Rotoman

The American Dreams League had its auction yesterday. I thought some might be interested in it. Get the Excel spreadsheet by clicking here.

On March 19th in my mlb.com column I wrote that Bud Smith was a good pickup, but he might start the season in the minor leagues. It just so happened that Jonathan Mayo wrote something similar in his column the day before. I think we both read the same St. Louis Post Dispatch article about Tony La Russa’s plans.

I then got into a little flame war with a guy who said only an idiot would think that Andy Benes would end up in the rotation and Bud Smith would go to the minors.

This story reports that Bud Smith will be starting the year in the minors. STLtoday – sports

I forwarded the article to the guy, who wrote back:

i give you credit, you’re able to take info someone else gathered and put
it on your crappy website. nice job.

it just proves that larussa is as big a moron as you are.

I guess I can’t win.

After playing in auction leagues for years, I’m going to play in my first straight draft league next week: 10-12 teams, drafting order drawn from a hat.

Do you have any advice you can share on draft-day strategy for a straight draft league, or do you know where else I might get advice?

This is a link to the results for a draft league that Todd Zola at mastersball.com set up. CREATiVESPORTS – 13 Experts, 1 Scrub, and a Pizza Place I joined because I’ve never played in a straight draft league and I had some ideas I wanted to try out.

The deal with draft leagues, especially leagues that don’t draft deeply (this one is a mixed 14 team league, on purpose, because there are no demo leagues for this very popular profile), is that you have to be aware of position scarcity. While you want to get the best player with each pick, you have to be aware that if you end up with the worst catchers and shortstops at the end of the auction you’re getting much less talent (even if you’ve got the best outfielders) than if you had decent middle infielders and poor outfielders.

At the same time, you can’t just fill up the infield positions and leave the outfield for last, because players like Sammy Sosa, Vlad Guerrero, Bobby Abreu and Barry Bonds put up much bigger production numbers than anyone else. That, I think, is the advantage of picking early: You can get A-Rod or Piazza, Pedro or Big Unit. Picking 14th I didn’t have a shot at any of these guys.

How to balance this? I’ve tried to weigh the price of each possible pair of players for the next two rounds, being aware that I have to fill my skill positions earlier rather than later. The result has be a little bit of skill and, I hope, a lot of production. Also, I’m chucking saves, because I want to end up with an advantage on offense.

What I don’t have a feel for, at all, is how this is going to play out when there are no more good players left. I suppose I could end up embarrassed, but I think the experience is necessary to get a feel for this game.

You can follow along if you like. Just don’t laugh too hard, please. I’m learning.

BTW, part of my theory about position scarcity is that it doesn’t matter as much as most think. My idea is that if the spead between the best outfielder you can take now and the best infielder you can take on the next round, is greater than the best infielder you can take and the best outfielder on the next round, go for the infielder. But I took Javy Lopez in the sixth round not on this principle but because he was the last real offensive player left at catcher. The only catchers with any potential left after him are Charles Johnson, Mike Lieberthal and Michael Barrett. Okay, and maybe Todd Hundley.

Lopez was, however, about the 50th best player available. I’ll know better next round whether I ddi the right thing.

Alfonseca is a Cub

A lot of people were sure the Cubs were going to do the right thing, and make Kyle Farnsworth their closer. Today they did the other thing and traded for a proven closer, Antonio Alfonseca, a man perhaps most famous for having six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot.

Alfonseca is not the dominating sort and he is nursing a bad back, but he does bring to the Cubs another arm to help them get from their starters to the end of the game. No doubt Alfonseca’s role will be similar to the one he’s had on the Marlins and his value doesn’t change much.

Braden Looper’s value does change. He is the team’s likely closer from here on. After a few years trying to find himself, he seems to have done just that. If you can acquire him at auction for a discount, because he’s untested, you might do alright. Or you might get burned.

Will anyone emerge as closer for the Brewers bullpen?

Chad Fox was supposed to close for the Brewers this year, but his sprained elbow is now expected to keep him out until mid-season.

Last years closer, Curtis Leskanic , is due back in May following his rehab from shoulder surgery.

Until then expect Mike DeJean and Jose Cabrera to get the Brewers’ saves.

If they (or DeJean alone) do a good job, Leskanic may well work as a setup man all year, continuing his rehab. If they struggle, Leskanic may be forced back into the thick of it sooner.

Fox has a now long history of arm troubles. He may be back at mid-season, but I wouldn’t count on it.

RotoTouts.com on Figuring Inflation

My apologies. In the mad dash to get the site up I tried to take a short cut when writing this How to Figure Draft Inflation story for RotoTouts.com. The explanation I originally posted was wrong.

Not by a lot. Just by a percent or two. It probably wouldn’t make a lot of difference, in most cases. But it was wrong. And not only was it wrong, it was also harder to calculate (and for that matter explain) than it needed to be.

You’ll find the updated, corrected article above. Again, my apologies.

RotoHQ.com: Rotisserie baseball strategies, tools and analysis.

A few people have written asking about Ron Shandler’s LIMA Plan. I’d forgotten about this story, from 1998, which started it all.

If there is a single most-important Roto essay written since Okrent’s original story introducing Rotisserie Baseball in Inside Sports, I suspect this is it. But I will gladly take other suggestions (and links, if you’ve got ’em).

ESPN.com: MLB – Camps roundup: Tampa Bay cuts O’Leary

It’s buried way down the column: Not unexpectedly, Jimy Williams gave defensive whiz Adam Everett the shortstop job today over Julio Lugo. I say “not unexpectedly” because, as I wrote last week:

“Julio Lugo is the starter, at least for now. Jimy Williams will grow to hate his dee. Bid: $7. Adam Everett could be installed because of his glove, but he hits less than Rey Ordonez. Bid: No.”

Everett might collect some steals, so he can’t be ignored totally. But his average should be low. And the more AB he collects the worse it will hurt.

CREATiVESPORTS – Scheduled Chats

I kind of spaced this out, but Rotoman himself will be chatting at Creative Sports on Monday night from 10-11pm EST. Please stop by. I have no idea what the format is, but I would imagine we’ll be chatting about either fantasy sports or the San Francisco Scene circa 1967.

We’ll see.

Major League Baseball News

This may not matter much. Pujols could end up with 20 games at third, anyway, and Polanco will probably play just as much as he would have if Pujols was playing third. But I would suggest that when you hear these things about a player’s defensive abilities, look at what the team does.

Pujols was reportedly not a great third baseman. La Russa can talk about his gold glove future, but does it make sense that the team would allow a superior third baseman to switch with an inferior left fielder?

This spring we’ve also seen the unraveling of Ben Petrick, who last year was supposedly a superior defensive catcher. Next up: Is Alfonso Soriano really a help defensively at 2B? And is Rafael Furcal doing the job at SS?