Crooked Pitch

Thank you for visiting Crooked Pitch! While you're here you'll find tons of valuable fantasy baseball information to help you win your fantasy baseball league. If you're new here, or haven't done so yet, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I’ve got a list of three [tag]late round fantasy baseball sleepers[/tag] today. I’ve even mixed it up a bit and found a mixed league sleeper, an NL only sleeper and an AL only sleeper. How’s that for variety?

[tag]Andy Marte[/tag]
Marte is finally slated to be the starting, full time 3B in Cleveland. It seems like Marte has been around forever, but this 23 year still has many good years ahead of him. Last year, in 164 AB’s, Marte hit .226/.287/.421. Projections have him in the .250/.330/.445 range with 18HR’s hitting near the bottom of the lineup. Consider Marte a late round mixed league sleeper, and nab him in the last round or so and hope for a breakout year.

[tag]Adam Lind[/tag]
Lind is fighting for an OF or DH spot in Toronto this spring. A sprained finger hasn’t helped those chances, so he may start the season in AAA Syracuse. But you can be pretty sure, he’ll be an early season call up if he doesn’t make the team out of camp. Lind impressed in his September call up in 2006 and completely tore it up in AA/AAA last year hitting .330/.394/.556 with 24 HR’s. Projections have Lind approaching .300/.351/.525 with 17 HR’s if he can get 450+ major league AB’s. He’s an AL only late round sleeper or immediate waiver wire signing the minute he’s called up.

[tag]Brad Eldred[/tag]
Normally a first baseman, Eldred is getting playing time in the OF as he’s playing his way onto the opening day roster in Pittsburgh. In 10 games this spring he’s hitting .440/.533/1.000 with 4 HR’s and is 2nd only to Hunter Pence in TB’s, with 25. The fact that the Pirates are looking at him in the OF seems promising as he’s never played there before. Eldred is an NL only late round sleeper.

For the first time in his professional career, [tag]Shane Victorino[/tag] is going to be given the opportunity to patrol the [tag]Philadelphia Phillies[/tag] outfield for a full season. Why should you be thinking Victorino, who’s a corner OF with no pop? Well, he’s the fastest guy on the team. And new hire base coach Davey Lopes thinks Victorino could swipe 30+ bases this season. He’s notched 40+ SB’s twice in his minor league career, so there is some history of success there.

If you’re a projections kind of rotohead, None of the big projection systems agree with my above statement. Bill James is the most gracious towards Victorino giving him a projected 2007 line of:

Victorino - .266/.319/.401 12HR 11SB in 538 AB’s

Take the good vibes from Lopes above with the bad news from Bill James with a grain of salt. Just don’t take Victorino in your draft just yet. But you’d better keep an eye on him on the waiver wire. You don’t want to be the bozo who didn’t grab this guy in April if he shows his wheels are for real.

There are two distinct strategies in a [tag]fantasy draft[/tag] involving obtaining [tag]catchers[/tag].

1. Get a stud catcher. Do whatever it takes to get one of these top notch guys, because the productivity drops off in a big way after the studs.
2. Wait for awhile. Let the big names go to someone else and fill the catcher position as cheaply as you can. Maybe with someone with a little upside; an emerging star.

I can see merits in both methods. I grabbed Brian McCann in the 5th round of my recent Yahoo draft, but I usually stick to the second catcher strategy and wait until much later. Paying a lot for a big name or using a high draft pick may have a chance of biting you like it did owners of Javy Lopez after the 2005 draft.

So where is the cutoff point on the catcher list from stud to dud? I can see only 3 catchers in the stud category for 2007, and they are, in order:

1. [tag]Joe Mauer[/tag]
2. [tag]Brian McCann[/tag]
3. [tag]Victor Martinez[/tag]

So, you were lucky enough to nab the first pick in your [tag]fantasy draft[/tag]. Good for you! Now, what do you do with it? I’m going to write this post with the assumption that you’re playing in a 5X5 mixed league.

There have been 6 names floating around in relation to the first pick in a draft like this.

• [tag]Albert Pujols[/tag]
• Ryan Howard
• ARod
• [tag]Alfonso Soriano[/tag]
• Johan Santana
• [tag]Jose Reyes[/tag]

Now, all 6 of these players are studs and worthy of “first pick in the draft” talk, but I’m only going to focus on three of these guy. The only three I consider to have first pick status are Pujols, Soriano and Reyes.

Lets start by looking at stats from the last three years:

Pujols

2004 - .331/.415/.657 46HR 5SB

2005 - .330/.430/.609 41HR 16SB

2006 - .331/.431/.671 49HR 7SB

Reyes

2004 - .255/.271/.373 2HR 19SB (Only 220 AB’s)

2005 - .273/.300/.386 7HR 60SB

2006 - .300/.354/.487 19HR 64SB

Soriano

2004 - .280/.324/.484 28HR 18SB

2005 - .268/.309/.512 36HR 30SB

2006 - .277/.351/.560 46HR 41SB

Pujols is the model of consistency here. You can see Reyes numbers growing and growing. Could he possibly get even better? Soriano might not help you average too much, but he’s going to produce in every other hitting category. Advantage here goes to Pujols.

Now let’s look at some projections for these guys for 2007:

Pujols

Bill James - .333/.431/.672 50HR 7SB

CHONE - .323/.424/.645 46HR 8SB

ZiPS - .320/.423/.643 48HR 9SB

Reyes

Bill James - .289/.333/.448 13HR 58SB

CHONE - .294/.343/.440 13HR 50SB

ZiPS - .296/.340/.462 16HR 58SB

Soriano

Bill James - .275/.331/.552 38HR 31SB

CHONE - .278/.335/.538 39HR 23SB

ZiPS - .265/.324/.498 36HR 27SB

These projections show me that Pujols is going to have another steller power year. Reyes is going to approach .300 with 50+ stolen bases. And Soriano is surely a 30/30 guy. Advantage, once again goes to Pujols.

So, by looking back to the past and into the future, Pujols seems to be the pick. And you can’t go wrong with him. Reyes is going to swipe 60. If his average rises above .300 and he can get his power numbers up, his stock will continue to rise. Soriano’s got power, tons of it. His old ballpark wasn’t exactly a hitters dream, but he still packed a lot of punch. What can he do in Wrigley?

Here’s how I’d rate them:

1. Pujols
2. Soriano
3. Reyes