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Zack Greinke Player Projection No. 61 | Fantasy Baseball Hot Stove
It's great to see Zack Greinke getting the love he deserves. He was one of the most unlucky pitchers in 2011, and yet one of the most dominant. Among the league leaders in K/9 and BB/9. I am expecting more of 2009. I will be investing as a solid #1.
What They're Saying: CBS Sportsline - #10 Starting Pitcher; Tristan Cockcroft of ESPN.com - #12 Starting Pitcher & #39 Overall; RotoChamp - #54 Overall; Mock Draft Central - #12 Starting Pitcher & #48 Overall Projection: This could probably come back to bite me, and if any of the guys I play in leagues with read this I'm screwed, but I really like Greinke this year. I probably like him too much. His division has gotten easier this year compared to last. To me, his floor is last season, and ceiling is Cy Young Award. Personally, I'm leaning closer to Cy Young Award. 18 W, 2.98 ERA, 215 K, 1.12 WHIP in 220 IP.
To Draft Or Not To Draft: Why Brandon Belt Is Not A Lock To Produce In 2012 | Rotoprofessor
What Brian Sabian is doing in SF can infuriate. Playing time will be a question mark, but a healthy Bandon Belt will force his way into playing time. I expect Belt and Mesoraco to be strong ROY contenders. Invest!!!!
Belt still showed off his power in 2011 and there is a ton of potential, but it is hard to consider him a lock to produce in 2012. First, he may not get the opportunity. Second, he needs time to adjust to the upper levels of professional baseball. I would expect him to open the year at Triple-A, getting regular AB and trying to figure things out. If he does and the Giants need an offensive boost, then he should get an opportunity. Unfortunately, he is going to need something (Huff/Schierholtz struggles for example) to get that chance. Is it likely to happen? Yes, but don’t consider it a given.
Heath Bell won't be as loud for fantasy baseball saves :: KFFL - Article
Wrong side of 33, skills erosion, player that could be delt from Miami should they drop from contention, buyer beware...
Still, I'd rather avoid ringing Bell (almost made it through pun-free) and take a chance on Ryan Madson, Joakim Soria and Carlos Marmol, or wait on Santos or Betancourt or take a chance on Kenley Jansen winning the job eventually. Bell will still be a fine buy at the right price, as long as you don't expect his increasingly hittable arsenal to magically return him to previously overpowering levels. He isn't the Liberty Bell yet, but the crack will get worse.
Ricky Nolaso and ERA-FIP Differences " MLB Dirt
Great article below. I beg people to stop expecting Nolasko to put it together. PASS. Let another owner gamble.
With Spring Training getting under way very very soon, it means that it is time to have those fantasy baseball keepers close to figured out. Looking at one of my teams, one player that I am stuck on is Ricky Nolasco. I have been doing a lot of looking at Nolasco’s stats to help make my decision, and it seems that pretty much every year his ERA has been a much different story compared to his FIP. In the sabermetric community, ERA does not offer much validation anymore and FIP is the go to stat with pitchers. It can help project what a pitcher is capable and whether or not a pitcher projects to regress or improve when comparing FIP to ERA. Well with Nolasco, the ERA has looked bad year after year despite a much better FIP. Here is a look at Nolasco’s ERA vs FIP over the last 3 years:
Farm Futures: Youngsters Through the PECOTA Lens - RotoWire.com
The much anticipated release of the PECOTA rankings have arrived!!! Below is a breakdown of how the projections are made...
This week also marks another happy annual event as Baseball Prospectus releases its PECOTA projections for the coming season. As someone who also writes there, I am required to say it is the best projection system out there but I will also tell you that it is still best practice to review multiple projection systems (RotoWire, Marcel, Bill James, ZiPS) to help guide your opinion on a player. No projection system is perfect and the projections are not projecting 100 percent performance, rather, more of what should happen. It could be better, it could be worse, but if a projection system is in the ballpark on 70 percent of the players it projects, that is a damn good year. Anyhow, go check out Colin Wyers' explanation of how PECOTA is optimized and maintained.
Great read below on how to analyze prospects for fantasy purposes.
Matt Wieters. Brian Matusz. Not every prospect who's going to be this, or going to be that, turns out. (And the busts aren't all Orioles, but hey, they're down, so let's kick ‘em.) Prospects are exciting and, more than that, can hit you with some serious production, like Mike Stanton, Buster Posey and Eric Hosmer have of recent vintage. And then there's the .136 spot Chris Carter hung on owners last year. When it comes time to take that flier on the next big lottery ticket, it helps to know how to slice through the hype and pick the right prospects. Top 100 lists are a great first stop, but they aren't the whole show. The writers may judge the risk of a bust differently than you and could very easily be ranking prospects with a different sort of league in mind than yours. You want to make your own judgments, but the essential data you need starts with the best top 100 lists, and more importantly, the scouting reports that accompany them.