the team. This team is better than you think (lineup wise). They have three young studs in Zim/Mill/Dukes along with a nice complementary pieces in Willingham, Guzman, & Harris. We’ll see if they do the right thing, although I must admit that I don’t trust anything Jim Bowden does…maybe I’m the dumb one but all he does is regurgitate former Reds (like Dusty Baker in Cincy with Cubs).
Do you disagree? Let me know…I would appreciate knowing who is actually on here!
3B Rankings
Here ya go, 3B Rankings! I would have had this up yesterday except for the fact that I live in Virginia and we had 65+ MPH winds yesterday and we lost power and my beautiful wireless Internet! So here ya go…have fun!
And if you can’t get that to work, here is the Works version:
Economy Stinks But I Still Laugh Version 1.0
Oddly enough, I am a guy who does not like dogs. I don’t know exactly why, maybe in part because most of them are looking for attention. Especially the dogs that won’t stop barking. On the other end of the spectrum, I love cats. They make me laugh, just the other day my family’s cat was on the kitchen counter (a big no no in my house, that is nasty and it is the place where food is prepared!) so I was getting ready to get up to scoot the cat off of it. Next thing I know the cat, who had been there for awhile apparently and sleeping hard, fell off the counter grasping the tool we use to dry dishes next to the sink. It landed on her, she was hissing and freaking out, and I was there…laughing my butt off. Anyway, why don’t you laugh too, here are some cats doing cat things: Kitty mayhem!
2B Rankings
Moving right along, here are the Rankings and projections for the second base. I guess I should explain something with them. The excel sheets are color coded for each category, Red = Excellent, Orange = Solid/Above Average, Yellow = Right around quantity needed per position, Teal= Slightly below average, Dark Blue = Very Poor in category.
Do you agree/disagree with what I have in the rankings? Let me know!
Works Version:
1B Rankings
I am sure some of these will be controversial. But wait til you see my SS rankings. Fantasy people are going to come for my head! Anyway, here are the first basemen!
For those who cannot access this particular format of Excel, here is the Microsoft Works version:
Catcher Rankings
Finally, I can get into the meat & potatoes (Yes Mr VP from my home state of Indiana – James Danforth “Dan” Quayle, I can spell!) of the fantasy world. First up, the Catchers. I have them all done, but I feel like if I threw them all together it wouldn’t be as fun I’ll give you another one tonight…then you will get one or two a day from here on out! Maybe more. Oh, and seriously, if you want to laugh, go to youtube and check out the highlights of Dan Quayle! Okay, you love me enough that I will do this…
here,
here – It is up to you to find the actual footage of him and elementary school kid.
Here are the rankings, I can’t believe I am blabbing about Dan Quayle…
Catcher Rankings.xlsx
If you do not have Excel 2007 or cannot open that file, I am going to put in a spreadsheet for Microsoft Works as well. I hope this helps with ay problems you may be having Miss Julia:
The A-Rod Pandemonium
Apparently, I am the only one who is not stunned by this. Once again, the best that we have to watch admits to using some sort of illegal substance. Do I agree that Mr. Selig should have done something a long time ago? Most certainly. Do I believe that baseball has done what it needs to do to redeem itself? Not quite, but it has done most of what it needs to do. I like the setup they have now with 50 game suspensions building to a year and a lifetime ban. For a guy like JC Romero getting 50 games makes sense because if it really was over-the-counter he will no longer be so ignorant. To all my comrades on mlblogs, I respectfully disagree with your outrage (unless it is directed towards an $18 Million salary, I cannot argue for that!). In essence, my argument would exist in that we should be disappointed in the fact that we cannot trust a stat from the previous 15 years (Or more). Why all this outrage when we have plenty of sources arguing about the quantity, and quality, of players that have been doing this…Personally, I have felt like I was over the steroid controversy for about a year+ now. The Mitchell Report sufficed me, as well as reading some of Conseco’s books (I believe him, not A-Rod, for the record).
I appreciate A-Rod looking candid on the television, but I do not believe him. I believe a good 15-20% of ballplayers were using until MLB decided to go with a suspension process. Which leads me back to my original point, in that baseball has done what it needs to do. The fact that A-Rod has been “outed” creates an illusion that it is happening right now because we did not know it for 100% until this week. I think we ought to look at this from a timeline perspective and I personally feel that it is enough for me to say that the MLB has done its part in getting this situation resolved.
Do you disagree? I can understand that you would not take the same stance as myself. But I do hope that you don’t allow the time with which you receive information make you unable to see what the MLB has done to get some of this situation in better terms.
I am a cynic at heart, and maybe that is why my pie in the sky is not so heartbroken. I can admit that if Greg Maddux were implicated it would hit me hard (or my favorite player of all time Ryne Sandberg – that would be tough as well). Either way, I appreciate everyone attempting to be constructive in their disappointment, but I respectfully disagree. Am I lacking something in my argument? Let me know…have a great day everyone…I know my blog is all about stats/fantasy/predicting future results, but I did want to at least make one post regarding this hotbed issue. By the way, if you did not know about Tejada before today, type in The Mitchell Report in google and take a read of the document, plenty of players in the game today are listed as buyers. Thanks again, and sorry for my writing of a book!
Pitcher Projections
I redid the SP Projections to show the ER totals and actually shows the WHIP projections for them. Also, as an added bonus, here are my RP projections as well! Two for the price of one today at the Crystal Ball mall! So, here it is, I hope it helps out! In the coming days, you will be able to come here for positional rankings, I am debating on how exactly to distribute them, I believe I may simply give you the rankings per position and no official 1-100 ranking, but I kind of want to do that too!
The Art of Combining Stats
This is not what many websites have done about players who are going to probably be injured. For example, many site (and I mean a lot of fantasy sites) are getting enamored with the idea of drafting a Rich Harden who you believe will get hurt at some point, and combining him with the “average” stats you will get from the free agent wire. I understand the reasoning behind this (and I like the idea for pitchers that are studs like Harden), but that is not what this post is discussing! Here is what I am talking about:
You know, yes, you know that Adam Dunn is an absolute monster when it comes to the power categories. Here is my projection for him for 2009: 39 HR, 101 RBI, 87 Runs, 5 SB, and a .244 BA in 544 ABs. We are assuming a 12 team league and 13 Hitters (standard in fantasy baseball – C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OFx5, CI, MI, U). Dunn is by and large a 6th round pick. Let’s say your first 5 picks net you a bunch of guys who are good in areas such as SB/AVG, but you realize that you are behind considerably on your goals for HR/RBI. Well, Dunn may be the guy for you! If you draft him, there is a way to come back later and make up for his extra low BA & lack of SB. For example, that MI you have…you can use it to supplement Dunn and create a player that will meet your goals for 20.5 HR per position while gaining some extra mileage towards other category-goals. Let’s combine him with Edgar Renteria (whom you can get extremely late in drafts): My projections have Edgar at 13 HR, 73 RBI, 81 Runs, 11 SB, & a .290 BA in 541 ABs. In basically the same ABs, these two players will equate to an average of 26 HR, 87 RBI, 84 Runs, 8 SB, & a .267 BA. Still a terrible BA, but it helps supplement some of it from a position that normally gets you very minimal production anyway! Sometimes it is a good idea to take a position that is not so good for you to get you the BA that you need. Ryan Theriot is another good person at this position as he will grab a ton of bases and hits for a better average than Renteria. He would boost the avg between the two guys into the 270+ range. This is just a theory of mine that has helped me win some NL-only based leagues – and this is more effective in those leagues. If you are in a NL or AL-only league, a lot of guys who are forces in a couple categories will certainly help you. Adam Dunn/Ryan Theriot were the two that put me over the top in one of those leagues last year and I can’t argue with that!
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