Players to Avoid

It's sleeper week here at MLB Front Office and although the week is coming to a end, before I post my final sleeper wrap-up article, I thought it would be important to outline some players to avoid. These are players that I am not taking, or are only taking if they fall far enough in a draft. Each person has his own scenerio so please don't just look at the list and dismiss it, in order to get the full benefits of this article, you need to read the entire analysis for every player.

Adam Dunn - 40 HR are nice but his average will hurt you more than his homeruns will help you. In my top 250 list, he fell to 84. Some people are taking him as early as the 4th round, do not buy into the hype! Just because his name is Adam Dunn doesn't mean he is worth a high pick. If he is still there in the 7th or 8th round, it is time to consider taking him.

Chien-Ming Wang: His low strike out rate will kill you and it also suggests that his ERA may rise next year. He will always get you the wins because he plays for the Yankees but don't look at his Wins and take him for only that. If you have 2-3 200+ strike out guys on your team already, then feel free to nab him. For example, in a mock draft I did, I had Zambrano, Myers, Harang and Hill. 3 of those are 200+ K guys and Hill has the potential to be one, therefore, I nabbed Wang to round out my staff. However, Wang is by no means a front of the rotation fantasy pitcher.

Todd Helton - This is another case of a big name influencing you to cough up a lot of money or an early draft pick for him. Do not buy into the hype! Helton's HR have been consistantly decreasing since 2003 and he has only hit over 40 HR twice in his career anyway: *cough* roids *cough*. He will get you an average around .300 and probably 10-20 HR. I'm sorry, but no one naturally gets an average of .372 and hits 42 HR in a season, there is too big a correlation between HR and average to do that (see my Baseball Stastics article for more on that). He is also 33 and his career is dieing.

Roger Clemens - If he plays, as he probably will, it won't be until the beginning of July probably and it is not worth spending a bench spot on him until then unless you have a very deep bench in your league, probably 5 spots or more.

Pedro Martinez - Pedro won't be back until July at the earliest and even then he will be very rusty and will need a minor league outing or two. Don't expect Pedro to be pitching at his level until mid August at which point you can probably pick him up off the waiver wire.

Fransisco Liriano - He is missing the entire season. No questions asked. Do not pick him in hopes he will return early because he won't.

This is just a small sample of some players to avoid. There are also a number of closers that should be left alone until late on draft day because they don't have a very good chance at holding the role for very long, these closers include:

1. Todd Jones; 2nd in line: Joel Zumaya
2. Ryan Dempster; 2nd in line: Bob Howry/Kerry Wood
3. Eric Gagne; 2nd in line: Akinori Otsuka
4. Kevin Gregg; 2nd in line: Taylor Tankersley
5. Takashi Saito; 2nd in line: Jonathin Broxton
6. Bob Wickman; 2nd in line: Mike Gonzalez
7. Cincinati Closer?
8. Solomon Torres; 2nd in line: Matt Capps
9. Boston Closer?; 2nd in line: Jonathan Papelbon
10. Octavio Dotel; 2nd in line: ???

Gut Feelings: AL Style

Over at lennymelnickfantasybaseball.com, Lenny has been running a series on his gut feelings. After reading his, I decided I would give it a shot and after the season we will revisit what I said and see how my gut feelings did vs. how all the prediction systems like PECOTA did. Here are the AL feelings, you can read the NL here.

Yankees -
1. Arod and Abreu bounce back from down years
2. Matsui rebounds strong from injury

Red Sox -
1. Matsukaka performs very well but everyone is still let down by him
2. Coco Crisp bounces back
3. Papelbon, despite what the doctors say, closes.

Orioles -
1. Bedard finally really makes it big
2. Markakis has huge breakout year

Blue Jays -
1. After signing contract, Wells dissapoints

Devil Rays -
1. Baldelli explodes and Young thrives
2. Devil Rays are surprise team of the year

White Sox -
1. Dye regresses but not as far as everyone expected

Indians -
1. Hafner explodes
2. Peralta rebounds
3. Sizemore impresses
4. Westbrook plays for pay
5. Indians win AL Central

Twins -
1. Cuddyer regresses to old form
2. Twins are overall dissapointment

Tigers -
1. Sheffield rebounds well from injury, hits 30 HR
2. Tigers are dissapointment

Royals -
1. Alex Gordon starts season in majors and wins ROY

Mariners -
1. Jeff Weaver impresses even his critics and Cardinals regret non-signing

Angels -
1. Acquire a 3B at the deadline, again blocking super prospect Bradon Wood
2. Gary Mathews Jr. is a huge waste of money

Athletics -
1. Nick Swisher dissapoints
2. Zito-less staff struggles

Rangers -
1. Michael Young and Mark Teixeira rebound from off year
2. Gagne still can't put together a full season

Disagree? Question? Comment? Email me: stew0610@ameritech.net

Question

Q: Hey, love your blog. I read it daily. I'm in a mixed 10-team Head to Head league. I need to keep 8 players. I'm keeping ARod, Crawford, Hafner,Vernon Wells, McCann, Zambrano and KRod. I need to decide for the last keeper between Bonderman, Sabathia and Haren. Who would you keep?

Thanks, Joel from Rhode Island

A: Looks like you've got a nice group of keepers there Joel. In my top 250 rankings, Bonderman was ranked 74, Sabathia was ranked 68 and Haren came in at 104. So as you can see, the real question here is Bonderman or Sabathia.

Here's a little bit about each of the players: Bonderman is a 24 year old stud. He had over 200 strikeouts last year to complement 14 wins and an ERA of 4.08. If you league counts whip, his was 1.30. He did this in 214 IP. Sabathia has a little bit more time under his belt, he is currently 26. He had 172 strikeouts but he also spent some time on the DL and only managed 192.2 innings. His ERA was 3.22, he had 12 wins and a whip of 1.17.

I think that after reviewing the stats, the choice is clear: Sabathia. If you take his strikeouts throughout 214 IP he has 191 strike outs. It is very probable that he breaks 200 strikeouts this year. His ERA was also significantly better than Bonderman's ERA. Although I do think Bonderman's ERA could go down this year, I don't think it will drop much below 4, if at all. Expect Sabathia to stay off the DL this year and easily top 15 wins on a Cleveland team that, if you read my blog regularly, you know I love. I don't think 17 or 18 wins is out of the question.

I hope this helps!

-Brad Stewart

Anyone else have a question? Email me: stew0610@ameritech.net