Closer Circle of Trust: May 2013

		Trusted	Solid	Danger
		Heath Bell	Greg Holland	Kevin Gregg	Jose Valverde
	Edward Mujica	Andrew Bailey	Addison Reed	Huston Street	Grant Balfour	Casey Janssen
	Ernesto Frieri	Sergio Romo	Craig Kimbrel	Aroldis Chapman	Joe Nathan	Tom Wilhelmsen
	Jim Henderson	Jim Johnson	Mariano Rivera	Jonathan Papelbon	Jason Grilli
	Jose Veras	Fernando Rodney	Chris Perez	Rafael Betancourt	Rafael Soriano	Bobby Parnell
		Steve Cishek	Brandon League	Glen Perkins

Notes: Trusted pitchers are “set it and forget it” guys. Solid pitchers have a reasonable chance at recording 30 saves. Danger pitchers have a reasonable chance at having the door closed behind them, very soon.

Rotoballs Podcast: April/May ’13

https://rotoballs.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/rotoballs-podcast-1-0.m4a

Special thanks to Open Hand for providing the music for this episode.

[Click play on the left or the link on the right]

Brian Dorsey: Host

Ryan Short: Contributing Writer

 

Fantasy Potpourri: Let’s All Pass Some Judgement

[The following are mostly fantasy baseball notes with a sprinkling of pop-cultural snippets]

• As if Giancarlo “Michael” Stanton wasn’t already having the season that dreams nightmares are made of (3 HR, .227 BA), Ed Guana of CBSSports.com has reported that Stanton left Monday’s tilt with a hamstring injury. Hey, if he’s not getting at-bats, he can’t strikeout, right?
• Super prospect Nolan Arenado made his major league debut on Sunday, going 0-3 with a BB. While he’s a must add in NL-only leagues, mixed leaguers should let him swim with the likes of Mike Moustakas and Pedro Alvarez in the free agent pool until he shows us something. A lot of oh-fers are in his future.
• ESPN’s Chris Broussard came out of the closet Monday as a Bible thumping douche bag. The sports reporter/analyst/talking-head, when referring to Jason Collins announcement that he’s gay, stated that homosexuality is “an open rebellion to God.” So is getting a tattoo, wearing polyester, and, oh yeah, getting divorced. Maybe Broussard should come down on NBA players who augment their bodies, wear jerseys, and have hoes in different area codes.

Closer Circle of Trust: April 2013

		Trusted	Solid	Danger
		Joel Hanrahan	Greg Holland	Shawn Camp	Joaquin Benoit
	Mitchell Boggs	J.J. Putz	Addison Reed	Huston Street	Grant Balfour	Casey Janssen
	Ernesto Frieri	Sergio Romo	Craig Kimbrel	Aroldis Chapman	Joe Nathan	Tom Wilhelmsen
	Brandon League	Jim Johnson	Mariano Rivera	Jonathan Papelbon	Rafael Soriano
	Jose Veras	Fernando Rodney	Chris Perez	Rafael Betancourt	Jason Grilli	Bobby Parnell
		Steve Cishek	Jim Henderson	Glen Perkins

Notes: The closer carousel begins. Hopefully you bought into the closers who are in blue or green in your draft. The outside looking in isn’t where you want to hang out. But let’s take a look at each color. Trusted pitchers are “set it and forget it” guys. Solid pitchers have a reasonable chance at recording 30 saves. Danger pitchers have a reasonable chance at having the door closed behind them, very soon.

In Memoriam Chris Shelton

Here lies Chris Shelton’s fantasy career. Cousin of Alex Smith. Fan of home runs. R.I.P.

From the time the words “Play Ball!” are first belted out on Opening Day, until the first week comes to a close, there are always hundreds of storylines that nobody could have predicted. Wacky stories will often be accompanied with “You can’t make this s**t up.” It’s why some of the best movies, especially lately, are based on “true” stories. This world is filled with incredible, sometimes unbelievable, happenings.

One such story came about in the first month of the 2006 season. Detroit Tiger’s first baseman, Chris “Red Pop” Shelton, selected in the 2004 Rule 5 draft from the Pittsburg Pirates, devoured American League pitching for the first 13 games of the season. Shelton had nine home runs before playing in his 14^th game, the fastest American League player to do so. Needless to say, Shelton was a sought after commodity in fantasy leagues. Managers salivated over the power potential he possessed. The second coming of Mark McGuire was in our midst.

Sadly, after that 13^th game, Shelton’s monstrous power retreated as fast as it had materialized. He only had one more home run that month, and only six more before being demoted at the end of July. Since that demotion, “Red Pop” only played in 63 more games before leaving the game for good. His magical fairy tale was over, and he turned back into an orange pumpkin.

Even though fantasy managers shouldn’t be surprised by fluke success stories like Shelton, it is still very tempting to think that this guy might be the real deal. For every Shelton, there is a Jose Bautista. Let’s take a look at some hitters who have jumped the gun and are treating this marathon like a sprint, and we’ll try and determine who is going to make it to the finish line and who is going to flame out.

Pre-Season Award Show 2013!

These awards have no correlation with fantasy.

Going back to look at last year, all of us were homers and picked Yonder Alonso to win the NL Rookie of the Year. How wrong we were. We were equally wrong when Matt Moore and Yoenis Cespedes were picked to win the AL ROY. We never said these predictions were any good. Predictions are like…well…let’s just say everyone has one and they stink. In fact, the only correct prediction made last year by our team was calling Miguel Cabrera the AL Most Valuable Player by Jared Cothren. Bravo, Jared. Bravo.

Here is this year’s list. Just don’t bet your life on it.

	RotoBrian	Jared	Butler	Shorty	SD Wooden	Thaller
NL ROY	Jedd Gyorko	Shelby Miller	Oscar Taveras	Julio Teheran	Jedd Gyorko	Shelby Miller
AL ROY	Wil Myers	Wil Myers	Wil Myers	Wil Myers	Wil Myers	Wil Myers
NL CY	Cole Hamels	Stephen Strasburg	Clayton Kershaw	Clayton Kersahw	Cole Hamels	Stephen Strasburg
AL CY	Justin Verlander	Felix Hernandez	Justin Verlander	Felix Hernandez	Felix Hernandez	Justin Verlander
NL MVP	Ryan Braun	Andrew McCutchen	Joey Votto	Joey Votto	Justin Upton	Matt Kemp
AL MVP	Miguel Cabrera	Miguel Cabrera	Mike Trout	Evan Longoria	Miguel Cabrera	Prince Fielder

Rotoballs Offseason Podcast: Episode 5

Special thanks to Sparta for providing the music for this episode.

Brian Dorsey: Creator/Editor

Jared Cothren: Contributing writer

Sleepers and Busts for 2013

“Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell.”

-Frank Borman

Borman did his research. So should you.

The word “worth” means to be good or important enough to justify. Is this worth my time? Or He isn’t worth his weight in gold. Or It’s worth looking into. Retired NASA astronaut Frank Borman can teach us all a little something about worth. In 1968, he, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders orbited the moon in Apollo 8, the first of 24 humans ever to do so. That was a worthwhile experience. A year earlier, Borman was selected as the only astronaut to sit on the AS-204 Accident Review Board during the investigation of the Apollo 1 cabin fire that killed three astronauts. If you were to ask him today about that preventable fire, surely he would say that mission was not worth the lives of those three men.

Fantasy sports, like exploration, and like capitalism, are about taking risks. Those who make the best calculations, however, risk less. In exploration, the difference between a calculated risk and an uncalculated risk is life and death. And needless to say, if you die during exploration, it wasn’t worth your time. In capitalism, it’s the difference between success and bankruptcy. In fantasy sports, it’s between winning and losing.

But if you focus your lens even more, it’s the difference between overpaying for a player and getting a player at a discount. Is it worth drafting a catcher in the second round? Or I think this player will be worth more by season’s end. And when we’re talking about value of individual players unequivocally we’re talking about sleepers and busts.

A sleeper, according to this writer, is a player outside the top 150 (Average Draft Position) whose actual value is greater than the price you pay. A bust is any player whose ADP is greater than his actual value. To give an example of both: drafting Buster Posey, a catcher, in the second round would be an example of a bust and drafting Lonnie Chisenhall, a starting third baseman in the final round would be an example of a sleeper.

Long after his astronaut career was over, Borman said this: “Had that rocket not fired, I’d still be orbiting the moon. Forever. And I really didn’t want to do that.”

Neither do you.

Brian’s Top 30 Closer Rankings and Projections for ’13

Craig Kimbrel is head of the class.

Relief pitchers are often thought of as the “kickers” of baseball, and there is a reason for this theory. For one, there are 30 closers in the league (maybe even more if you count “by committee” bullpens). If you’re in a 10 team league, there will be a throng of closers to be had, even into the late rounds (not every closer will be owned by the end of the draft). Closers also only (really) fulfill one stat category (Saves), which means if you draft a closer with one of your top 10 picks, you’re going to be losing out on a lot of other categories.

That being said, I like to own one of the more renown closers as to avoid the headache of “chasing saves.” I won’t ever go out and draft the best closer, or the second best for that matter, but I like to have a guy on my team who is going to get me at least 30 saves and won’t be in jeopardy of losing his job.

There’s a reason I leave these rankings until last: without fail, every year, one or two closers lose their starting gigs in spring training due to injury or ineptitude. Already Chris Perez and Grant Balfour have injuries. Guys like Jonathan Broxton, Brandon League, and Ernesto Frieri don’t have solid ground beneath them and could begin the season as eighth inning hurlers. The reason most leagues hold their drafts at the end of March is to avoid wasting picks on dead end closers.

Rotoballs Top 100 Players for ’13

So after a grueling process of ranking and re-ranking, we bring you the Top 100 players for 2013 from Rotobrian, SDWooden, Backdoor Jared, Madbank Thaller, Shorty, and Smuggling Plums Butler. These rankings were made with a 5×5 rotisserie league in mind. On the right side of the table are the Composite Ranks. Use the comments section to air your praise or grievances.  -rotobrian