Maybe this is why I have trouble getting into fantasy baseball.
Fantasy football, I usually homer out and end up grabbing a Charger or two, but in the last 8-10 years, who could blame me? That's a decade of solid fantasy production in Tomlinson, Brees, Rivers, Gates, VJ, Charger D, etc.
Fantasy baseball though, you more often than not get burned picking any Padres position player to be anything more than a deep backup to a better option.
There are and have been exceptions of course, but for the most part, you're sticking to pitching with the Padres, and even then, 2012 will be a sleeper year for the Padres.
You may think to yourself, "But Dex doesn't even play fantasy baseball" and you may be right, but that doesn't keep me from knowing a thing or two.
Here's what you need to know about the San Diego Padres and Fantasy Baseball this season along with my Scientific Wild Ass Guesses:
Cameron Maybin is good for 30+ steals
If you get to the point in your draft where you realize you've been punting steals, then take a look at Cameron Maybin. Petco will depress just about everything else about him and 2011 was a breakout so expect a slight regression, but there's no reason why the steal-happy Padres couldn't get him beyond 30 and potentially to 40 again this season.
Gaslamp Ball SWAG.: 580AB, 150H, 13HR, 74RBI, 38SB
Avoid Padres Offense Otherwise
Carlos Quentin? Punt. Yonder Alonso? Punt. Hundley? Punt. Everybody (except Cam for steals). Punt.
There's nothing to like about the Padres offense in Petco Park.
Huston Street is good for 30-40 saves
If you're going out and looking up projections, I think you're seeing numbers in the high 20s to low 30s for saves and Huston Street. Personally, I think that ignores the fact that the Padres strategy is geared to get the closer involved as often as possible and Huston Street should find his form just fine pitching at sea level. That projection is low enough though that Street probably is a sleeper in any league that doesn't have Padres fans in it. Only thing holding back street is if he struggles, BuBy (Buddy/Byrnes) have options for the future that they might want to try out.
Gaslamp Ball SWAG: 46IP, 36S, 3.06ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 52K
Cory Luebke will be sick
Not like sick, draft him right away sick, but he will start to prove himself out as top of the rotation. All signs point to Cory Luebke breaking out this season. His wins were depressed last season, but every other stat points to a solid major league pitcher. Again though, we're talking about a sleeper here in leagues short on Padres fans.
Gaslamp Ball SWAG:160IP, 14W, 6L, 3.06ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 180K
Keep in mind that it took a good amount of my being not to predict 50 steals for Cam, 50 saves for Street, 20 wins for Luebke and a cycle for Will Venable. Just keep that in mind.
Go Padres.
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0 recs | 28 comments
Stauffer could be a sleeper
i think he’s still getting better, and if he continues to build stamina/arm strength it could allow him to go deeper into games and avoid late-season dead arm collapse.
also, i wouldn’t bank on 35+ saves for Street, just because he could be dealt by the deadline and likely to a team that already has a closer in place. i think brach, frieri, and boxberger could be fighting for the closer spot by the end of the season.
iheartyourfart - February 15, 2012
Good point, though even if Street were dealt...
I’d hope that it was from a position of him being a valuable piece and continuing to close for whatever team he ended up with.
Dex - February 15, 2012
yeah i'm not commenting on his value
traditionally though, the deadline closer market is made up of contending teams with established closers looking for additional bullpen help, and contending teams who have just lost a closer to injury. teams that are contending at the deadline almost always have decent closers. it doesn’t really reflect on value – look what mike adams netted us to be a setup man in texas.
iheartyourfart - February 15, 2012
Depends on the leage
but Headley had decent value as a 3B, probably the best of the “second tier”. Which is critical to get because you have the few allstars (Batista (who I have in my keeper H2H league and has 3b eligbility), Longoria, Beltre,and maybe Arod. Then you have the second tier, Headley, Panda, Wright, Zimmerman,and a few others.
Second tier are guys that won’t hurt you much overall, and does 1-2 things very well. In Chase’s case he gets on-base (we have OBP instead of avg), and steals a good amount of bases for that position. Zimmerman should be an allstar, but health concerns. Same with Wright, although his power is not great since for some reason, even though he doesn’t hit HR’s as much as he use to, he stop hitting XBH all together.
Pitching there is a ton of sleepers. Luebke and Stauffer are probably the only ones I would draft, and that would be in the 25-30th round, but the rest of the starters are definelty worth picking up. Especially if they give you a two start week and have good matchups.
Ron Mexico - February 15, 2012
I think that might be overstating...
I would not put Headley or Panda in the same level as Zimmerman and Wright who, if healthy, are in the elite tier.
isaic16 - February 15, 2012
health is key factor
Zimmerman is elite when healthy.
Wright can be elite, but really hasn’t in a few years. Of course it depends on your league settings.
Ron Mexico - February 15, 2012
Man... I dunno...
If that’s your second tier, then I’d take any of those guys above Headley and maybe even a few others. Maybe in an NL only league. Or maybe for steals, like you say.
Dex - February 15, 2012
I had Headley on my team last year
Very solid
mrbarneydangles - February 15, 2012
Burn Baby Burn
Padres that burned me last year(gladly not all on the same team) :
Bartlett
Blanks
E. Cabera
SanDiegoKev - February 15, 2012
Whoever made that list is crazy
Headley = good 3B option.
Hundley = good Catcher option.
Neither is a top tier option, but both are solid… especially if you have a league with more than 10 teams.
Zen Blade - February 15, 2012
everybody so high on Headley
There aren’t 12 other 3B you’d rather have?
Dex - February 15, 2012
Name them...
There aren’t that many. Many of the best from a few years ago have really struggled since 2010.
Zen Blade - February 15, 2012
and are over-draft
The top tier are all gone at the end of the second round. These guys selected in the 3rd round are just a hair more productive than Chase, but Chase you can get in the 15th round. Plus he plays every day, has good rate stats and will compile a few counting stats through volume.
What is scary though, is how quickly it drops off. Its not like OF/1B/DH, where you will take the all-star that only plays 125 games, then find a dang good replacement when he is not playing….
No 3b is super thin, if your first guy goes down, and you didn’t draft a top-12 guy, you are screwed because you basically have Jamie Carrol as a BEST Case.
Ron Mexico - February 15, 2012
Sneaking a peek at some preseason rankings...
Cabrera, Bautista, Longoria, Hanley Ramirez, Panda, Zimmerman, Wright, Freese, Aramis, Beltre, Young, Lawrie…
Maybe I overlooked steals, but have trouble imagining a situation where I draft Chase as my first 3B.
Dex - February 15, 2012
As Ron Mexico said,
A bunch of those are gone in the first round or two, and many will be regressing (my opinion based on a smattering of disputable stats and impressions).
Headley’s stats will be better in 2012 than in 2011. He will be healthier and I expect his HR totals to go back up into double digits. He will get 150-200 more at bats next year than this past year. Most stat categories were almost as good as or better in 2011 than in 2010, even though he had fewer at bats: BB, SB, RBI, 2B. His OPS (and related stats) was higher in 2011. He may have hit fewer HRs, but his 2B were basically the same in 200+ fewer at bats.
I wouldn’t draft Chase in the early rounds, but I would be fine with grabbing another player/pitcher who is solid and grabbing Chase in a later round. Also, this depends on how you plan to win your league and what your league stats are…
I generally hate the “standard” categories. But even with those standards, Chase would be a way to sacrifice HR stats and gain in SB, AVG, while staying about even in R and RBI.
But it just depends on your league.
Zen Blade - February 16, 2012
Hmmm....
OK. I don’t think I’m completely sold, but I defer to you since I admittedly go into every fantasy baseball season thinking I know what I’m doing and it typically falls apart by June.
What’s a projection for AB, H, HR, SB, RBI? I’ll add it to the post.
Dex - February 16, 2012
sorry, I don't do projections. :(
I just go based on how players perform year in and year out and whether they over/underperformed and whether they should over/underperform the following year. For example, Hanley Ramirez was injured last year, didn’t play too much, his numbers declined…. and you might think he will bounce back, but his attitude seems to be pretty bad, and I could see him regressing even further. As good as Beltre has been in the past couple of years, I think he is probably regressing. Same with Chipper and Reynolds… Sandoval’s weight worries me. A Rod’s numbers have declined each year for ~4 years and he is still solid… but what if he keeps declining (but he could bounce back and be better than last year).
I’m just not sold on many third basemen.
I feel like Headley underperformed last year in that he lost ~200 plate appearances. However, his walk rate increased, his SLG increased, his OBP increased… He had as many doubles (even if he hit fewer HR). I think he can continue that trend.
In fantasy baseball, I almost always look to leagues with 8-12 stats for hitting/pitching. I also tend to focus on killing pitching, while cobbling together a sufficient number of hitting stats. So, if it was 8/8… I might win 2-4 hitting stats and 6-8 pitching stats each week. I feel like pitchers (minus season-ending injuries) are more predictable. You know who is going to go out and be solid and who isn’t. You know Lincecum is a good bet. You know Cliff Lee, Halladay, Hamels are good bets. And I would rather kill with the best closers+starters.
Anyways, that’s just me. I play to win…
Zen Blade - February 16, 2012
tl;dr
I didn’t see a projection in there though…
609 AB, 171 H, 13 HR, 90 RBI, 18 SB?
Dex - February 16, 2012
ehhh...
Fewer AB (more walks, possible injury). More Hits if his AB is 600+. I think he could hit for a .285-.295 average again. You have him hitting for .281. His plate discipline was a lot better last year, and hopefully he will retain it.
I think 10-11 HR, fewer RBI… 90 seems way too high for Headley—-although this is going to depend A LOT on where he bats and how our offense does… Right now, I don’t think we know where Headley hits over the course of the entire season.
And I think 20 SB isn’t too high.
I think he could reach nearly .800 OPS
Zen Blade - February 17, 2012
I think a reasonable estimat
.360 OBP, .410 Slg, 12 HR, 18 SB, 85 R, 70 RBI,
AVG probably will drop a little from last year, as he was a tad bit lucky, but he is increasing his LD% steadily and decreasing his FB%. So if he hit .290+ this year I would not be surprised.
What is strange is that both his BB% and K% are increasing.
Ron Mexico - February 17, 2012
Interesting...
I actually think he might be better for RBI this season with the CQ and Alonso additions.
Dex - February 17, 2012
I think he should be our 2 hole hitter.
Maybin
Headley
Alonso
Quientin
Hundley
VenoNorf
Bartlet
Pitcher
Hudson
Ron Mexico - February 19, 2012
i wonder
because i bet that means he bats less in the lower part of the order. since our lineup is still short on thump i think buddy is best suited to a headley-quentin 3-4, with hundley and the beYonder behind them. i think ideally you put cam and venable ahead of them and hope they can get on base since headley, quentin, and hundley are excellent fastball hitters.
for our team i think headley is definitely a #3 hitter. on a more offensively talented lineup you’d like headley at the 2-spot, but he is too good of a hitter with runners on to waste him there. headley’s career OPS is 100 points better with runners on base than it is with the bases empty. he’s never going to be a guy who’ll clear the bases with a bomb, but he’s just the kind of hitter you want in the middle of a rally, hitting behind runners, etc.
chase has said he’s been most comfortable hitting 5th, but that was before last season when he got the most reps at 3rd. here’s his career numbers:
At-bats Avg. OBP SLG
Batting 2nd 88 .170 .247 .273
Batting 3rd 245 .294 .364 .424
Batting 4th 505 .269 .346 .366
Batting 5th 552 .286 .357 .428
he averaged just slightly higher rate of RBIs hitting 5th.
iheartyourfart - February 19, 2012
my league
Has OBP instead of Avg, so that makes impacts it, and we don’t have RBI but instead have DRS
Ron Mexico - February 16, 2012
Alonso
I’ll be he leads the team in RBIs
Sam (sdsuaztec4) - February 15, 2012
True
but 1B is overloaded with talent right now, so I don’t know if he’ll have value even then. Unless he’s still an outfielder in some leagues…
isaic16 - February 15, 2012
Or if there is some kind of flex/IF position in deep leagues
Sam (sdsuaztec4) - February 15, 2012
Funny, I was just googling some of the early player projections. They stink.
Baseball is like the stock market: past performance is not a guarantee of future results.
Every projection deals mainly with the past, usually 3 years, weighted for the last year.
That leads to some strange results:
Headley: 546 ABs in ‘09, 610 ABs in ’10, 386 ABs in ’11 due to injury. What was the
projection? 466 ABs in ’12. Apparently he’s going to be injured again, or just replaced for
another 40 games, like last year.
Alonso: 29 ABs in ‘10, 88 ABs in ’11 MLB only, playing outfield. The projection there was
140 ABs, and he was still listed in the outfield. Did anyone check that he’ll be our near-full
time first baseman? minors included he had 536 ABs in ‘10 and 446 ABs in ’11, but minor
leagues don’t count, which leads to:
Volquez: 49.1 IP in ‘09, 62.2 IP in ’10, 108.2 in ’11. Projection: 140 IP. He had TJ surgery in ’09,
pitched 93.1 IP combined in ’10, and last year got sent down to work on accuracy on July 4th.
He had 13 starts and 87.1 IP in Louisville, so combined he had 33 starts and 196 IP. No way
he’s only pitching 140 IP.
Somebody might be able to take advantage of those howler monkey projections in fantasy
leagues, but I’ll pass. Keep in mind, the team predictions you’ll see will largely be based on
these crackpot projections. So far I’ve seen predictions of Padres wins at 73, 68, 62, 75,
and 64, all adding up to fifth place. Oddly, the worst predictions come from east coast experts who
are in bed when Padres games start, and couldn’t name two position players on the team.
Good luck playing fantasy ball with those guys.
wegotballsley - February 16, 2012
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