As our last post before we point to FantasyPros911.com, I wanted to share a tribute video to Brad Ausmus.  Our posts here will still be available in an archive site. I will post the link today. Thanks for everything.

Here I take a completely unscientific look at taking Ryan Howard at #10 and then solicit reader feedback on how they made it work taking him on the first round. [Read more →]

For some reason, the holidays keep falling on a Thursday, so once again, we’re cancelling the Face-Off show this week for Christmas. Brian and I were considering spending the half hour doing a mock reindeer draft, but we were unable to come to a consensus on which categories to use. Happy holidays to all, and assuming we’re not too hung over, we’ll be back next week to broadcast on New Year’s day as we celebrate the launch of FantasyPros911.

For the last couple of weeks there has been discussion on the “Fantasy Baseball Roundtable” show on the similarity between Ryan Howard and Adam Dunn.  Our friend Patrick DiCaprio said that he believes that Howard and Dunn are basically the same player and the consensus among the other panelists on the Roundtable was that it is a fair comparison.  I have to disagree.  [Read more →]

I’ve been living in computer purgatory for the last week.  Things are finally getting back to normal and I would be grateful if you would check out my take on K-Rod that is over at RotoGraphs.

Since I actually have a spare moment I wanted to take a minute and announce the future plans for this site.  As of 12/31/08 this site will not be updated anymore as we will be moving on to FantasyPros911.com.  So I am sorry to say that we are in the last two weeks of this site’s existence. That is not to say that we won’t have any posts in the next two weeks, but with the transition I may not have a lot of time in the next two weeks so I wanted to send out the announcement now.

This is a bittersweet transition to say the least. When I started this site last year we were getting maybe a dozen hits a day.  Since then we expanded to include nine or ten writers and were getting three thousand visits a day or more during the spring. I honestly feel like I am sending a child off to college! Running the site and just writing articles every day became a second job, and I mean that literally since I spend five or six hours a day just staying informed and writing to keep the site on the cutting edge.  Even today there is no other site, at least that I am aware of, that routinely discusses the theoretical principles and analysis that we did here. This was never a site to get pitch or ditch information or to ask how much you should bid on FAAB. It has been tremendous fun and a lot of work.

My special thanks go to all of the guys that have written on the site, but especially Mike Podhorzer and Brian Joura. We would not have had the quality of articles, or the quantity for that matter, were it not for these guys, and I will gladly admit that some of our biggest traffic days were because of their work, especially Brian’s work. Both guys are coming with us to FantasyPros911.com and both will eventually be writing for far bigger ventures.  I knew Mike was going to be a good addition when even before his first post he sent me his email address: fbgeneralsmike@gmail.com.

Some of the highlights in our less than two year existence-

-Twice we have had articles linked by Rob Neyer at ESPN. I didn’t even know he read the site!
-We have had articles published in the USA Today fantasy sports section.
-Appearing on an ESPN radio affiliate out of Alabama last spring-that was amazing and nervewracking as they would not tell me what topics we were going to discuss!
-Meeting all of the people I have come to know in the industry, especially through the Roundtable (not the show but the actual Roundtable articles), which we hope to continue next year.

Of course there were lowlights-

-The whole Fantasy Baseball Search debacle and affiliation.
-Getting hammered in the FBSEL.
-Writing an article last year defending Jon Daniels. Ugh.
-Getting an email from Will Carroll on a factual error in my Barry Bonds article. You always hope that your first email from a guy like Will isn’t because of a mistake!
-There have been plenty of bad predictions and I posted a poll on them, so at least we take them in stride and in fun. Every bad prediction makes you feel like a loser especially when they are public knowledge. But if you can’t laugh at yourself….

Overall it is my honest belief that the quality of the content here and the quality of the discussion, including comments from some of the smartest and astute bloggers in the industry, has been a net positive for fantasy players. Many of the sites out there offer little or nothing substantive, are poorly written and have no deep understanding of fantasy baseball. That has never been the case here, and that is because of the guys that write here.  We have always offered content that was a cut above the mainstream. Or at least I always felt that it was, and maybe readers disagree!

Anyway, if you are a reader and have enjoyed the site and our content I hope you will follow us over to FantasyPros911.com. Thanks for reading and contributing your thoughts and comments.

Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson are going to be good, real good. If you don’t know these two names just yet, you will soon. I’ve been working on our inaugural FantasyPros911.com projections for the past couple of weeks, well more like months, and just yesterday I had the pleasure of getting to these two. [Read more →]

I will be co-hosting tonight’s winter meeting show with Tony Cincotta at 6 PM EST. We’ll be taking listener calls and responding to questions in the chat room, so make sure to listen in live.

Rounds seven through thirteen are where you win your fantasy baseball league championships.  This is where the definitive strategy of each individual owner comes into play.   It comes down to whether to take the safe choice with a relatively low ceiling player versus taking a bigger risk on a higher ceiling player who may not pan out.  [Read more →]

Paul Greco and his crew are out blanketing the Winter Meetings and will be hosting live shows all day! Here is a schedule of shows from Las Vegas. They are going to have Will Carroll, Matt Cerrone and other guests, and I will keep the guest list updated here.

12pm is Gotham Baseball Live
3pm is Lenny Melnick
6pm is Lenny Melnick
8pm is Talking Baseball Live

I started commenting on Brian’s post, but I started getting a little carried away and discovered I had written a whole column. Here’s my take on the Mets’ closer situation. [Read more →]

Barry Zito is the most overpaid player in baseball.  Yet I think he is someone who will find himself on mixed-league rosters by the end of the year after being useless most of the last two seasons.  Click to see why I think there is hope for Zito in 2009.

It’s a buyer’s market for relief pitchers with the New York Mets being the only big-market team chasing a closer.  As the team takes its time deciding upon a course of action, I lay out the pros and cons for eight relief pitchers available this off-season.

Just a reminder that we were back on the air last night after a Thanksgiving break. It was great to be back and we even had a surprise call-in toward the end of the show from none other than the Godfather himself, Lenny Melnick. It was a real pleasure having Lenny on to give us his thoughts and face off with Brian and I. If you have never listened to the show, this would be a great time to start, and if you have but haven’t listened just yet, be sure not to miss this one!

Due to time constraints on last night’s Fantasy Baseball Roundtable Radio Show, I didn’t get a chance to jump back in to the discussion on reaching, which really was a lively discussion that could last for hours upon hours.  To me, if you want to make sure that you’re going to get someone you know you want, sometimes reaching becomes a necessity. [Read more →]

Since there has been nothing but Mike Mussina talk lately, and the 2009 Hall of Fame ballot has been released, I have decided to dedicate each day of the rest of the week to some of the top contenders to be 2009 inductees.  Today it’s time to discuss Andre Dawson, who finished 3rd in last years voting with 65.9% of the vote.  [Read more →]

Excellent article posted by Chris yesterday that elicits some very interesting discussion. Like our friend Derek Carty at THT who also posted a response, I was in the middle of typing up a comment when I realized I should just post an article. It’s not all that surprising that some pitcher valuations don’t make much sense. There are several simple reasons for this… [Read more →]

When you get through the top tier starters like Santana, Sabathia, Lincecum, Peavy, and Webb you are left with a group of pitchers that are very similar in most roto league statistical categories. So how are the rest of the draft choice worthy starting pitchers differentiated? What seperates the so called “2nd tier” starters from the 3rd or 4th tier starters? How much more value are we getting from “2nd tier” starters over 3rd and 4th tier starters? This article will attempt to explain the gaps in between the tiers, why they exist, and how we should approach these 2nd-4th tier starting pitchers. [Read more →]

Since there has been nothing but Mike Mussina talk lately, and the 2009 Hall of Fame ballot has been released, I have decided to dedicate each day of the rest of the week to some of the top contenders to be 2009 inductees.  Today it’s time to discuss Jim Rice, who fell just 16 votes short (2.8%) of becoming a member of the 2008 class. [Read more →]

Since there has been nothing but Mike Mussina talk lately, and the 2009 Hall of Fame ballot has been released, I have decided to dedicate each day of the rest of the week to some of the top contenders to be 2009 inductees.  Today, we’re going to start with new comer Rickey Henderson. [Read more →]

As usual, Rhett Oldham brings his views to the table in the Mike Mussina debate.

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Although I am still not quite sure whether Gabe’s last article argued that Mussina shouldn’t, as opposed to wouldn’t, make the HOF, I am on the “should” side of the debate, as heard during the Roundtable show on Tuesday. I will never get into an argument as to whether a player will be voted into the HOF or receive some end of season award, because we know how ignorant the voters are so it seems kind of pointless to try to guess what they are thinking. I’d rather argue who should get voted in or win an award, so that’s all I’m going to talk about here. Mike Mussina, on his own merits, should be voted into the HOF. [Read more →]

On this week’s Fantasy Baseball Roundtable Radio Show, we had some spirited debate over Mike Mussina’s Hall of Fame chances. So Patrick asked me to write up my argument against Mussina. [Read more →]

Without a doubt, one of the biggest disappointments of the ‘08 season was Eric Byrnes.  After coming off of a monster season in ‘07 Byrnes was depended upon to produce like the third round pick that he was in most fantasy drafts.  Teams took a big hit when Byrnes was slowed by two torn hamstrings and finally shelved for the season.  The big question is, how will Eric Byrnes produce in 2009?  [Read more →]

I know it’s hard to believe considering Brian and I live and breathe fantasy baseball, but I promise you we actually do have a life once in a while. We have cancelled tomorrow night’s Face-Off show on Thanksgiving. You may now all breathe a sigh of relief that you won’t have to rush through your turkey meal and have to embarrasingly explain to your family that you must listen to a fantasy baseball radio show. We’ll be back the following week on 12/4 to resume the fun. Thanks everyone for listening.

Wow lots of great discussion here on this topic; one that is alternatively the bane and boon of fantasy players everywhere. The topic is far too complicated for a comment so I thought I would post my thoughts here. And if you know of another site that discusses these types of theoretical arguments then let me know! [Read more →]

Have we not learned anything from when everyone was drafting Jarrod Saltalamacchia early in 2008 drafts even though he didn’t have a full-time job? I warned about him when I included him in my pre-season busts article and unfortunately for those owners taking the plunge, he did indeed disappoint. Why is Matt Wieters being drafted so early in non-keeper mock drafts? [Read more →]

Amazingly, the mock draft season is already in full force. Maybe it’s because I didn’t write for a fantasy baseball site last year, but it sure seems like mock drafts have started wayyyyyyy earlier than in previous years. Heck, the first one that was held was actually one I participated in and occurred on the last day of the regular season! Anyway, I wanted to touch on something that continually crops up when people talk about their draft strategy. [Read more →]

My cohort on the Fantasy Baseball Roundtable, Mike Muschiano, wrote an article on his site detailing the effect of Obama’s tax plan on baseball. Here is a link.

After the dust settles in the first three rounds, you really start to see the direction of draft experts and the formula they plan to use on building a roster.  In this second installment we examine the critical fourth through sixth rounds. [Read more →]