I had the opportunity to interview Cory Schwartz of the Fantasy 411 show at MLB.com and a participant in Tout Wars. Cory will also be a guest on the Baseball Gurus Show on  Sunday June 1 so mark your calendars.  Cory had some interesting things to say on Jacoby Ellsbury, “value”, Anne Hathaway and baseball strategy.

Has Big Erv’s (Ervin Santana) success been a surprise this year and what do you see from him going forward?
[Schwartz, Cory] Not a huge surprise, because Santana has been touted for several years as being a high-upside arm, but he’s been dogged by inconsistency. The big breakthrough this year has been his ability to consistently throw quality strikes, as evidenced by his career-best 1.65 walks per nine ratio, which he has achieved without any decrease in his strikeout rate. My big concern is that his home run rate is also way down but without any improvement in his ground-ball ratio, but that’s not uncommon for power pitchers, since they may induce more weak fly balls and popups. I wouldn’t say his breakthrough is for real just yet, since it’s only been seven starts, but if he can maintain command and control of his pitches he can continue to be an above-average starter.

I know the Player Leash Theorem is just a rule of thumb, but how closely should you follow it with multiple under-performing players?  For example, if you had Kenji Johjima, Nick Swisher, Robinson Cano, Mike Lowell and Derek Jeter as your starters - how would you handle it?
[Schwartz, Cory] There are a few things that can be done here. First, identify which slumps are temporary and which are probably going to be long-term concerns. Given their age and track record I’d be patient with Cano and Swisher. Older players like Jeter and Lowell have track record to fall back on as well, but since they are older, they are more likely to be in decline. Also, be realistic about your expectations… Lowell and Johjima in particular may have been overrated on draft day, so you should be quicker to lower your expectations for them. Work the waiver wire aggressively to build depth into your roster and supplement other positions, so you can bench some slumpers until they get going, or until you decide you can’t wait any longer. Also, work your league for trades… it only takes one owner to think he’s buying low on a slow starter for you to cash in and get full value for a player in whom you have more confidence. Finally, be patient… the season is only about 20 percent over so there is still plenty of time for slow starters to get it going.

Did you lose any respect for Mike Siano when he named Depeche Mode as his favorite band?
[Schwartz, Cory] I’m still in shock. Mike is a mystery wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in enigma.

You are a longtime Tout Wars participant. What was your strategy going into this year and did you target any specific players?
[Schwartz, Cory] My strategy was to essentially take a stars and scrubs approach and emphasize offense. I drafted four top-tier players in Utley, Howard, Martin and Braun, and also spent good secondary dollars on guys like Jacobs, Greene and Upton. There simply isn’t enough offensive depth in NL-only leagues to not load up during the draft. Conversely, I took a much more value-oriented, budget approach to my pitching staff, as there are always a reasonable group of lower-rotation starters and middle relievers to choose from throughout the season, which will help keep the ERA, WHIP and strikeouts competitive. So far the injury to Chad Cordero has been the biggest weakness to my team, because it left me without a closer and forced me to make a trade. I’m not sure my current lineup can win, but I expect to gradually move up in the standings throughout the season much as I did last year.

I have written on my site that I do not believe that the concept of “value” is an important factor when you are dealing with the top or bottom of the player pyramid, in essence because it is an inherently subjective concept.  Do you agree or disagree and why?
[Schwartz, Cory] It’s always important to find players who will give you better production than their acquisition cost would suggest; that holds true at any point in any draft format. However, since I typically do straight “pick ‘em” drafts, I’ve become less and less attached to the notion of value and more attached to the idea of getting the right player at what I believe to be the right time. One of Bill James’ key concepts is that talent is distributed along a pyramid, meaning the higher the quality of the player, the fewer there are like him. Therefore, first-round and second-round players are unique and should be drafted along “best available” lines. However, the converse of this is that there’s little differentiation between players as you get later into the draft, so the difference between a 12th round player and a 14th round player is minimal. Thus, as you go later into the draft, you should focus more on specific needs and upside rather than “value”, because taking a 12th round player in the 13th round doesn’t really carry any meaningful value proposition.

Anne Hathaway or Megan Fox?
[Schwartz, Cory] Anne Hathaway in a rout. I actually watched the Princess Diaries… she even made Brokeback Mountain worth watching.

Generally in any rookie class there are one or two guys that end up as hall of famers. If you had to pick two from the 2008 class who would they be? 
[Schwartz, Cory] Bats are much more predictable and projectable than arms, so I’ll go with Evan Longoria and Jacoby Ellsbury. Longoria has tremendous power and plate coverage and should be a plus defender, while Ellsbury has tremendous speed and improving power and plate discipline. Obviously these are two guys you’d like to have on your AL-only keeper team! 

Can you tell readers that don’t listen to your show about “The Fantasy Feud?”
[Schwartz, Cory] The Fantasy Feud is a weekly competition between Siano, Casey Stern and myself in which we each pick one hitter and one pitcher every week and then add up their stats over the season to determine who wins. It’s done “suicide” style in that we can only pick each player once all season long, so it’s important to carefully pick the right time to choose superstars like Chase Utley, Hanley Ramirez, Johan Santana, etc. So far my pitching has been awesome but I need to time my selections better for the hitters. 

If there were one strategic move you could do as a baseball manager that would be a radical change from current strategies, what would it be?
[Schwartz, Cory] I’d like to see much greater roster flexibility and a reduction in stringent roles. For example, I like to see teams using pitchers who can hit as pinch-hitters, and even better, letting them stay in to pitch the inning after they pinch-hit. Bullpens should be more flexible and players should be able to handle multiple positions, so managers can employ a greater range of in-game tactics without being constrained by roster construction. It’s been great to see teams batting the pitcher 8th — good idea or bad, it shows creativity and open-mindedness — now let’s see more guys like Brooks Kieschnick!

 My thanks to Cory for agreeing to answer these questions. The Fantasy 411 show is required listening and is one of the many podcasts I listen to regularly. You can check out the show here.  And thanks to Brian Joura for chipping in.