The Generals examine the Fantasy All Stars for the first half, and their prospects for the second half, beginning with Catchers.
With the All Star break rapidly approaching, it’s time to look at the best fantasy performers at each position. For purposes of this analysis, we will only look at this year’s performance. No […]

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Looking at how to analyze alleged “second-half” players”.
In a recent podcast, a fantasy baseball “expert” was discussing the expected rebound of certain alleged “second half” players. The podcaster listed certain pitchers that he thought would have second half rebounds. Why am I mentioning this as a fallacy?? Well, maybe it is true in some […]

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We will be changing the layout of the blog slightly to make it more user friendly. We are going to post the title of the article with a short summary, and to read the whole article just click on the “read more” link. We tend to have long posts and this will allow […]

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Taking a Look at whether Eric Byrnes is a “lemon” His owners can only say WOW at this point; what a first half of a season! In an earlier post I discussed the trading of “lemons” for “cherries.” One type of lemon is a guy who is far outperforming his typical standards. So, is Eric […]

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Has Matt Cain regressed from last year or is he unlucky?? The answer may be surprising.
I drafted Matt Cain in two shallow mixed leagues in the hopes that he would continue and build on last year’s performance:
IP W L ERA WHIP190 13 12 4.15 1.28
Cain also struck out nearly a batter an inning, and the […]

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A look at whether trade posting rules, generally used in tougher leagues, might benefit your league.Just to go back to my prior post on the owners in my high stakes league that have no apparent plan, and the story of Cortes, I wanted to make a point about “strategic moves” and commitment. In any strategic […]

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Looking at how Japanese plyers have fared in ROY voting, and predicting how DiceK will do this year. There is a perception among the cognoscenti that Japanese players have a more difficult time winning the Rookie of the Year (ROY) award, based upon the fact that many voters do not consider them to be true […]

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It has been a roller coaster ride for his owners. What can you expect going forward?? A big rebound.(Ed Note: The day after this post BaseballHQ did their own look at Kinsler. I guess they are reading this blog!) It has been a roller coaster for Kinsler this year. After a very […]

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Some pretty poor advice from a podcaster on closers and save percentages. Here is why his advice is flawed. On a podcast recently one fantasy website maven was discussing the save percentage stat. The recommendation was to only view as secure in their jobs those closers that had 90% save percentages; namely they save […]

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Has Verlander become an Ace?? Well, almost. Here’s our view.Fresh off his no-hitter there has been a lot of buzz around Verlander. I thought it might be interesting to take a look and see if he has become the stud that fantasy owners have hoped for.
Right now it appears he is still a step […]

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It’s been too long since my last post. When I did, I was “taking stock” of my team, with the hopes of remaking my team for a run at the money spots. Well, life got in the way; some good (weekend in Atlantic City) and some bad (death in the family).
Fortuitously, in my NL only […]

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Those of you who haven’t been playing this game for a long time may not be aware of how bad this position used to be. If you were in an NL or AL only league there were years when there were only one or two good catchers in the entire league. I should point out, […]

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How could this happen?? Fantasy Owners are well aware of his history of execrable performance, so I won’t repeat it here. Lets see what he has been up to this year:
2007: 1 HR 10 RBI 2 SB .325/.379/.461 in 169 PA. Perhaps the most amazing stat is his walk rate of 8%. It is typically […]

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There is a new team in one of my leagues, and based on their recent trade postings it appears that they have little in the way of a cohesive plan.
When he was charged with the duty of taking Mexico from the Aztecs, Hernan Cortes came up with a unique plan. He was faced with an […]

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In my high stakes league a team posted a trade involving Rafael Furcal, so I took a closer look at Furcal. He was one of my main targets going into my auction; my auction plan involved me getting one of the group of Furcal, Reyes and Rollins as “Plan A” with various default positions […]

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Pete Pascarelli struck a blow for the old guard in his ESPN Baseball Today podcast on Wednesday. He was discussing the Rangers’ foibles, and with obvious derision stated that their mistake was hiring a “boy genius” like Daniels, and that “like other boy geniuses he has had a problem making good decisions.” I, like other […]

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With Generals Finkelstein and Tomasulo on my back about writing too much and too seriously, I thought I would lighten it up a bit by naming my favorite baseball quotes.
1. Lenn Sakata, after a game winning hit, was asked by a reporter “what were you looking for in that situation.” Answered Sakata, “Something white, coming […]

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Needless to say Hunter has been a huge surprise, one of the top five fantasy players this year. As of this moment he is at 14 HR 53 RBI 10 SB .312/.351/.571. I must have missed it when he turned into Justin Morneau. I was listening to the Baseball Geeks podcast (which is one of […]

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One thing I notice in my daily reading is that there are many many sites and blogs devoted to tactics, but very little devoted to strategy. There is a distinction between the two that I think many people miss, and i is why we hope that this blog will be valuable to its’ readers.
The term […]

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In the America’s Cup in 1983, Dennis Conner committed a fatal blunder, based on his failure to use a “follow the leader” strategy, leading to the first loss by America in that event. Essentially, the basic strategy in sailboat racing when you are the leader is to follow whatever the trailing boat does. […]

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Going into my high stakes league auction I was enamored, as were many others, at the potential of the Arizona young players. I traded a $13 Ervin Santana for a $7 Stephen Drew, I kept a $7 Carlos Quentin, traded a $4 Reed Johnson for Jose Valverde, auctioned Miguel Montero for $5, Edgar Gonzalez for […]

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In my 12 team, non-keeper mixed league I needed to pick up an outfielder. Below are the main guys that were under consideration. Of course there were more but these were the only guys with serious consideration. For background here is the offensive point structure:
1B - Singles1 point2B - Doubles2 points3B - Triples3 pointsBB - […]

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In the past week, my NL only team caught fire, nosing into 4th place, only 4 points out of first. All of those gains were given back by Oliver Perez, Francisco Cordero and batters going 6 for 41 on Saturday. I’m not worried about Perez/Cordero, but I am worried about my hitting. If I’m going […]

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“Those who excel at defense bury themselves away below the lowest depths of the Earth. Those who excel at offense move from above the greatest heights of Heaven. Thus they are able to preserve themselves and attain victory.”
This is one of my favorite Sun-Tzu quotes and has surprisingly profound applications. But since we are Fantasy […]

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I am sure that many fantasy players are now curious about how or when they can acquire the recently drafted players, dreaming of getting next year’s Tim Lincecum or Chad Cordero. I once played in a league that allowed you to pick up any player at any time as long as they were under contract. […]

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Continuing my analysis of some big name players that I believe will continue on their current pace, thereby thwarting the wisdom of the “buy low, sell high” cliche, lets take a look at Josh Beckett.
Of course, we first must consider the blister/avulsion, a recurring theme with Beckett. If your risk tolerance is low then by […]

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Last night’s Mets-Phils game was extremely painful to watch, and even more painful for Endy Chavez. For those of you who don’t know, the Mets squandered 6 innings of shutout ball when Heilman gave up a 3 run job on a 1-2 count in the top of the 7th. The Mets rallied in the next […]

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First of all, I would like to thank Pat for the invite to contribute to this site. After many years of head-to-head combat in Roto it is nice to be on the same side for once. It’s like Sylar and Peter Petrelli teaming up for a smackdown. And yes, that will be first of many […]

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You will see this type of analysis often over the next few days, but I wanted to comment on it from the strategical side. To sum up: here is a list of the pitchers taken first overall in the draft with their win totals in the majors:
Luke Hochevar (2006) zero–he is underperforming in the minors […]

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Since my “Taking Stock” Post of a few days ago, I’ve poked into 5th place in the standings, and honestly I cant figure out why. Often these gains are blips in the stats, but hopefully I will consolidate the gain in the standings and my team will really start to perform.
Lets look at my catching […]

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