Fantasy Baseball

One key to winning a fantasy baseball league is finding value in the latter stages of the draft, especially starting pitchers who can provide help with wins and strikeouts without hurting a team’s overall ERA. Late-round value picks who pan out can also be excellent trade bait to help bolster other weak areas of a fantasy roster.  

Plenty of fantasy writers, magazines, websites, etc. offer rankings. Positional rankings. Top 10s. Top 20s. Rankings by statistical category.

Each set of rankings typically factor in a combination of past player performances, lineup protection, run support, stadium tendencies (hitters’ park vs. a pitchers’ park), injuries, opportunities for promotion, etc. However, the biggest part of any preseason fantasy ranking involves predictions, projections and overall guesswork.

When you are a pitcher in the Pittsburgh Pirates minor league system, there is hope that you could make an impact in the Major Leagues sooner, rather than later.  Enter 2006 28th round draft pick Rudy Owens, who looked great at Double-A in ’10 and could make his Pirates debut before long.

Here’s an early look at the 2011 AL-only shortstop rankings:

1. Elvis Andrus, Texas Rangers: The better shortstops reside in the National League, so there isn’t a clear-cut number one in AL-only leagues. I like Andrus because of his ability to score runs and steal bases. He could easily lead AL shortstops in both categories.

Jason Bay had a terrible season last year. He was injured and missed over 60 games. Even when playing, his slugging was way down and he finished with his lowest home run total since his rookie season—during which he played in only 30 games. Prior to 2010, Bay had been a borderline great player that you could count on for 30 HRs and 100 RBI:

Over the past three or four years, third base has been one of the shallowest positions in fantasy baseball—with only a few players worthy of an early-round pick.  

As the 2011 season quickly approaches and fantasy owners begin drafting their teams, many owners will be pleasantly surprised to see that the third base pool is no longer filled with just a small handful of players.

Here’s an early look at the N.L. Only 2011 Third Base rankings.

1. David Wright, New York Mets: David Wright is back. His average/HR/SB combination make him the class of the National League hot corner.

2. Ryan Zimmerman, Washington Nationals: While I favor Wright slightly because of his stolen bases, Zimmerman is right up there. The Nationals are improving, and Zimmerman is at the forefront of that movement.

Spring training is here, and with it comes fantasy baseball. Catcher is one of the toughest positions to project in fantasy baseball because of all the wear and tear on players. Injuries happen to catchers more than any other position.

There are the veterans, including Joe Mauer, Victor Martinez, Brian McCann and Jorge Posada. There are the rising stars: Carlos Santana, Matt Wieters and Buster Posey.

There are plenty of catchers to choose from, and if you miss out on the first three or four catchers, you might as well wait until the late rounds to grab one.

Each year, this post takes a look at pitchers and how they fluctuate in terms of regular value from year to year. The point of the matter is simple: Pitching is a crapshoot.

It’s been quite some time since we have looked at my Top 15 first basemen for standard five-by-five leagues.

There are quite a few players who I am concerned about as we head towards Opening Day, though unfortunately we don’t quite have all the answers yet.

That makes these rankings a little bit tenuous, but let’s take a look at how things currently stand: