MVN has launched a new emag, “Roster” which is Seamless Baseball’s fantasy baseball draft kit. There are featured columns by Maury Brown, Derek Carty, Pizza Cutter, Daniel Rathman and Eric Seidman. There is also a mock draft. Check it out.
I really don’t know real too much about conventional fantasy baseball, because my idea of a fantasy draft involving baseball players, um, is not G-rated.
Well, truth be told these days I’m so tired my idea of the perfect fantasy kind of is, uh, a little twist on the old joke about this guy who approaches a woman in a bar and tells her – baby, you so hot – I’ll go home with you and do absolutely ANYTHING you want me to do if you can tell me specifically every single thing you want in only 3 words. And I looked at him and said – feed my puppies…
Sigh…
Anyhow, here is my column on the year’s preview for the Astros (there were a couple of mistakes in the editing, but I have corrected them here.)
Take a look – see what yall think:
Houston Astros
2007: The Astros’ season was financially successful, thanks to the season’s devotion to Craig Biggio’s endlessly promoted farewell tour, but the team’s playing was lifeless and discombobulated, thanks to the organization’s devotion to first ensuring that Craig Biggio would not merely achieve his goal of 3000 hits, but be treated like a prima donna as well.
The now-departed GM, Tim Purpura, most likely at the owner’s direction, signed free agents Carlos Lee and Woody Williams, made virtually no effort to re-sign Andy Pettitte (and consequently Roger Clemens) and traded away fan favorite CF Willy Taveras and young pitchers Jason Hirsh and Taylor Buchholz for Jason Jennings, which turned out to be disastrous moves as Williams and Jennings (who turned out to be hurt) were two of the 10 worst pitchers in the NL.
Morgan Ensberg and Chris Burke were unable to regain their pre-injury abilities and Jason Lane couldn’t recapture his 2005 stroke. Now-departed manager Phil Garner, as is his wont, continuously shuffled the lineup as well as platooned as many players as possible at every spot except for left field. Lance Berkman hit for the lowest BA, OPS and SLG of his career, Carlos Lee won the NL GIDP title and broke Adam Everett’s leg, resulting in his replacement at short by the hapless Mark Loretta and would-be rookie of the year Hunter Pence lost over a month because of a fractured wrist.
Brad Lidge re-discovered his pitches, but only in the set-up role, Dan Wheeler forgot how to pitch, period, and was traded for a 2B/3B even Tampa Bay didn’t want and the bullpen overall lost 27 games. In short, everything that could go wrong went wrong and the Astros had their first losing season in seven years.
Off-season Additions: 1B/OF Darin Erstad, 2B Kazuo Matsui, SS Miguel Tejada, IF Geoff Blum, CF Michael Bourn, OF Reggie Abercrombie, OF Jose Cruz, Jr., OF Victor Diaz, OF Yordany Ramirez, RHP Jose Valverde, RHP Oscar Villareal, RHP Chad Paronto, RHP Geoff Geary, RHP Doug Brocail, RHP Shawn Chacon, LHP Wesley Wright, RHP Jack Cassel
Off-season Losses: C Eric Munson, IF/OF Eric Bruntlett, 1B/3B Mike Lamb, SS Adam Everett, 2B Craig Biggio, 2B Chris Burke, OF Luke Scott, RHP Brad Lidge, RHP Chad Qualls, RHP Matt Albers, RHP Juan Gutierrez, LHP Troy Patton, LHP Trever Miller
2008 Projected Lineup:
1. Michael Bourn, CF
2. Kaz Matsui, 2B
3. Miguel Tejada, SS
4. Lance Berkman,1B
5. Carlos Lee, LF
6. Hunter Pence, RF
7. Ty Wigginton, 3B
8. J.R. Towles/Brad Ausmus, C
2008 Projected Staff:
1. Roy Oswalt
2. Wandy Rodriguez
3. Brandon Backe
4. Woody Williams
5. Chris Sampson or Shawn Chacon (Chacon will go to the bullpen if Sampson makes the rotation: Sampson will most likely go to AAA if Chacon makes the rotation)
Middle Relievers: Chad Paronto, Geoff Geary, Dave Borkowski
Lefty Relievers: Mark McLemore or Wesley Wright
Setup: Oscar Villareal, Doug Brocail
Closer: Jose Valverde
Fantasy Stud: Roy Oswalt should throw his usual 220 innings, winning 13-20 games, with his usual 3.20 (average) ERA and 150-200 K. Carlos Lee will have his usual line near .300-30-100 and Lance Berkman has a good chance for similar numbers. Michael Bourn should steal a good 40 bases if he gets on base.
Fantasy Dud: Kaz Matsui will most likely not approach his Coors Field numbers that he posted last year. Minute Maid Park is not a hitters park, contrary to popular belief.
Prospect Watch: The Astros’ farm system is the worst in the major leagues and the only prospect expected to make the 25-man roster is would-be starting catcher J.R. Towles, who rose (uncharacteristically for the Astros organization) quickly through the minors, shooting from High-A to the majors last year. He has posted a minor-league OPS of .863 over four years, and although he certainly is not expected to post such gaudy numbers, he should hit at least .250/.330/.380 (according to the ZiPS projection system). The possibility exists that Felipe Paulino might also make the leap to the majors from Double-A where he posted a 1.36 WHIP and a 3.61 ERA with 8.84 K/9 IP in the Texas League.
Tags: Houston Astros, MLB
[...] Sports News, Comments & Analysis | Bleacher Report wrote an interesting post today on The Astros Team Profile On Roster E-magHere’s a quick excerptI really don
Oswalt only a 3.20 ERA! He’s a career 3.08, and in the last two years where’s he’s battled injuries, crappy bullpens and offenses, and worse defenses, he’s posted 2.98 and 3.18. He’s only been above 3.18 once. I really expect him to be in 3-3.15 range. Other than that, great analysis.
Old man Brocail has been labeled the setup man.
http://blogs.chron.com/baseballblog/archives/2008/02/pence_joins_clu.html
Auspicious start for the Stros as they lose 12-2 in the opener in spring training!! Wandy and McLemore throw well!!
Lisa, you should find this interesting. There is this Stephen Randolph guy, great in the minors. In his first outing with the big club this year he gave up 4 runs, and has a 40 ERA in less than one ininng. My guess is he needs more seasoning, as he obviously cannot deal with major league hitting. Your thoughts??
[...] Lisa Gray wrote a fantastic post today on “The Astros Team Profile On Roster E-mag”Here’s ONLY a quick extractAnyhow, here is my column on the year
dan,
yeh i know that about oswalt. but i’d rather be wrong on the high side. and like i said, my knowledge of fantasy baseball is like zero
- stephen randolph – i’ve written about him more than a few times. the guy is a AAA pitcher. he gets good K rates in the minors because he gets minor leaguers to swing at balls out of the strike zone. he also got rescued moren a few times with MLB.
ah LUUUVVVV me some wandy. it’s too bad mclemore won’t never get a chance to start in the majors. they are too into LOOGYs and he was a better starter than reliever…
joel,
yeh, i know. but villareal was mentioned more than a few times as a possible setup man. and i don’t have near the faith in brocail out of petco that the astros do
I’m sure you have missed my excellent comments but school is a bizatch.
Anyway, 13-20 wins and 150-200 K! A 2 win, and 10 K range is forgivable but 7 wins and 50 K! That means nothing!
broocks,
grinning
you ain’t so dumb. i know i’m supposed to pick numbers out of thin air and the monkey was on strike…
i would say that i got no reason to think that roy is injured or that he won’t/can’t fix his high walk numbers of last season, except that he will have to see exactly HOW bad tejada is because if he sees that tejada and wiggy are as awful as loretta and wiggy/lamb, he will be smart enough to walk guys instead of trying to let fielders handle it.
therefore i would guess that roy will essentially repeat his numbers from last year. i have no idea how many wins he will have because that is contingent on his team scoring more runs and the bullpen saving more games – or at least not losing em
and who knows????!!!!
Lisa,
This is going to sound stupid but I have Nick Gorneault in one of my Out of the Park Baseball games and the kid is a beast.
Did we get him in the Rule 5? Any chance he makes the roster? No way he can be worse than Erstad as a fifth outfielder.
Btw, I just wanted you to be aware that 2 Spring Training games, three years in the PCL and OOTP baseball are what qualifies as an “excellent scouting report” these days.
Lisa,
All accurate except I’m not so sure Oswalt will K 150-200 hitters this season, b/c of the steady decline in his K’s from year to year. I hope not, as I have a serious man crush on him. But he defied the odds to some extent last year, pitching well despite walking 60 for only the third time in his career. It’s also to his credit that he pitched well w/ a 54% GB% on a team which had Wigginton at third base, the ancient biggio at second, and Loretta at short (dumb). I’m just getting nervous that my all time favorite pitcher is now 30, is striking out fewer every year, and has a really bad defenders at third and short. In fact, the only infielder who can actually play his position is Matsui, who happens to be a bad, bad, bad, bad hitter. When are they going to figure out that a player’s value depends on both sides of his game?
Lee is a very food hitter, not a great one. His .300/30/100 line would impress many beyond Tal Smith if this were 1985. It’s not. He is a much better fantasy player than real. Get this: depending on your preferred defensive metric the difference b/w Lee and a league average left fielder was -10 or -15 runs (or perhaps worse). How many runs did he create over the average? A net of a few. Compare that to Luke Scott in ’07- about average defense and creating runs at about the same rate (similar OBP, higher ISO). Netting more for millions less.
The Zips projection on Towles looks about right. Good for a rookie catcher whose still developing. But if Cooper has the same inexplicable obsessions as Phil Garner- and I think he does- we’ll be seeing Ausmus and Loretta each getting 300 and 400 PA, repectively.
“food” hitter must have been a Freudian slip, as I intended “good” hitter; both are true.
Lee is a greater hitter. He goes and does just what he has to at every at bat. He doesn’t try to hit a home run every time. I think he is the smartest hitter on the team.
When the game is on the line I rather see him than anyone else in the batters box, even Berkman.
nick gorneault is a 6 year minor league FA. He spent the past 4 years at AAA and has had declining OPS in each of the past 3 years – .917, .842, .743 – all with the angels. not sure why they didn’t trade him at the peak of his value since they had no intention of playing him but what can i say.
erstad is a brad ausmus quality hitter and i have absolutely NO idea why we wasted a roster spot on him. i guess because he used to play football because that is SUCH an important quality for a baseball player. or some such crap.
kevin,
well, i’m thinking that roy might could go back to his old non-contact ways because this infield sux. i know that tal smith and his underlings are talking about pitching and defense winning ballgames but they got no defense and no pitching and they traded everett for tejada for a BAT. agree about matsui. of course, so many people only look at last year’s stats that ed wade is getting a big hand.
dear lord i do NOT wanna see loretta getting no 300 PA. i’d rather see tommy manzella instead of keeping him to rot in the minors.
i agree with you about luke and lee but the Organization clearly personally hates luke so what can you do? and mclane is in LUUUVVV with lee and don’t care that he can’t catch a cold.
shrug
this team is NOT gonna win and they NEED to let towles develop – i am HOPING that ausmus doesn’t WANT to catch more than 1 guy…