Sleepers

Before we get around to posting our official rankings which should be in about two weeks, I want to take a look at mockdraftcentral.com's early ADP and talk about some of the rankings I most disagree with.

Billy Butler (ADP: 40) - I'm still scratching my end as to why Butler is ranked so low.  Before last year, Butler was tabbed as a player with no position eligibility who hit for a good average but didn't hit for as much power as it seemed a guy his size should.  Last year, every thing fell in to place, as he hit 29 homers without sacrificing any batting average, and more importantly, played just enough games to earn 1B eligibility.  Most of the other top first-basemen fall into two categories:  1) Getting very close to the end of their prime or 2) Entering second full-season where there's always the risk of a sophomore slump.  Billy Butler is entering the prime of his career and to me does not seem like a prime candidate for regression like some of your other options.

Dan Uggla/J.J. Hardy (ADP: 219/240) - I'm lumping these two guys together because it's the same story. They didn't have a very good season last year, but both guys, even if they don't bounce back, possess enough power to have a lot more value in a league with OPS added.  If I need to pick one for my middle-infield spot I'll take Uggla as I think he has a better shot to hit 30 HR and drive in more runs because of the Braves' loaded lineup.  When the Orioles realize Machado has more range, Hardy could earn 3B eligibility, but I don't expect him to lose at-bats.

Lorenzo Cain (ADP: 193) - Last year, after a monster spring training, Cain was a very trendy sleeper, but hardly saw the field due to some injury concerns.  Lorenzo should bat lead-off for a pretty decent offense (their pitching is what hurt them the most last year) and he still has the potential to develop into a 5-tool player.  Outside of another fluke injury, there's very little chance Cain loses at-bats or gets moved down in the line-up.  I'd take him over a trendy prospect like Myers who might not see action until June or an aging player like Angel Pagan who is unlikely to replicate the great season he had last year.

Baltimore Pitching (ADP: 279+) - Props to ESPN for shutting down most of their fantasy baseball site while they work on just a few things, but when last year's player rater is operating again, you can look at the value that Hammel, Chen, and Tillman had last year.  Tillman finally flashed the huge potential that he's had all along and is well-worth a late-round pick in a standard draft.  Chen performed admirably in his first year in the U.S. and still has plenty of room for improvement at age 27.  I actually have Chen a little bit higher on my rankings than Tillman as a middle-round pick but I may move him slightly back.  Hammel is finally out of Colorado and was ridiculously good last year.  He might not replicate his stats but he's still worth a look, especially in a deeper format.

Brett Anderson (ADP: 182) - I watched him pitch at the end of the season last year and he looked spectacular.  People forget how good he was.

Matt Harrison (ADP: 209) - I don't know a lot about ERA+, but I know it's a good thing and I know Harrison was among league leaders last year.

Twins- Now some would say that as a Twins fan I have a slight bias, but I would argue that I am privy to inside information that many of you readers may not have.  After all, is anybody else out there good friends with an almost famous Twins blogger?  Here are a couple of the players I see the most potential to exceed their current ADP:

• Josh Willingham (ADP: 123) - He had a career year in Oakland in a year when no one was watching, then moved to Minnesota where he once again played for a horrible team and posted even better numbers.  It's easy to forget about this guy because he hasn't been playing for a contender, but he's being hugely undervalued.  In a standard league his player rater was in the early 60's, so unless you're expecting a huge drop-off, he should at least be a top 100 pick.  But in a league with OPS his player rater value bumps up to the early 30's and will be a complete draft day steal if your opponents aren't paying attention.  He can't play defense and he won't steal you any bases but it doesn't matter.
• Justin Morneau (ADP: 196) - At the beginning of last year, he couldn't hit left-handed pitching to save his life.  But as the season wore on, he finally figured things out and looked more like the pre-injury player that hit lefties just as well as righties.  Despite weak wrists, he was still able to knock 19 home runs and after a surgery-free offseason, his wrists should be much stronger coming into this season.  He does have the concussion history, but I don't think that will stop him from flirting with .290/ 30 HR.  Laugh if you want, but he only turns 32 in May.  If you're worried about a weak lineup or the park factor, there's a very real chance he gets traded to a contending team mid-season if he gets off to a hot start.
• Darin  Mastroianni (not listed) - He's worth a late-round pick because he should lead-off and steal a ton of bases.  Clearly there's risk he loses his job, but if you play close attention to the position battle, you should be able to pick up Hicks if he wins the battle.  In a deeper league, there's more risk, but at the very least he'll get time as a fourth outfielder and still steal a ton of bases (He stole 21 bases in only 163 at-bats last year).  

Honorable Mentions:  Jason Heyward (ADP: 33), Matt Cain (ADP: 59), Desmond Jennings (ADP: 85), Jose Altuve (ADP: 97), Brian McCann (ADP: 158), Emilio Bonifacio (ADP: 225), Andrelton Simmons (ADP: 267), Johann Santanna (ADP: 299)

I may be a little long-winded in my explanations of why I like these players but I wanted to make sure I got my thoughts across clearly so if anybody disagrees they know where I'm coming from and they can form a quality counter-argument.  

~Antal

Welcome!

So for the past decade or so I've been reading and studying fantasy baseball as much as possible and I simply cannot get enough!  This past year I've come across two conclusions:

1. I know as much or more than a lot of the fantasy writers out there.  I'm not really trying to toot my own horn on this as much as question some of the people's stuff out there that I've been reading recently.  I don't want to name names but I am definitely not referring to any of the Yahoo or ESPN fantasy writers, as I believe they do an excellent job on their stuff.  There are some other writers that I question for many reasons, whether that's because of regional bias, old dogmatic view-points, incompetency or many other reasons.  So, I feel a strong desire not to keep my viewpoints to myself anymore.  It's very possible any readers bored or intrigued enough to stumble upon this site might come to the same opinion about me, but I'm very curious to see where this goes.
2. Lots of writers talk about 6x6 leagues here and there, but no one that I've found is wise enough to take the time and actually put out rankings for this.  We'll get into how much 6x6 leagues can vary later, and maybe that's why, but I still think there's enough of a market out there for these rankings.

My name is Ben Antal.  Joining me in this blog will be my co-worker and friend, Ben Northrop.  We both live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area and work for a sports company called SportsData doing data entry.  He will be by far the smarter half of this blog, and is the first person I go to when I don't understand something in baseball, like Encarnacion's BAPIP (Look it up, I dare you!).

Lastly, let's take a quick look at the categories I'm talking about.  For batters, we have R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG, and OPS.  For pitchers we have Saves, K's, ERA, WHIP, Wins, and Holds.  The reason why I've chosen these twelve categories is simply because they are the most common in 6x6 leagyes and it seems like a good idea to have some common ground.  Tristan Cockcroft has mentioned he prefers OBP and SLG as the last two categories for hitters and QS and K/9 as the last two for pitchers.  I am in a league with OBP and SLG and I much prefer it over AVG and OPS but it's simply not popular enough yet.  For pitching I do hate wins as much as the next sabermetrician but replacing it with QS devalues relief pitching so much and doesn't really do that much better of a job because a pitcher that pitches 5-shutout innings or a pitcher that goes that extra inning and gives up a forth run in a blow-out game to save the bullpen is drastically devalued.  Until wins become less of a big deal in the real sport I think we have to keep them around in ours as well.  Finally, I like holds because so many teams are now putting their best pitcher in the set-up role because they can get more value out of them and use them in more situations than just closing games.  If anybody wants to argue that Kenley Jansen is not the best relief pitcher on the Dodgers I'd love to hear it.

I guess the real point here is that I prefer my fantasy players to have a similar value to what they do in real life and going with a 6x6 format is the best way I've found to do that.  On a real team, a player is not gonna win a job just because he can steal 50 bases in a season, nor is he going to be valued similarly to a guy that can hit 20 home runs.

Well, that's enough writing for today.  Later this week I'll be doing an early ADP analysis and hopefully within the next two couple weeks we will finish our rankings and have a few other things posted on here.