Fantasy Baseball

Stingray

Please list any sleepers or players that you think are going to have a breakout year. Always looking for some late round gems.


Thanks

Stingray

A761506

My top picks would be:

SP: 1: Halladay, 2: Oswalt
RP: 1: Rivera, 2: Street
1B: 1: Pujols, 2: Teixeira
2B: 1: Soriano, 2: Cantu
SS: 1: Young, 2: Tejada
3B: 1: A-Rod, 2: Rolen
OF: 1: Vlad, 2: Abreu, 3: Manny

#1 overall: A-Rod

My steals on draft day would be:

Scott Rolen - He's only 32 and coming off an injury that should have healed fine.

Audrey Huff - if you miss Rolen, he's the next best option... will have 3B eligibility within 2 weeks after the season starts

Vernon Wells - he should have excellent numbers with the improved line-up the Jays will send out there this year, and the pitching on opposing teams in that division is pretty crappy across the board.

John Smoltz - For some reason, he gets little respect but he's a great fantasy pitcher and he's very durable.

Brian Giles - A fantasy monster if your league includes walks

Players who should be avoided like the plague:

Brad Lidge - playoff performance last season could have spelled the beginning of the end of his career... huge question marks

Bobby Jenks - lardo must have been hitting the McD's all winter... he's even bigger now... Hermanson will be saving the games in that pen after Jenks blows up or gets injured, either of which will happen within the first 6-8 weeks of the season.

Miguel Cabrera - let some other guy in your league deal with him... he'll have zero offensive support

Dontrell Willis - same deal as Cabrera... no run support or defense behind him, he's going to get lit up, especially after he realizes how horrible the team is

Keith Foulke - damaged goods

Barry Bonds - let someone else waste that pick

All rookies - rookies are inconsistent fantasy killers 99% of the time

What I do with late round picks

Here's the real trick to winning pitching in fantasy leagues (and this works for roto and H2H)... stack your team with closers. In the late round of the draft when a lot of people are wasting picks on players that will never be in their starting line-up, use those picks on closers or potential closers. Most leagues are not savvy enough to even draft every closer (who is starting the season as the teams closer), and this season, I can see about 6 or 7 closers now who will lose the job within a month, so draft the guy right behind them.

Bobby Jenks will be replaced by Hermanson

If you can figure out who Boston will trade for to replace Foulke, that would be a good bet... my money is on Scott Williamson

Arthur Rhodes should see some action in Philly when Gordon loses it... Gordon has always freaked out when he closes

Chris Reitsma has little chance of holding that job all season... Joey Devine is a possibility

A flier on Jorge Julio is not a bad bet, he could easily find himself traded into a closers role after a month... there will be plenty of teams looking.

Even Andy Sisco on lowly KC could wind up picking up enough saves to warrant a roster spot assuming MacDougal can't hold down the job, and that's a pretty good assumption.

Susquehanna

Good info A7. I was wondering how Jenks weathered the off season but haven't heard anything of yet. Thanks for the update.