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June 2nd 2002 |
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Your Daily Fantasy Rx |
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by Tim Polko
Colorado: 6 games: 3 Home vs. Los Angeles; 3 Road at Toronto.
Anaheim: 7 Home games: 4 vs. Texas; 3 vs. Cincinnati. Atlanta: 7 games: 4 Home vs. New York Mets; 3 Road at Texas.
Baltimore: 7 games: 4 Road at New York Yankees; 3 Home vs. Los Angeles. New York Mets: 7 Road games: 4 at Atlanta; 3 at Cleveland. All other teams play six games.
The DC 2nd season starts tomorrow, with the same salaries and roster spots as the main DC, but with $2,000 less of cap space, so we need to find cheaper players than those on our normal roster. However we'll still go very pitcher-heavy as we should gain a wins' advantage by the ability to run more 2-start pitchers. Our main decision is whether or not we should continue platooning our Rockies. Despite the seemingly dozens of owners posting on message boards about the demise of the Colorado Shuffle, the stats don't support that conclusion, and we're very comfortable continuing to own our four Rockies here(Helton, Uribe, L.Walker, and Pierre). We'll take Sosa as one of their platoon partners, but we'll determine the rest after looking at the rest of our roster. Catcher, second base, and third base are the weakest position in Challenge this season. Posada's an obvious play at one catcher slot, as is Soriano at 2B, but we don't believe any other player is a must-own here. 2nd Catcher possibilities:
C $ BA HR RBI SB R Piazza 1460 .272 10 30 0 22 Lo Duca 840 .293 2 18 0 17 D.Miller 630 .287 7 27 0 24 Barrett 590 .331 6 23 1 18 Either Miller or Barrett is the obvious pick here since we need to save money and we want some production here, so we can't take Hall. While both catchers' power has decreased in May, Barrett's BB:K has risen to 1.11 BB:K while Miller remains significantly worse. We'll take Barrett. 2nd 2B possibilities:
2B $ BA HR RBI SB R Vidro 1150 .330 5 41 2 38 Castillo 1000 .324 1 12 21 30 Spivey 750 .330 6 35 7 39 Vidro's BB:K fell from .67 to .43, Castillo's fell to .53 from .56 but his BA shot up, and Spivey's rose from .78 to .95. Vidro's production is nice, and all three of these would help most teams, but we'll probably stay with Castillo unless we can compensate with extra steals elsewhere. We'll consider almost anyone at 3rd since we haven't been extremely happy with Chavez or Hillenbrand thus far, although both have definitely earned their salaries. 3B possibilities:
3B $ BA HR RBI SB R Glaus 1420 .280 11 47 5 44 Chavez 1070 .267 12 34 2 28 Lowell 870 .330 8 37 1 31 Hinske 750 .274 8 29 4 28 Hillenbrand 450 .315 9 36 2 33 We'll take Hillenbrand since we need to cut salary and not add it, and with Lowell excelling during his normal May slump, we'll pick him and save $200 over Chavez. At first, we're looking for one starting 1B, and potentially a platoon mate for Helton. 1B possibilities:
1B $ BA HR RBI SB R Ja.Gambi 1640 .315 15 41 0 41 Klesko 1300 .333 11 35 1 33 Sexson 1280 .273 14 47 0 34 Konerko 1220 .327 8 48 0 28 Giambi looks great as usual, and Konerko's in a far superior offense to Klesko(plus Konerko has no discernable split while Klesko's a 1st half player). Unfortunately we just don't appear to posses the cap room necessary to take Giambi, so we'll just leave Helton in full-time instead of platooning him with Vlad. ARod is a must-own at SS, and looking at the stats, and since Uribe's done very little, we'll take Nomar for the guaranteed four-category production. In the outfield, Ichiro and Dunn are essential, and Sosa will be one of our two Colorado platoon-mates. For the rest of the year, the Cubs have the second most home games when Colorado's on the road; Minnesota has the most, and since we're sold on Torii Hunter, we'll take him as the second of the Walker/Pierre alternates. There's only $20 salary difference between these two couples, so we won't have any problems fitting in this group each week. We'll have to go cheap for the rest of our outfield, but we really want Drew since he has more upside than any similarly-priced OF. With our last three spots, we'll take Berkman, Burrell, Kearns, Jeremy Giambi, and Piatt, and then alternate this group depending on our starting pitching. For relievers, we're taking Gagne(as SP) and Isringhausen since we believe they'll continue to be the best in the game for the rest of the year. Guardado seems to have fixed his problems and remains an excellent option, Mike Williams continues to roll, and due to Florida's great offense and superior pitching, we'll take Vlad Nunez as our last reliever.
Only two AL pitchers haven't posted a single PQS below 3, but we don't trust either KC's offense or Paul Byrd's strikeouts. However we'll happily add Derek Lowe to our roster. In the NL, Schilling and Padilla both have accomplished the same feat, but we'll just consider Padilla with the last group of potential starters. We'll add Morris and Oswalt to our list since they qualify for LPR and pitch in front of solid offenses, and then we'll choose our other five starters from the following list. We considered Colon, Astacio, Prior, D'Amico, and Lawrence, but dismissed them since their teams were in the bottom third offensively in their respective leagues. Russ Ortiz failed to earn consideration due to their his poor K/9. The current LIMA-quality pitchers are starred.
Pitcher Cost K/9 PQS Tm R/G(Rank) Mussina 1380 7.8 3.7 5.7(4) Hudson 1170 6.4 3.3 4.8(8) F.Garcia 1110 7.4 3.4 5.8(1) Vazquez 1100 6.1 3.9 4.6(6) *Appier 1010 6.0 3.5 5.8(2) Zito 1080 9.2 3.6 4.8(8) *Padilla 750 6.3 4.0 4.6(8) *C.Hernandez 750 6.8 3.7 4.7(4) Beckett 670 8.3 3.6 4.8(3) Ra.Ortiz 650 6.9 3.4 5.8(2) *Halladay 490 7.7 3.9 4.9(7) Hudson is easy to dismiss due to his weak numbers across the board, and we're also not happy with Appier's K/9 for his price. The missing LIMA stat for all the other 10 pitchers is HR/9; they're all over 1.0 HR/9, although Vazquez is only 1 IP short of re-qualifying. Due to their rather solid performance in each category, we'll take Mussina and Beckett. We've been itching to start Halladay for the entire year, and we're not passing up Garcia with Seattle's offense continuing to dominate. We're left with the following five pitchers for one slot:
Pitcher Cost K/9 PQS Tm R/G(Rank) Vazquez 1100 6.1 3.9 4.6(6) Zito 1080 9.2 3.6 4.8(8) Padilla 750 6.3 4.0 4.6(8) C.Hernandez 750 6.8 3.7 4.7(4) Ra.Ortiz 650 6.9 3.4 5.8(2) One of these pitchers definitely strikes me as unlike the others, since he strikes out over a batter per inning and has dominated for the last two seasons. While we like Vazquez, we don't appear to have room for him at the moment, so we'll take Zito as our 14th SP.
SP(6) We'll start our five double starts of Pedro, Schilling, Clemens, Garcia, and Beckett, plus Gagne in an attempt to gain early ground in saves. However since we're already waffling on Schilling due to his very good opponents, we'll take Halladay instead for cap reasons. We'll also sit Berkman and Burrell in favor of the youngsters to fit in under the $28000.
Umpire: The Masquerade(No standings available) C Jorge Posada 990 C Michael Barrett 590 1B Todd Helton 1980 1B Paul Konerko 1220 2B Luis Castillo 1000 2B Alfonso Soriano 900 3B Mike Lowell 870 3B Shea Hillenbrand 450 SS Alex Rodriguez 1880 SS Nomar Garciaparra 1120 OF Larry Walker 1530 OF Juan Pierre 1180 OF Ichiro Suzuki 1330 OF J.D. Drew 1010 OF Adam Dunn 710 OF Austin Kearns 580 DH Jeremy Giambi 500 DH Adam Piatt 410
SP Pedro Martinez 1770 SP Roger Clemens 1240 SP Freddy Garcia 1110 SP Josh Beckett 670 SP Eric Gagne 500 SP Roy Halladay 490 RP Jason Isringhausen 1290 RP Mike Williams 900 RP Eddie Guardado 900 RP Vladimir Nunez 750
Our rationale for not replacing Toby Hall for this team: Most importantly, we believe he'll be back in the majors within the month despite Flaherty's hot streak; he might even wind up DHing of Huff runs into problems in the majors. Hall had gone 26/139 for .187 with 2 HR, 16 RBI, 11 R, and 0 SB. If we'd kept him on the roster without him playing at all, our standing would change as follows(as of the day of his demotion): BA from .3047 to .3100; we move from 13th overall to 2nd overall (the top team is at .331 today; no one else is over .306. HR from 144 to 142, dropping us 173.5 points. RBI from 610 to 594, dropping us 1047 points. R from 556 to 545, dropping us 32 points. No change in steals. So while we'd gain 12 points in BA, we'd lose 1252.5 in the other categories. As that change still leaves us in the top spot, we're not going to make a move since we'd have to make a secondary move to compensate for the 520 we'd need for Lo Duca; we don't trust any other catcher right now, and Lo Duca might not even be worth his salary. Since we only expect to lose perhaps a month of production from Hall, we're likely only losing 700 points or so total from not replacing him, and we're also able to field a much better team than other than his empty roster spot. If he's performing badly in AAA in a couple of weeks, then we'll consider a change, especially if we suffer an injury elsewhere, but we really didn't want to burn a move this week, and we have no intention of doing so to add non cost-effective production. Keeping Hall allows us to deploy players with much higher upside than any catcher at other positions. We might actally lose more production by replacing him with someone more expensive due to the lost opportunities elsewhere.
SP(6)
Javier Vazquez: Wed:PIT(Fogg) We remain comfortably locked into Isringhausen, Kim, Guardado, and Williams as our relievers. We'll likely take the five double starts(Pedro, Schilling, Clemens, Hudson, and Russ Ortiz) plus Gagne, even if he's in Colorado for three games), but the Mussina and Wood starts definitely appeal to us. If we need to cut salary someplace, we might consider one of them instead of Schilling since he faces tough offenses and tough pitchers(Redding and Pedro). Colorado's back at home for three games, and we also expect that Helton and the boys will hit well in Toronto. However we're worried about Walker's health (as always), so we'll sit him in favor of Jeremy Giambi(especially if Philly may continue to play Jeremy every day in lieu of Glanville). We're still short on cash, so we'll sit Berkman for Jimmy Rollins; we could also sit Ryan Klesko, but Berkman faces a much tougher schedule. We'd like to sit Daryle Ward since he'll sit against Randy and Mulder, while also opposing rather tough right-handers in Schilling, Helling, Harang, and Hudson, but we're again short on cap space - we're only $40 short of the cap right now, so we'll stick with what we have. While our bench of Sosa, Vlad, Walker, and Berkman may outproduce our lineup, after a week of heavy offense, we need to deploy our best pitchers to stop our ERA and WHIP from their current freefall.
C Jorge Posada 990 C Toby Hall 320 1B Jason Giambi 1640 1B Ryan Klesko 1300 2B Luis Castillo 1000 2B Alfonso Soriano 900 3B Eric Chavez 1070 3B Shea Hillenbrand 450 SS Alex Rodriguez 1880 SS Jimmy Rollins 940 OF Ichiro Suzuki 1330 OF Juan Pierre 1180 OF J.D. Drew 1010 OF Adam Dunn 710 OF Daryle Ward 620 OF Jeremy Giambi 500 DH Todd Helton 1980 DH Juan Uribe 500
SP Pedro Martinez 1770 SP Curt Schilling 1540 SP Roger Clemens 1240 SP Tim Hudson 1170 SP Russ Ortiz 1140 SP Eric Gagne 500 RP Jason Isringhausen 1290 RP Byung-Hyun Kim 1200 RP Mike Williams 900 RP Eddie Guardado 900
SP(6) No starts: Morris, Oswalt, Lawrence.
RP(4) Kim tied Guardado for the least number of games at home, so we'll sit him unless we wind up with 300 extra in salary. Pedro, Mussina, Clemens, and Wood are definite starts here due to the poor offenses of their opponents; Vazquez also seems like a solid start and Zito's won his last five decisions. If we need money to field a better offense, we'll consider starting Gagne in Colorado, mostly because no one else will. Colorado's at home, but we'll again sit Walker due to his health problems. However even if we sit Sosa, Vlad, and Bonds, we're still 90 over the cap. So we'll start Gagne instead of Wood and Rollins for Ward(who faces tougher competition than Durazo).
C Jorge Posada 990 C Toby Hall 320 1B Todd Helton 1980 1B Jason Giambi 1640 2B Luis Castillo 1000 2B Alfonso Soriano 900 3B Eric Chavez 1070 3B Shea Hillenbrand 450 SS Alex Rodriguez 1880 SS Jimmy Rollins 940 OF Ichiro Suzuki 1330 OF Lance Berkman 1320 OF Juan Pierre 1180 OF J.D. Drew 1010 OF Adam Dunn 710 OF Erubiel Durazo 440 DH Juan Uribe 500 DH Ryan Klesko 1300
SP Pedro Martinez 1770 SP Mike Mussina 1380 SP Roger Clemens 1240 SP Javier Vazquez 1100 SP Barry Zito 1080 SP Eric Gagne 500 RP Jason Isringhausen 1280 RP Mike Williams 900 RP Eddie Guardado 900 RP Jorge Julio 750
We have no relievers on the bench, so we'll stay with Smoltz, Isringhausen, Kim, and Guardado until further notice.
SP(6) Schilling, Pedro, and Clemens will definitely start for us, and we'll keep running Gagne since he seems to be saving a game almost every day. Mussina seems like a very high percentage start, and we'll finish with either Vazquez or Wood, depending on whether we have the money for Vazquez after choosing our offense. Our Colorado platoon will start, again with the exception of Walker; we'll keep Berkman active instead. Jeremy Giambi will start for Ward since we expect him to play more games this week, and to get under the cap we'll take Wood instead of Vazquez. We have no problems leaving Sosa, Boone, Patterson, and Jimenez on the bench with Walker and Ward, along with obvious taxis Blalock and Hall, neither of which we're prepared to replace with only 7 moves left for the entire season.
The Umpire Chronicles(1st lg; 95th overall) C Paul Lo Duca 1640 C A.J. Pierzynski 1000 1B Todd Helton 3400 1B Jason Giambi 3320 2B Jose Ortiz 1500 2B Alfonso Soriano 1800 3B Eric Chavez 2270 3B Aramis Ramirez 1590 SS Alex Rodriguez 3430 SS Juan Uribe 1300 OF Lance Berkman 2540 OF J.D. Drew 2310 OF Cliff Floyd 2300 OF Juan Pierre 1880 OF Adam Dunn 1610 OF Jeremy Giambi 1300 DH Nick Johnson 1200 DH Steve Cox 1160
SP Curt Schilling 3160 SP Pedro Martinez 2950 SP Mike Mussina 2940 SP Roger Clemens 2870 SP Kerry Wood 2300 SP Eric Gagne 1230 RP John Smoltz 2610 RP Jason Isringhausen 2370 RP Byung-Hyun Kim 2230 RP Eddie Guardado 1690
Click
here to read the previous article.
Please e-mail your comments to
tim@rotohelp.com. |
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