Answers to fantasy baseball questions (and much more) since 1996
Eno Sarris took a twittersation I had with Chris Liss, Steve Gardner, Jeff Erickson and Mike Gianella, following my appearance on the radio with Chris and Jeff earlier day, and turned it into more talk about these valuation issues.
You can read my fully expressed take at rotomansguide.com. And I’ll be writing more about some ancillary issues in the coming days at that site.
Dear Rotoman:
12 team dynasty, standard 5×5 roto. I’m trying to upgrade OF and HR. Current OF Ryan Braun, Austin Jackson, Adam Eaton, Brett Gardener, Avisail Garcia, Nic Markakis. Can also use Gattis (have 2 other catchers-Santana &Ramos) and Craig in OF. Can keep 5 OF plus prospects with less than 131 AB. In that category I have Springer, Polanco & Castellanos. I am thinking I should trade runs/SB for some HR. Would you trade A. Jackson for  Khris Davis to accomplish this. If not him any of my of OF? Thanks.
“Khris with a K”
Oh K:
I can’t tell whether it’s a good idea to trade speed for power, there are just too many variables at play (who is available as a free agent, how the other teams in your league are set up, who your other position players are). But we can look at Khris Davis versus Austin Jackson, who might be expendable because you have decent speed in Brett Gardner and Adam Eaton.
The biggest problem is that Jackson hasn’t been a speed guy since 2011. So what you’re offering is a guy with modest power and decent on-base skills for an oldish fella (he’s 10 months younger than Jackson) coming off a rookie season in which he showed prodigious power—but a tendency to strike out. The mechanical projection in this year’s Guide is for him to continue to hit for power and even maintain the strong BA, which could happen but is really a mistake. We haven’t seen what happens to him when teams face him a second time and adjust.
My scouting sense says there’s a good chance he’ll still hit homers, but he’ll also strike out more and his batting average will plummet. And since he’s not much of a defensive player, that will lead to a platoon or reserve role. I wouldn’t mind having a cheap Davis, a lottery ticket (maybe he will adjust, too), but especially in a mixed league it’s hard to see him having any auction value.
So no, while adding power is always a good goal, and Austin Jackson isn’t rounding out into the player we thought he’d be, I wouldn’t deal any of your guys for Davis.
Strikeoutingly,
Rotoman
Trace Woods has posted a delightful piece today in light of the absurdity that 16 Hall of Fame voters left Greg Maddux’s name off this year’s ballot. His quest? To get Randy Johnson elected next January unanimously, and he does a good job of making the case that Randy Johnson might be the best left-handed pitcher in the game’s history. How could anyone not vote for him?
If you’re a HoF voter, you have to read the piece and do the right thing. Please.
If you’re a baseball fan, please spread the word. Sixteen voters should be embarrassed this year. Let’s help save them from themselves next year.
Yes, we sometimes make misteaks. Here is the place to find the corrections (and look below for some links):
FOOTBALL 2014
pg. 3, Rob Blackstien should have been listed as a writer, his first working on football after years of baseball writing.
pg. 38-46, in the stats chart. Every time it says PASSING it should say RUSHING.
pg. 39. LeSean McCoy is a big player. That’s why he’s on the cover. He’s not 6’11. That’s a typo.
Team Pages: The profiles written by Marc Meltzer are id’d with the inexplicable initials MB.
There are also a number of profiles that are unattributed. These are mostly the work of Nick Minnix.
BASEBALL 2014
pg. 3, Copy Editor: There was (and still is) a placeholder for “the other guy,” who ended up not contributing as a copy editor and wasn’t available to notice that the placeholder should have been deleted.
pg. 6, Masahiro Tanaka profile, third line from the end, the word “store” should have been “starter.”
pg. 10, 5ive More came up a little short and should have had its name changed to 6ix More when Kolten Wong was added.
#23, Alex Hanson should be Alen Hanson. Dum.
pg. 30, the picture caption for Clayton Kershaw says: San Franscisco Giant, which is an obvious carryover from last year’s layout. The projection in the caption is also 15-7, 2.84 ERA, 0 Saves, 202 IP, 156 Hits, 60 BB, 205 K, 1.07 WHIP.
pg. 48, Khris Davis: His projection is the mechanical one that builds off his short season. The real projection featured in the update will have a much lower batting average and probably fewer homers per at bat, but I’m still working on that.
pg. 48, Ike Davis: His 2013 earnings are listed at $0. He stunk, for sure, but he actually earned $2.
pg. 66, Junior Lake: His projection is a mechanical one that gives him too high a BA. I wrote more about him here.
pg. 105, Wei-Yin Chen: bone spurts SB bone spurrs.
Projections and Prices Update. The page is password protected. The password is the first word of Rick Wilton’s comment about Albert Pujols in the Hitters section of the Guide.
Multiposition Chart. The old favorite from the Guide. All Major League and Minor League Players with 15 or more games played at two or more positions.
Writing in Grantland, Curtis presents a long but very readable survey of the press coverage of baseball’s steroid era, starting in 1988 (with Jose Canseco, of course, defended by Tony La Russa), through accusations against Mark McGwire in 2002, defended by Tony La Russa), and up to McGwire’s confession in 2010.
There is something of a who knew and when did they know it aspect to this whole thing. After writing about Murray Chass the other day I spent some time looking into when Chass started writing about steroids in the Times. On March 31, 2002 Chass wrote:
“Finally, some people in baseball suggest an unspoken factor has fueled the home run generation — the use of steroids and other supplements, such as the androstenedione that McGwire used during his record-setting year. No one has accused any particular player, and one person who felt certain of the contribution of steroids acknowledged that he had no proof.
But this person said, ”You don’t get bigger overnight pumping iron.”
But Chass also wrote quite a bit about androstenedione, which McGwire was taking during his record-setting home run battle with Sammy Sosa in 1998. After that revelation by a reporter who saw the legal supplement (that was already banned then by the NFL and the Olympics) in McGwire’s locker, baseball launched an investigation into the steroids precursor.
This project, put together by the Baseball: Past and Present, and written by an impressive roster of writers, is good fun and food for thought. Highly recommended.
I find it hard to ignore reading about other people’s Baseball Hall of Fame ballots, real or imaginary, and also hard to ignore reading criticism of other people’s Baseball Hall of Fame ballots, especially the real ones. Those of us who love the game of baseball have some process of player evaluation wired within us, and with that comes some compulsion to rank, and to argue the primacy of our rankings over those of others, and we all know where that leads.
Yes, to a Hall of Fame. But what frustrates me about the Hall of Fame discussions are some arguments which seem to ignore the role of such an institution. For instance, the Hall is a collective enterprise. And the collective that determines who is or isn’t admitted is an aging cohort of the Baseball Writers Association of America, whether they currently write about baseball or not, backstopped by a veterans committee that has taken many different forms and functions over the years in order to get in those the writers decided not to enshrine. So, these two groups have shaped a Hall that reflects their vision, and we live with it because they have successfully sold us on their legitimacy. Plus, they have an awfully nice museum.
That said, this has never been a democratic process, and for all of time baseball writers who have a ballot have, as individuals, made appalling miscues while voting, but when limited to the selections of the writers the process itself has led to a pretty solid roster of HoF players. Obviously, there are close calls that you or I may disagree with, that’s inevitable, but I think it’s fair to say that by virtue of the writers’ rules (five year waiting period, 15 years on ballot, limit to 10 names on ballot in any year) the roster of those enshrined by the writers is pretty solid. At least I’ve never had a problem with it, though I have to admit I never really felt the need to challenge it (or look that closely when I wasn’t reading someone else’s opinions about it).
Which is why the current flap about players from the PEDs era is such a problem. With two exceptions, Shoeless Joe and Charlie Hustle, the Hall has admitted the best players of the game. But now a majority of the writers seem to be saying that the use (or even the possible use) of performance enhancing drugs should make some of the game’s best players ineligible. Today, all-time greats are not being voted into the Hall because of this blemish on their careers and reputations. And other greats are being denied votes they would deserve except that writers have a hunch that they too used PEDs.
Suddenly, my personal Hall of Fame is diverging from the one the writers have been creating collectively for more than 80 years, and that bothers me. It bothers me not because I think they should be doing a better job, but because it makes me realize and have to confront the idea that the Hall of Fame is just an institution that relies on the rest of us to give it legitimacy. And when it doesn’t perform, when it violates our ideas of a properly functioning institution, we can argue with the Murray Chasses of the world about who should be voted in, and we can plot to take over the organization that runs it, but we also have to deny its legitimacy as an organization until it is reformed. Or an alternative arises to unseat it.
The bottom line is that we each, in some way, have a personal Hall of Fame that reflects our knowledge of the game and history of baseball, and that values the quality and fame and personal integrity of the ballplayers who have excelled. How that personal Hall aligns with those of our friends, our colleagues, other fans and even the BWAA helps us make alliances and draw lines in the proverbial sand. My personal line says that any Hall that excludes Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens isn’t worth much arguing about, it has lost its legitimacy. But obviously those with the votes disagree. So be it.
One other issue of interest this year has been a broad call to end the 10 player limit to the number of players who can be listed on a ballot. The argument seems to be that because otherwise legitimate HoF’ers like Bonds and Clemens aren’t being voted in, there are too many legitimate candidates to list. Some people see 18 legitimate Hall of Famers in this year’s list. I don’t really see how this is an issue. If the rank and file of the BWAA doesn’t want to admit Bonds, for instance, it doesn’t matter how many ballot slots there are, he isn’t going to be voted in. And writers who vote for him and don’t vote for a borderline case like Tim Raines, are making a choice, as they should and have always had to. The problem is that old timers like Chass look at Raines and don’t see a Hall of Famer. They’re not voting for him no matter how long the ballot is (Chass listed three or four players this year.
When I looked at this year’s list saw 10 players I thought were obvious names to vote for.
1. Barry Bonds
2. Roger Clemens
3. Greg Maddux
4. Mike Piazza
5. Craig Biggio
6. Frank Thomas
7. Jeff Bagwell
8. Mike Mussina
9. Tom Glavine
10. Curt Schilling
If I had a longer ballot I would include Raines, but that’s all, and I think he’s a decidedly borderline case. The 10 above are unreservedly deserving. Larry Walker, Edgar Martinez and Alan Trammell, like Raines, are bubbling under, not only the 10 name limit but the edge of deservedness. They’ll get another chance next year.
The 15th annual is on its way to stores now. It includes profiles of more than 1,400 players, Picks and Pans or more than 300 players by an awe-inspiring roster of fantasy baseball talent, special profiles of this season’s Top 25 Rookie candidates, an excerpt from Larry Schechter’s new book, an NFBC-rules Mock Draft of top industry professionals, five Strategies of Champions pieces in which winners tell how they did it, and our§ information packed Draft At A Glance pages for each position, filled with tier notes, bid price lists and fast facts about last year’s profits and losses.
Last week venerable former NY Times baseball columnist Murray Chass revealed his Hall of Fame ballot, or at least most of it. The names he named are all worthy: Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Jack Morris and maybe Frank Thomas. That’s it.
Chass goes on to explain that he will not vote for any player about whom there is the slightest whiff of the taint of performance enhancing drugs. He does not, he says, want to reward any player and then later find out that player had cheated. So, naturally, no vote for Bonds or Clemens, Palmeiro, McGwire and Sosa, but also no vote for Jeff Bagwell and Mike Piazza and Craig Biggio, too, about whom the only steroids talk has been the wispiest hearsay. Naturally enough, the world of baseball bloggers went crazy on Chass, as they do almost any time he says anything having to do with blogging or sabremetrics or breathing. Chass, by virtue of his long association with the Times and his opinions about so many baseball issues, is one of the old school’s most effective trolls.
Chass goes to great lengths in a subsequent column to explain why his Piazza bacne conjecture, and his Biggio finger pointing, add up to grounds not to vote for them and it all comes down to this: It’s up to Chass and this is the way he feels.
So be it. That’s all that needs to be said. But after having so much vitriol heaped upon him, Chass gets in the final kick to the gut. After having said that this was probably his last HoF vote, but now having considered the crap he has been subjected to, Chass says he’s going to keep on voting, just to rub salt in the wounds. “How could I relinquish my vote when I know how much it annoys you,” he says.
My personal opinion is that the Hall of Fame represents the wishes of those voting, then later modified by whatever claptrap veterans committee is cobbled together to correct/distort the original will of the writers. Obviously Chass and his cohort can do whatever they want, the ballots are their ballots for now, but I have little interest in a Hall that excludes Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, both of whom had complete Hall-worthy careers before there was any PEDs taint associated with them.
Enough said.
If you missed them, Doubt Wars final standings are posted over at ToutWars.com.
Perhaps more importantly, the Leaderboards have been been updated to include the 2013 results. Larry Schechter has increased his wide lead in lifetime earnings. I decided to make the default sort the career earnings, since that is the goal all of us aspire to.
Jeff Erickson says the Leaderboard page is the best argument for reading Schechter’s book. I agree, but can also say while in the midst of reading the book that the book recommends itself. He’s done a really great job of being informative, straightforward, sophisticated and clear. You can order it here: