We are a fantasy baseball league whose draft is scheduled for May 1. Ten men enter (or nine or eight), and one man leaves.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Time for a Little Late April Talking Baseball

Roger Eugene MarisImage by cliff1066™ via Flickr

I've been saying it's early days and it's ... really early days. We have only to look at Tola's team. He's wallowing in last place, and you look at his lineup and you find:
T. S. Intellectual - Stats for Players While Active (Year To Date)
Currently Rostered Hitters
Name Pos GP HR RBI SB R AVG
Cabrera, Asdrubal (CLE) SS 18 1 3 1 9 .280
Davis, Rajai (OAK) OF 20 1 8 8 14 .213
Matsui, Hideki (LAA) DH 20 4 11 0 7 .293
Pedroia, Dustin (BOS) 2B 19 5 13 0 10 .282
Pierzynski, A.J. (CHA) C 17 0 2 0 2 .140
Swisher, Nick (NYY) OF 17 2 9 0 6 .224
Teixeira, Mark (NYY) 1B 18 2 8 0 10 .119
Young, Michael (TEX) 3B 18 2 14 1 10 .278
Zobrist, Ben (TAM) 2B 18 0 9 5 8 .264
Batting Totals 165 17 77 15 76 .237
Currently Rostered Pitchers
Name Pos IP L S W K ERA W PCT
Buchholz, Clay (BOS) P 16.7 2 0 1 18 2.70 0.333
Burnett, A.J. (NYY) P 25.3 0 0 2 16 3.20 1.000
Chamberlain, Joba (NYY) P 9.3 1 0 0 10 3.86 0.000
Peavy, Jake (CHA) P 22.3 1 0 0 15 7.66 0.000
Porcello, Rick (DET) P 19.3 2 0 1 13 7.91 0.333
Rodney, Fernando (LAA) P 10.0 0 5 2 7 3.60 1.000
Vazquez, Javier (NYY) P 20.0 3 0 1 18 9.00 0.250
Zumaya, Joel (DET) P 12.0 0 0 2 13 0.00 1.000
Pitching Totals

Look at Texiera. Wouldn't you trade your first baseman for him straight up right now? With the exception of Cabrera, sure. I'd trade Morneau for Texiera right now, and Morneau is hitting .360. Pierzynski is off to a bad start, but I doubt that lasts. P'ski isn't all that good, but he's very consistent. The only hitter I'd worry about -- were I the noble Tola -- is Rajai Davis. I think of him as the black Eric Byrnes, maddeningly inconsistent and with very little track record to give us confidence that we know what his baseline is. But if he can manage an OBP over .300? Sixty steals.

Pitching I'm less sure about. Porcello is only in his second year, so who knows? But *Vasquez never misses a turn.* Lousy start, but I can't believe he won't be worth the 3 bucks for whatever MT paid for him. Peavy? Don't know. Intrigued by him and would have bought him for a buck or two if I'd needed a pitcher at the moment his name occurred to whoever threw him out. So my conclusion is that Michael's hitting will be better than average because no way his final BA won't be .280 or thereabout, with all the other batting numbers towed behind. His pitching could be anything -- good, bad or in between. So I say he's even money to make money. Next week I'll look at whoever is on top. Memory tells me that being in first at this point doesn't mean much but that at least two of the top four teams will stay there. I'm trying to remember the last wire-to-wire champ. I'm pretty sure there have been some.

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