Around the World: ADP

The calendar is about to flip to March, and that will signal that the fantasy baseball season is in full effect. Mock drafts will heat up to the point where you’ll start dreaming about passing up on Andrew McCutchen in the 8th round and you’ll wonder why you didn’t pull the trigger on that second closer at the end of the 15th round.

To help you as you prepare for fantasy baseball’s version of March Madness, I’ll look at Average Draft Position data from time to time. If you need a refresher course in what ADP is and why it matters, make sure you read ADP Talk – What is it?

A caveat. Make sure that whichever ADP information you are looking at is geared toward your specific league. It does you no good to look at National Fantasy Baseball Championship data if you are in a league that has only 10 teams (the NFBC has 15 team leagues. You can win over $100,000 playing in it by the way, so you might wan to check it out). To read some pertinent NFBC ADP data make sure you give a look at Jason Collette’s Talking ADP piece.

As for what follows here, I will be reviewing ADP data from 13 leagues. Each league contains 15 teams with 14 hitters and nine pitchers starting (just like the NFBC starting lineup) with standard 5×5 scoring categories. Here are some things that I noticed in the data (thanks to Geoffrey Stein for sending it along).

(1) Here is the top-10.
Albert Pujols, Hanley Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Chase Utley, Ryan Braun
Matt Kemp, Mark Teixeira, Joe Mauer, Prince Fielder and Evan Longoria.

To me, Mauer at #8 is awful. Too much growth last year for him to sustain it. Plus, catcher is such a brutal position physically.

I also question the wisdom of Teixeira at #7. I’d much rather have Miguel Cabrera at #13.
Last three years: Teixeira (.302-34-116-97-1) and Cabrera (.312-35-116-91-3).

(2) You’re going to need to get your corner infielders quickly. Of the top 33 selections, eight were first basemen and six were third sackers meaning fully 42 percent of the top-33 picks played first or third.

(3) Pitching isn’t a priority early. Tim Lincecum (#17) is the only hurler in the top-30. Here are the others in the top-50: Roy Halladay (31), CC Sabathia (34), Felix Hernandez (38), Zack Greinke (41), Dan Haren (48) and Justin Verlander (49).

(4) Catchers aren’t going early after the big-3. Mauer (#8), Victor Martinez (24) and Brian McCann (39) are the only catchers in the top-75. Next comes Matt Wieters at 78, and after that you have to go all the way down to #126 to find the next backstop – Miguel Montero.

(5) How are people evaluating players that were hurt last year? Here’s a look.

22nd overall – Jose Reyes
He’s currently the fourth SS off the board after Hanley Ramirez (2), Troy Tulowitzki (14) and Jimmy Rollins (20). I think all three should be taken before Reyes because of the reliability factor, but Tulowitzki as a first round pick? I have a real problem with that.

23rd – Grady Sizemore
Mr. 20/20 (each year from 2005-08), clearly has the faithful convinced that last year was just one of those seasons. If healthy, there is little reason to doubt that consensus, but it’s still a bit risky to spend a second round pick on Sizemore at this point.

125th – Brandon Webb
All reports are really positive that Webb looks and feels strong so far. Given his extreme consistency before last years shoulder issues someone is certainly going to be tempted to draft Webb at this point of a draft, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he ends up sneaking into the top-100 if he has no setbacks in spring. Personally, I’ll pass. Scott Baker (137) or James Shields (144) certainly seem like much safer bets to me.

So there you go. As I said, this won’t be the last time I address this issue of ADP.

And finally, with Fanball.com going completely free with our baseball coverage for the next three weeks, here are a few links to some of my recent work. Enjoy.

Breaking Down: Chad Qualls

Breaking Down: Clayton Kershaw

Sabermetric Primer: SWIP

Sabermetric Primer: Game Score

Sabermetric Primer: Quality Start Percentage

By Ray Flowers

Around the Horn: Jan. 15, 2010

In my look around baseball today I’ll discuss a myriad of topics that are in the news. (1) Who will Johnny Damon signs with? (2) Matt Kemp/Chad Billingsley agree to deals with Dodgers. (3) Adam LaRoche officially signs with D’backs at the expense of Eric Byrnes. (4) Orlando Hudson still teamless. (5) Ben Sheets and Derrick Turnbow try to convince teams they are worth signing. (6) Does Carlos Delgado have anything left? (7) Indians catching situation.

By Ray Flowers

The Wednesday Blahs

Wednesday is kind of a blah day. What happened last weekend is nothing but a memory now, and the plans for the coming weekend are still coming into focus. Of course in the world of baseball there is never a break until the season is completed, so I certainly have a lot of things to keep me occupied until I get the chance to get my groove on this weekend.

What’s the deal with Ronnie Belliard? He has hit .319 since joining the Dodgers (47 ABs), and he has hit .321 over his last 50 appearances. That’s pretty phenomenal production for a guy who hit just .184 over his first 51 games.

Eric Byrnes said that he will be playing winter ball in the Dominican Republic this offseason. “I miss playing baseball,” he said. “The past two years, getting 200 (at-bats), that’s not cutting it. If I can make up for some lost at-bats and get down there and play in a real competitive league, it will be beneficial.” Nicknamed “Captain America” by the faithful in the Dominican, this will be the fifth season he has played there. I wish him all the luck in the world because baseball is a better game when Byrnes and his child-like enthusiasm are flying all over the field.

Don’t worry Fausto Carmona owners, the Indians will leave him in the rotation for the rest of the season (Carmona is 3-11 with a 6.58 ERA, a 1.81 WHIP and a 5.57 BBB.9 mark). And to think, there was actually a chance that the Indians could have gone with a pitcher who could have actually given them a chance to win the game. At least they are loyal.

Bartolo Colon was released by the White Sox on Wednesday, and this could signal the end of the road for the one-time ace. Colon averaged 17 victories a year from 1998-2005, but since 2006 he has only been able to stay healthy long enough to make 48 appearances on his way to earning 14 victories. All told, Colon has won 153 games with a 4.10 ERA in a solid major league career, though we are all left to wonder just how well he could have done if he just dropped some weight and took better care of that body of his.

How good has this Josh Johnson kid been? On Wednesday he held the Cardinals to just one run over six innings to improve his record to 15-4 while dropping his ERA to a terrific 3.01. This was the sixth straight outing in which he didn’t go seven innings, but given that only once in that time he has allowed more than three earned runs, he has still given the Marlins a chance to win every time he has taken the hill. He is now 5.2 innings from his first 200-inning season as well.

Hiroki Kuroda continues to pitch well, something the Dodgers desperately need from a starting rotation that includes an injured Clayton Kershaw (out another week after hurting his non-pitching shoulder running into a wall during batting practice) and a struggling Chad Billingsley (an ERA of six in his last four appearances which has led to the team skipping his next turn in the rotation). Kuroda held the Pirates to but one run over six innings on Wednesday, the tenth straight start in which he has allowed three or fewer earned runs. Moreover, over his last three starts, he has an ERA of 2.84.

The Red Sox-Angels game just got underway. Glancing at the starting lineup every single one of the top-8 batters in the Angels’ lineup were hitting at least .287 and Juan Rivera was the only batter below .297 in that group. Do you think the players on the club make fun of Mike Napoli and his .269 average?

The Giants face the Rockies tonight with Matt Cain on the hill, and with a victory the Giants would move to within 1.5 games of the Rocks. Let’s hope it happens so that we can have a wild finish for the NL Wild Card.

Who is your AL home run leader since June 5th? I could give you 45 guesses and I bet you still wouldn’t come up with the right answer so I’m just going to tell you – it’s David Ortiz who has hit 23 homers in that time to lead the Junior Circuit. His last home run, on Tuesday night against the Angels, was his 270th as a DH, the all-time record (passing Frank Thomas).

By Ray Flowers

Today vs. Tomorrow

What kind of person are you? Do you spend money as soon as you cash that work check, or do you put it away and save for that house you and your spouse have planned to buy? While this may seem like an odd question to pose given the nature of this blog, the truth is that baseball team’s deal with the same issue on an almost daily basis. What am I talking about? A little background first.

The Yankees currently sit in first place in the AL East, 2.5 games ahead of the Red Sox going into their matchup tonight. This is hardly enough of gap for the Yankees to do anything but plow ahead continuing to do what they have done thus far (no one is going to be taken a vacation on the bench to rest their bodies).

Joba Chamberlain, the Yankees starter on Thursday night, is 7-2 on the year with a 3.58 ERA over his 20 starts this season. Those are certainly respectable numbers, especially considering a few of the rough outings that Joba has given this year. Still, in his 20 trips to the hill he has allowed three or fewer runs 17 times which would be simply terrific if not for the fact that Joba has failed to last six innings in nine of those starts (45 percent of the time). However, Joba has pitched very well of late having won each of his last three games during which time he has 19 Ks, eight walks, a 0.83 ERA and a 0.74 WHIP. That’s dealing folks. So what did ESPN’s Buster Olney say when talking about Chamberlain today? Here is what he said (I’m paraphrasing, but it’s awfully close) – Joba is on a “hard” innings pitched count this season of 160, and he will not, under any circumstance, exceed that number.

Why is that? The team is concerned that they could blow out Joba’s arm early if they don’t allow him to build up arm strength over the years. While I think this is a preposterous position to take, there is some obvious validity to their concerns, especially since Joba has never been a big innings pitched guy. Here are his innings totals since his days at Nebraska in college.

2005: 118.2
2006: 89.1
2007: 112.1
2008: 100.1
2009: 110.2

Obviously it wouldn’t make a heck of a lot of sense to let a guy add 100-innings to his previous high in innings pitched, so I can sympathize with that line of thought. At the same time, did anyone worry about pitch or inning counts back when a guy like Roger Clemens, who Joba is often compared to, was tossing 254 innings the season he was 23 years old (the same age as Joba)? Or how about the 7-straight seasons, starting with that year, that the Rocket eclipsed 225-innings pitched? Have today’s players become “wussified” – a word I’m petitioning Webster’s to add to their dictionary by the way. I’ll leave that argument for another day.

The bottom line is this – should a club like the Yankees worry about protecting their investment, one that could pay dividends for the next decade, at the expense of the current season? What if Joba goes 5-0 in his next six starts with a 1.95 ERA? Should the Yankees still shut him down because he has reached his innings pitched limit? And don’t think this is just a Yankees situation as other youngsters like Rick Porcello, Mat Latos and Clayton Kershaw could also see their workload curtailed as the season winds down (that matters little in the case of Latos since the Padres have nothing to play for, but what about Kershaw who’s Dodgers could play well into October? He tossed 169 innings last season between Double-A and the bigs so does that mean the Dodgers let him hit 200 this season? At his current pace Kershaw might push up against that total during the regular season. Will they shut him down come playoff time if he is their best pitcher? That would certainly take some massive huevos rancheros – and yes, I know that makes no sense).

I don’t know what the answer is, but I can tell you this – if I’m a fan of a team, or I have that guy on my fantasy roster, I certainly don’t want his team to “wussify” him at the expense of immediate success. Damn it I want my 50-inch flat screen. I could care less about that house I’m not going to be able to afford for another eight years.

By Ray Flowers