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If I see one more mainstream article about how Carols Gomez and Michael Bourn are going to steal 60 bases this year, I might just have to trade Chris Young or Justin Upton for one of them.

Or not.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t win most of the fantasy leagues I play in. But, if you’re playing with good competition, you shouldn’t win your leagues any more often than an MLB team wins the World Series or a poker pro like Dan Harrington wins the WSOP. Good competition breeds parity, but consistency still exists. I consider good fantasy owners to be more like the Harrington’s of the world, consistently finishing in the top 3rd of their leagues, sometimes winning and sometimes not. Always giving themselves a chance to win, but never bottoming out.

Carlos Gomez has a very real chance of bottoming out this year. Michael Bourn has an even greater chance. I say that not because I have this Karabell-esque 6th sense and just feel like its going to happen, but because the evidence just trends in that direction. Gomez had 8 walks in 139 at-bats last year with the Mets. Now that he’ll be facing guys like Justin Verlander, C.C. Sabiatha, Fausto Carmona and Jeremy Bonderman 3 times a month to say nothing of guys like Wang, Hughes, Kazmir, Beckett, Halladay and Bedard the chances of him increasing his short-term walk rate against elite MLB pitching is a tall order. It won’t be long before MLB teams get a book on him, and AL pitchers will eat him alive. He might do well against mediocre pitching and mediocre defenses, but he won’t see enough of either in the AL Central.

Bourn’s chances for success are even slimmer. He’s four year’s older than Gomez, doesn’t have the former’s pedigree, is 160 lbs soaking wet, and can’t slug a lick. His walk rates are decent, but because he can’t whack the little round orb with authority, don’t expect him to maintain that walk rate in the show. Why not?

Because MLB pitchers know that Bourn can’t hurt them with the bat, so there’s no reason not to throw him more strikes. They’ll start to challenge him more and more, knowing that he can’t do much damage when he takes his toothpick of his shoulder. He might get his 60 steals by virtue of getting 650 at bats as the leadoff hitter on a craptastic team destined for nowhere, but even if he does what has your team accomplished? An extra 5 points worth of steals and maybe +2 in runs? The only upside is that you might be able to flip him to another team who thinks they need steals. The downside is that he doesn’t get on base enough to get the steals, and you could spend half-a-season waiting for them.

These two guys are examples of very high risk, medium-reward type players. They could get to 60 steals if only because they’re almost guaranteed not to lose their jobs no matter how terrible their hitting gets. But why risk it? 60 steals for 600 at bats of a .250 AVG, .325 OBP, and maybe a .350 slugging? One category of good for three categories of awful. Just like a 2nd catcher, these guys will drag down your overall stats like an anchor.

You’re in a fantasy league that uses statistics to measure success. You should be using statistics to measure the potential of success as well. Whatever’s happening in the major leagues right now is too small a sample size to mean anything. It’s all a mirage, like Matt Holliday’s 1 for 14 start. If you want to see a real projection of what players have a chance of doing this year, you need to stop reading guys like Karabell and Olney and start reading guys like Sheehan and Silver. Actually, I take that back. Its not that you shouldn’t read mainstream media I read lots of it every day and I especially enjoy Olney’s stuff - it’s just that you shouldn’t put too much stock in predictions that aren’t based on statistical evidence or scouts evaluations.

Are you looking for an impact fantasy player? The one with the greatest immediate upside? Then go read something like Baseball Prospectus, read their analysis and study their projections. Go to Google News and type in a player you want to find out more about. See if you can find local articles on them, many of which don’t make the wire. And look high and low for what scouts are saying not GM’s, other players, or for God’s sake sportswriters and us bloggers. We can toss out names of future stars and breakout bandits like the rain and wish cast any numbers we want, but if you want to really find out what a player’s capable of for your fantasy team start with the mainstream to get an idea, and then seek out the experts before you drink any more of Karabell’s Kool-Aid..

My oh my, what a difference a year makes. Last year we had three top tier catcher options with Joe Mauer, Brian McCann and Victor Martinez. In 2008, only one of those guys remains a top option, Victor Martinez. Joining Martinez this season is only one other catcher for top billing status, and that guy is Dodgers backstop, Russell Martin.

McCann and Mauer have been relagated to 2nd tier status and are joined by Jorge Posada, who had a fantastic year in 2007.

Over the next few posts, we’re going to look at the player profiles in the catcher postion and talk a little draft strategy. There are a number of different strategies regarding catcher acquisition this season, but only four make real sense.

1. Pay big bucks, or use that early draft pick on Martin or Martinez. You’re, most likely, going to have to snatch these guys in the late second round or third somewhere.
2. Draft Mauer, Posada, or McCann in the early middle rounds (5th - 8th rounds) and bank on position scarcity screwing everyone else who didn’t use option #1 or #2.
3. Take the boring route (read: somewhat solid numbers, not much wow factor) and grab a veteran like Kenji Johjima, Ivan Rodriguez, or Bengie Molina in rounds #10 through #18.
4. Or, you could gamble on one of the young, rising stars like J.R. Towles, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, or Geovany Soto in rounds #12 through #21.

So far, in mock drafts, I’ve been using either option #2 or option #4 for the most part.

Coming next… player profiles for tier 1 and tier 2 fantasy catchers.

Tomorrow, I will be participating in a mock draft to be included in the Fantasy Baseball Express draft guide. I drew the 7th pick in a 12 team, 5X5 serpentine mock draft and am excited as I take a look at the Average Draft Position report from Mock Draft Central to see who I might nab with my first six picks. Here they are:

1. Matt Holiday, OF
2. Carlos Beltran, OF
3. Brian Roberts, 2B
4. Erik Bedard, SP
5. Brian McCann, C
6. Justin Verlander, SP

These were the players on the ADP report currently at picks #7, #18, #31, #42, #55 and #66. I like the beginnings of that outfield, but I doubt I would take two starters in the first six rounds. We’ll have to wait and see.

Shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment if you have someone you’d like me to grab at #7. If I get enough feedback by draft time tomorrow (10:00 AM EST) maybe I’ll do the democratic thing and let Crooked Pitch readers choose my first round pick.

Expect a full write up recapping the draft and my picks late Sunday or early Monday morning.

Lou here again.  Matt from Fantasy Insider Online is having difficulties logging in and asked me post this for him.  Enjoy!

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Earlier in the week, I took part in a fantasy draft that involved a whole slew of heavy hitters in the industry and which will be printed in a fantasy magazine to come out in January.  I know, I know… early, right?  The 2007 season ended just under a month ago, and already (with a lot of top free agents still out on the market) we are trying to look ahead to ’08.  Nevertheless, considering that the ’07 season was still fresh in everyone’s mind, it may help to explain something that went down during the draft that I thought to be a bit out of the ordinary. 

With the 11^th pick in the 1^st Round, NL Rookie of the Year and Milwaukee 3B Ryan Braun was taken off of the board.  Please, do not get me wrong – Braun was an absolute beast this past season and posted up per game fantasy numbers very similar to those of fantasy monster Alex Rodriguez.  However, how much stock can you really put in a player with just one year of experience in the majors, let alone one year of statistical information to base your pick off of?  Solely based off of last season, there is no doubt that Braun is worthy of a 1^st Round selection, however, at such a deep position with so many exceptional AND experienced 3B options for this coming year, I would rather play the law of averages. 

Can Braun duplicate (or even come close to) his .324 BA, 34 HR and near 100 RBI in 2008?  The ball is up in the air.  Yet, this led me to take a look at the trends of past Rookie of the Year winners and how they performed in their sophomore seasons.  Most recently, we can go back only one year to see two cases in which players kept things headed in the right direction during their second years.  Both Marlins SS Hanley Ramirez and Tigers SP Justin Verlander (ROY winners from 2006) improved across the board from 2006 to 2007 – with Ramirez having an absolute monster year.  It is practically inconceivable for this year’s NL ROY, Braun, to better any of his 2007 numbers next year, however, much like Verlander, he could stay consistent and improve in some areas. 

Recently, many players (both hitters and pitchers) have either stayed consistent or done better in the following season after being crowned Rookie of the Year.  Players like Ryan Howard and Jason Bay, both who are that big-hit type player similar to Braun, have improved in their sophomore seasons.  Nevertheless, past ROY winners like Eric Hinske, Angel Berroa, and even Dontrelle Willis to an extent, show that a solid follow-up year to a stellar rookie campaign is not a lock. 

In the end, I would rather take a seasoned veteran with a few years of statistical backing which would warrant him a 1^st Round pick rather than basing that draft selection off of one outstanding season.  Would I love to have Braun on my fantasy teams in 2008?  Without a doubt.  Playing in a very suspect NL Central division, hitting in a lineup with up and coming stars like Prince Fielder, J.J. Hardy and Corey Hart, Braun definitely has the opportunity to keep the ball rolling into 2008 and beyond.  Yet, to me, a 1^st Round selection does not seem right to me, and I tend to see Braun as a solid 3^rd or 4^th Round option.  When it’s all said and done, however, consistent trends from seasoned players will help me sleep a little bit easier at night.

One of the most overlooked aspects in roster construction is the idea behind positional scarcity. The premise behind the theory is that an owner should not necessarily draft the player with the best overall stats, but rather, the player with the best stats when compared to others at the same position. The concept is simple in theory but unfortunately much more difficult in practice.

Looking back on 2007, yere are the average stats for each position:

C - .255 AVG, 9 HR, 39 R, 47 RBI, 2 SB

1B- .277 AVG, 19 HR, 63 R, 71 RBI, 2 SB

2B- .274 AVG, 9 HR, 69 R, 54 RBI, 10 SB

3B- .272 AVG, 17 HR, 64 R, 67 RBI, 7 SB

SS- .276 AVG, 12 HR, 72 R, 59 RBI, 15 SB

OF- .276 AVG, 14 HR, 66 R, 62 RBI, 11 SB

Last season, FIO and the Baseball Lab created an in depth Player Rater tool that enables us to rank every player in the game based upon the 5 basic fantasy scoring categories. Plugging these stats into the tool, we can determine the position with the most depth, or said another way, the best average stats:

SS- 100%

3B- 92%

1B- 79%

OF- 73%

2B- 36%

C - 14%

The percentages listed next to each position are the percentile values when compared with the leader, the shortstops. As an example, read the third basemen line as follows: In 2007 third basemen were, on average, 92% as valuable as shortstops. First Basemen were 79% as valuable, and so on.

What can we do with this information? A sound strategy next spring will be to wait on shortstops as there are many solid to great ones available. Let’s say you are targeting one of the big three – Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes, and Jimmy Rollins – and all three are off the board earlier than you wanted to take them, or before you had a chance too. Do not panic, the position is deep, and even if Troy Tulowitzki (finished 4^th) is taken, realize that Carlos Guillen, Khalil Green, and Derek Jeter are of almost the same value and still available.

The opposite holds true as well. The outfielders have been on the decline for several years now, and 2007 was no different. Yes there were stars at the position (Matt Holliday, Magglio Ordonez, Eric Byrnes) but once you go into middle ranks of the position the talent level drops precipitously.

Another way to look at is this. The average fantasy league (12 teams, 14 batters) drafts 18 shortstops and 64 outfielders. The shortstop in the 25^th percentile is the 13^th or 14^th best, and correspondingly the 25^th percentile outfielder is ranked around 48^th. Comparing the players with these rankings from 2007:

SS-Edgar Renteria: .332 AVG, 12 HR, 87 R, 57 RBI, 11 SB

SS-Miguel Tejada: .296 AVG, 18 HR, 72 R, 81 RBI, 2 SB

OF-Austin Kearns: .266 AVG, 16 HR, 84 R, 74 RBI, 2 SB

Would you rather have Renteria or Tejada at short, or Kearns as one of your outfielders? Obviously, the shortstops are more valuable and if your goal is to obtain a decent shortstop (as opposed to an elite one) it make sense to wait on the pick. Further, use the draft picks on outfielders because the lower ranked shortstops outperform similarly lower ranked outfielders.

A picture is worth a thousand words. First, a graph of SS vs. OF in terms of the score the player rater gives for each. Since there are more outfielders than shortstops, we need to adjust to give the two positions an identical scale. To do this, we’ll go back or percentile idea and compare the players of similar percentiles (i.e., the 9^th ranked SS vs. the 32^nd ranked OF, both of the 50^th percentile).

It doesn’t look like much at a glance, but there is a discernable difference between the two positions. First and very obvious is the fact that the top SS are much better than the Top OF (1). This is followed by a fast drop in SS rank where the OF’s perform better between percentiles 22-50% (2). Then, the two positions are roughly even through percentile 78% (3) before SS takes the lead through the last ranked player. To show the tail more clearly, here’s a blow up of percentiles 61 - 100

In summary, the shortstop position is strong at the very top and the very end – either grab an elite one (Ramirez, Reyes, or Rollins) or wait till the end when you will get more value out of a lower round pick.

PS. Knox had requested something, well, a little less in depth and I had every intention of doing so. But, when I come across something I hadn’t thought of before, I have a tendency to get a bit carried away. In this case, it was comparing the progressive scores of the positions as they go from the best to worst. It is something I will most assuredly look into in more detail this winter as I think the application on draft day could be tremendous once we adjust the rating curve for 2008 projections.

I just posted an article about the 9 [tag]shortstops[/tag], of which you have to have one of. I talked a little bit about [tag]Average Draft Position[/tag] for each player. I wanted to also show you the highest spot and the lowest spot each of the guys have been drafted in the last 296 mock drafts over at [tag]Mock Draft Central[/tag].

Jose Reyes - 2/3.29/6 (High/Average/Low)
Derek Jeter - 13/18.02/25 (High/Average/Low)
Miguel Tejada - 17/24.95/34 (High/Average/Low)
Jimmy Rollins - 16/25.56/32 (High/Average/Low)
Hanley Ramirez - 17/29.53/39 (High/Average/Low)
Michael Young - 29/39.07/54 (High/Average/Low)
Rafael Furcal - 29/41.05/56 (High/Average/Low)
Carlos Guillen - 43/59.52/73 (High/Average/Low)
Bill Hall - 38/60.01/76 (High/Average/Low)

The [tag]shortstop[/tag] position used to be where you stashed your #9 hitter. That’s no longer the case as we saw 4 players at the SS hit 20+ home runs, 6 players hit at or above .300 and 2 slug above .500. The shortstop position isn’t for the weakest bat anymore. And I really think that you’ll be hard pressed to win your fantasy league this year without a top notch shortstop.

Having said that you need a top notch SS, you need to know that there are 9 players that fit into this role. I’m going to place these 9 shortstops into two categories; the elite and the top notch. Remember, that if you need one of the 9 players and your league has 12 or more teams, that means someone is going to lose out. Don’t let it be you.

The Elite
[tag]Jose Reyes[/tag] - Reyes is in a class by himself. In fact, he’s the only player in this elite category. You can expect him to hit 14 home runs, steal 55 bases and hit .293/.338/.451. Reyes is definitely a first round pick with an Average Draft Position of 3.29 over at Mock Draft Central.

Top Notch
[tag]Derek Jeter[/tag] - Who wouldn’t love a guy who bats second in a power packed lineup like the Yankees have? Not to mention Jeter is coming off a pretty fantastic year, one of his better in the past 6 years. Expect Jeter to hit 16 home runs, score over a 100 runs and hit .308/.380/.451. He has an Average Draft Position of 18.02 so take Jeter in the second round of your 12 team mixed draft and feel comfortable with the second best SS in the draft.

[tag]Miguel Tejada[/tag] - He may not ever regain the power numbers of 2004, but Tejada is making up for it in batting average and OBP. In 2007, Tejada should hit 25 home runs and go .312/.362/.499. His Average Draft Position is 24.95 and is a ‘tweener between the 2nd and 3rd round.

[tag]Jimmy Rollins[/tag] - Rollins consistently scores 100+ runs and steals 30+ bases each year. So, what happens when you add power? An Average Draft Position of 25.56, that’s what. Look for .280/.338/.443 with 17 home runs and more of the same base swiping from Rollins in ‘07.

[tag]Hanley Ramirez[/tag] - 2006 was a monster breakout year for Ramirez. He moved around the batting order from 1st to second quite a bit. If he can stay in the two slot 2007 will be just as good as 2006. However, if he can slide down to third in the batting order, expect power numbers to surge. His Average Draft Position is 29.53 and his ‘07 projections look like .287/.348/.466 with 14 home runs and 40+ SB’s.

[tag]Michael Young[/tag] - Young has an aggressive plate mentality that limits his walks and raises his strikeouts, but he hits a ton of doubles and RBI’s. His power dipped a bit from his 2005 season, but you can expect his home run total to rise back up to approach 20 and his average to go something like .310/.356/.457. His Average Draft Position is 39.07.

[tag]Rafael Furcal[/tag] - Furcal missed the month of April last year and still put up super SS numbers. Give him April back in ‘07, and watch him light up the L.A. scoreboard. He’s going to steal 30 and hit 15 home runs this year and his average will look like .290/.357/.425. His Average Draft Position has been 41.05.

[tag]Carlos Guillen[/tag] - Guillen is in a contract year in ‘07, so imagine him improving on his stout ‘06 numbers. Something like .315/.390/.500 with 17 home runs and 17 stolen bases is what I expect from Guillen. His Average Draft Position is 59.52.

[tag]Bill Hall[/tag] - Hall hit more home runs than any other shortstop last year. He’s extremely versatile, but the Brewers plan on using him in the OF this year. So, enjoy what might be his last year with SS eligibility and reap the benefits of .276/.338/.498 with 26 home runs and double digit stolen bases. His Average Draft Position is 60.01.