Fantasy Baseball: The Stud Call-Up Season Is Here

It is my favorite time of the fantasy baseball year and where my usually title contending teams separate from the pack if I hit on the right player.

It is rookie stud call-up season.

Now, you might be thinking that September is really call-up season. While that is the 40-man roster expansion date and picking up some rookies then can help your team down the stretch, usually by September you are pretty entrenched into you position in your fantasy league and that little extra boost will do nothing for 95 percent of fantasy owners. Also, the difference in the late-May, early-June call-up season and September is that the guys coming up earlier in the year are the studs who were sent down at the end of Spring Training either for a little extra seasoning or two set their arbitration clocks back and keep them from becoming Super Two category players. The players coming for September are on either end of the spectrum – the older veteran free agent waived in mid-August or the too-young-to-be-MLB-ready youngster ending minor league years but played well enough for a cup of coffee.

For instance, when Dustin Pedroia got his initial call-up in September of 2006 for a Red Sox team that had fallen out of contention. He got 98 plate appearances and had a .191 batting average, .258 on-base percentage and .303 slugging with two home runs, seven RBI and no stolen bases. The next two years, “Laser Show” Pedroia was the Rookie of the Year and the American League Most Valuable Player. It was much better to pick him up in late May of 2007 when he got hot (and has pretty much stayed hot) as opposed to grabbing him the previous September when there was hype about the Sox bringing up a solid second round second baseman.

So, depending on the service time of the player, this is the time of year that they are being brought up. My guess is that a fair amount of you reading this either already have Stephen Strasburg stowed away or someone on your league does, so I will avoid the obvious. Yet, 2010 is shaping up to be a great year for young talent outside Strasburg and Jason Heyward and picking these guys up or keeping them on your radar could be the difference from fighting for position come September or watching as the big boys battle it out while you are trying to figure out who the backup running back to Darren McFadden will be.

There are some imminent arrivals on the horizon:

Outfielders –

Mike Stanton – Florida

Jose Tabata – Pittsburgh

Desmond Jennings – Tampa Bay

Michael Taylor – Oakland

Third Base –

Pedro Alvarez – Pittsburgh

Josh Bell – Baltimore

Catchers –

Buster Posey – San Francisco

Carlos Santana – Cleveland

Tyler Flowers – White Sox

Pitchers –

Kyle Drabeck – Toronto

Chris Tillman – Baltimore

Jake Arrieta – Baltimore

Jeremy Hellickson – Tampa Bay

Tanner Scheppers – Texas

Note: These are all players who are still in the minors but should find space on their major league rosters sometime within the next month-and-a-half. There are a couple other players in this rookie group that deserve some attention as well such as Drew Storen who has the potential to close for the Nationals, Starlin Castro at shortstop for the Cubs. It is also worth it to take major looks at Mike Leake of the Reds and Wade Davis of the Rays as starting pitchers who began the year with their big league clubs and are having strong starts to their seasons.

But, back to the potential call-ups. The biggest names on that short list there are Posey, Stanton, Drabeck and maybe Tillman. Few scouts have doubts that these players will sooner than later be impact major leaguers and all but Tillman should get regular time once they get the call (the Orioles bullpen is so woeful that Tillman and Arrieta are probably headed there before getting thrown to the Camden Yards fire).

The reason that Stanton, Drabeck and Posey will be immediate starters (probably on your fantasy team as well) is because their parent teams have glaring weaknesses at their positions. The Giants cannot hit a lick and Posey lengthens their lineup well while probably kicking Aubrey Huff out of the lineup or to the outfield. The Marlins have atrocious numbers from their corner outfielders (looking at you, again, Cameron Maybin) and Toronto needs pitching to go with a surprisingly strong offense.

Let’s take a closer look at each of those players. Stanton was a second round pick by the Marlins in 2007 and is 21 in November. A lot of player development professionals want to see young hitters play well in the minors for about 1500 plate appearances and as of Saturday Stanton had 1338 from rookie league to double-A Jackonsonville in 310 games. This year through 39 games he has 17 home runs and 43 RBI with a .313/.446/.741 line, exceptional in everyway after struggling initially with Jacksonville in a mid-season promotion in 2009. Given that little bit of history, the Marlins might like to see how Stanton does at triple-A New Orleans but at this point the clock is set to “when” not “if” for this season.

Posey has already got the call-up to the Giants and has 40 innings behind the plate under his belt with 17 plate appearances. With a -38 OPS+ rating, he has not done much yet but there is a good chance he will find his groove this year and be a semi-productive catcher at one of the weakest positions in all of fantasy baseball. He had 723 plate appearances in his minor league career with a .328/.423/.534 line and in 41 games at triple-A Fresno this year had 181 plate appearances with a .333/.431/520 line with five home runs and 28 RBI. That is a major-league ready catcher if there has ever been one and it is worth keeping a close eye on him when his bat catches up to big league pitching.

Drabeck probably will not set the league on fire but has the potential to be a stabilizer. This year in double-A New Hampshire he is 5-4 with 48 strikeouts, 3.59 ERA and 1.424 WHIP in nine games started and 52.2 innings pitched. Those are not particularly great numbers, especially considering his peripheries of 4.1 walks per nine innings, and 2.00 strikes per walk but his 8.7 strikeout per nine innings is promising and should not fall below 7.00 or so when he comes to the majors. If he can cut down on his wildness, especially in the big leagues, it is not out of reason to assume that he can stay around his minor league levels of 3.68 ERA and 8.2 strikeouts per nine with a much more respectable 1.286 WHIP.

Perhaps Tillman or Scheppers are more to your liking on the pitching front or you are higher on Jennings than Stanton. The point is that these are potential impact players in reality that means they could definitely be difference makers on your fantasy roster very soon. Keep an eye out on the transaction wire in the next month so you can be the first to lock them down when the time comes.

Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

The Perfect Game Mirage: Dallas Braden

A lot of mid-season fantasy baseball is about chasing mirages. You think you see something in a young, unheralded prospect who has had a good week getting time filling in for a veteran and you go pick him up off the waiver wire only to have him bat .178 for the next three weeks and get designated for assignment.

Or maybe you see a seldom used veteran get a chance to start and put up some decent numbers. Marco Scutaro was a late bloomer. So was Denard Span. Then you have also-rans like Nick Green for the Red Sox last year or Darnell McDonald this year who, despite some dramatics, are not worth a spot on your fantasy roster. That does not mean that somebody in your league is not going to put him on his roster.

But, by far the biggest mirage that gets fantasy owners frothing is when a marginal pitcher comes out of nowhere and throws a no-hitter, or in Dallas Braden’s case, a perfect game. There was a fairly good chance that Braden was available in your league as he was owned in only 65 percent of owners in ESPN free leagues earlier this week. He saw a spike in ownership right after the perfect game and a lot of activity on the trade line.

But, other than Braden making some early season waves when he became irate with superstar Alex Rodriguez for crossing the mound when returning to first base from third after a foul ball, there has not been much to Braden to remark upon in his career. The question becomes: is Dallas Braden really a guy you want to go out of your way to acquire at this point in the season?

The answer is that he is in the middle somewhere. If he is not on your roster, I would not go out your way to get him. He is a good option in deeper mixed leagues or as an waiver acquisition during two-start weeks but there are a fair amount of starting pitchers you can find at this point in the year with middling strikeout numbers and a couple of wins to their name. At 4-2 with and ERA of 3.33 (a Fielding Independent Pitching line – FIP -- of 3.45 indicating the level he is actually pitching at on an ERA scale) he is pitching about half a run better than his line last year of 3.89 (3.73 FIP which is rare that the number would go down instead of up, especially considering his park weighted xFIP was at 4.80) and his peripheries say that will probably drop to at least the 3.90 range sometime within the next month.

Now, that is pretty good when looking at backend fantasy options. But within a standard 5x5 roto world, there is more to it than just ERA. He plays for the Athletics, a team that has trouble hitting and has averaged 3.9 runs per game of support for him through his career (4.2 this year). League average tends to be around 4.42. He had five “tough losses” last year in 22 starts. A “tough loss” is categorized as a loss for a pitcher when he has registered a quality start (6 IP, 3 ER or less). This year he has one in seven starts so wins can be a concern.

He is a starter, so saves are out of the question as a value category so he should provide good WHIP and strikeout numbers to be of value. This year, his WHIP is fantastic at .96 through 46 innings pitched. He has reduced that this year by dramatically reducing his walks per nine innings from 3.14 in 2008 to 2.77 in 2009 and then cut in half to 1.37 this year. For a guy with a history of walking guys in the big leagues, it is hard to imagine that he can keep his walks per nine under 2.00 for the year and hence his WHIP will adjust correspondingly. Braden also has a batting average on balls in play (BABIP) of .245, about .55 below league average and .63 below his career average of .308. Put these two stats together and it says that he is pitching a little over his head in terms of his historical reference points.

Braden’s career major league strikeout per nine innings ratio is a very mediocre 5.65 even after he put up great strikeout numbers through the minor leagues. This year he is right at his average at 5.48 so he is not a guy who will really help you get ahead in the strikeout category. He will help you tread water, certainly, but a roster full of Bradens would be destined to finish the bottom half in that statistical category.

It is not unheard of for a pitcher to really start tuning it up in his mid to late 20s. Braden is 26 and due for some type of breakout, even with his relatively mediocre stuff topping out at 87 miles per hour with his fastball and a deceiving if overly unimpressive slider. He could turn into a late-career Tom Glavine type or even Jamie Moyer but that is not exactly the type of comparison a 26-year-old pitcher with 53 career MLB starts under his belt wants to hear.

Think of Braden like Aaron Laffey with an attitude. Baseball-Reference.com lists Laffey as one of Braden’s top comparables with a 972 similarity score (1000 would be an identical player). Then ask yourself, how much do I really want to trade for Aaron Laffey?

This article will appear on May 12 at RotoInfo.com. Dan Rowinski is a columnist for RotoInfo.com and can be reached at DanRowinski@RotoInfo.com.

Fantasy Owners: Don't Panic, It Is Only April

Set the barn on fire, slaughter all the livestock, and poison the wells. You are in the midst of being conquered and, for the moment, there is no hope in sight. 

But wait. Is that the sound of a friendly bugle? Are their reinforcements for our weary troops? Has the cavalry arrived to save us from certain destruction?

The answer is no, the cavalry has been here since the beginning.

It is the beginning of the fantasy season and you are sitting on the bottom of your league. You thought you had a good draft but key components are not living up to expectations. Josh Beckett has not turned out to be the ace you thought he was, Manny Ramirez may be showing his age and that sleeper pick who you absolutely knew would be setting the league on fire from the sound of the bell is languishing on the bench or in the minors.

Do not fear, intrepid fantasy owner. Remember the key to all statistical analysis (especially pertinent in baseball) – everything comes back to the mean.

The guy who is leading your league by a mile right now because he (for some reason no one can quite figure out) drafted and started Vernon Wells, Daric Barton and Dallas Braden? Yeah, he is not going to keep that up. 

There is a reason that the core statistics in baseball hardly ever deviate from their averages. Over the long run of the season the sample size becomes so large that the numbers cannot help but stay within similar ranges. Season over season and “average” major leaguer will hit around .265 with a .326 on-base percentage and .414 slugging percentage. If you have done your due diligence and have taken players who have career averages above those means then there is a good chance that they will eventually perform back to their historical value.

What does this mean? Do not go out and sell Victor Martinez just because he is batting .250 on April 14. It also means that you should look at players like Blue Jays reliever Casey Janssen have probably just gotten lucky to already have three wins in the first week and a half.

A closer look at Janssen. He has the league leading three wins, but he also only has three innings pitched with four strikeouts and two walks. On April 8 he came he came in to a game the Jays were losing 1-0, threw a scoreless inning then watched as Toronto scored three runs in the ninth for the win. The next night he allowed a run to the Orioles in the eighth but watched as the Jays scored a couple in the ninth to win 7-6. Two days later he pitched a scoreless seventh against the Orioles and watched his team score three in the eighth and one in the ninth for a 5-2 win.

The lessons here are that Janssen has pretty much been the lucky recipient of some cardiac comebacks by the Blue Jays. Considering the overall lack of talent on the Jays roster, the division they play in and the fact that two of those wins came against the equally hapless Orioles, you get the idea that it is not worth relying on early season indicators as recipes for season long success. Especially when it comes to middle relievers on bad teams.

Janssen is just pertinent example of early season sample size, not a viable fantasy option. There are not many fantasy owners (0.9 percent in all ESPN leagues) who actually own him.

There is a reason that owners in the elite Tout Wars fantasy leagues do not like to trade in the first month of the season. They have crafted, drafted and carved their teams with the hope and knowledge that they believe their players will perform. Why start trading away the Becketts, Martinezes or even Nate McLouths of the world for the (proverbial and literal) Janssens? It is probably not even worth to pick Janssen up on the waiver wire (where you will inevitably find him) because the likelihood that he wins three more games all season is probably quite low. Again: See middle reliever – Toronto Blue Jays.

Conscientious and cerebral owners who have a good pulse on their league can take advantage of the impulse owners who are in an early season panic. There are always bad owners who drafted well by some magic or luck who will be enticed by a trade of big names, say David Ortiz and Eric Chavez for Jason Heyward. If you can find one of those owners in your league, make the deal and do not look back.

Otherwise, it is only April. Remember that everything that rises must converge and exercise your patience.


Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

Great review of Horse & Hound Gastropub Beer Dinner

Editors note: This post is copied in its entirety from the blog Edible CVille, authored by a woman named Libby. It is such a fantastic assessment of the Horse and Hound Gastropub that it just had to make its way to Sports Chutney. One, just to get H&H some more pub, two because there has been a lot more sports and not enough chutney here for a good while. Just so you know, my brother-in-law if the Chef Luther mentioned in the piece and he owns the restaurant with my sister Brooke. Enjoy.

Horse and Hound Gastropub.

When Hubby and I lived in Pittsburgh, we used to attend the Sharp Edge Beer Festivalevery June. A beer tent full of over 100 different kinds, from lagers to pilsners, to Belgian ales and beyond. For three blissful hours distributors would offer you tastes of their wares then punch a hole in your "dance card" (the festival card ensuring you had no more than one taste of each beer offered). We'd compare beers and compete to see how many we could quaff in three hours, our cards resembling Swiss cheese by the end. Afterward, we'd stumble into the Sharp Edge Beer Emporium to scarf down pub grub and count the days until next year. Inevitably, we'd start talking with total strangers who'd just come from the festival as well, and end up staying long after closing, debating whether or not Duchess du Bourgogne was a gorgeous red ale, or simply vinegar (I'm a firm believer in the latter for the record, BLEH!)

Ever since we've been trying to recreate the festival experience by attending Cville beer dinners. Of course, you don't get the depth and breadth of beer styles (i.e., drunkenness) you do at a festival, but it's still a great way to sample while enjoying what we hope will be great food. We've had various levels of success with this experiment (I'm looking at you l'étoile), and it was with this in mind that we recently attended the Ommegang beer dinner at Horse and Hound Gastropub.

I'd not yet been to Horse and Hound, but the menu looked interesting, and I loveOmmegang beer. So much in fact for the longest time I thought they were a Belgian company, but no, they create their nectar in Cooperstown, NY of all places - lucky baseball hall of fame tourists!

I don't know what it is, but every time I go to a beer dinner I think it's going to be like a beer FESTIVAL. But it's not. Instead of conversation growing organically under the friendly beer tent, they sit you at this long table full of SOBER strangers, and instantly you feel like you're having dinner with the in-laws for the first time. You better be on your best behavior! Awkward conversation abounds. Inevitably, within 20 minutes I wish Hubby and I were at our own table where we can act like 12-year-olds without repercussion. But no, we stay at the big-people table and get what I imagine to be disapproving looks that only get worse as the night goes on and we get more silly.

This night was no exception. So, I put on my "Chatham face" (the term I used in my old job when I had to go to social functions and be nicey-nice) and do my best to make friends. It was fine. Not a beer festival, but fine.

As at any beer dinner (I talk like I'm an expert when I have been to only TWO) the distributor does his spiel about the roasting of the hops, the loving care taken in the creation of this nectar, the fabulous untouched by human hands spring water sprinkled lightly over the barley like a warm spring rain. Yadda Yadda Yadda. The poor guy. You could tell he adores his job, but this is usually where I tune out and start looking at what food is coming. Hoping for that first pour. Let ME be the judge as to whether the beer is good or not. It's the same when I visit wineries - you can ply me with reams of heritage and lineage and information and awards and medals, but the real story is the taste.

The TASTE of the beer which was superb, but in this case, the real story was in the food as well, and the presentation. Each course arrived quickly, but not too quickly, presented perfectly, and with a short explanation by Chef Luther as to how the dish was prepared. I started to feel a little like Padma Lakshmi, without the plunging cleavage or the attitude. Yes, it was a little "Top Chef" and you know what?.............I LOVED it. It made the dinner special. It made me FEEL special. Hearing the Chef's process, the way he chose the ingredients to complement the beer, then the way the course was prepared, made me excited to eat it. Even the diners around us, stuck with the regular menu of meat, chicken, and sandwiches, looked envious.

They should have been. The food was outstanding. Every course. So it surprised me later when I looked up Horse and Hound's regular menu and found it pretty pedestrian. But Chef Luther can create all these OTHER things, so why sell steak and sandwiches? Does the other not sell? I got the impression the regular menu was Chef Luther's 9-5 daily grind, and the beer dinner was his time to "play".

And play he did. What I love about his menu is not only were the offerings paired perfectly with the beer, but he USED the paired beer in each course. So simple. So genius. I will always remember March 4, 2010, as the day I first tasted Flemish Carbonnade. A hearty beef stew which is the Belgian national dish. Slow braised beef - and I mean slow. Chef Luther told us it took him THREE DAYS to prepare this dish in its entirety. Braised in the Ommegang 2009 Ale(of which we were told only 3 casks remain) with vegetables, prunes, and spices until everything is just falling apart the minute you touch it. I SWOONED on first taste. It was bliss. I may have gushed ever so slightly as I left the restaurant, shaking Chef Luther's hand, thanking him, lingering just a little longer than I should. In my heart I wanted to kiss his feet but restrained myself. It was a beer DINNER after all and not a beer festival.

The next beer dinner is April 22, 2010. The menu is here. I suggest you go. No, it's not a festival - there will be some awkward conversation. You will have to listen to some distributor wax poetic about how his ales can cure the common cold. But I can almost guaran-damn-tee you there will be great food. Oh, and good beer too. Now, where can I buy an "I heart Chef Luther" tee shirt?

Horse and Hound Gastropub / Ommegang Beer Dinner
March 4, 2010

First Course - Prince Edward Island Mussels
Steamed in Hennepin, red coconut curry cream
Hennepin Farmhouse Saison

Second Course - Zucchini, Corn, Herb, Conch & Crawdad Fritters
Horseradish-orange marmalade
Rare Vos Amber Ale

Third Course - Duck, Lamb, Beef & Irish Banger Cassoulet
Ommegang Abbey Ale

Fourth Course - Flemish Carbonnade
Slow-braised in "Obamagang" ale, smashed red bliss potatoes, roasted vegetables
2009 Ale "Obamagang"

Fifth Course - Chocolate Cherry Profiteroles
Three Philosophers Quadrupel

Buyer Beware: The Verducci Effect

Injuries are the great equalizer in fantasy baseball.

Predicting them is difficult, though not impossible. Will Carroll from Baseball Prospectus is a foremost expert on injuries and does a fair job each year of identifying players who have higher or lower risk (and designating them with flags – red, yellow, green etc.) and there are other databases created by the sabermetric community that are very useful when trying to predict whether a player will break down over the course of the year or not.

When it comes to young pitchers, injuries and performance, the general rule over the past few years has been to watch out for the Year After Effect. Better known as the Verducci Effect, named after Sports Illustrated baseball writer Tom Verducci , the rule is defined “as any 25-and-under pitcher who increased his innings log by more than 30 in a year in which he pitched in the big leagues” by Verducci in his Feb. 16 article on SI.com.

The idea is that pitchers under 25 should be allowed to gradually develop at the major league level. If a pitcher goes 30 innings or more above his previous career high, he is at risk for the Verducci Effect.

The poster boy in recent memory for this has to be Cole Hamels. In leading the Phillies to the World Series title in 2008 he ended up pitching 253.1 innings between the regular season and playoffs. That was 63.1 innings more than he pitched combined in 2007 and it comes as no surprise that he struggled in 2009 with 193.2 regular season innings and another 19 in the postseason.

Hamels went 14-10 in ’08 with a 3.09 ERA, 142 ERA + and a league leading 1.082 WHIP. In 2009 he went 10-11 with a 4.32 ERA, 98 ERA + and 1.286 WHIP. Going by the ERA + numbers (where 100 is average), that is a 44 percent decrease in performance from year to year.

To be fair, there are pitchers who escape the Verducci Effect. Jon Lester pitched 237 innings in ’08 (with postseason) and, after some early struggles, was a dominant pitcher for the Red Sox in ’09 and has a lot of analysts picking him as a top Cy Young contender this year.

What to expect this year? I did some research and found a plethora of young pitchers who could be at risk for the Verducci Effect this year. Some of the names on my list match Verducci’s own (he has made predictions on 10 pitchers at SI.com) and a couple of them are no-brainers.

The first place to look is at three particular organizations known for riding young pitchers – Los Angeles, Detroit and Atlanta.

All three franchises have been playing with fire, to a certain extent, year after year with young pitchers. The Dodgers Chad Billingsley threw 147 innings in ’07 and then a combined 212.1 in ’08. Billingsley was 16-10 with a 3.43 ERA in ’08 then 12-11 with a 4.03 ERA in ’09.

This year Joe Torre has another pitcher with red flags in the form of 21-year-old Clayton Kershaw. In ’08, at age 20, he pitched 107.2 big league innings and then threw 184.1 a year later. Will his performance continue to climb in ’10 or will he find himself on the disabled list or generally ineffective this summer?

Then there is Detroit, a team that has pushed young arms like Justin Verlander, Jair Jurjenns and Armando Galarraga hard in their young careers. They did it again in ’09 with 20-year-old Rick Porcello who threw 170.2 innings last year, about 45 more than his previous minor league high. Porcello was also asked to throw a lot of high effort innings as the Tigers imploded down the stretch last year to miss the postseason.

The Braves pushed Tommy Hanson last year, mostly because he was a stud for them straight out of the gate. Between the minors and his time with the big club, he pitched 183.2 innings, 45.2 more than his previous minor league high. The Braves rode another young pitcher (oddly enough acquired from the Tigers organization) in Jurrjens who hit a career high 188.1 innings in ’08 after not pitching more than 142.1 in a season before that. Jurjenns had 215 innings last year and it should come as no surprise that he is dealing with some arm issues this spring.

Who else to keep a close eye on this year? Look out for Florida’s Josh Johnson (+ 52), Oakland’s Trevor Cahill (+ 54.1) and Brett Anderson (+ 55.1), Colorado’s Ubaldo Jimenez (+31.1 with postseason) and Max Scherzer (+ 42). Especially look out for Scherzer since he was traded to the Tigers in the offseason and it is a team desperate to make the playoffs and will push its pitchers as far as they will go.

This year’s poster boy for the Verducci Effect will probably end up being Homer Bailey, who only had 203 combined major/minor league innings last year that were 55.1 more than his career high. As Verducci points out, there was no reason for Bailey to throw that many innings last year, especially for a team that looks to be a dark horse coming into 2010.

The best way to prevent injuries from ruining your fantasy season is to keep an eye on the news wire, which is exactly the thing we do here at RotoInfo. Stay ahead of the game and make roster moves as soon as you are sure that you will lose one of your contributors for an extended period of time.

Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

Fantasy Value and Pitfalls of Stephen Strasburg

Jason Heyward may be the next uber-prospect to break into the batter’s box, but when it comes to the crème de la crème of hyped prospects is definitely Stephen Strasburg.

Young pitchers are much harder to project than young hitters. Basically the way it works is that when an especially young hitter proves that he can hit, he will not lose that talent barring significant injury. Think Mickey Mantle, Ken Griffey, Jr., Barry Bonds and maybe even Justin Upton.

Hyped young pitchers are different. For every Rogers Clemens, there is a Ben Macdonald. For every Felix Hernandez there is an equivalent Rick Ankiel.

Every player named thus far has had the same things in common – they were known as elite, once in a generation prospects and broke into the majors by their early 20s. Strasburg turns 22 on July 20th and figures to have been in the majors for at least a month by then. The plan for the rookie pitcher for now is to send him to Double A Harrisburg to let him get acclimatized to professional baseball for a little while before bringing him up to The Show to turn him loose.

A couple of questions arise: how soon is too soon to bring up Strasburg? How well will his stuff play in the majors coming more or less straight out of college? Can the young man handle the pressure?

For our purposes, the pertinent question becomes: what kind of fantasy impact can we expect from Straburg this season?

History gives us some clues.

Here are three pitchers who were high draft picks with elite expectations with time spent in the minors and performance in the first year they were called up.

Player A – Minors time: 15 games, 74.2 innings
First season: 21 games (15 starts), 118.2 innings, 8 wins, 5 losses, 2.43 ERA, 159 ERA +, 1.037 WHIP, 4.9 K/9, 1.86 K/BB

Player B – Minors time: 55 games, 278.1 innings
First season: 26 games started, 166.2 innings, 13 wins, 6 losses, 3.40 ERA, 129 ERA +, 1.212 WHIP, 12.6 K/9, 2.74 K/BB

Player C – Minors time: 9 games, 51 innings
First season: 19 games started, 116.2 innings, 6 wins, 6 losses, 3.32 ERA, 122 ERA+, 1.166 WHIP, 11.3 K/9, 3.387 K/BB

Player A and Player C were considered the best pitching prospects in memory in their respective drafts. Neither pitched badly in their first seasons and, especially in the case of Player C, showed great promise with his periphery numbers. Both players spent very little times in the minors and were with their big league teams in their first full year as professionals.

Player B was a little bit different as he spent parts of a few seasons in the minors before coming up in 1998 and blowing the doors off the league. He would team with Player C to make a very formidable rotation punch in the very memorable 2003 National League Championship series.

Got it yet?

Player A is Ben Macdonald, the first pick overall in the 1989 draft. Player B is Kerry Wood (4th overall, 1995) which would, of course, make Mark Prior (2nd overall – 2001).

Let us start with Macdonald. He was considered to be one of the best arms in a generation when he was drafted and he ended up having serviceable, though no where near sterling, numbers as a pro. His lifetime line of 78 wins, 70 losses, 3.91 ERA, 115 ERA + and 6.02 K/9 makes him slightly above average and he never really registered the “break out” superstar season that should be expected from a No. 1 overall.

Maybe Macdonald was overvalued in the first place but fantasy leaguers had a fair argument for picking him up in his first few seasons on hype and potential alone, if only to be marginally disappointed later.

Wood and Prior are different stories and, for our purposes, much closer to Strasburg than Macdonald. Wood may have benefited over Prior in the long term for his slower ascent through the minors (Wood is still pitching in the big leagues whereas Prior’s flame has pretty much been extinguished). In Wood’s first season he put up an astonishing number of strikeouts (233) and led the league in hits against (6.3/9) which, if he walked less batters, who have led to one of the most dominant seasons in history.

Wood was a must-have when he came up and probably only the most ardent of stat heads and minor league followers (or Cubs fans) had him on their fantasy roster for his 20 strikeout performance on May 6, 2008.

Prior was similar in that regard. He did not have quite the gaudy overall numbers that Wood did but his 11.3 K/9 and 3.87 K/BB were impressive and added up to a 1.16 WHIP, enough below league average to be serviceable. He did not add many wins and his overall accomplishments were marginalized in terms of fantasy value as he only had 116.2 innings. That makes him better than any reliever you could pick up but still on the fringe of quality fantasy depth.

So, what does this all mean for you, me, Strasburg and our fantasy leagues? Don’t get too excited. He could come out of the gate like Wood (or Dwight Gooden or Roger Clemens) and be a firecracker and have instant fantasy value. Or, he could go the Prior route and be good but only fringe worthy because of innings limitations, which fantasy owners always like to maximize.

From what we have seen from Strasburg this spring, he will probably be with the Nationals by June, at the very latest. Keep an eye on his progress because you would not want to miss picking him off the waiver wire (as long as somebody does not already have him stashed away) for a few quality starts before the All Star break.

Or he could be Macdonald.

In which case we will hear The Beltway cry in their cups for years to come.

Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

And to my left ...

A very tall building which I should know the name of but cannot quite remember. Oh well.
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Yes, it's an ice cream cone

Can you tell I am wondering around Boston on this fine spring day yet? Not really a tourist but having mild fun nonetheless. Blackberry Bold once again serving me well as a reporter's tool.

Currently we are in Copley Plaza on the stoop of Trinity Church.
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Playing with the iPad

Found the latest from the Wheel of Time in iBooks. Boston Apple Store.
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Spring Time in Boston ... Again

Same tree from last year's post ... new picture.
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Fantasy Value of Jason Heyward

Note: This article will appear on RotoInfo.com.

Every year there is a player on the major league baseball horizon that has fans, scouts, managers and fantasy players falling our of their seats.

Last year it was Baltimore catcher Matt Wieters along with Rays pitcher David Price. Before that it was Evan Longoria, Clay Buchholz, Joba Chamberlain, Jay Bruce … the list goes on.

And now we have Jason Heyward.

The reviews are coming in and the consensus is that Heyward will be some approximation between Hank Aaron and Darryl Strawberry (without the nasty cocaine habit).

For a more pertinent comparison, let’s look at Strawberry as opposed to Aaron. Strawberry broke into the big leagues with the Mets in 1983 at the age of 21 and had 473 plate appearances with a .257 average, .336 on-base percentage, 63 runs, 74 RBI and 26 home runs in 122 games.

A little more recent history shows that Longoria, young and similarly touted to Heyward and Strawberry, put up a .272 average, .343 on-base percentage, 67 runs, 85 RBI and 27 home runs in 508 plate appearances, also in 122 games.

What does this mean for Heyward? If the hype is to be believed, he is a step above what Strawberry and Longoria were when they came out. He has a physical gifts of nature with patience at the plate patience that could approach Barry Bonds with the (later years Bonds) power to go with it.

Braves manager Bobby Cox is so excited to have Heyward around for his final season on the bench that Atlanta is ignoring the recognized practices of holding uber-prospects back in the minors to forestall their arbitration clocks. So, unlike Strawberry or Longoria, Heyward is likely to eclipse 122 games played and 500 plate appearances, barring injury.

Let’s say that he gets around 650 plate appearances. In each of their first full seasons Prince Fielder and Albert Pujols were at that level and had 28 and 37 home runs, respectively.

The comparisons never end. Yet, if the sabermetric community, which values historical comparison as a means of quantifiable projection, the comparisons are the most important factor there is to find out what exactly can be expected of Heyward this season. An average between .275 and .290, on-base of .340 to .370 with 80 to 90 RBI and 27 to 35 home runs?

Very reasonable numbers to expect from a first year pro, no matter how much validated hype that surrounds him. But, where does that leave him in terms of fantasy value?

If you were in an early bird league, you probably could have snagged Heyward after the on the waiver wire or at the very end of the draft. A couple of months of media hype, comparisons and a guaranteed roster spot later, Heyward is going around 144^th over at ESPN’s average draft position and will cost between $12 to $15 at auction. That is probably what he is worth at this point though he has the potential to jump to elite status if he trends more to the Pujols side of rookie performance as opposed to Longoria/Fielder model.

It is doubtful that the Braves will go slowly with Heyward the way the Diamondbacks have done with Justin Upton. Really, this is the team that brought up Jordan Schafer after a strong spring last year to watch him have a great first game before dive bombing the next 49 games and being sent back to the minors.

That will not happen with Heyward.

Schafer was a flash in the Spring Training pan that had not performed exceptionally well at Class AA Mississippi in 2008 (.269 average, .378 on-base, 10 home runs and 51 RBI) before having a great spring in 2009 to make team. There was some buzz (not enough to call hype) and I will admit that I took him with the last pick of my draft in an extremely deep league before dumping him in the middle of April.

Heyward is more physically mature than Schafer or Upton were at a similar age and seems to have the mental make up that the both the Upton brothers have lacked early in their careers. Heyward will probably get the requisite plate appearances that will make him a viable fantasy option.

Is it worth jumping up in your draft to get him at say, the 120^th pick? Probably not, if you trust the projections.  Better value picks at this point might be some of the guys with track records where you know they won’t fall off a cliff and destroy your outfield. Think players like Torii Hunter, Nick Markakis, Brad Hawpe (in leagues that have absolute no defensive metrics) who should be available at the time you are thinking about taking Heyward. If you have already drafted a couple solid outfielders from the first and second tiers on the production ladder, take Heyward. If you are looking for second outfield production from him, you might end up disappointed.

This year at least.

Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

Fantasy Baseball: The Reliever Conundrum

Fantasy baseball owners year in and year out face the reliever conundrum.

What is the reliever conundrum? The fact that in standard 5x5 rotisserie leagues saves is a major fantasy category yet in the grand scheme of things relievers do not offer much value.

For instance, say you want to win the saves, ERA and WHIP categories and plan on doing it with mostly relievers. The first big problem here is that most leagues have a minimum qualification for innings pitched. You do not reach that threshold you are out of contention for winning that league. The innings requirement in turn marginalizes relievers ERA and WHIP totals because those categories are based on cumulative results. The innings threshold makes you carry starting pitchers. Say you have five starters and four relievers with a couple pitchers in reserve. Most fantasy baseball players want to maximize their starters innings to have the highest possibility of strikeout and win totals so a diligent owner might see each one of those five starting pitcher slots throw 250 or so innings to their total.

Of the 16 players with more than 30 saves last year, only four threw more than 70 innings (with Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton topping out 76 for, who else, Joe Torre) with the majority of pitchers falling between 60-69 innings. Even if your four to five relief pitchers have sterling ERAs and WHIPs, the cumulative effect of your relievers 250 to 300 innings will only be about 20 to 30 percent of your overall ERA and WHIP categories.

There is a flip side to this argument as well. If you are behind in saves in the middle of the season and there are multiple yet less than stellar options available either via trade or free agency, go get them and plug them in to your roster. Players like Matt Capps of the Nationals, Leo Nunez of the Marlins or Frank Francisco of the Rangers do not have typical closer ERAs but can get your team some saves. With their marginal amount of total innings pitched you should not be too worried about the cumulative effect of their poor numbers. They can help you tremendously in one category while having a negligible effect in others.

That is only half of the conundrum though. What about head-to-head leagues where being on top of your starting pitching is what separates winners from the also-rans? Since the scoring is on a week-to-week basis, the cumulative effect gets tossed out the window. The key with handling relief pitchers in head-to-head circumstances is to try and play the matchups with as much precision as you can. Are the Nationals visiting the Philles for a four game weekend set? Probably not a good weekend for Capps. Nats have three against Pittsburgh and three against Houston? OK for Capps.

Also check the starting pitching matchups. Ubaldo Jimenez starting twice in a week against, say, Bronson Arroyo and Job Niese? Start Huston Street (when healthy, of course). Head-to-head fantasy is all about the matchups and being able to pair closers with teams that are hot or are playing weak opponents etc. is a beneficial tactic.

For the most part, depending on the depth and scoring style of your league, closers are the only real viable fantasy options. In deeper leagues that use holds as a stat it is beneficial to pick up a few key setup men on good teams. Pair them with their closers will make it a double whammy. Imagine a 3-1 Red Sox victory where your fantasy team had Josh Beckett go seven innings, Daniel Bard in the eighth and Jonathan Papelbon the save in the ninth. Your fantasy team had a monopoly on that entire Red Sox win and with a finite amount of opportunities available to pick up stats, that would be a very valuable combination. Not only are you taking that game, you are keeping those stats out of your opponent’s categories.

Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist at RotoInfo.com If you have any questions or comments feel free to email him at DanRowinski@rotoinfo.com or you can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

Video: Futile search for pizza in Boston's North End

So, I wandered around the North End looking for a very specific pizza place that I had gone to with a colleague about two years ago. I became quite frustrated with the process. I ended up walking down to to Quincy Market and getting an overpriced gyro that was actually quite good.



So, I couldn't find it in the end and the search, as well as this blog post, turned out to be completely meaningless. But, there it is -- me, my blackberry and nothing.

Stealing Fantasy Value

This article can be found (soon) at RotoInfo.com. Photo left courtesy of the Washington Post.

For years the steal has been an overlooked fantasy stat. Why not? The steroid era made us all fall in love with the big boppers who could rack up the home runs, RBI and runs totals and we stocked our teams with big run producers with little other redeeming value (I am looking at you, Jermaine Dye).

Getting specific players to fill specific categories is not necessarily a bad thing. Balance is overrated in fantasy baseball. A team should definitely be crafted to be stronger in some areas over another, but that does not mean you completely neglect other categories. A lineup full of home run hitters tends to not steal a lot of bases and so on.

During a fantasy draft, the place you do not want to pick up category specific players is in the first four to five rounds. Good talent is always available well into the fifth round. Take the best player at the premium positions and be patient. The old saying is that you cannot win your fantasy baseball draft in the first (couple) of rounds, but you can lose it.

Where you win fantasy baseball is by exploiting market inefficiency in the middle rounds and finding the key sleepers in the late rounds or on the waiver wire. This is where the category of steals comes in.

In ESPN’s free league, the average draft position (ADP) of Carl Crawford is 10^th. Jacoby Ellbury is 20^th.  Both of these players do three specific things for you – steal bases, score runs and hit for average (though Crawford threw in a bonus 15 home runs last year).

2009 Stats:

Ellsbury – 691 plate appearances, .301 average, .355 on-base percentage, 94 runs, 8 home runs, 70 stolen bases

Crawford – 672 plate appearances, .305 average, .364 On-base percentage, 96 runs, 15 home runs, 60 stolen bases.

Now take a look at three young outfielders with ADPs in the middle rounds.

Player A – ADP 84, 493 plate appearances, .286 average, .365 on-base percentage, 74 runs, 12 home runs, 22 stolen bases

Player B – ADP 135, 533 plate appearances, .307 average, .369 on-base percentage, 74 runs, 3 home runs, 42 stolen bases

Player C – ADP 158, 390 plate appearances, .305 average, .360 on-base percentage, 65 runs, 3 home runs, 41 stolen bases

Outfield, by definition, is the deepest category of in fantasy baseball. Yes, it is nice to have guys like Crawford on your team but the 10^th pick in a draft may be better spent on taking someone at a position where there is a bigger drop off after the elite players. Joe Mauer (ADP 13) would not be a bad player at the 10^th spot because there are not any catchers worth drafting at value after him for about six rounds.

So, what do players A, B and C give at better value than going after Crawford or Ellsbury in the top rounds? All three hit for average, have high stolen base totals (or potential for more) and score enough runs that they will not kill you in that category.

Players A, B and C (in order) are Andrew McCutchen, Nyjer Morgan and Rajai Davis.

If you went for power and production near the top of the draft, sprinkled in some pitchers along the way and took these three players, you should be able to come close to winning the stolen base category and have trade leverage late in the season on any team that lags in that category.

In a value bet, these three are good for your money. They provide multi-category (average, stolen base) bang that can lengthen your roster and put you in the middle to top of several offensive categories. Remember, in fantasy you can win a league without winning a category but having strong performances in almost all categories definitely helps. You can lead by a mile in home runs but you do not get more points for how big your lead is.

Dan Rowinski is a Fantasy Baseball Columnist for Rotoinfo.com. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail him at danrowinski@rotoinfo.com. You can follow him on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski.

You can help Sports Chutney by visiting Amazon to look for some baseball related books. My favorite, as always, is anything from Baseball Prospectus. Baseball Prospectus 2010 now available.

Joba v. Phil - Back end fantasy value

Editors note -- I have picked up a fantasy baseball writer freelance gig with rotoinfo.com where this article will eventually appear. I will be cross-posting my fantasy baseball articles between here and RotoInfo for most of the baseball season.

Quick question: what wins championships?

If we are talking the World Series, that would be frontline starting pitching. The Yankees powered their way to ring No. 27 last year on the arms of CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, Andy Pettite and Joba Chamberlain last year, getting nominal production from their fifth starter slot in the rotation.

More pertinent question to our goals at RotoInfo: what wins fantasy baseball championships?

There are a plethora of answers to that question, but what it all comes down to is depth. Your team can have Albert Pujols and Roy Halladay and then a bunch of schmucks and easily finish last in the league, frustrating your fellow owners in the process while you stubbornly refuse to trade the best players even though a decent swap might bring some balance to your squad.

This is where skill and knowledge comes into play in your draft – looking for value in the later rounds at the backend of major league rotations.

An overlooked but productive fifth starter can be a godsend to a fantasy baseball squad. In this respect, let’s take a look back at the Yankees rotation heading into 2010.

1 – Sabathia
2 – Burnett
3 – Javier Vazquez
4 –Pettite
5 – Chamberlain or Phil Hughes

Do not castrate me here, Yankee fans. The No. 2 through No. 4 starters can put in a different order but the fact of the matter is that it is Sabathia and everyone else.

What we are looking at here specifically is the Chamberlain/Hughes battle for the fifth spot. Let’s take a look at last year’s numbers.

Chamberlain –
32 appearances (31 starts), 157.1 innings, 9 wins, 6 losses, 4.75 ERA, 1.544 WHIP, 4.82 Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), 133 strikeouts, 76 walks, 7.6 K/9 1.75 K/B

Hughes
51 appearances (7 starts), 86 innings, 8 wins, 3 losses, 3.03 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, 3.22 FIP, 96 strikeouts, 28 walks, 10 K/9, 3.43 K/B

There are some striking numbers in each of those lines. Foremost, the Yankees deployment of the “Joba Rules” really hampered Chamberlain last year. It is very rare to see a pitcher with 31 starts with only 157.1 innings pitched. Chamberlain did not even qualify for the ERA title (one inning pitched for each team game played or 162 innings). Chamberlain only pitched in seven games last year where he had 100-plus pitches and had the rest of his appearances in the 76-100 range.

Talk about kid gloves. By the end of the season Chamberlain was a wreck. His velocity was down, his location was off and he was generally ineffective.

On the other hand, the Yankees season turned when Hughes was placed into the setup spot in front of Mariano Rivera in the Yankees bullpen. Hughes only had 37 less strikeouts than Chamberlain in 71.1 innings and posted an ERA+ of 141 compared to Chamberlains 90 (think of 100 as the average).

As Hughes and Chamberlain battle it out for the fifth spot in the Yankees rotation, keep a few things in mind. First, when Chamberlain was used primarily as a reliever, his core numbers were much better (171 ERA+, 1.256 WHIP, 10.6 K/9, 3.03 K/B in 42 appearances with 100.1 innings in 2008). Hughes has not been stretched out (if that is what the Yankees would call their handling of Chamberlain) in the rotation on a full time basis. Who is to say that if Hughes becomes the starter this year and Chamberlain the setup man that there numbers would not be identically reversed from the roles they played in 2009?

Away from numbers, the buzz this spring is that Hughes has looked good and he is working on a changeup to compliment the rest of his repertoire. On the flip side, until Wednesday, there were significant concerns about Chamberlain the loss of velocity on his fastball this spring. Chamberlain then went out and struck out five in four innings while allowing a run against the Phillies on Wednesday to jump back into the picture.

Back to finding fantasy value at the backend of rotations. There are some sleepers out there that will fall in the draft. Look out for the Nationals John Lanaan in the last round or on the waiver wire or someone like Houston’s Wandy Rodriguez who is one of the best pitchers that no one seems to notice. Clay Buchholz is a solid bet in Boston. Good pitchers are never quite as valuable when they are on horrible teams. Keep an on the wire to see who gets the Yankees fifth starter spot and take him at the backend of your draft.

If you really want to cover your bases, take them both. Whoever loses out of the rotation will be Rivera’s primary setup guy and (depending on your league format) setups guys can provide value in the leveraged situations.

To My Father On His 60th Birthday

It was my father's 60th birthday this week and the family thew a surprise party for him on Friday. Since I am a busy reporter in Boston and a touch light in the wallet I could not make the trip to Virginia to attend. I was commissioned to write a note to be read aloud to the guests and this is what I cam up with. The picture on the left is my father in his mid-20s.
*****************************************************
I always thought I would end up looking like Grizzly Adams.

This is not to say that I was afraid of the notion. No. I used to see the pictures of my father with long, luscious hair and a great beard tromping through a field of high grass and imagined, one day, I would do the same. Perhaps with a couple kids strapped to my back as I ascended a large rock face on my way to a comfortable nook of a great river. I would cook freshly caught fish on a flat river stone heated by a large campfire and tell stories as the embers grew low.

Well, that is never going to happen.

I cook fish, I don’t eat fish. I have no children of my own. I fond of the wild but by no means an outdoorsman. I know that I am supposed to call it a fly rod, as opposed to a pole, but only have the rudimentary knowledge of how the damned thing is supposed to work. I never became Grizzly Adams.

And that is fine.

The beauty of my father is that he always told us to do whatever we wanted to do and supported us every step of the way. I was a rogue chef for years and he would frown at my misadventures but always trusted that, one day, I would right my ship. With our mother by his side the four of us have had great familial strength to launch ourselves in the directions we saw fit, to cultivate our success because we knew we could do anything with them behind us. No four people could have been given greater parents than ours and for that we are truly blessed.

The Grizzly Adams version of James Rowinski is long gone but that does not mean the same strength of spirit has left as well. At 60, our father is as strong, virile and passionate as any time that we have ever seen. He continues to push for his dreams, his ideals and offers the support of his love to the entire family. The rest of us follow the example he has set and, with him, we flourish. It is the way it has always been and the way it will always be.

So, father, in front of those you love and cherish I wish you the fondest of birthdays. May your heart guide us for 60 more.

With love. Your son,

Dan