Projecting RBIs

Tex again?!

Breaking News: CC Sabathia a Yankee

Big news breaking early this morning. CC Sabathia has told GM Brian Cashman he will be a Yankee, and pending final details on a contract and a physical he will. More to come on this and everything else when I’m not so tired.

Krod to Mets, more to come…

Krod is a Met. Really all I have to say, but I will say more. This deal is un freaking believably stupid. Omar Mania should be fired. I will take his job, I am vaulenterring right now to help the Mets because whenever Krod goes to the National Leauge, well lets just say thats not good. Much more latter. 

And at 5:00 PM EST on ESPN (or ESPN2, not really sure which…) BBTN winter meatings special.

GM for a day – Yankees

I’m going to take a page out of Baseball Prospectus’ book and play GM for a day with the New York Yankees. Note that this is a very good scenario for the Yankees and a lot of these moves may not happen. I made sure to stay within budget and sign guys that I thought the Yankees had a legitimate shot at. I think the core of this team is in place and guys like Damon, Naddy, and Swisher will play a major role in this team come 2009.

Before we get into anything else lets look at what Yankees are (possibly) leaving this offseason.

-          Jason Giambi ($23,428,571)

-          Bobby Abreu ($16,000,000)

-          Ivan Rodriguez ($12,379,883)

-          Andy Petite ($16,000,000)

-          Mike Mussina ($11,071,029)

-          Carl Pavano ($11,000,000)

-          Chad Moeller ($700,000)

-          Sidney Ponson ($1,000,000)

That adds up to $91,579,483 off of the Yankees payroll. That’s almost $100 million worth of old, expensive players. With all of these guys gone here is a look at the depth chart. That leaves us with quite a few positions of need. First we need to replace Jason Giambi. Having already traded for Nick Swisher (adding $5.3 million to the payroll), so if we can’t sign anyone else he should be serviceable. We need a center fielder as Melky Cabrera has proven to be pretty horrible, and we need a few starters to replace about half of our again rotation.

If we want to keep our payroll at the same level as in 2008, we need to keep our spending under or around $85,000,000. That shouldn’t be too hard. Here we go……

1.       Sign CC Sabathia if possible. The rumored contract would add $23,300,000 to the payroll in 2009. Sabathia is the best pitcher in baseball; that is pretty clear. He is top 5 in tRA and can put up innings like few other pitchers out there. It really doesn’t matter how much it costs, this team needs Sabathia to anchor its staff. If Sabathia cannot be signed, the Yankees need to find a solid number 2 guy. I think Derek Lowe is the prefect choice. Lowe has put up such great numbers the last few years that I really don’t see him declining much when switching leagues.  

2.       Trade one or more of Robinson Cano, Hideki Matsui, and Melky Cabrera for a center fielder or starting pitcher. Melky can’t get the job done and Austin Jackson is still an unproven commodity. If needed, Nick Swisher could play center field but I don’t think that is necessary. Possible centerfield options include Matt Kemp and Randy Winn. We should add $5,000,000 to the payroll to compensate for possibly taking on a big salary, however if we went in the Kemp direction we might be able to cut salary.

3.       Sign Orlando Hudson to replace Cano. Hudson has good defensive skills, has an OBP around .370, and walks far more than he strikes out. Expect a contract in the $8,000,000 range, something similar to what Dustin Pedroia got from the Red Sox.

4.       Sign Ben Sheets. Sheets may have some injury concerns, but our deep farm system will keep us protected. Sheets has been flat out dominate and his injury concerns will keep his salary down below that of guys like Lowe or even the bigger injury concern Burnett. Why this guy isn’t being talked about as a top free agent is beyond  me, I would love to see him on the Yankees if possible. If Sheets resigns with Milwaukee, or ends up somewhere else somehow I would go with Randy Wolf. Wolf is also an injury risk but his strikeout rate and flat out dominate performances the past few seasons are worth it. Whoever we sign here probably adds another $10 million to the payroll.

After this the team still has about $35,000,000 left and there is one major deal they could look at doing.

5.       The Yankees should at least try to sign Mark Teixeira. According to multiple sources Tex is not  looking to sign with the Nationals, and is likely to sign with one of the Red Sox, Angels, or Yankees. The Red Sox are rumored to be making a big push for him so it would be hard, but with all the payroll room left and a new stadium to fill up the Yankees should at least give this a shot.  If this doesn’t go down we could see Swisher at first base, and it is even possible that we would re-sign first Jason Giambi. Teixeira would be great, but there are plenty of other options out there.

That would leave the Yankees with an opening day lineup of:

1.       LF – Johnny Damon

2.       SS – Derek Jeter

3.       1B – Mark Teixeira (Or Swisher, Giambi, etc.)

4.       3B – Alex Rodriguez

5.       RF – Xavier Naddy

6.       2B – Orlando Hudson

7.       C – Jorge Posada

8.       CF – Matt Kemp/Randy Winn/Gabe Kapler (Whoever they end up getting…)

9.       DH – Nick Swisher

Of course that lineup could be moved around. Having guys like Naddy, Swisher, and Damon gives us a lot of flexibility. Unless we end up trading Matsui, which is possible, he could rotate in as well.

And a rotation of:

1.       CC Sabathia/Derek Lowe

2.       Chein-Ming Wang

3.       Joba Chamberlain

4.       Ben Sheets/Randy Wolf

5.       Philip Hughes

I don’t think moving Joba to the bullpen is a good idea at all. He proved he could dominate as a starter, and his injury looks like more of a coincidence than anything. The bullpen managed fine without Joba, and for a stretch of the season was on of the best in baseball.

So there you have it. If the Yankees go ahead and sign Teixeira it would leave them with a payroll about $10,000,000 less than in 2008. If they wanted to go out and get a better backup catcher, one more starter, or a bullpen arm they could do that. Although I’m not sure the Yankees will be able to sign both Teixeira and Sabathia, they certainly have the payroll room to do so. I think the key thing is for the Yankees to realize that they have a good bullpen and a base for their rotation as well as a great offense and to use their payroll room to sign a few premium guys to build around that. With that starting rotation and that lineup it would be hard for the Yankees to be anything but favorites to go to the world series, however as we have seen before injuries and bad luck can prevent any team from doing what they should. A good starting lineup, rotation, and bullpen only get you so far. You need to have depth to win in major league baseball and with the high level talent in the Yankees farm system and versatile guys like Nick Swisher and Johnny Damon  I think they have that.

Pedroia given $40.5 Million, GM’s continue to pay for production over position

I’m not a huge Dustin Pedroia fan by any stretch of the imagination. He’s one of those players that the fans and the media love. You know the kind that’s entirely overrated because they’re 5 feet tall and have no business being as good as they are. But, as I said back in September, Dustin Pedroia is probably the third best second basemen in the league behind Chase Utley and Ian Kinsler. That is why I was so surprised as to the amount of money he is going to be getting paid (6.75 million a year) as compared to other players in a similar ranking at their position. 

Lets start at first base. Because of the number of quality first basemen, you would expect to pay less for the third base guy at first base than at second base. However, if we assume that Justin Morneau is the third best guy at first base, we can see that in fact this is not the case. Justin Morneau makes over 8 million a year. 

We can also look at shortstop, another position with far more depth and elite players. Jimmy Rollins is also making over 8 million dollars a year. In the outfield, Matt Holliday is making over 9 million a year at another position of depth. 

When we look at another position of weakness however it reveals the almost reverse supply and demand economics of baseball. At catcher we see guys like Joe Mauer and Victor Martinez making around 6 million a year while putting up elite numbers. Ok maybe Martinez wasn’t “elite” last year but he was definitely “elite” when he signed his contract. 

The point is that MLB GMs are looking more at overall value and production than anything to do with position scarcity. Although completely ignoring position scarcity would be foolish, it is an important lesson in both real and fantasy baseball not to let it make your decisions. I think we can agree that Matt Holiday put up better numbers than Pedroia or Mauer, even if it would be easier to replace him. In the end the Red Sox made the right choice. They looked at the situation, saw they had an elite second basemen, and decided to sign him knowing they had Dustin Pedroia, not Matt Holliday.

Phillies!

Congrats to the world champion Philadelphia Phillies, who beat the Rays in 5 games tonight. I never thought the Phillies would get this far but I am happy for them and for the fans of Philadelphia. If you are stuck with the losingest team in pro sports history, at least you should get a few world series on the way. 

And for Rays fans, this was a great season whether or not you won the world series. You go from pick 1 to pick 29. That’s pretty good. The Rays were here at the start of the season, were here in the middle of the season, were here in the playoffs, and will be here for a long long time.

Site news, the World Series (again)

We were supposed to have the rankings up today, and then the power went out most of the weekend and we haven’t had a chance to do any of them! Anyway sorry we didn’t have the rankings up at some point today but really we are quite a long ways away from most drafts so hopefully it doesn’t have a negative affect on your league. Again if you have any questions, keeper lists, etc. please feel free to email them to me and I will answer quickly and post on the site.

As far as what we have been up to lately, a few thinks. First we are working on the rankings as always but that becomes really difficult when the power is out and you can’t get on your computer. We got a few things done on Friday, but other than that we are still a few days away with the catchers. This is a very busy time for Fantasy Bullpen and when we don’t have power for a long period of time it can set us back so please be patient.

What we are working on is a possible re-working of the site in ways we think will benefit our readers and users. We are going to be adding in more interactivity and user generated content to allow everyone to gather the best possible fantasy information and make the best possible fantasy choices. We hope we can finish working on these changes over the next month or so and get the site working the way it should by the start of the season so stayed tuned for that.

Finally, on the topic of the world series (which I missed by the way due to the power outage) there really isn’t much new going on. The Phillies were able to win last night but so far it’s 2-1 with no team showing a significant talent advantage that could put this series out of reach. It’s going to be close, and it’s going to go a few more games before we know who wins. As much as Bud Selig would have liked to see Dodger-Red Sox I think we are seeing a match-up of a couple good teams that should be good for a long, long time. Then again, the Red Sox aren’t going anywhere and the Dodgers are just getting better so either way this would have turned out well.

All and all we are working really hard to get a few things out to you guys ASAP (or at least in time for your drafts), so although these rankings are taking a while, please don’t be discouraged! We will try to have them up sometime early this week, and hopefully we can unveil our new site sometime soon as well. Keeper, draft, etc. questions can be sent to alex.geshwind@fantasybullpen.com, as can any comments or questions related to the site.

World Series game 1: Hamels vs. Kazmir

For the first time in recent memory I am actually looking forward to watching a world series game. I never like watching the playoffs when the Yankees are out, and with the combination of poor broadcasting and extreme lack of sabermetric involvement watching the world series has been even more painful. This is different though because of the two pitchers starting this game. Cole Hamels and Scott Kazmir. High school pitchers drafted the same year, only two picks apart who have both dominated since being brought up to the big leagues. This holds an even bigger significance to me, as a couple years ago I traded Kazmir for Hamels (not straight up though) and so I have been comparing these two guys ever since (even though neither is on my team anymore).

From a fantasy perspective I think Kazmir was a little more valuable coming into the season. The problem for Kazmir has been an early season injury that has limited him to about 150 innings, as apposed to 200 of them last season. Because of this, Kazmir will probably be undervalued on draft day, even though all of his stats in 2008 were virtually identical to 2007. Kazmir is the kind of guy I would look for to lead my staff next year. 

Hamels on the other hand is a little bit of a concern for me. He pitched far more innings this season than he should have, and his bad injury history makes me worry about him. Although he pitched well this season, he was not as good as the previous year and not nearly as good as Kazmir. His K/9 dropped drastically and again he pitched way too many innings. This is the kind of guy I would look to avoid on draft day next season, unless you can get him at a good price. I’m kind of doubting that though after this fabulous post season which will make his value skyrocket as his stats stay relatively the same. 

With these two pitchers the one thing you have to realize is that while both of them are very good, Kazmir is going to put up the higher strikeout numbers and thus be the more valuable pitcher at least from a fantasy perspective. I’m 99% sure that Kazmir will be in my top 10 pitchers for next season, I can’t necassarly say the same for Hamels. I might be doing a live blog tonight of game 1, but I might have to wait until another game if I’m to busy.

Congrats to the Rays!

I am proud to say I believed in the Rays as playoff contenders this spring, but I did not think they had that much of a shot against Boston. I am very glad they proved me wrong. One thing I would like to add about these playoffs from a fantasy perspective is that you guys shouldn’t get carried away going after players for postseason success. BJ Upton has had a monster season, but I would still put him somewhere in the third round. Chase Utley has struggled, but he is still a first rounder. I will have a full world series preview tomorrow and may even live blog one or two of the games. Really excited to see a couple of great teams in the world series this year and good luck to both of them.

Draft kit update!

Over the last couple of days (and for the rest of the weekend) I have been working on and will be working on projections for the 2009 draft kit. Right now I’m working to recruit a few other blogs into this project (run a blog, think you can help, email me please!) and we hope to launch the kit sometime before Christmas. Anyway if you email me a question or keeper list I will respond and I’ll post some links to anything interesting I find but I probably wont do any meaningful posting until Monday.

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