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Fantasy baseball advice for those who ask.

The missing question

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It looks like I failed to sign one of the questions in today’s Ask Rotoman column, and my editor ditched it because the column was running long and without a witty sig what use was it?

But you shouldn’t suffer because I missed a stroke. So here it is:

TRADE

Rotoman:

Making a trade. If I have my choice of Cole Hamels or Erik Bedard (K and K/BB) make 6 categories; who do I go for?

“Starting Switch”

Dear Switch:

How many times am I going to pick someone over Hamels this year? This time, at least, I’m going with a guy who is already a Cy Young candidate after being named the AL’s Pitcher of the Month in July. That is Bedard, of course, who is older and more experienced and has bettered the impressive Hamels in every category this year. But not by that much.

Bashfully,
Rotoman

Ask Rotoman: Fantasy 411

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The Official Site of Major League Baseball

A reader asks for the best of a long list of free agents, considering he can only take one for the rest of the season. Another wants me to tell him who to offer to get Ichiro, since he needs batting average. A third, a bastard, asks me about my miserable Tout Wars NL team.

Reading my answer to the third question, now, later, I wonder if I gave enough explanation. Certainly a big part of why my team sucks is because Chris Carpenter, the linch pin of my pitching strategy, crashed on Opening Day. But my bigger point was that I bet on Clay Hensley, Jason Jennings and Zach Duke, hoping that one would be good and one would be okay, and all three failed.

That, more than Carpenter’s injury, crashed my season. And it is probably a good idea in next week’s Ask Rotoman to look at what $4-$9 starters paid dividends. Unless you think we should look at something else.

Ask away at askrotoman@gmail.com. Thanks.

Will Carroll talks to Mark Silva

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 bpr_070807_1.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)

Mark Silva makes Barry Bonds’ elbow brace, which I guess a writer earlier today claimed gave Bonds a huge advantage when it comes to standing close to the plate (which makes some sense to me) and other physical advantages that Silva emphatically refutes.

That’s interesting, but the reason to listen to this mp3 is because Silva perhaps best knows about the size and definition of the muscles in Bonds’ arm, since he measures them every year. If steroids and other performance enhancing drugs are meant to build muscle mass, where’s the beef?

Excellent work, Will.

Selig issues statement after Barry Bonds ties all-time home run record

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SI.com

I’m trying to think how I would have worded my statement, if I were the commissioner. I can’t imagine a situation in which I, the exalted commish with excellent knowledge, would have released Bud’s weak-assed document.

I think something along the lines of: “Barry Bonds has hit as many major league home runs as any player ever has. I will be traveling with the Giants to make sure tha t I see the record breaking homer when he achieves what no other hitter has done.”

That’s it. Sometime soon Barry Bonds is going to break the record. Those of us who follow and track baseball stats know that Bonds’ total homers don’t equal the achievement of Babe Ruth. Not when the stats are equalized. But that’s background for argument and bar rooms and sabermetrics. If the question is who hit the most homers in mlb history, why would the commissioner shrink from declaring Bonds the one?

Fantasy 411: Trade Fallout

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The Official Site of Major League Baseball

I only bring this up because despite the awesome resources MLB and ESPN and CBS and YAHOO and other bring to the mix, and the changes it has made to the way we play fantasy baseball, I’ve seen scant attention to two players who have been added by subtraction, as it were.

Alexi Casillia is the new Twins second baseman. If his bat can keep him in the lineup his legs will help fantasy owners.

The early line on the Teixeira trade was that Brad Wilkerson would benefit, but in fact he’ll just keep limping on. Jason Botts is the guy who was promoted after an impressive Triple-A run and will get as many or more at bats than Wilkerson.

Both Casillia and Botts have had problems actually hitting the ball, which could be a major league problem, but they do take walks.  And they’re not known quantities, which make each a golden ticket at this late date.

(That I happen to have both on reserve in my AL only 4×4 ADL league is merely coincidence. Well, and maybe keen scouting.)

Bacsik in Play

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Baseball Musings

I took note of this little chart in part because Mike Bacsik was noted the other day as a guy who had held Barry Bonds to 1-15 in his career (the 1 was a dinger). Looking at the chart I got to thinking about the difference between the two extremes of balls put into play. 27 percent seems like a lot, but when hitters can be expected to hit about .300 on balls in play, it amounts to nine extra hits per 100 batters faced (or roughly about two and a half per game).

That could be a lot. The difference between a 1.2 WHIP and a 1.4 WHIP reflects those 2.5 hits. The issue here, as we so often see, is really baserunners allowed. If you don’t walk many the extra hits you allow pitching to contact aren’t a problem, just as the hits you don’t allow by not pitching to contact don’t help much if you give up a lot of walks.

The other issue is the type of ball put in play. Some pitchers do better than others controlling line drives (which almost always result in a hit). As we accumulate data about all these things we may well get a better idea of what works best, but I suspect that pitchers like Mike Bacsik, who simply get things done, will still find work.

Nothing succeeds like success. (In Bacsik’s case, recently.)

Matt Berry Rocks!

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Trade No. 3: Carl Crawford for Juan PierreOne gets tons of love and one gets no respect, but over the second half of the year, Juan Pierre is going to be the better fantasy player. I’m sorry. Continue to be the better fantasy player. You saw me mention Pierre briefly in last week’s newsletter but let’s put those numbers into even more of a perspective.

From June 1 through July 22:

Juan Pierre: 27 R, 24 SB, 0 HR, 12 RBI, .335 average
Carl Crawford: 32 R, 19 SB, 1 HR, 23 RBI, .278 average

The power is better for Crawford, but it’s not significant in the grand scheme of things and that’s not why you have either guy. Otherwise, they are basically the same, with Pierre hitting over 50 points higher. You could get Pierre plus something else for your Carl Crawford and not suffer any drop-off at all. Again, we play with numbers, not names.

The  words above are Matt Berry’s. Matt is a friend of mine. He was an annual contributor to the Guide until some scum sucking international conglomerate with the face of Mickey Mouse bought him off. Good for him. Weezil.

Or is that weasel?

The point here is that in his weekly newsletter to ESPN fantasy players he actually suggests taking Juan Pierre over Carl Crawford for the last two months of the season. And he does this without mentioning that Crawford is hurt.

But nobody knows how hurt Crawford is. He won the Devil Rays game today with a homer. His MRI was good enough. If Crawford misses significant time in the last two months because of injury then Pierre is certainly the better choice. And that could happen.

But when we’re considering names versus stats, Crawford is a star, Pierre is a role player. Unless you know something, the right answer is go with the star.

PS. Matt’s other example, going for Brandon Phillips over Derek Jeter, is similar. But closer. Phillips is a potential star aborning, so casting aside Jeter isn’t ridiculous, though it may not work out. For now, Phillips is the hot hand, Jeter the very steady one.

Depending on your situation, you can decide.

The Official Site of The Philadelphia Phillies: Official Info: Press Release

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The Iguchi Trade

The transaction deadline in Tout Wars is 5pm on Friday. The idea is to give players looking at Monday deadlines an idea of what the pros have done. And to give Nando DiFino material for his engaging ESPN.com column, Playing with the Pros.

How to determine when transactions have been made is an eternal struggle for fantasy leagues. In this case, the Phillies’ press release (linked here) is timed at 4:51 pm on Friday, nine minutes before the transaction deadline. Not one of the pros bid on Iguchi except for Major League Baseball Advanced Media employee Cory Schwartz. So, given our Vickery bidding system, his $22 bid on Iguchi becomes an uncontested $1 bid. Kudos to Cory.

If the Phillies’ press release was actually posted at 4:51, I doubt that the actual transaction was reported on the mlb.com or espn.com transaction lists, which we have used as the standard in the American Dream League. As Swatman of that league I check what’s on those two sites at noon each claims Monday and only players listed are eligible to be claimed.

But now I wonder if timestamped press releases on team’s individual sites should count? As long as the timestamp and the actual claim beat the deadline, I don’t see why not.

Fantasy sports info and games for fantasy football, fantasy baseball, fantasy basketball, fantasy hockey pools and more

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RotoWire.com

The shocking thing about the Rotowire redesign is that good looking can be so disorienting.

The site now looks somewhat organized, which is a plus, though in my 10 minutes visiting the new site I can’t say I’m happy with it. None of us, I think, change easily. I’m sure this will pass.

The other shocking thing is that forefront in the new design are Rotowire’s articles and newswire news. Secondary are the individual player updates that are the main reason I visit the site.

This so flies in the face of my experience, I want news updates long before I want news analysis, I fear this is a terrible mistake. But both RotoTimes and RotoWorld have made similar adjustments, so I may be in the minority. No matter what I think, in the new Rotowire design authorial voice and analysis wins.

Curious.