Fantasy Baseball

Here’s a look at some fantasy baseball players that blew up the box score last year.

1.  Brian Wilson, San Francisco Giants:  Wilson led the majors in saves (48) last year while posting a 1.81 ERA, 1.18 WHIP and 93 Ks.

Someone’s name value can certainly cause many people to overvalue them.  You think that, based on the name alone, the player should be able to live up to the expectations we have attributed to them in the past.  It doesn’t matter what the player has done in recent years, the name holds value.  It’s engrained in our minds.

It’s a mistake you do not want to make.

In a deal that sent shock waves through the baseball community last weekend, the Toronto Blue Jays sent Vernon Wells and his monstrous contract to the Los Angeles Angels in exchange for Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera.

Our 2011 fantasy baseball projections will be released one-by-one until the top 100 players have been revealed. These rankings consider past achievements, current performance and expected future results based on standard 5×5 H2H settings.

We’ve looked at how the top 15 second basemen for 2011 stack up (click here to view), but that really only tells you half the story.  If you miss out on one player, who should you be targeting as a replacement?  Who should be considered on the same level?  That’s the benefit of breaking the players down into tiers.  Let’s take a look at how my second baseman tiers look:

Our 2011 fantasy baseball projections will be released one by one until the Top 100 players have been revealed. These rankings consider past achievements, current performance and expected future results based on standard 5×5 H2H settings.

It has been an extremely busy week, with a few trades (Tom Gorzelanny, Vernon Wells), a few big signings (Manny Ramirez, Johnny Damon) and a lot in between.

Let’s take a look at all of the transactions from the past week and determine which have fantasy value and which we can safely ignore.

Arizona Diamondbacks

Here’s an early look at the 2011 outfielder rankings:

1. Carlos Gonzalez, Colorado Rockies: All CarGo did last year was hit .336 with 111 runs, 34 HRs, 117 RBI and 26 SBs. He’s the total package.

2. Ryan Braun, Milwaukee Brewers: Braun regressed in 2010 (-12 runs, 7 HRs, -11 RBI, –6 RBI), but he has still averaged a .307-99-32-105-16 line in his four years.

Matt Wieters was supposed to be the next hot prospect. He was supposed explode onto the scene in 2009 and follow it up with an amazing 2010 campaign. 

Fantasy owners reached for him heading into the 2010 season to make sure they didn’t miss the boat based on what everyone was saying.

Unfortunately, his performance far from lived up to the hype:

Our 2011 fantasy baseball projections will be released one-by-one until the top 100 players have been revealed. These rankings consider past achievements, current performance and expected future results based on standard 5×5 H2H settings.