Thank you to everyone who has been following my work so far. In order to have greater control of my content, I have moved to FantasyPitchFx.com. Here I will be implementing my blog in addition to two new tools soon, a DL tool and a Pitch Fx Tool. I am very excited about the new space and I hope everyone will check it out.
See all the other analysis here and the grid alignment here.
For the final team's analysis, I need to preface it with the fact that this team is the league's whipping boy. He tends to say and do stupid things but he firmly believes that whatever he does will make his team better. So without further ado, what follows will be an interesting case.
Rule #1: Never keep a first rounder. This eliminates Russ Martin (1) and Dan Haren (1). This does not eliminate Alex Rodriguez (1).
Rule #2: Never keep a catcher. This eliminates no one since Martin is already eliminated.
Rule #3: Never keep a closer above round 5. This eliminates no one.
Rule #4: Never keep a player whose role is unknown or won't get the majority of the playing time. This eliminates no one.
Rule #5: Never keep a veteran on the decline. This eliminates Giles (16), Matsui (7), Damon (16), and Mussina (16).
This leaves us with
Hitters:
Alex Rodriguez (1)
Youkilis (16)
K. Johnson (5)
Keppinger (16)
Ellsbury (11)
Ludwick (16)
Byrd (16)
Votto (15)
Pitchers:
Chamberlain (12)
Matsuzaka (3)
Price (16)
Cueto (16)
Lohse (16)
Marcum (16)
W. Rodriguez (16)
Right off the bat we can eliminate Marcum (16) because he went under the knife for Tommy John surgery. We can also eliminate Matsuzaka (3) because even though he will give you wins, his WHIP is way too high and his ERA is largely based on luck right now.
I would next eliminate Chamberlain (12) because I'm not 100% sure he's going to be a starter. I think there is a good chance he could end up staying in the pen which would severely limit his value this year for fantasy purposes.
So that leaves us with a bunch of guys who are round 16. In situations such as this, I tend to take the most talented pitcher because pitchers are so variable anyways. I think this is clearly Price and so that's who I would keep out of the pitchers.
Hitters:
I think we can automatically eliminate Kelly Johnson at 5. He's been a bit of a disappointment and is way too high at round 5. I think you can easily pick him up near round 9-10 at least. Out of the group of hitters at round 16, I think Youkilis is the most talented and the most likely to give you great return. That leaves us with:
AROD (1)
Youkilis (16)
Ellsbury (11)
Votto (15)
I think we can eliminate Votto (15) because at that range Youkilis is better at that spot. So I think it comes down to ARod (1), Youkilis (16), and Ellsbury (11). Ellsbury, even though he steals bases left and right, simply does not help out in the other areas enough to warrent being a keeper. His OBP, RBIs, and TBs simply are not high enough compared to Youk and ARod.
With everything considered I would keep Youk (16) over ARod at (1). Yes ARod may have another season like he did a couple of years ago, but if Youk gives you even 75% of what ARod does, he will be a steal at 16.
Summary: Youkilis (16) and Price (15).
Well here it is finally playoff time and I wanted to look at how I did at the end of the year. I created a spreadsheet here for everyone to see and compare different scenarios.
Looking at everything, I did win basically every category that the player can control. FIP - ERA for pitchers have a swing of close to 4 tenths of a point in ERA. The WHIP is better by close to .06 and more than 1K/9 better in the buy group. My pitchers also gave up less HR and had a higher average gamescore.
The hitters have a slightly worse HR/AB but everything else is better even nominally so.
Looking back on things, I realized I made three mistakes in my evaluations even though I have come out on top.
