Fantasy Baseball

The population of third basemen in Major League Baseball is talented and getting increasingly young, and with the promotion of Manny Machado and impending ascension of top prospects Anthony Rendon, Nick Castellanos and Mike Olt (if he stays at 3B), the position is getting deeper and becoming even younger.. 

It's never too early to discuss baseball.

As spring training fast approaches, fantasy owners are already planning their draft strategies for the upcoming 2013 season.

Here are five guys who should be considered top-five picks.

1. Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers

2012 stats: .330, 44 HR, 139 RBI, .999 OPS

Over the years, many fantasy baseball aficionados viewed the catching position as one that could largely be ignored in auctions and drafts. While there have always been a handful of catchers worth owning, they often went for too much money in auctions or far too early in drafts, so many owners filled their slots with $1 pick-ups (auctions) or late-round fliers in drafts. The best thing these owners could say about their catchers was "His batting average won't kill me" or "He will not get enough at-bats to skew my average."

Now that 2013 has officially kicked off and fantasy football came to a conclusion, MLB addicts can finally come out from hiding and start preparing for fantasy baseball drafts.

Perhaps even more thrilling than the season itself is evaluating every player and assembling a comprehensive cheat sheet and draft strategy to win your league. Unless that's just me.

Every year, in sports, there are underrated players who break onto the scene with great performances.

And, every year, people try to predict who those players will be. And this year, I have some ideas.

Despite successful 2012 campaigns, these players aren't getting much attention for a variety of reasons. However, in 2013, they will be getting attention, for some good performances, in fantasy and real life. And then, they'll be shining in the bright lights of October.

But who will those players be? Well, why don't you find out.

Back on March 24, I came up with 10 bold predictions for the 2012 season.

The point of these "bold predictions" was to find scenarios that would most likely not happen, but still find enough evidence to prove that they could come true.

For example, saying Miguel Cabrera would be a top-five fantasy player would not qualify as a bold prediction.

With August rolling in, I thought it would be fun to look back at what I came up with. Here are my findings.

Hisashi Iwakuma turned heads in his last start, striking out 13 batters en route to a 4-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays. That’s three straight solid outings for the righty as he has gone 1-0 with a 1.89 ERA and a 1.21 WHIP with 23 strikeouts in 19 innings against the Blue Jays, Yankees, and Rays.

Fantasy baseball leagues are not won on draft day. Granted, some of them can be lost, but in general, a league is won by the shrewd roster moves made by the owner who is furthest ahead of the curve. If you added Chris Sale or Jeff Samardzija in recent weeks, you know the feeling.

Once upon a time Tim Lincecum was one of the elite pitchers in the game…

When you say it like that it feels like ages ago, doesn’t it?  Of course, that’s far from the case.  Lincecum was one of the best pitchers in the league as recently as last season and viewed by most as a Top 5 option entering 2012.  So, when you see these types of numbers through 8 starts, you obviously have to be curious as to what is going on:

The “Fabulous Foursome” is a new column here at Rotoprofessor that we are going to run once a week focusing on four players fantasy owners should be looking to acquire for various reasons (for example, a new closer, prospect on the verge of a recall, buy-low candidates, etc.). 

Let’s take a look at who you should be targeting this week: