Fantasy Pros 911 Radio

I was a guest on the Fantasy Pros 911 Radio Show last night. They asked several questions about sleepers and recent events in baseball. I am a much better writer than radio personality, of that I have no doubt. But before me they had Joe Hamrahi from Baseball Prospectus and he had lots of good stuff to add. The show is always worth finding on BlogTalk Radio or iTunes.

Listen to internet radio with JoelHenard on Blog Talk Radio

Get Ready for Rookies, Rookies Everywhere

As more and more Major League Baseball teams reshape their team-building philosophies from "sign free agents and trade minor leaguers" to more development-centric methods, we will see a greater and greater number of rookies and young players making rosters out of spring training. Rookies will be given longer chances and more opportunities to contribute than we are used to seeing from most teams. Conversely we are going to start to see older veterans, who have begun to fade, shuffled out of the majors sooner than was once the case.

For fantasy owners this is both good and bad news. The good news is this will mean that there are lots of interesting new players available on an annual basis. Rather than filling out the ends of your rosters with the Shawn Dunston, Omar Vizquel, and Ken Griffey Jr types, you will find yourself drafting more Daniel Murphy, Justin Masterson, and Ben Zobrist types. These are players whose upside has often been higher than their initial roles might indicate. Insouciant owners who continue to waste their endgame picks on old guys will be far less effective.

The bad news is this means more work for fantasy owners. You will have to work hard to gain an edge. That geek in your league (it could be you) that reads every page of the Baseball America Prospect Handbook and the Baseball Prospectus will suddenly be more of a contender than he was before. Sure there are many websites that publish Top 100 lists but they won't help you much if you don't understand why a player is ranked the way he is. You need to immerse yourself into reading the work of writers like Kevin Goldstein of BaseballProspectus.com, John Sickels of MinorLeagueBall.com, Adam Foster and his extremely talented staff at ProjectProspect.com (a lot of their focus is on gathering and filtering information for people who play in deep fantasy baseball leagues, so they can help you quite a bit), or any of the talented guys like Jim Callis and John Manuel at Baseball America, the standard for tracking minor leagues and top prospects. If you just commit to reading the work of these writers you will be way ahead of the curve of the changes coming to baseball's player population.

This happens to be the start of that point in the season where you start to see rookies added to the major league roster of contending teams. The trade deadline has passed and the stretch run has begun. Every team wants their best hands on deck. Sure, you will see even more rookies added in September but they will be there to watch and learn on the contending teams. This is when you should be using low FAAB bids to acquire players, especially if you can reserve them or you are not really in contention for a title. They may be very useful next season.

2008 Team Defensive Ranking by UZR

The chart below is a ranking of every Major League Baseball team by UZR. UZR is one of the best statistical measurements of defense yet created. Please note however that defense statistics stil have a long way to go. Still, examining this chart and ones like it that you can find on sites like FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus and others when your ranking your potential pitching selections can be quite valuable when it comes to guessing on potential breakouts and sleepers.

A team that has dramatically improved it's defense is more likely to findpitching breakouts than the other way around. For those of you unfamiliar with UZR I've borrowed a description from Baseball Think Factory (this link is a good one to read) :

UZR rate is expressed as a fraction of 1, the same as a simple ZR (ZR). A UZR rate means essentially the same thing as a simple ZR � namely the number of balls fielded (turned into at least one out) divided by the number of chances; however, UZR rate is a weighted average of a player�s ZR in each of several zones.

As you will see, UZR rate is really a by-product of UZR runs, and UZR runs is the heart of the UZR system. It represents the value of a fielder�s performance expressed as runs saved or cost, in comparison to an average fielder (actually in comparison to the mean performance of all fielders) at that position, in that player�s league, and during that particular year. UZR runs is the defensive counterpart of Palmer�s offensive linear weights (lwts); thus it can be combined with lwts (among other things) to give you an estimate of a player�s total offensive and defensive value. Any player with an average defensive performance will, by definition, have exactly zero UZR runs.

Team	G	E	DP	FP	UZR
Rays	2080	90	429	0.985	70.6
Phillies	2181	90	380	0.985	48.5
Red Sox	2146	85	399	0.986	44.3
Athletics	2126	98	467	0.984	31.5
Astros	2125	67	379	0.989	30.8
Cardinals	2297	85	430	0.986	30.4
Nationals	2160	123	387	0.98	29.1
Brewers	2002	101	425	0.984	21.7
Giants	2216	96	341	0.984	21.3
Royals	2124	96	431	0.984	19.2
Blue Jays	2042	84	366	0.986	19
Mets	2194	83	344	0.986	14.8
Cubs	2180	99	311	0.983	9.8
Indians	2010	94	498	0.985	6.2
Marlins	2221	117	328	0.98	0.8
Angels	2030	91	441	0.985	-0.5
Braves	2161	107	404	0.983	-0.8
Orioles	2126	100	441	0.983	-2
Padres	2097	85	401	0.986	-14.5
Pirates	2092	107	504	0.983	-17.8
White Sox	2134	108	427	0.983	-18
Twins	2078	108	465	0.983	-25.5
Diamondbacks	2073	113	374	0.981	-25.8
Mariners	2075	99	430	0.984	-32.8
Dodgers	2205	101	376	0.984	-35.8
Rangers	2107	132	528	0.979	-35.8
Tigers	2122	113	466	0.981	-38
Yankees	2143	83	366	0.986	-39.4
Reds	2204	114	414	0.981	-41.7
Rockies	2122	96	466	0.985	-70.9

Favorite Statistical Sources

Everyday there is another great site pops up that presents the baseball team and player statistics. The sites linked below are my favorites. They are not only great, they are free, so please support them in whatever fashion possible.

TheBaseballCube.com
When I want to get a quick sense of a player thebaseballcube.com is the first place I go. Not only do I get the basic stats that count for fantasy but key bits of information such as birthdate, age at each level, college stats, honors and awards that have been granted the player and a bunch more.

FanGraphs.com
When I need to understand where a player is going statistically or when I want to know why they rose or fell, this is the site I check. Fangraphs has tons of great stats that you rarely find on other sites - wOBA, IFFB percentage, HR/FB, IFH%, WPA and tons more. Plus, this site has a great blog that Dave Cameron --one of the best baseball bloggers on the planet -- contributes to frequently.

HardBallTimes.com
Sometimes I just need someone else to do the heavy lifting for a whilw and that means a trip to hardballtimes.com is in my future. Everything is here -- the news, the stats, the analysis, the fantasy spins, and the great reads. These guys also produce one of the very best baseball annuals in the business. Their annual has everything that the Baseball Prospectus Annual and the Baseball Forecaster are always missing.

FirstInning.com
When I need to study a prospect there is only one source for advanced stats (that won't cost you an arm and a first born) and that is FirstInning.com. All of the stats you want when you're studying up on major leaguers are here for minor leaguers. Plus - prospect lists, charts, graphs, park factors, league factors -- everything you need to seriously examine prospects is here.