few things in life are as sure as Nick Markakis

Here is a guy that is not getting the love he deserves in fantasy circles.

Markakis recently went late in the 4th round of a 12 team expert draft. With a slight improvement to his plate discipline, this guy is a bonafide 5-tool player. I have him projected at:

.305/26/92/105/16

Another fact that is probably underrated is that Markakis is extremely durable and missed only one game all of last season.

So, a five-tool known commodity, with little to no injury risk. This is definitely an opportunity for 2nd or 3rd round value, in a fourth round pick.


I have found that well-balanced teams win championships, pencil Markakis in as a sure bet in a very shallow year at outfield.

No points for style

Nobody cares how Manny Ramirez plays LF in Boston. They care that he can smash the ball. Reed Johnson has just gone down with a back injury in Toronto. Preliminary reports are that it's a sports hernia. Ask Scott Podsednik or Todd Bertuzzi how they feel about this one. This injury will take time to overcome, and in the meantime a non-draftable guy just became a serious commodity.

Adam Lind will be starting in left field for the near future (lets say at least 15 games for now). Reed Johnson had no real value to begin with (great fielder, but useless in fantasy). Lind is a hitter of the purest form, and hopefully is glove will be just good enough to keep him the lineup. We're talking a K:BB ratio of about 2:1 and an OPS over 1000. He progressed from A-ball to the majors in the span of a season, and he's a quick study.

I don't have time right now to come up with a list of comparables, but I would compare him to Garrett Atkins of 2006, with a comparable walk rate, and more strikeouts. (Or a higher average/fewer strikeout version of Adam LaRoche). See the link below for peripherals.

http://firstinning.com/players/Adam-Lind-629/

If you're looking for a .300 hitter, decent pop, and you already have bag stealing covered, Lind is a great upside bet, especially in a loaded Toronto lineup. A true X-factor for their wild-card playoff berth this year.

Reed will be out of a starting job when he gets back.

why I will end up as an investment banker...

I never can quite understand the torrent off adds and drops at the beginning of the fantasy season. I can't get over it.

Case in point: Alex Gordon.

In one of my 13-team, 25-deep rosters he has been dropped, I'm supposing over his less than stellar .091 (at time of writing) average. People are more than prepared after seeing 35 ABs to say, ex-post no less, that he "should be sent back to the minors - duh." It's a small sample, but why don't we look past the horrific numbers and reason this one out.

First question: who has a better starting rotation? Tampa or Boston? This is obvious, it's Boston. So is it possible that Gordon has just faced some of the best pitching in the league as his introduction?

Who he has started against so far:
Schilling
Beckett
Dice K
Verlander
Bonderman

yikes. That's a list filled with cy young and rookie of the year winners, and other top #1/#2 starters on contending teams.

When Gordon faced off against Josh Towers, an average starting pitcher he showed the first signs of life by hitting his first dinger in the majors. He played in fantastic weather in Wichita and grapefruit ball...Moral of the story: the competition Gordon will face has probably peaked at a great time for shrewd investors to capitalize. Gordon is real deal. 25-100, and 10 steals is in the waiting. Have faith, the numbers will be there by season's end.

My advice: pick him up or trade for him wherever possible. I claimed him in one league, and have a waiver request (4th priority) and am desperately hoping that other non-actives are letting this slide.

Akinori Iwamura: I let him loose in a few leagues, I had depth at hitting and needed some closers. Proud owner of Al Reyes since pre-season, and as a non-believer in Jorge Julio I now have the encumbent 10K/9 or Henry Owens producing for my team.

Adam LaRoche: playing terribly to start the season. No surprise here, he hit .200 last year in April. If he hits the wire, he makes a terribly cheap CI. Enjoy a 10 dinger July.

Adam Loewen: he's putting it together, finding a way to win, even when not at his best. cutting down the walks and eating the yankees was a treat. a solid 5th starter, and member of my team in deeper leagues.

Fantasy Studs: at the moment my fantasy team is being carried by J-Rol and Reyes and superb starting pitching(Felix, Hamels, Rich Hill, Vazquez, etc.) I'm sitting in third place right now and waiting for my studs to breakout. Guys that are tanking on my team thus far:

-Atkins
-Teahen
-Barrett
-LaRoche

Many of my sleeper picks are off to slow stars, but I wont cut bait on:

-Victorino
-Kelly Johnson
-Encarnacion
-Chris Young

I will try to update more often, but I have a real job now so my baby (roto) has hit the backburner a bit. Keep looking out for posts that will keep you laughing to the top of the standings in a league near you.

As a final point on the Gordon case, let me ask this: how noticeable to fantasy owners was the .264 second half Dan Uggla had? That's what I thought.

Yahoo! Draft (10 team)

I took place in an online yahoo draft today. I missed the first few rounds, but had preranked so I ended up doing well. The only auto-pick I would take back was Carlos Delgado in the 6th round. I had him at 80th overall, but I would have done fine picking up Adam LaRoche in a much later round. Even though I didn't take any pitching I ended up with a solid staff. Other various comments are below. My approach was 'value-drafting', but I think all-in-all I did very very well. I expect 1st or 2nd with this roster.

rank:DP ---> projection vs. actual draft position

1. (3) Alfonso Soriano OF -all considered this is a can't miss first round pick
2. (18) Matt Holliday OF -great had him pegged as #8 overall -- 5 tool
3. (23) Carlos Lee OF -5 tool
4. (38) Garrett Atkins 3B
5. (43) Aramis Ramírez 3B
6. (58) Carlos Delgado 1B - would have preferred a starter here
7. (63) B.J. Ryan RP - last of my auto-picks, should have plenty of opps
8. (78) Jeremy Bonderman SP +20 rank: DP
9. (83) Julio Lugo 2B,3B,SS -versatile, good for 115 runs, 30 steals
10. (98) C.C. Sabathia SP
11. (103) Cole Hamels SP
12. (118) Howie Kendrick 1B,2B - had no 2B at this point (excluding
13. (123) Álex Ríos OF +50 rank:DP
14. (138) Rich Hill SP +70 rank:DP
15. (143) Michael Barrett C - 4th best catcher...15th round. nuff said.
16. (158) Salomón Torres RP - quietly slated to pick up 30 saves
17. (163) Octavio Dotel RP - closing in KC
18. (178) A.J. Burnett SP -outpitched peripherals last year...injury risk
19. (183) Freddy García SP -moved to the NL
20. (198) Joel Piñeiro SP,RP -slated to close for Boston...worth a pick here

Amazing depth and value out of my last five picks. Bush? 238th overall? He'll have a whip under 1.20 this year. Victorino -- great insurance policy on my outfield. Teahen -- some people have him ranked at 40th overall in 5x5 leagues. Gonzalez? I had to...too much value. And finally I took Meredith to eat some innings and provide low ERA/WHIP work.

21. (203) Shane Victorino OF
22. (218) Mark Teahen 3B
23. (223) Adrián González 1B
24. (238) Dave Bush SP
25. (243) Cla Meredith RP



Steals: I locked up steals with the first three solid picks. Lugo (28 sb) Rios (18 sb), Victorino (18) all chip in as well.
Average: no real drains here...well Sorinao and Delgado I see chilling at .270. Other than that I have a bunch of studs. Like Goose in Top Gun, expect with better OPS.


Starting rotation:

-Bonderman
-Sabathia
-Hamels
-Bush
-Hill
-Burnett
-Garcia

wow. Ks and all bonafide sub-4 ERAs.


I think my work is done here...

Value Closers

Brad Lidge - I know, if you had him last year he probably (almost single-handedly) destroyed your whip. We in fantasy baseball like to always bring up the oh-so-lovely 'regression to the mean'. He can't be this bad again, however his image has suffered since people have very short memories. He's good for 35 saves and 100K ...three years ago he had 157...pretty awesome for a closer.

Octavio Dotel - closing in KC. 30 saves here, on the cheap. some durability risk.

Salomon Torres - most leagues have not reflected the roster changes in Pittsburgh to the draft pre-rankings. Other savvy managers know this and will hope to get Sally for a song. Wherever you see him going in average draft position, target him a round or two earlier.

Joe Borowski - he has no competition for saves in Cleveland, BUT he's still not a lock by any means, and there are replacements waiting in the wings. Drop a pick on him in the 14-18th round (12 team)

Bill Bray - he's the favourite in cincy, but not being drafted accordingly. not a sure thing, but worth a spec pick in the rounds where everyone else will be grabbing a beer.

Jonathan Broxton - let us start with the basics: he will give you 100K and about 90 innings of low whip ball. If you can't guarantee saves, this is a decent consolation. If Saito falters, as he may, Broxton could walk in as a dominant closer

Joel Zumaya - Todd Jones is old. He can still do the job, but if he spends any time on the DL, Zumaya could pick up some saves. great peripherals and 100Ks regardless.

Cla Meredith - good for low whip, low ERA, and decent Ks in the National. Hoffman is the first, second, and third option at closer; don't look for "what if" saves here.


and finally the only closer I would take in round 4:

Joe Nathan.

the only guy I see as having next to no injury risk and as a good foundation to your RP staff. start the run yourself on draft day, and then pick up a few value closers in the later rounds. you'll thank yourself.

40 HR/ .250 Average: Don't do it.

Regarding the Funston big board...

How can you recommend drafting Troy Glaus as the 46th best player. He is a HUGE liability at a fantastically deep position. You would have to offset a player like this with a Freddy Sanchez type player, and guess what? The Sanchez homer totals nullify the benefits of your big K slugger right away.

Other liability slugger honourable mentions:
Adam Dunn

Invest in someone like Prince Fielder...on his uptick in age (you can expect a 10% improvement across the board) and an average that wont kill your team.

Other players to avoid:

Carlos Guillen - has regression written all over him
Chone Figgins - not a big board player this year...batting 8th in LA-LA Land. Going to kill his steals and run production. let someone else foolishly waste an early round pick on this guy.


more insights later...

Akinori Iwamura

Yet another prime hitter coming from Japan...I can't seem to find the projection from James on this one, so I'll give a rough estimate of what you can expect from him.

Iwamura turns 28 this week, so he'll be smack in the middle of his power years in Tampa Bay. Matsui is better at taking walks, but looking at him we can see a 30 to 40 point drop-off in average and expect it. Johjima was similar dropping 20 points to his average. I'd also like to touch on his homer numbers as well. The slugging diminutive third basemen's habitat is changing dramatically:

Tokyo; 296 left, 394 centre, 296 right
Tampa; 315 left, 404 centre, 322 right

Long gone are the funky dimensions of his old home, and in with the roomier confines of Tropicana Field. His homer numbers will taper off, 1 HR: 19AB will likely turn into something like 1HR:25AB; accordingly his average may not drop a full 30 points due to the larger field.

I'm calling for a .286 average.

I'm also concerned about his AB totals...right now I'm not comfortable that he gets much more than 500 ABs. I feel that isn't being overly pessimistic or optimistic. Iwamura had some really awful luck about driving guys in last year, and I would lean more in the direction of a correction to his 2005 season numbers.

Plug in these numbers for a modest rookie campaign.

500AB, .286, 20 HR, 85 RBI, 70 R, 8 SB

On draft day there are a plethora, that's right I said plethora, of options at 3B. However, in that packed Tampa infield if Iwamura gets some appearances at 2B or SS during the season (many leagues will add eligibility after one game, others will be five) he becomes much more valuable if he gains 2B eligibility.