Mafia First Baseman Prince Fielder in the good old days.

This week promises to be a very close matchup as the Generals take on Prince Fielder and the Fantasy Baseball Mafia.

Getting ready for this week I admit my surprise at how close these teams were, though I guess it shouldn’t have been a great surprise, as RC Rizza of Junkyard Jake had us number one and two in the league in the preseason separated by a mere one point. I will list the FBM guys first:

Catchers-Buck vs. Johjima. This is a close call, but I will give the nod to the Generals only because of Johjima’s contact rate, which lessens his volatility.

First Base-Fielder vs. Pena. Despite Fielder’s new found vegetarianism, he gets the edge.  That said, the Mafia squad should be embarrassed to have a 250 pound vegetarian at first. So the Generals’ win on general manliness, though FBM gets the nod on the field.

Second Base-Kinsler v Utley. Utley is on fire and merits a large edge right now. However Kinsler is starting to gel and had a great week last week with a 1.50 BB/K rate and a CT rate over 90%.

Third Base-Ryan Braun v. Aramis Ramirez.  This may be a lot closer than it might seem, though I give the edge to FBM.  All of Braun’s flaws last year that he sidestepped are apparently coming home to roost.  He is still showing good power but has a 3% walk rate and a 25% hit rate. That 25% is a nice counter balance to the 37% last year if you subscribe to the theory that it should regress to around 30%.  Ramirez is exactly the opposite, an extremely consistent player in the skills department who should hit 30 HR and close to .300.  This is far closer than many people think, in my view.

Shortstop-Tejada v. Mike Young.  this is an interesting matchup as these are two players who are very different. Tony Cincotta, the FBM consigliere to manager Evan Dickens, believes Tejada will hit 25 HR. Young is an absolute line drive machine, the AL equivalent of Todd Helton with a bit less power. This is a draw.  Young is off to a slow start and will hopefully rebound this week.

OF-Rios, Francouer, Bay vs. Crawford, Ordonez and Abreu.  We have a nice speed advantage this week I think, as Crawford should far surpass anyone on the FBM squad.  These are two very good outfields, though I think the Generals’ outfield gets a very slight edge.  Bay is looking very good and has NOT been a fluke so far, so he may well rebound from 2007. Rios and Francoeur are both off to hot starts as well, so the FBM team is looking good.  Ordonez is starting to show signs of life and a big week from him will go a long way.

I won’t even address starters since they are irrelevant.

Relievers- Lyon, Nathan, Sherrill vs. Betancourt, Rivera, Saito and Wilson.  This can go either way though the Generals have the edge in numbers. Sherrill has been lights out so far. The difference will hopefully be Brandon Lyon getting shellacked, which would be poetic justice if you have followed the story of Lyon this year between me and Evan.

Should be a great matchup as once again there are no easy pickings in the Major League division. We are just waiting to make it through the divisional matchups so we can eat up the AAA division of the league. Check out the FBSEL Expert League blog which has lots of humor and trash talk.