Fantasy baseball advice thread

[Sabo]

I need to name some keepers in one of my fantasy leagues and could use the Swamp's advice.

This is a AL & NL rosters league, and you can keep up to six players. This league has three designations for keepers: Franchise (which you can keep four years), superstar (two years) and prospects (three years). Any player can be a franchise or superstar, but to be considered a prospect the player has to have played less than three years in the majors. You can either have three superstars and two prospects or two superstars and three prospects.

I've already decided to keep Prince Fielder as my franchise player (I can keep him as a franchise player through 2015) and Adrian Beltre as a superstar (I can keep him this year only). I've also decided to keep two superstars and three prospects because I have a pretty strong pool of players to name as prospects.

Here's a list of players I'm considering keeping as my superstar spot:

Carlos Santana
Dustin Pedroia
Carlos Gomez

And here's a list of players I can keep as prospects:

Yasiel Puig
Starling Marte
Madison Bumgarner
Danny Salazar
Aroldis Chapman

I have the option of taking a prospect and naming him a superstar keeper. If I do it this way, it would remove any remaining years I could keep him as a prospect.

Right now, I'm leaning toward making Madison Bumgarner my second superstar pick (I can only keep him as a prospect for one more year; after that, he'd have to be a superstar or franchise player) and then keeping Puig, Marte and Chapman (a prospect keeper through 2015). I'm still not completely sold on Puig and have thought about trying to trade his rights for draft picks, but at the same time, he could be an elite player that I could control for nine years in this league if I wanted.

Anyway, who would you keep?

[A_B]

Pedroia is gonna give good numbers at 2B. And I'd probably keep Puig without question.

[Scottie]

Echo on Puig; hopefully his maturity level is higher than zero this season. You could take a chance on Cespedes? Or a gamble on Tanaka.

[Gunpowder]

Marte scares me but I'd still probably keep him over the two starters (so Puig, Marte and Chapman so you don't have to overpay for saves). He's raw and a lot of his value is held up in HBPs, which could put him on the IR at some point.

I don't know how repeatable 2013 will be for Gomez but between him and Marte, you'd have an ass-ton of SBs. He'd likely be my pick over Pedroia. Santana has some good numbers but in a full MLB league, there seems to be enough catchers to go around.

[Sabo]

Marte scares me but I'd still probably keep him over the two starters (so Puig, Marte and Chapman so you don't have to overpay for saves). He's raw and a lot of his value is held up in HBPs, which could put him on the IR at some point.

I don't know how repeatable 2013 will be for Gomez but between him and Marte, you'd have an ass-ton of SBs. He'd likely be my pick over Pedroia. Santana has some good numbers but in a full MLB league, there seems to be enough catchers to go around.

I'm leaning toward Marte for a couple of reasons. First, he's still very young, and he's hitting in front of Andrew McCutchen. I don't think we've seen Marte's best season yet, but I suspect 2013 will be Gomez's career year. Gomez faded quite a bit in the second half, and it wasn't due to injury. His strikeout totals went up quite a bit the last two months.

As for Pedroia, I have a feeling I can get him in the second round of the draft if I want him. I've had him the last two seasons, so I know what he can do. Santana is good in this league because we use OBP as a stat, but I think he'll be available a few rounds after Pedroia. If Santana isn't catching regularly, I think his offense could improve substantially.

[Gunpowder]

Gomez faded but his September was still quite good.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/playe ... &year=&t=b" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

His strikeout totals went up in July. August was actually the second least strikeouts (per PA) for his entire season, he just wasn't hitting well. BABIP dropped to .245 in August, which is crazy low. Looks like that was more due to luck than anything.

http://www.fangraphs.com/statsplits.asp ... eason=2013" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I see what you're saying but I'd actually chalk it up more to a great April than a bad August, which I think may have just been some bad bounces. (Or maybe good bounces in April with the unsustainable .400+ BABIP).

[kranepool]

Puig put on 26 lbs in the offseason and doesn't show it. I think he's going to explode this season.

[Sabo]

Has anyone bought and used Rotoworld's draft guides before? If so, was it worth the cost?

Anyone have other suggestions for fantasy draft guides?

I'll hang up and listen.

[Brontoburglar]

Has anyone bought and used Rotoworld's draft guides before? If so, was it worth the cost?

Anyone have other suggestions for fantasy draft guides?

I'll hang up and listen.

Not a mag, but well worth the $20.

[govmentchedda]

Has anyone bought and used Rotoworld's draft guides before? If so, was it worth the cost?

Anyone have other suggestions for fantasy draft guides?

I'll hang up and listen.

Not a mag, but well worth the $20.

I usually use the Baseball Prospectus spreadsheet. It allows you to customize the league settings, and uses their PECOTA predictions.

[Ryan]

Paying for fantasy sports research materials is one the biggest regrets from my teen years.

[mister d]

If you're going to pay for projections, go with the Prospectus PECOTA-only subscription. I think it used to be like $15-$20.


(Anyone else read that first question like it was present day? Man was I going to kill you for keeping Fielder.)

[Brontoburglar]

Has anyone bought and used Rotoworld's draft guides before? If so, was it worth the cost?

Anyone have other suggestions for fantasy draft guides?

I'll hang up and listen.

Not a mag, but well worth the $20.

I usually use the Baseball Prospectus spreadsheet. It allows you to customize the league settings, and uses their PECOTA predictions.

I do too. But I like a book to read while I'm watching TV/whatever. Already read BP cover-to-cover.

[Gunpowder]

Prospectus is the only one I use and it's more than enough. Anything else you need you can get on free sites.

[Sabo]

(Anyone else read that first question like it was present day? Man was I going to kill you for keeping Fielder.)

Yeah, Fielder isn't going to be a keeper for that fantasy team. I might draft him later, though.

[mister d]

The only issue w/ Prospectus and actual projection systems is that they tend to hug the median because they factor in all percentiles of outcomes. I forget the exact spread, but you'll always see X number of real hitters with more HRs and X number of pitchers with more wins than the Prospectus projected leader because they build in injury/collapse potential on every player. So if you're taking their numbers and cash values (or doing your own), you need to add a multiplier to widen the dollar range.

[Sabo]

Has anyone bought and used Rotoworld's draft guides before? If so, was it worth the cost?

Anyone have other suggestions for fantasy draft guides?

I'll hang up and listen.

Not a mag, but well worth the $20.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

FYI, I'm not talking about a Rotoworld magazine. They have a draft guide online:

http://www.rotoworld.com/premium/draftg ... _page.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mister d]

I wouldn't pay for Rotoworld's, I think they get money because they're a massive site, not because they're really good.

[mister d]

Actually, Fangraphs might give away ZiPS for free. May as well just take those versus paying.