I've got a question for the SpoFi Baseball Brain Collective: 1. Why is Alex Rodriguez considered less valuable now that he's playing third compared to his value playing shortstop? The decrease in the amount of fielding opportunities hit his way? 2. Do you expect a drop in ARod's home run numbers moving from Texas to NY, or do you think the lineup protection will offset the park differences? Thanks!
1. Two reasons: First, SS is considered a more critical defensive position because most fielding chances go to the shortstop. Second, third base is traditionally considered a power position, while shortstop isn't. Hence, a power-hitting shortstop (which is thought to be rare) is considered more valuable than a power-hitting third baseman (which is not). I personally think this last is outdated, since good third basemen are arguably more rare these days, but that's what people say. 2. I don't except a significant drop-off in A-Rod's power. His splits weren't dramatically better at home anyway.
My 2/100ths of a $: 1. At SS, even in this day still not a true "power" position, A-Rod's numbers are gaudy. At 3B A-Rod's type power numbers are somewhat expected, though he is still best bet at 3B at this time (unless Pujols gets qualed there again). That said I don't see this drop in value, even on Yahoo! he is #2 behind Pujols, who is just Roto Baseball gold at this point. Add to that that this year A-Rod will be dual-qualed at SS and 3B. Dual-qualed is always a nice luxury. 2. I wouldn't expect to much, if any drop off in A-Rod's numbers. He's good enough, and has proven to be very consistent in his production, that any of these new team/park factors/new division thing shouldn't have too much effect.
or what jeffmshaw said...
...and I missed the whole thing. I was home, sick, and I completely forgot about the draft. I haven't studied everyone's lineup yet, so I can't accurately predict if I'll finish 8th or 18th. Most surprising first round pick: Scott Podsednik. Wow!
re: Scott Podsednik Oh! That was you?
re: Scott Podsednik Oh! That was you? Nope, that was rocketman. Podsednik is not a bad first pick if you're only drafting Brewers.
I really hope Pod-zilla puts up numbers this year like he did last year. He's not really a power hitter, but he sure can get on base.
I like my team more and more every day. Pitching is suspect outside of schill and santana, and I'm pretty sure I'll tank the saves catagory once again. I love drafting young players, which will probably come back to bite me in the ass, but it's fun to pretend that they will all have breakout seasons.
My pitching is suspect, too, but I don't have Schill or Santana. D'oh!
Ugh. I'm all hitting and no pitching. Autodrafting in the 17th (of 18) spots ain't pretty.
I just hope Nomar is really pissed and motivated this year. (And that he figures out what's wrong with his wristbands.)
Wristbands batting gloves. I really like my team now, too. It's not what I expected going into the draft, but it's very strong in a lot of categories and weak in only one or two. I've got the potential for a ton of saves, which will come in handy if I need to make a trade later on. Let's get it on!
I think dusted has the best team based on last years stats. He's the team to beat at this point.
I thought jerseygirl was considering she won last year. Ugh. I missed the first few rounds and ended up with David freaking Wells.
jasonspaceman, did you manually tally up the stats for each team, or is there a site that will do that for you? I've been trying to find a site to compare fantasy teams, but I haven't found anything. Also, it's hard to know who is going to be used and who will be benched. And this is my first time playing fantasy baseball, so there's no way I'm the team to beat.
i wish the season would start already! It's mid-March, we're about to get 12"+ of snow in Boston. Play ball!
No I didn't manually add up anything. I just took a quick glance over the teams and yours looked to be the overall best. Of course, that doesn't mean a thing now. But I think you did the best, overall. I am with Jerseyirl. Lets skip over this snow madness and just play some damn ball. I am tired of waiting!
There is no way I am looking through 18 fantasy rosters to find the team to beat. I thought about doing a draft recap on my 'blog for about five seconds, and then realized how many players were drafted. Play ball, indeed!
I'd just like to point out that my team is the only one that's currently 10-2 in preseason play.
Which proves is that preseason means absolutely nothing.
Delete "is" from the above sentence.
After saying I wouldn't look through all 18 rosters, I kind of did. Not to find the team to beat, but to do a brief and hopefully humorous set of team summaries. Standard disclaimers: I don't know anything about the NL, I have no idea how the league is going to turn out, and I whipped this out quickly while waiting for some work stuff to come through.
I think its early to do a "team to beat", but I've sure got a title to uphold.
Urbina is headed to Japan and Lowell is injured? aww man! my team sucks.
jeffmshaw: My team name (Broken Arrows) was chosen because of the disturbing military definition.
jeffm: good job on the writeups, but the pivo that is me is the Russian, not Czech, hence no Budvar or Urquell. I agree with most of what you said about my team. I was stuck in traffic, a monsoon and at 2 train crossings for rounds 1-4...every pick you wrote about, hehe. I was none too happy about Loaiza and Wilson myself.
I've decided that I'm going to win. The rest of you might as well give up, put all your players on waivers and thank me for saving you an ass-kicking down the road.
Since it's my first year in the league, I hope y'all won't think I'm impolite when I win. [Thanks for the notes on your team names, grum and pivo. Weird coincidence about the broken arrow happening near the baseball season. Shudder.]
I'm going to reserve trash talk for when I'm actually placed somewhere... instead of tied for last place with all y'all.
The ugly: Hideo Nomo had a fantastic year in 2003. But Hideo Nomo is reportedly throwing 82 miles per hour in spring training. 82 MPH? Yikes! Please Hideo, tell me that you are just trying to save your arm for the season. Please? By the way, if you've never seen Dogtown and Z-Boys, you should. It's a wonderful documentary on the kids that revolutionized skateboarding in the 1970s. You don't even have to be a fan of skateboarding to enjoy it. Great soundtrack as well.
