2009 Fantasy Baseball

CrookedPitch.com is an impressive fantasy baseball blog that you might not have heard of yet.  I say yet because with his great content and constant Twitter updates I think he’s doing an incredible job of getting his name out there.  CrookedPitch is currently focused on a Mock Draft that he is doing with some other fantasy experts on Twitter.  He has posted rankings for C, 1B, 2B, and SS.  He ranks a ton of guys at each position and gives a description for each.

CrookedPitch.com includes 32 players on their Catchers rankings list.  He’s got Russell Martin at the top of the list for his ability to produce in all five categories, which is a little bit off the beaten McCann #1 path.  Doumit comes in at 5 with a chance to enter the elite catcher ranks this year.  I’m a huge Doumit believer so it’s nice to see him getting this kind of love.  He’s got Weiters waaaay down the list at 23 overall.  I don’t like this ranking because Weiters should be one of the top 15 catchers taken just for his upside.  Posada is knocked down to 19th on this list.  Here’s what CP has to say “Posada is 37-years-old and coming off of a major medical procedure that kills most hitters power potential. With recent additions to the team he won’t be given many opportunities to DH either. Posada is a risky pick for 2009.”  Very good stuff, here’s the link to the rest of his catcher analysis.

CP’s first basemen rankings are very interesting.  He’s got Pujols at one (standard).  Most rankers put Cabrera in the next spot, but Miggy drops all the way to five here.  Howard, Berkman, and Teixera are all in front of him.  This is the highest I’ve seen Berkman – most ppl are bringing him down due to his weak second half last year, but CP makes a good point that you really can’t deny the awesome numbers he posted.  He’s got Fielder at 9 and says he’s being overvalued in drafts again this year.  Those of you  burned by him last season probably arent touching him with a ten foot pole this time around, and that could be a good move.  He’s got Pena above Votto, a move I would not advise making on draft day.  I’m going with the .300 upside of Votto, not the .250 reality Pena.  If Votto continues his second half tear he will easily approach Pena’s power numbers.

CP is advising to go ahead and take Utley as the first overall second baseman – advice that is hard to turn down.  He is not as high on Kinsler, noting that he’s never played more than 130 games in a season.  Pedroia got the nod as the second 2B.  Kendrick and Matsui are both getting love as some solid sleepers who just need to stay healthy to reach top 10 status.  I’m targeting both of these guys as they fall in drafts as potential trade bait or just solid depth at a very shallow position.  After you get past Uggla and maybe Cano at the seventh spot the list of remaining 2B’s is like a train wreck.

What to do with Rafael Furcal at shortstop this season?  CP says take him seventh, right after Peralta, and be ready for the downside.  I’m tempted to gamble on him a little bit earlier last season based on my fond memories of his ridiculous start last year.  I’m not afraid to make that reach, but I do believe I would take Ramirez ahead of Furcal.  He makes an interesting argument that Stephen Drew at 4 is really not that far behind Jimmy Rollins.

I suspect CP will be finishing up this rankings list soon – probably as soon as the Twitter “Slow Mock Draft” is finished.  He has all of his rankings listed under “Pages” in his middle column.  Enjoy!

FantasyTwits.com is a brand new site that interfaces with Twitter to categorize and display Tweets from fantasy experts.  For those of you not familiar with Twitter, it’s time to come out from under your rock.  Twitter is the Google of Microblogging.  You’ll find everything from people discussing fantasy baseball trades to people who just like to post when they are going to the bathroom.  Each “Tweet” can have a max of 140 characters, hence the term Microblogging.

FantasyTwits is currently “following” fourteen experts.  That means they found fourteen guys who like to talk about fantasy baseball on Twitter.  Most of them represent major sites or blogs.  The experts know each other, probably because of the status they’ve attained on Twitter.  They often “Tweet at each other,” which is having a conversation through Twitter microblogs.  Today @crookedpitch and @fakebaseball are having an interesting conversation on Adam Dunn vs. Chris Davis.  You could follow this conversation without FantasyTwits.com if you followed both of these guys on Twitter, but that is not nearly as convenient as what FantasyTwits offers.  Basically, they do the filtering for you.

They also have a tagging system to track which players are being talked about the most.  This is the same idea used on the popular StockTwits.com.  You can tag players in your twitter posts by using # followed by the first two letters in his team’s abbreviation, then followed by the first two letters in his first and last name.  It seems complicated, but it really isn’t.  For example, you can tag Mewelde Moore in your Tweets by typing #pimemo.  Peyton Manning would be #inpema.  Their hope is that people discussing fantasy sports will start using the tagging system.  It would be very cool if this system does get adopted by all the experts, but that may be a longshot.

Even if no one tags their Tweets in real time the tagging system can still be implemented on the FantasyTwits site.  On each Tweet there is a “Tag this Tweet” button that anyone logged in can use to tag Tweets to players.  This system will be maintained by the sites members.  So, if you see a post untagged, do your good deed for the day and tag it to a player.

Twitter is growing quickly.  Sites like FantasyTwits are also starting to spring up.  Everybody and their brother may be finding something they like on Twitter soon.  Check the site out to see how the online phenom that is Twitter can help out your fantasy game.

Going into a draft a familiarity with Average Draft Position (ADP) is critical to success in any fantasy sport, but especially in fantasy baseball.  The myriad of positions, size of the rosters, and the need to draft both a pitching and hitting team leads to more draft nuances than you find in fantasy football.  Not only do you need to know who you are targeting, but you also need to know how long you can wait before you take the guys you are targetting.  ADP mistakes are the most egregious and costly mistakes that unprepared drafters make.

The best place to find ADP this early in the fantasy baseball season is MockDraftCentral.com.  With a free account you can access their top 75 ADP.  With a premium account you can access their entire ADP.  The chart at the bottom of this article is part of their free offering, the top 70 in their ADP list.  It shows both the earliest the player has been taken and the latest.  A player taken much higher than his ADP suggests bad value because that player most likely could have been acquired later.  A player taken far after their ADP implies strong value.

We can see some direct examples of the kind of egregious errors I’m talking about in the chart below.  Take a look at Alfonso Soriano.  Someone drafting 6th used their first round pick to get Soriano.  This person had the 6th, 19th, and 30th picks.  Soriano’s ADP is 23.64, making him the 22nd player off the board on average.  That gives someone drafting 19th a very strong chance to get him.  This drafter could have used his first pick on a Grady Sizemore or Miguel Cabrera and then taken Soriano in round 2.  Sizemore and Soriano would have been a nice top two.  Instead, this player is looking at Soriano and Justin Morneau (19 ADP).

Seasoned players are going to avoid such egregious ADP errors, but they do need to consider probabilities based on ADP with every pick.  As you can see from the degree of difference in the “Latest” column compared to actual ADP, players often fall significantly further than expected.  Also, Position Runs and tendencies of your opponents can really shake up ADP in any individual draft.  Each drafter should keep all of this in mind as they determine how likely it is a player they are targeting will still be available at their next pick.  You can never be sure your guy will still be around, but it is often worth the risk to wait.  The draft is the single most important day in your season so you have to maximize each pick as best you can.  Study all the ADP charts as they are released and you will have a leg up on the competition come draft day.

From MockDraftCentral.com:

	Player	Pos	Team	ADP	Earliest	Latest	Draft %
1)	Hanley Ramirez	SS	FLA	1.35	1	4	100.0% 582 / 582
2)	Alex Rodriguez	3B	NYY	2.11	1	5	100.0% 582 / 582
3)	Albert Pujols	1B	STL	3.07	1	7	100.0% 582 / 582
4)	David Wright	3B	NYM	4.42	1	7	100.0% 582 / 582
5)	Jose Reyes	SS	NYM	4.62	2	10	100.0% 582 / 582
6)	Grady Sizemore	OF	CLE	6.63	3	14	100.0% 582 / 582
7)	Miguel Cabrera	1B	DET	7.22	4	16	100.0% 582 / 582
	Jimmy Rollins	SS	PHI	9.46	6	18	100.0% 582 / 582
9)	Josh Hamilton	OF	TEX	10.51	4	19	100.0% 582 / 582
10)	Ryan Braun	OF	MIL	10.76	4	19	100.0% 582 / 582
11)	Ian Kinsler	2B	TEX	11.10	6	20	100.0% 582 / 582
12)	Ryan Howard	1B	PHI	11.52	3	20	100.0% 582 / 582
13)	Matt Holliday	OF	OAK	12.66	6	21	100.0% 582 / 582
14)	Mark Teixeira	1B	NYY	13.42	5	20	100.0% 582 / 582
15)	Lance Berkman	1B	HOU	15.55	10	26	100.0% 582 / 582
16)	Johan Santana	SP	NYM	18.75	7	33	100.0% 582 / 582
17)	B.J. Upton	OF	TB	19.31	12	38	100.0% 582 / 582
18)	Chase Utley	2B	PHI	19.67	6	33	100.0% 582 / 582
19)	Justin Morneau	1B	MIN	19.98	13	39	100.0% 582 / 582
20)	Evan Longoria	3B	TB	20.01	10	32	100.0% 582 / 582
21)	Manny Ramirez	OF	LA	20.93	10	36	100.0% 582 / 582
22)	Alfonso Soriano	OF	CHC	23.64	6	37	100.0% 582 / 582
23)	Carlos Beltran	OF	NYM	24.13	13	36	100.0% 582 / 582
24)	Prince Fielder	1B	MIL	24.26	13	38	100.0% 582 / 582
25)	Ichiro Suzuki	OF	SEA	25.10	14	48	100.0% 582 / 582
26)	Carlos Lee	OF	HOU	26.38	11	41	100.0% 582 / 582
27)	Dustin Pedroia	2B	BOS	26.91	10	42	100.0% 582 / 582
28)	Tim Lincecum	SP	SF	27.40	10	62	100.0% 582 / 582
29)	Carl Crawford	OF	TB	28.29	16	54	100.0% 582 / 582
30)	Brandon Phillips	2B	CIN	29.07	15	55	100.0% 582 / 582
31)	Aramis Ramirez	3B	CHC	31.03	16	50	100.0% 582 / 582
32)	CC Sabathia	SP	NYY	34.18	17	47	100.0% 582 / 582
33)	Jason Bay	OF	BOS	34.54	23	51	100.0% 582 / 582
34)	Nick Markakis	OF	BAL	34.67	23	57	100.0% 582 / 582
35)	Adrian Gonzalez	1B	SD	35.31	23	53	100.0% 582 / 582
36)	Carlos Quentin	OF	CHW	37.30	21	56	100.0% 582 / 582
37)	Brian Roberts	2B	BAL	38.11	27	58	100.0% 582 / 582
38)	Kevin Youkilis	1B,3B	BOS	38.34	22	57	100.0% 582 / 582
39)	Alex Rios	OF	TOR	39.69	26	60	100.0% 582 / 582
40)	Vladimir Guerrero	OF	ANA	40.55	25	59	100.0% 582 / 582
41)	Matt Kemp	OF	LA	40.90	24	58	100.0% 582 / 582
42)	Cole Hamels	SP	PHI	41.21	26	60	100.0% 582 / 582
43)	Russell Martin	C	LA	43.63	26	68	100.0% 582 / 582
44)	Jake Peavy	SP	SD	44.60	29	62	100.0% 582 / 582
45)	Brandon Webb	SP	ARI	46.15	26	63	100.0% 582 / 582
46)	Brian McCann	C	ATL	47.74	25	63	100.0% 582 / 582
47)	Roy Halladay	SP	TOR	48.11	25	94	100.0% 582 / 582
48)	Curtis Granderson	OF	DET	49.40	29	78	100.0% 582 / 582
49)	Chipper Jones	3B	ATL	50.53	32	71	100.0% 582 / 582
50)	David Ortiz	DH	BOS	50.97	32	200	100.0% 582 / 582
51)	Shane Victorino	OF	PHI	51.17	32	90	100.0% 582 / 582
52)	Alexei Ramirez	2B	CHW	51.51	29	69	100.0% 582 / 582
53)	Joe Mauer	C	MIN	52.53	31	76	100.0% 582 / 582
54)	Jonathan Papelbon	RP	BOS	54.81	34	85	100.0% 582 / 582
55)	Corey Hart	OF	MIL	55.69	41	99	100.0% 582 / 582
56)	Dan Haren	SP	ARI	57.55	39	72	100.0% 582 / 582
57)	Nate McLouth	OF	PIT	59.24	31	104	100.0% 582 / 582
58)	Brad Lidge	RP	PHI	61.37	46	94	100.0% 582 / 582
59)	Rafael Furcal	SS	LA	62.30	37	94	100.0% 582 / 582
60)	Magglio Ordonez	OF	DET	62.59	38	96	100.0% 582 / 582
61)	Bobby Abreu	OF	NYY	62.91	36	100	100.0% 582 / 582
62)	Adam Dunn	OF	ARI	62.99	42	100	100.0% 582 / 582
63)	Jacoby Ellsbury	OF	BOS	63.10	39	99	100.0% 582 / 582
64)	Dan Uggla	2B	FLA	63.17	29	106	100.0% 582 / 582
65)	Carlos Pena	1B	TB	65.10	39	119	100.0% 582 / 582
66)	Geovany Soto	C	CHC	66.48	38	94	100.0% 582 / 582
67)	Cliff Lee	SP	CLE	67.78	41	118	100.0% 582 / 582
68)	Derrek Lee	1B	CHC	72.04	40	109	100.0% 582 / 582
69)	Garrett Atkins	3B,1B	COL	72.18	46	108	100.0% 582 / 582
70)	Josh Beckett	SP	BOS	72.44	47	100	100.0%

MockDraftCentral.com is hands down the industry leader for fantasy sports mock drafting.  They had a mock draft system up and running in 2002, long before the big dogs in the industry even considered offering practice drafts.  ESPN and CBS are now offering their own mock drafts but have yet to master it like MDC.  This review will focus on their actual Mock Drafting process.  MDC is also highly touted for the Average Draft Position reports, which may be covered in another article.

MDC has both free and premium options.  The free account will allow you to hop into a handful of mock drafts and test out their offerings – one draft per day, maximum of three per week.  A free account will also get you samples of their ADP reports and their Draft Day Cheatsheet.  If you are serious about your fantasy baseball then this free subscription should be enough to convince you to go premium.  MDC premium membership is $4/month.

With a premium account on MDC you not only get to participate in unlimited mock drafts, but you also get the ability to create your own custom mock drafts.  So, if you’re league is a little different than the standard offerings, no problem.  You create your mock draft settings, create a time, and it will appear right in their draft lobby along with all the standard drafts.  Anyone on MDC will be able to sign up and participate in your draft.  If the draft doesn’t attract enough real players to fill all your spots then MDC’s Artificial Intelligence players will fill the hole.

The AI players draft directly from the MDC ADP report.  It’s always fun to have a full draft of real players, but that is rarely a reality in the mock drafting world, especially for the early birds.  The AI players following the ADP is a solid approach as it keeps your practice drafts close to what you should expect on draft day.

The MDC Mock Draft Room loads quickly, works well in any browser, and has all the tools and featuers you need to run an efficient draft.  Here is a screenshot:

The running list along the left makes it very easy to follow the draft.  This is on of MDC’s best features.  You can scroll up and down the list to quickly see what happened in previous rounds.  The only issue with this feature is that it does return to the bottom automatically when someone makes a new pick.  So if you are trying to scroll up you have to do it quickly before someone else makes a pick.  MDC could improve this list by giving it it’s own html scroll bar that stays in place as the user moves it.

MDC lists all the players by ADP and gives you their relevant stats.  To the right is your Queue list, where you can queue up all the players you are interested in.  The dropdown menu in the bottom left allows you to see your full team or any other team in the league.  Right of that is the chat box, which is always busy in MDC drafts.  The guys that hang out on this site are highly opinionated and very hardcore baseball players.  I love talking with them (the mature ones) about their picks.  You’ll definitely pick up some intersting draft ideas and strategies by chatting with your draft “competitors.”

The Draft Lobby lists all the upcoming drafts by sport.  At a glance I see a variety of 8, 10, and 12 man leagues about to start drafting.  Most of them are 5×5 roto with 20-28 rounds.  Drafts are going off every 15 minutes.  Picks are almost always set to 45 seconds and the AI drafts immediately.  If you have a draft half full of real players going 20 rounds you should expect to be drafting for an hour.  A 28 round draft full of real players, however, may keep you in front of your computer for over two and a half hours!  Here’s a screenshot of what to expect in the draft lobby:

Mock Drafting is the number one way to prepare yourself for your real fantasy baseball drafts.  MDC is heating up for the 2009 fantasy baseball season – give it a look!

CBS continues to assert its leadership in fantasy baseball.  With Yahoo and ESPN barely even thinking about Fantasy at this point, Sportsline has opened up an impressive mock drafting system. I used it a couple of times today and was pleased so decided to put up a review for it. NOTE: I did have some trouble getting the console to load completely when first entering the draft lobby. If this happens to you simply hit “F5″ and you should get a full load.

CBS Mock Drafts Home

Sportsline gave their mock drafts an entire section on the site. The Mock Drafts home page features fantasy baseball drafting articles, Draft Prep links, and a mock drafting console that takes you into a currently running mock draft with one click. I suggest not clicking on “Join the Next Mock Draft” in the console because it takes you into a draft that is already running. Instead, click on the draft lobby link. That will take you to a page that looks like this:

The times listed in the lobby are Eastern. That’s important to know so that you don’t think you have to wait hours or so that you don’t click on one that is already going, depending on where you are. I don’t know why CBS doesn’t tell us this, but we’ll cut them some slack. They offer a ton of drafts – 5×5 roto NL/AL, heads up, AL only, NL only, and all of them are prescheduled. The traffic, as of today, does not keep up with the number of drafts starting. Therefore you end up with a lot of AI players in your drafts. I had a draft earlier today that had 4 slots out of 10 filled and another draft where I was the only player. Players also come in and out of the draft due to the “Join a Draft Now” feature, which is a bit annoying.

Choose the draft that looks good to you and then wait for it to start. When it’s time for it to start the draft window doesn’t open automatically – you have to click “Join Draft” on the Home or Lobby pages or the “Draft in Progress” link in the horizontal navigation bar. The draft lobby loads instantly and smoothly. If it does not fully load for you hit the F5 key to refresh. I’ve had to refresh many of my lobbies today. The Draft Room is pretty straightforward, which is appreciable. There is a lot of information to pack into this one little room. Here is a screenshot:

The drafting experience can be confusing at first, especially if there are a lot of AI “Autopickers” in your draft. The drafts move very quickly because the Autopickers draft immediately. If you are the only person participating in the draft it will almost always be your turn. You have to use much of your 45 second time clock looking at who the computer just drafted. Once more players are participating in the drafts this won’t be an issue.

The draft has four major sections – Sortable Available Players list, Queue, Sortable Drafted Players list, and a chat box. You can sort available players by position, projection, and three year average. You can sort drafted player by team and round. When you click on an available players name a window pops up immediately. This window gives you the ability to draft the player or queue the player. It also gives you a helpful preseason outlook and a graphical fantasy trends analysis. This extra information is a very cool addition to the mock drafting experience. I felt like I was learning while I was drafting.

When my first draft was over I was expecting to get an option to send the draft results to email (like on MockDraftCentral.com). That option never appeared. I searched the site for an option to see draft results and didn’t find that either. Maybe I just haven’t found it, but this was my biggest disappointment with the system.

Overall CBS Sports’ Mock Drafting is a nice addition. I’m happy to have another venue to practice mock drafting, even though MockDraftCentral.com still has a much superior product. Both sites have plenty of room to make improvements, and I’m sure we’ll see some improvements to both sites as the fantasy industry grows. Please leave a comment if you guys know of any other Mock Drafting options available now (Mid January). Thanks!

MockDraftCentral.com plows us with great content every preseason.  I tend to hang out there a lot January-March for baseball and July-August for baseball.  I even got the chance to participate in one of their Expert Football Drafts last season, which was a blast.  MDC assembled an impressive list of experts for this draft – Brandon Funston from Yahoo, Alex Cushing from MLB.com, Doug Anderson of RotoExperts, and others.

Here is the link to the draft results.

As usually happens, pitchers really fell in this draft.  Only three were taken in the first four rounds.  Lots of teams look really weak in the pitching category.  The most balanced team, and the favorite to win this league imo, is Brian Pelowski’s team.  He’s got Peavey, Harden, Sheets, Verlander, Weaver, and Carpenter for his Starters.  He got good value at RP, with Lidge in the 9th round and Sherill in the 19th.  Couple that pitching crew with Cabrera, Holliday, and Ellsbury and this team is set.

Notice that Papelbon was taken in round five and then not a single RP was taken until Nathan in the 8th.  The RP run started in the 9th, with Rivera, Rodriguez and Lidge going.  Usually a run gives someone bad value, but I love the value here for all three of these guys. I think this is a phenomenon just in this expert draft – expect closers to be more spread out in the 5th-10th rounds in average drafts.

There are lots of interesting sleeper picks here.  Supersleeper Nelson Cruz was no secret here – Doug Anderson took him in the 12th round.  You can probably wait on him a bit longer in your drafts but this could be the kid to reach for.  There was a flurry of sleeper activity in the 16th round with Denard Span, Shin-Soo Choo, and Cameron Maybin going in a series of four picks.  Pitchers Joba Chamberlain and David Price went in the 11th and 12th rounds.  That seems about right for these potential breakout stars.

Commentors, which teams do you like best?

CBS Sportsline has long been a leader in fantasy baseball with a variety of solid offereings.  This year, like others, you can find free leagues, premium commissioner leagues, and premium competition leagues.  You can find a home here no matter what level of commitment you are willing to make.  While most fantasy baseball owners still prefer the Yahoo interface Sportsline has some fetaures that allow it to hold its own.

Sportsline’s free offering, like ESPN but unlike Yahoo, gives you free live scoring.  If there are a few people in your Yahoo league that cry every year about paying the $10 for StatTracker then Sportsline could be the better option.  If you are a commissioner in a premium league you should definitely check out what Sportsline can offer.  They give you perhaps the most flexibility to create custom leagues in the industry.  If you’re interested check it out soon = early signups for their premium leagues save $30 and get a free trophy for the league winner.

Even if you comfortably call another site home for your regular baseball leagues you should check out the Premium Games and Sportsline.  In these games you can win hefty cash prizes competing against anyone else in the world who happens to sign up in the same league as you.  There are four levels of buyins – $30, $100, $250, and $500.  Prizes are $150, $600, $1600, and $3500, respectively.  The competition in the higher leagues can be intense, but you will also run into some donkeys with too much money that are just playing for fun.  Give these leagues a shot if you want to make a serious time and money investment this year.