Blog: CBS Fantasy Baseball is now live
For those of you who just can’t wait… your wait is over. CBS Free Fantasy Baseball is online, and other major providers are sure to follow soon. CBS offers their league-customized draft kits for free as well.
fPAA: Top 25 by FantasyScope beta and CHONE
I was curious to see how our FantasyScope projections would stack up against a more established projection, like the conservative CHONE. Keep in mind that CHONE gives a neutralized projection, so you have to make park adjustments and league adjustments in your mind, while our numbers are team- and league-adjusted.
Draft Strategy: ADP and mock drafting
Alright, you’re armed with FantasyScope’s ultra-updated projections and maybe even our fPAA rankings for your draft. But there’s one more element you need to consider before you enter you league’s draft war room: ADP, or average draft position.
When drafting for fantasy baseball, you want to fully exploit your superior knowledge compared to the other stiffs in your league. That means while you know exactly how YOU value players, you should also know what most people out there believe about player valuation. The most direct way to do this is to take a look at when each player is typically being taken off the draft board. Why take the player you have ranked 20th with the 18th pick, if he isn’t drafted until the 100th pick on average? Wait a couple of rounds, get more “established” picks, then BAM! That’s how to set yourself up for victory. You can wait until the Yahoo! and ESPN leagues get going to look at ADP there, but who wants to do that? Here are the top 100 picks from MockDraftCentral.com right now (based on 308 total drafts, so it will change):
2010 Profile: Carlos Beltran
It was recently announced that Carlos Beltran had microfracture surgery on his problematic knee. The Disabled List Informer (an excellent site, BTW) has the details on his expected recovery here. This kind of surgery means an optimistic return at the beginning of the year, which puts him a month behind everyone else who will have had Spring Training. It may be that Beltran may miss a good chunk of May as well, knocking down his potential fantasy value.
Projections: Marcel 2010 released
It’s baseball projection Christmas, with Tom Tango’s Marcel projections released yesterday. Despite their alleged simplicity, the “Marcel the Monkey” predictions beat out a lot of projection systems in last year’s Forecaster’s Challenge. FantasyScope will be participating again this year – details here.
Projections and fPAA: Where are your 2010 rankings?
Like you, I have noticed that some other sites have started publishing player rankings for 2010. I have elected not to release rankings at this time because they are highly dependent on player projections. As you know, projections depend heavily on playing time, which can only be determined once player health is ascertained and teams are finished with all of their moves. With free agents like Johnny Damon still out there, team depth charts could still change greatly. There are also trades which are almost certain to be made, such as Mike Lowell that could seriously impact player values.
2010 Profile: Adrian Beltre
Defensive whiz Adrian Beltre has been traded from the Seattle Mariners to the Boston Red Sox, and looks to become their starting third baseman this year. This is significant on two levels, since Safeco is a very bad hitter’s park, and it kills right-handed hitters HR totals. Beltre also figures to hit lower in the order in Boston and moves into a tougher division, one in which he could face the likes of CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Javier Vazquez on three consecutive nights. What does this do to his fantasy value?
Projections: CHONE 2010 officially released
Just wanted to note that the first release of the CHONE projections are out for 2010. Check out Sean Smith’s numbers at his site. The numbers are also up at FanGraphs.
2010 Profile: Curtis Granderson
Curtis Granderson was traded to the New York Yankees yesterday, and that alters his fantasy value on a number of fronts. It is expected that Granderson will be patrolling either centerfield or left field for the pinstripes in 2010, depending on what happens the rest of the offseason. Now what does that bode for his fantasy value?
