Around the Horn: ALCS Preview

Ray Flowers breaks down the American League Championship Series with a position by position breakdown of the Yankees and the Rangers.

By Ray Flowers

Let Tuesday Roll

I’m all over the place today (seems like I’ve written that before). So I thought what better way to lead off my grab bag o’ thoughts than to just put it – so there it is.

For all the posturing and good news about the health of Carlos Beltran’s knee, word from the Mets is that he will not start his minor league rehab assignment this week. In fact, some reports seem to suggest that he is still running with a limp at times. I’m still not counting on him being back until the All-Star break, so even if he does somehow return before that point I won’t be counting on much production.

Ryan Braun has an OPS of .865 which is, remarkably, less than guys like Austin Kearns (.877), David DeJesus (.871) and Luke Scott (.868). Come on Mr. Braun, get her in gear buddy. Speaking of getting it in gear, how wretched has Prince Fielder been this year? Fielder has 24 RBI, the same total as Eric Hinske who has 120 fewer at-bats, and his .447 SLG is lower than Gaby Sanchez (.452) who has all of seven homers. All told, Fielder is on pace for 30 homers and 61 RBI. That’s the kind of production you were hoping for when you spent your second round pick on Fielder this season, isn’t it? I know it’s really close to the 46 homers and 141 RBI he had last season. Goodness.

If you spent all day watching True Blood’s season three opener over and over again, you might have missed the fact that the Athletics traded for Conor Jackson. If you did, or if you simply are curious, you can find my thoughts about the deal at Around the Horn – Bay Area Style.

Aaron Heilman has been named the closer for the D’backs ending the nightmare that has been the closing run of Chad Qualls. At the same time, manager A.J. Hinch indicated that he will use Heilman when he is needed most based on the game situation, so he could still pitch in the 7th or 8th innings. With as bad as that pen has been, they might see if they can find a way to get Heilman to pitch the 7th, 8th and 9th innings each night.

Am I the only one out there fellas that hates shaving everyday? Wait, I don’t have to do that because I have one of the coolest jobs in the world. Don’t spread this around either, but I also wear slippers to work on some days. How bad do you want to be me right now?

Never known as a power bat, Howie Kendrick has 18 RBI in his last 14 games for the Angels. Kendrick knocked in 61 runs last season, a career best, and is currently on pace for 101 this season. Of course, you know these things have a way of evening out which is why it’s hardly surprising to see that he is batting only .273 this season (career .297).

People always wonder what my thoughts are on players – at least that’s what I tell myself even if there are only three of you out there who continue to submit questions from various email addresses. For those of you that do care about my thoughts, or simply would like to see some analysis of pitchers Derek Lowe, Ricky Nolasco, James Shields, Matt Talbot and C.J. Wilson, the link to The Chopping Block is one that you’ll want to click on.

I’m sitting here staring out the window thinking about my plans for Wednesday night. Since my life is always private – when have I ever written or talked about it (wink, wink) – I’ll simply state I’m looking forward to it about as much as Matt Holliday is looking forward to hitting second in front of Albert Pujols, the best hitter in baseball, and that’s a lot.

Jamie Moyer and Kyle Kendrick have been flipped in the Phillies rotation meaning Moyer will pitch Wednesday and Kendrick Thursday. Since both will face the Yankees you shouldn’t have either active regardless of when they are on the bump.

Speaking of the Phillies, the latest report seems to suggest that Jimmy Rollins (calf) might still be a year, I mean a week, away from returning. I got confused there and thought we were talking about Brian Roberts.

By Ray Flowers

Mailbag Mania

Another day, another couple of emails to answer. Hey, you wouldn’t expect anything different from me would you? You all know that I’m here for all of you (how sweet huh?), and I happily answer all the questions I receive, even if it takes me a day or two. Let’s get to it before you start hearing violin’s playing.

I’ve been offered Paul Konerko and Cole Hamels for Tommy Hanson in a 3 man keeper league. I’m currently in 1st place in my division and I have Garret Jones as my current 1st baseman. The balance of my pitching staff is – Greinke, Billingsley, Jimenez, Garza, Brett Anderson, and Slowey (DL).

Here is the balance of my roster: Sandoval, Phillips, G. Jones, Rollins, Youkilis, Markakis, Pence, Hart, Ibanez, N. Cruz, R. Gutierrez, McCutchen, Prado
– Alan

The first thing to keep in mind here is that you can only keep a certain amount of players in any keeper league. Having young talent is obviously a major goal in such a set up, but if you can only protect a handful of guys from year-to-year it doesn’t make any sense to compile a roster of 10 first or second year players unless they can help you win today.

In this case, we have just such a situation. Based upon the statement given, each team can only protect three players. Therefore, trades should be made much more for today, versus next season, in many cases. Someone might want to keep Tommy Hanson in such a league, but honestly, that’s way more of a risk than I would consider. Why? Let’s assume this is a 12-team mixed league. Heck, let’s assume this is a 15-team mixed league. If each team can protect only three guys from year-to-year that means that in order to protect Hanson for next season you would need to view him as one of the top-45 players in the game. I’m certainly not there. Heck, you already have Zack Greinke and Chad Billingsley to choose from if you want to protect a pitcher for 2010, and I would without question protect both of them over Hanson.

Would I therefore accept the deal? You bet I would – though realize you will have to make a secondary move in order to create space no your roster for the two men you will be receiving. Hamels is in line for a strong second half if you ask me, especially when you consider that he has a .344 BABIP mark, far too high, especially for a man who owns a superb 4.74 K/BB mark. And don’t overlook the bounce back season of Konerko (.296-18-64) who is hitting .322 with five homers and 15 RBI in his last 15 games.

Who would you recommend out of the following pitcher available (W, ERA, WHIP, K, SV), keeper league:

Brett Anderson
Jonathan Sanchez
Jeff Niemann
Manny Parra
C.J. Wilson

My pitching staff looks like this: Johan Santana, Derek Lowe, Tommy Hanson, Clay Buchholz, Scott Baker, Jorge De La Rosa, Phil Hughes, J.P. Howell, DL – Lindstrom, DL – Wang, DL – Maine

Should I just wait for Lindstrom and Wang to come off the DL and not use up the waiver move (only have 3 left for the year)?
– Matthew, Toronto

Not knowing how many players can be kept, I’m at a bit of a loss here to recommend a guy.

If you are looking to add a guy to help right now, Jeff Niemann has been pretty good of late with a victory in each of his last five decisions as his ERA has fallen from 4.53 on May 23rd to 3.61.

Jonathan Sanchez has thrown consecutive “quality starts” including that no-hitter, but it’s tough to recommend a guy who has walked 47 batters in 84.2 innings.

Brett Anderson has allowed just one run in his last four appearances totaling 26.1 innings to drop his ERA to 4.25. Still, the youngster needs to prove he can handle the grind of a full season.

Manny Parra has looked rejuvenated since he returned to the Brewers allowing only one run over 13 innings while walking only four men.

C.J. Wilson continues to get save chances as Frank Francisco just cannot stay on the field. He owns a 1.28 WHIP and a 2.17 K/BB mark, merely average for a late inning reliever.

Chien-Ming Wang, I’m not ready to give up on him yet, but at the same time he has been so awful I would just leave him on the DL until he proved worthy of activation.

Matt Lindstrom continues to progress from his elbow issues and hopes to be back within two weeks, max. Still, I want to see him prove his worth as well before I activate him.

You have two choices Matt. You can grab Wilson since you currently have only one closer on your roster. However, that might indicate that you have decided to “punt” saves in which case there is little reason to add Wilson, especially since he isn’t likely to hold on to the job the rest of the way (Francisco is getting over a bout of pneumonia). Therefore I would recommend picking up Jeff Niemann. He clearly doesn’t have an upside remotely approaching the others, but I see Anderson, Sanchez and Parra as having more downside than the man from the Rays.

And finally —

Kudos to Mark Buehrle who threw just the 18th perfect game in baseball history today (including Don Larson’s outing in the 1956 World Series). Buehrle should name his next kid after DeWayne Wise who caught what would have been a home run as he crashed into the wall in the bottom of the ninth inning (he was a defensive replacement in the ninth by the way). What a game. Take that retirement talk.

By Ray Flowers

Free Agent Bidding

I was thinking about how the fantasy baseball free agent bidding process, and I’m continually amazed at how the process works. Before I get into why that is, let me briefly describe what I’m talking about.

Total Free Agency
Back in the day, and in some leagues still, players are on the free agent wire to be picked up at any time. While this might be the easiest way to do things and the way that most of us grew up with playing the game, the fact is this is really an unfair system. Let me give just one example that illustrates why. Let’s say you live on the west coast, and let’s posit that Brian Wilson blows his arm out at 11:45 PM in the 14th inning of the game (this is NOT true – it is only an example). On the telecast, right after the game, manager Bruce Bochy says that Jeremy Affeldt will be the new Giants closer so you run an pick him up off waivers. If you live on the east coast and are in bed because it’s 3 AM and you have a job, you are screwed. You never even had a chance to grab Affeldt.

Weekly Free Agency
Let’s assume the above scenario. However, let’s say that this happens on Tuesday night and your leagues free agency period ends on Sunday night at 8 PM, EST. That means that you have Wednesday through Sunday to put in a bid on Affeldt so that everyone has a shot. In this scenario teams are offered players based on the reverse order of the standings. That means, if you are in a 12-team league that the team in 12th place gets the first choice of free agents, team 11 second, all the way down to the first place team getting last shot. However, once a team picks up a player it goes to the back of the bus. Let’s say the 12th place team doesn’t need closers so they pick up Chris Coghlan off waivers first. They then drop to last in line and the team in 11th place would get a shot at Affeldt or whomever else they wanted and so on.

FAAB Bidding
This is the way that most of the “money” leagues do it. In this process each team is given a budget of Monopoly money, i.e. fake dollars, and they get to bid on free agents. Just like weekly free agency, most of the time there is one day a week when bids are due, though some leagues implement this FAAB process on a daily basis as well. FAAB means Free Agent Acquisition Budget by the way. This is my favorite style because everyone gets a chance at every player, provided they have any money left, and it adds an extra element of strategy to the mix. Continuing with our example, let’s say we have a $1,000 budget to work with for the year and we owned Wilson and now would like to have Affeldt. We’re not sure he will be able to hold the job down, but we need the saves, so we drop a bid of $135 dollars on him. Another team, super desperate for saves bids $210. Another team who is also desperate for saves might think Affeldt will eventually lose the job to Bobby Howry so they only bid $41 dollars on him. The point is, you not only have to identify the players you want in this scenario, you also have to identify how much is an appropriate amount to spend, because once your money is gone you can no longer bid so it makes no sense to simply toss out an outrages bid like $400 on Affeldt.

To show the diversity amongst owners, here are FAAB from Sunday the 17th on C.J. Wilson who will close until Frank Francisco returns from biceps tendonitis. Current reports have Francisco back on Friday, and the belief is that he will slide right back into the closers role. As a result, I personally bid $24 dollars on Wilson thinking I might pick up a week’s worth of saves because his work this season has been miserable (1.53 WHIP, 5.51 K/9, 1.11 K/BB) rendering him useless without saves. How did my $24 bid stack up? Well, I didn’t “win” Wilson, he went for $68 in my league, and here is what he cost in a host of the other National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) leagues this past weekend.

C.J. Wilson $200
C.J. Wilson $53
C.J. Wilson $116
C.J. Wilson $76
C.J. Wilson $129
C.J. Wilson $97
C.J. Wilson $65
C.J. Wilson $88
C.J. Wilson $157
C.J. Wilson $249
C.J. Wilson $75
C.J. Wilson $105
C.J. Wilson $195
C.J. Wilson $54
C.J. Wilson $63
C.J. Wilson $111
C.J. Wilson $89
C.J. Wilson $106
C.J. Wilson $169
C.J. Wilson $43
C.J. Wilson $57
C.J. Wilson $54
C.J. Wilson $52
C.J. Wilson $21

As you can plainly see we had winning bids from $21 to $249, a massive spread. In my league where he went for $68, there was one other bid for a dollar more than me at $25. What his means is that the $68 dollar bid would have been a winner at $26 dollars meaning that the “winner” ended up wasting $42. Still, as you can tell from the other bids, in a good deal of leagues even the $68 bid would have come up way short.

To me, this added layer of the free agent bidding process sets leagues like this apart forcing you to use yet another skill set in order to emerge victorious in your fantasy league. If your league doesn’t use this process I highly suggest moving to it in 2010 as there is nothing like being able to bitch about getting screwed by two dollars or lording it over your friends when you are the one that came out on top.

By Ray Flowers