I don’t have a lot of faith in the Schumaker to 2B conversion. We can compare WARs between Kennedy and Schumaker and show that, even assuming atrocious defense, the drop off should be insignificant or non-existent. Part of the problem is how we’re framing this debate though. We’re going into the season assuming that Kennedy-level performance (~1 WAR) is what we should expect from second. That’s a bogus assumption when their are upgrades available on the free agent market and via trade. Even assuming Schumaker makes a successful conversion and becomes a ~1.5 WAR player at second with below average defense, why are we accepting that as a positive thing?
Archive for February, 2009Barring a major story developing, I’m gonna give things a rest for a little while. I figure it would be a smart thing to do as with spring training and the regular season on the horizon. I’m thinking I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. AZ and Roarke may chime in here and there in the meantime, but right now, I’m gonna chillax a bit. That’s right. I said chillax.
Feb
07
2009
Attention Roto Players: Heater MagazinePosted by erik in fantasy baseball, tags: heater magazineJohn Burnson (author of the book The Graphical Player) asked me to contribute to Heater Magazine, a terrific weekly publication that helps readers keep track of statistics and other information that will help to manage their fantasy teams. My job is fun and mostly easy- I provide information on the Cardinals lineup, rotation, transactions and any other news that happens during spring training. I only have a small role – just a weekly piece – so it won’t impact what I do here. Heater is a great resource which includes several writers who you probably know all too well if you’re like me and spend a lot of time on sabermetric sites – Marc Normandin (Baseball Prospectus, Beyond the Boxscore), Dave Studeman (Hardball Times), David Gassko (THT), Jeff Sackmann (Minor League Splits) Craig Brown (Baseball Digest Daily). It is subscriber content, but if you have a fantasy team or two (or seven) and are looking to get a leg up on the competition, check it out. Their website includes a sample issue. FR readers get a $5.00 discount when you follow this link: Sick of hearing about the latest A-Rod saga already? I know I am. Here’s a good distraction: Click here for the color coded spreadsheet. These are just my guesses for who goes where on opening day. The color codes are for prospects, sleepers, fringe and fungible. Debate if you want how I’ve coded some of the players, or debate if you will the merits of a what makes someone fringe and fungible. Then you have players who have either a season of big league service or are 28 years old or older. A couple of quick notes:
A sure sign that spring will soon spring – today Baseball America rolled out it’s first installment of their top 33 draft eligible players. It’s subscriber content, so I won’t reproduce the list here, but I thought we could shave down the list to get a better clue as to who the Cardinals might take in the first round. There is always the chance someone emerges that is not included in this list, Brett Lawrie-style, but BA normally does a great job projecting who will go in the first round. First, I eliminated all high school pitchers. They are just too risky of a lot for and like it or not, I think we know by now the Cardinals will not fool with them in the first round. Now granted, there was ink that the Cardinals were going to draft Blake Beavan but settled for Kozma after Texas took him with the prior pick. There are plenty of good HS arms in this draft, so we all may be surprised, but I would not bet on it. Next, I weeded out the Boras clients advisees considering the present economy. Not to say the Cards do not have a good relationship with his Evilness, Kyle Lohse and Rick Ankiel are Borasites, and the Cardinals did draft and sign Mark McCormick and Tyler Greene. Seven of the top 14 players are with Boras, so it may not really matter anyway with the Cardinals picking 18th. The lowest ranked Boras guy is Kentrail Davis, who is a draft eligible sophomore, meaning he will have all the leverage and will likely be tough sign to begin with. Lastly, I threw out the top eight, the two closers, the injury risk (Scheppers) and a 1B/3B for obvious reasons. That narrows the field to: 1. Kyle Gibson, RHP, Mizzou (Brewerfan.net profile, Baseball cube) While I think they need to beef up on starting pitchers, Minor and Gibson may very well be gone, therefore I believe they’ll draft a hitter. At some point I’m sure we will take closer looks at some of these players, in the meantime feel free to click around and look the players’ stats and Brewerfan.net and The College Baseball Blog profiles. I provided what I could find, sorry if there’s not info on everyone. For some discussion – who do you want/who do you think they will draft? 1. Rasmus Not too shabby looking, if you ask me. Here’s the discussion question of the day – Is there a player that didn’t rank who you feel will rank highly next year? Who is your favorite sleeper pick? The last poll was a close one for a while until the Richard Castillo fan club came out in full force. I’m still not sure how high his ceiling is, but he does have youth on his side and an advanced feel for pitching, so we’ll see. What concerns me is his high fly ball tendencies and lack of a knockout pitch. Deric McKamey ranked him his #14 prospect and gave him the same grade he gave Mortensen and Lynn, and he’s a professional scout (for the Cardinals, actually), so maybe my feelings are wrong on Castillo. 1. Rasmus Here’s the final poll, with as many names as I could think of for the final spot. Keep voting for #19 below. I’m thinking of putting together a “reading room” page on the top with a listing of sabermetric research regarding prospects or at least somehow prospect related. Please share with us in the comments what you can dig up along those lines. For example, I found a really interesting article by Victor Wang about the value of Top 100 prospects. He also recently had this article regarding the draft over at THT. I’m looking for stuff like the dollar value of draft picks, minor league equivalencies and so on. If it’s prospect related..well..you get the idea. When posting a link, the site may think you’re posting spam so if you don’t see your comment all at once, don’t worry, I’ll see it and take it out of the moderation queue. Thanks! Francisco Samuel is so far ahead in the last poll I’m just gonna call it now and move on. Maybe I shouldn’t stump anymore, I just felt it was a travesty Samuel had been so ignored before. Maybe there are just that many players ahead of him, and it’s not like he was super-high on my own list, but I believe he does deserve to be in the top 20. I cut off names that received 5% or less of the vote, I guess you all really disagree with our Tyler Henley selection. I didn’t have him in my top 20, but I can see the reasoning behind Roarke and the Robot’s decision to put him on theirs. I was a little surprised to see everyone so down on Ottavino and Herron, two pitchers that were easy selections for our top ten last year, but I guess it’s the whole single season performance conundrum. They really are tricky players to rank. Speaking of which, I thought I’d throw P.J. Walter’s name out there. He had a crummy season and demonstrated rather poor control by his normal excellent standard, but he is close to the big leagues and had a strong winter league performance – 3.09 FIP, 3.45 K/BB ratio, playing for Jose Oquendo and with battery mates Bryan Anderson and Yadier Molina. His bounce back was good enough to make for a story in the latest issue of Baseball America. (Subscriber content). I am in no way stumping for P.J., but I figure it would be interesting to see how one’s winter league performance effects his stock in the eyes of the crowd. In the last poll it seemed to help Tyler Greene. 1. Rasmus Death by plunking averted. Adam Reifer won out as the #16 prospect. Lance Lynn was not far behind, close enough to put him at #17. With only two more spots to go I notice that Francisco Samuel hasn’t got a lot of love so far. Pardon me if I stump for him a bit here. For one thing, his name comes up frequently when other clubs are looking to deal with the Cardinals. Then also, for what it’s worth, he made Keith Law’s top ten Cardinals and KLaw believes he’s a potential Top 100 prospect for 2010. Says the KLaw:
Kevin Goldstein called him his sleeper going into the season. Other clubs love him. Prospect-niks love him. No one around here seems to. I know the walk rate is atrocious, but we’re talking about a 150 lb. kid without a whole ton of pro experience here. I also just realized I left off Tyler Henley, who came in #16 on the FR Top 20. That’s my mistake, Henley more than has deserved to be on the poll earlier. Also added are Tyler Greene, who had a strong showing in the AFL, and Tyler Herron, who was in our top ten last year. That’s three Tylers to choose from, and a reminder for me not to go with a trendy name when naming my 2nd born. 1. Rasmus |
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