Preseason Fantistics Analysis - March 9, 2011

Preseason Fantistics Analysis - Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Milwaukee Brewers

The big news hitting the wires in the last 24 hours is that Zack Greinke will be starting the season on the 15-day DL with a broken rib and is expected to miss at least three starts. The culprit? A pick-up game of basketball during the offseason. He’ll miss four to six weeks, but Greinke seemed to shake it off as not a big deal. Greinke’s ADP was around 5.0 before the news, so he will likely drop a few rounds as fantasy owners are scared away from the lack of production in the first few weeks of the season. That could mean a good buy opportunity if fantasy owners get spooked by the injury.

After Greinke and Yovani Gallardo, the Brewers will turn to their other new acquisition of Shaun Marcum as their #3. Marcum moves from the AL East on the Blue Jays to the NL Central, which should give him an instant bump in value. The main criticism for Marcum is his lefty/righty splits. The righty is oddly more effective against lefties than righties. Marcum held lefthanded batters to a .190 avg, .532 OPS, BABIP of .230, and a K/BB of 4.75 in 2010. Against righthanded batters, he allowed a .298 avg, .859 OPS, BABIP of .331, and a K/BB of 3.04. Despite the dichotomy in effectiveness, he still posted an overall 3.64 ERA and 1.15 WHIP while recording a K/9 of 7.6. His ADP is trending at a steal of around 12.0. Anything after the 100th overall pick for Marcum is gravy.

Chicago White Sox

The Chicago White Sox enter the 2011 season with lots of questions. Who will play 3B? Will manager Ozzie Guillen go with Matt Thornton, Chris Sale or a committee of two in the 9th inning? Will Jake Peavy be ready for opening day and, if so, just how effective will he be this season? And perhaps the most fun to try and predict - how many HR will U.S. Cellular allow to Adam Dunn this year? We’ll save the offensive fun for later this month. Today, we’ll focus on pitching.

First, let’s take a look at Jake Peavy. As you recall from 2010, Peavy’s season was cut-short when he suffered a right shoulder injury midway through the year. Doctors originally thought he wouldn’t be 100% until, conservatively speaking, the All-Star Break 2011. But Peavy progressed well in the offseason and was able to make his first start of Spring Training on March 4th. He looked about as sharp as a pitcher can look having not pitched since last July. He threw 26 pitches over 2.0 IP of work, recorded two K’s and hit 92 mph on the gun. He’ll have to build-up his strength and the start of the season is still a coin flip at this point. My guess is that the White Sox go easy on him and set a timetable for a mid-May return to the club. Peavy, who turns 30 this season, still has the stuff to make him a nice mid-to-late round sleeper. 2010 got off to a rough start for him, but before he got injured, he posted 5 consecutive QS in June with a K/9 of 7.3. If he can stay healthy, I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see him post a 8.0 K/9 and a mid-teen win total. I will be keeping an eye on his GB/FB rates this spring, as an increase in flyballs at U.S. Cellular could spell trouble (ballpark factor of 75 - anything over the median of 100 is favorable to the pitcher). In limited service last year, he yielded his lowest GB/FB rate of the last five years at 0.68. Something to watch carefully this spring. But with that said, a a potent White should give him plenty of run support and a strong bullpen should be able to close it out for him, making him a nice value pick.

Moving to the bullpen, the Southsiders have two legitimate closer candidates in Matt Thornton and Chris Sale. I think Thornton has the greatest potential for 30+ saves this year, having already proven effective in both the setup role (20+ holds for three consecutive years) and in the 9th inning converting 8 saves in 10 opportunities in 2010. The 21-year old Sale had some pretty incredible numbers in 21 games last year, including a 1.93 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 3.20 K/BB, and a perfect 4-for-4 in save opportunities. Sale is a nice late-round gamble and back-up just in case Thornton stumbles out of the gate and an impatient Guillen turns to Sale.

New York Yankees

With the starting lineup basically set in stone, the real focus for this spring training for the Yankees is the starting pitching. After passing (or losing out, depending on how you look at it) on the major free agent signings of the offseason, the attention turns to how the Yankees will fill in the remaining spots after CC Sabathia and Phil Hughes. AJ Burnett is the logical #3, but fantasy confidence is at an all time low in his ability to bounce back after a terrible 2010. His K/9 has been on a steady decline over the last four years from 9.6, 9.4, 8.5 and 7.0. Last year’s larger drop may be a direct result of the drop in velocity on his fastball. Dating back to 2007, the average mph on his fastball has changed on yearly basis from 95.9, 94.4, 94.2, to 93.1 last season. I’m not real confident in a major bounce-back year, although I do think that he will improve on his 7.0 K/9 which should at least make him somewhat fantasy relevant for a very late round gamble.

As for the rest of the rotation, you’re staring at Ivan Nova and Sergio Mitre. Both don’t offer much in terms of your typical mixed league, but Nova may be a guy to keep an eye on during the season. At 24 and with only 7 starts under his belt, Nova still has a ways to go, but he did show some positive signs in Triple-A Wilkes-Barre last season before being called-up, posting a 12-3 record with a 2.86 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, and a K/9 of 7.1. I’d steer clear for now unless you’re in an AL-only league. “Learning the job” in the Bronx can prove to be tricky, so we’ll have to wait and see if he can handle the pressure.

1. Alex Gordon (3B/OF - Royals) - As each year passes, we get further and further away from Alex Gordon recognizing that oft-mentioned “potential” we have heard about since 2007. He has yet to hit over .260 or post an OPS over .785. Even this spring, Gordon has no extra base hits, has 6 K’s, and is hitting just .125. He only has value in AL-only leagues at this point, but at that peak age of 27, I still wouldn’t be surprised to see him put up some decent numbers. We have him forecasted at 20 HR.

2. Colby Rasmus (OF - Cardinals) - Rasmus is settling into the 2-hole nicely. Manager Tony LaRussa likes him there for his situational hitting, but fantasy owners will like it for the runs and production hitting in front of Albert Pujols. He hit 23 HR last year and has the potential for 30, but at 24 he might still be a couple of years away from realizing that potential. He’s a top 25 outfielder and has an ADP of about 10.0 heading into this year’s draft. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him score 100 this year.

3. Aaron Hill (2B - Blue Jays) - Hill is still considered day-to-day with a quadriceps injury, but has yet to be cleared for spring training action. Let’s hope the Blue Jays take this one seriously, as last year’s hamstring injury in the spring led to a down-production year for the slugging second baseman. After posting 36 HR, 108 RBI, and an .829 OPS in 2009, Hill struggled at times at the plate in 2010 with a .665 OPS, 68 RBI, and 26 HR. That’s a drop in AB/HR from 18.9 to 20.3. Hill is at the tail-end of draftable 2B in typical 12-team mixed leagues with an ADP in the mid-teens. He could still put up another 30HR mark if he can stay healthy, but something in the high 20’s is probably more realistic. Still not bad power from 2B if you happen to miss out on some of the bigger 2B names earlier in the draft.

4. Jarrod Saltalamacchia (C - Red Sox) - We’ve been talking about Salty for quite some time, but the new Red Sox starting catcher is only 25 years old. He’s still a big risk on draft day, posting a career EYE of .311 in 899 plate appearances and an OBP of .315. But there is still some upside here as he will get everyday playing time behind the plate in Boston.

5. Josh Beckett (SP - Red Sox) - Not only has Josh Beckett recovered from the concussion he suffered last week, but he is now speaking out about last season’s back problems and claiming he feels much better. If his back problems were as bad as he says, then we have a great explanation for why he posted a 5.78 ERA and 1.54 WHIP compared to his previous 3-year average of 3.71 ERA and 1.17 WHIP. With this latest injury news, he definitely gets bumped up a few spots on my draft board (he’s currently at an ADP of 15.0 which feels like a great value buy if he can post a K/I close to 1.0 and a sub-4.00 ERA).

6. Brian McCann (C - Braves) - Brian McCann is on of the top-2 rated fantasy catchers heading into this year’s draft (of course Joe Mauer is probably your #1), which is no surprise if you take a look at his consistency over the last few years. His last three years HR totals are 23, 21, and 21. His run totals are 68, 63, and 63. His RBI totals are 87, 94, and 77. The interesting news for the 27 year old McCann is that he has lost 10 pounds this year, perhaps keeping him fresher during a long season that usually wears down catchers. He has a new philosophy on his health which could propel him to that next tier of fantasy production. ADP of about 5.0, but he could turn out to be the best catcher this season.

7. Pabo Sandoval (3B - Giants) - Kung Fu Panda burned a lot of fantasy owners last year. Drafting off of a 2009 performance that yielded .330/.387/.556 with 25 HR and 90 RBI, Sandoval followed up in 2010 with a disappointing (an understatement) line of .268/.323/.409 with 13 HR and 63 RBI. The result has him dropping into the teen-rounds of 12-team fantasy drafts, but it also prompted him to drop some pounds in the offseason. Having seen him in person a few weeks ago, he is noticeably thinner and more muscular. Perhaps that has led to his great start this spring going 9-for-27 with 2 doubles and a stolen base. The 24-year-old Sandoval is also working on hitting lefties after an obvious gap in his game from last season where he posted an OPS of .779 against righties (as a LHB) and a .559 against lefties (as a RHB). I’m looking forward to a nice rebound season for Sandoval of production around the midpoint between his 2009 and 2010 seasons.

8. Sean Marshall (RP - Cubs) - Hold leagues add that extra wrinkle of complexity and variability, making it tough on draft day to find that balance between true setup men and closers. Sean Marshall is a good example of a good value bet to post another 20+ hold season as a setup man to Carlos Marmol on the northside of Chicago. Last season, the lefty posted 22 Holds with a 2.65 ERA, 1.11 WHIP and a K.9 of 10.8. He should be in a good position to at least make a repeat of last season’s performance if not improve on it.

9. Adrian Beltre (3B - Rangers) - Beltre is recovering from a mild calf strain, but he is progressing quickly and should be ready in a couple of weeks (and unless he sees a setback, should be ready for opening day with no problem). Its easy to predict some sort of regression to the mean with Beltre, who likely had a career year with the Red Sox in 2010. His BHIP% was .258 with an average of .297, perhaps indicating some luck that added points to his overall average. Still, he’ll be a productive fantsay 3B (at the right price) and should still be able to hit 25+ and flirt with 100 RBI in a potent lineup.

10. Jorge Posada (C/DH - Yankees) - Posada will be the permanent DH this season, seeing occasional time behind homeplate to give everyday catcher Russel Martin a day of rest. But manager Joe Girardi has also given Posada a 1B glove and he could see some playing time there over the next week or so. Other than adding 1B eligibility to his resume (if he can earn enough games there during the year), this won’t do too much to Posada’s fantasy value. The real key here is that the aging Posada (39) should be able to stay healthier as the DH.

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