On the radio show last night the three of us had a great difference on my number one ranked team. Here is some more detail.

It seems that there is a great difference in the rankings of my number one ranked team from the Fantasy Baseball Search Expert League. My number one team, Tim Dierkes’ team from Roto Authority was flatly dismissed by my two co-hosts RC Rizza and Todd Farino.

Let me start with this: Tim’s offense is loaded. The only team that can challenge him is my own. It is hard for me to envision his team losing more than one or two categories in a given week on offense unless the team gets very unlucky, which can happen just as it can happen to any team.

There is no reason to countenance a failure of his team over any others merely because a “bad week can happen.” This was a criticism of my team as well by my co-hosts, but the implicit assumption in this type of critique is that only the team discussed will be hurt by such disasters. This is false reasoning.

Here is a link to the rosters. Tim’s outfield is Corey Hart, Lastings Milledge and Alfonso Soriano. It is a real possibility (probability?) that he can get 30/30 from Hart and Soriano and 20/30 from Milledge.

Hart is one of the most intriguing players to me and I should admit that I paid $27 (!) for him in a recent auction. As good as he was last year, he will be even better in 2008. Baseball Prospectus gives him a 32% chance of a “breakout” and a 61% chance of improving. That gives us 30/30 upside with a batting average close to .300.

Milledge is a popular sleeper and I also auctioned him in the same recent auction. Milledge had a solid rookie year and Baseball Prospectus gives him not only a solid projection, but a 51% chance of a breakout and 76% chance of improvement. there is some risk here, but not much as he should easily hold an every day job.

As we debated on the radio show, I do not think there was enough consideration of the actual matchup. Tim’s roster will matchup up very well on offense virtually every week, making him a favorite to win in almost any given week. The way to win against tough competition in a matchup league is to dominate on one side of the ledger and to be competitive and fight for your fair share in on the other side. His team will dominate offense and will easily fight for its fair share of pitching points.

His first round pick, David Wright, will in my opinion be the number one or two fantasy player in 2008. In the recent MLB Front Office Expert Mock Draft I had the number one overall pick and selected Wright.

Pitching is more of a crapshoot, but no team in this league is completely solid from top to bottom. His team has a rotation of Vazquez, Lincecum, Garza, Greinke and Maddux and Burnett. While not the best rotation in the league it can be a quietly strong rotation, more than good enough to be in the top third or better with a bit of luck. He can throw Hideki Kuroda in there for good measure. The downside of course is that with four risky pitchers like Lincecum, Garza, Greinke and Burnett (check out his pitch totals last year and compare to his injury history) it is unlikely that he will not be nicked by bad fortune, but again the same can be said of most teams.

Again one must look at matchups. This staff will stand up against any other, aside from maybe the Mock Draft Central team, in any given week in K and W. The closer scenario for Tim is a bit weak or worse, with only Capps as a dependable closer, but often times closers become available during the year, though it will be a dogfight to actually pick them up.

It comes down to matchups and math. The team will be a strong contender for all five hitting categories in most weeks, and rates to be a favorite in four categories in at least 2/3 of its games. The team will fight for its fair share of pitching points but the rotation is deep enough that starting every starter will make it very tough for any team to win more than two or three categories. The only team that will matchup up well for certain against him in a given week is mine.

There is no other team aside from mine and perhaps Fantasy Baseball Mafia’s that poses such difficult matchup problems. Anything can happen in 22 small samples especially when every team is drafted by experts, but taking advantage of these matchups is the key and this team is built to do exactly that.