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Each year there are fantasy baseball busts. This is an axiomatic part of life, and most owners seem to accept the fate that befalls them. The key fact, often excluded, is that these disappointments are completely preventable. For every single
fantasy bust in history,
from
Ben Grieve to
Dontrelle Willis, warning signs from the previous season have foretold of the demise. As a public service, I am going to name the top five players you musn't draft this season.
Just so you don't stop reading here, I will fill you in on my credentials. I am a college student who has been involved with fantasy baseball in some capacity since 1998. In 2005 I founded the Yahoo! PLUS league Juicers' Roid Barn, and have won the championship in every season since inception. I also participate in a competitive AL-only 5 x 5 keeper league, wherein I am now heavily favorited after overcoming an expansioniary handicap. While I may lack an official reputation, I expect these prognostications to vindicate me. All statistics used are courtesy of
www.FANGRAPHS.com.
1.
Daisuke Matsuzaka (BOS - SP) - From first glance, Dice-K looks like a putative ace. He was one of only three starting pitchers in the American League with a qualifying ERA under 3.0 (2.90). His eighteen wins were equally as impressive, and for leagues that count losses as a demerit stat, he kept the damage to a minimum. Here's the problem: Dice-K's greatness is a mirage. The man with his own eponymous generation actually regressed in skill from 2007 to 2008, unbeknownst to those fantasy owners who were bedazzled by his ERA. The most glaring warning sign was Matsuzaka's strikeout to walk ratio of 1.64. As a general rule, pitchers are considered acceptable if their K:BB rate eclipses the 2.0 threshold. Only extreme groundball pitchers are permitted to live below the 2.0 benchmark. Since
Dice-K yielded grounders on only 39% of batted balls in 2008, he is pitching on borrowed time. The quality of his stuff remains strong (8.27 strikeouts per nine innings), but Dice-K's control problems have hit critical mass. His 94 walks allowed were the most in the American league, and eventually he will forfeit the ability to strand runners. The phenom's day of reckoning has arrived. Stay far, far away.
2.
Michael Bourn (HOU - OF) - He may be "Bourn to Run", but this one-dimensional liability should be considered undraftable. He is still pegged as a starter for the Astros, who refuse to give up on Bourn after squandering Brad Lidge to get him in 2007. No one is doubting his speed (11.4 ab/sb in '08) but Bourn is simply too inept in the other categories to qualify as a net-plus for fantasy owners. Bourn's batting average in 2008 was .229, second lowest among all major league centerfielders. His OPS, .588, was lower than the slugging percentages of Albert Pujols, Ryan Ludwick and Manny Ramirez respectively. While I don't tend to err on the side of those chintzy baseball purists, I think the old adage rings true: You have to get on the bases first, before you can steal one. May I be the first official member of the "Ignorn Bourn" bandwagon.
3.
Milton Bradley (CHC - OF) - Last year I took Bradley 387th overall and won my league handily. At the time, a myriad of injuries had diminished his value and knocked him off all but the savviest draft radars. Things have changed, and quickly. Bradley's .999 OPS has been dutifully rewarded by the doleful Chicago Cubs with a two-year, $20 million contract. The deal includes a third year option which vests if the Godfather of board games can keep his DL time to a minimum. Based on prior history, his odds of surviving the entire 2009 season injury-free are tenuous at best. Since 2002, he has landed on the DL eleven times, including a torn in ACL in 2007 that was excruciatingly painful for both the man himself and his owners. Bradley's Average Draft Position, according to early Yahoo! action, is 174th overall. His value has risen significantly since last year, even though he found a sporadic way to miss 36 games while playing with Texas. Injuries might be the major concern, but others exist as well. Bradley is moving from a park with one of the highest home run park differentials in baseball (1.229) to Wrigley Field, where confines remain friendly but not as friendly. (1.163) Tread carefully here, and avoid if possible.
4.
Carlos Zambrano (CHC - SP) - Recurring theme here? Hey, at least they still have Hard-, nevermind. I have no medical evidence to corroborate this claim, but I am confident that Big Z's arm is falling off. Nothing else explains his dwindling strikeout ratio; Zambrano the innings-eater is finally fatigued. His strikeouts-per-nine innings are trending down toward
Chien-Ming Wang territory (8.8 in '06, 7.4 in '07, 6.2 in '08), without a concomitant rise in ground-ball yield (47% 06-08). Unlike in the case of Dice-K above, Zambrano is showing higher ERAs backed up by skill erosion. His 3.95 mark in 2007 was a career high, and a .04 improvement in 2008 is not enough to rebuild drafter confidence. Zambrano, one of the most durable pitchers in baseball, finally saw DL time last year with shoulder inflammation. It is not unreasonable for one to ask if Zambrano has jumped the shark. He has logged over 1400 major league innings before age 28, and is now a different pitcher from the man who had ERAs under 3.3 in the 2004 and 2005 seasons. His average fastball velocity has dropped from 92.8 in 2005 to 91.3 in 2008. He is also throwing fewer fastballs, period. In 2005, Zambrano relied on the fastball 72.9% of the time. Now, it accounts for only 66.1% of his pitches. The raw data for this workhorse is not pretty, and that never augurs well for fantasy owners.
5.
Adam LaRoche (PIT - 1B) - So what do we know about LaRoche? First, he has A.D.D. Second, he is Mexican. Who knew? None of this is relevant. LaRoche's spotty performance, however, is very germane to the discussion. His aggregate stats are very close to the mean numbers for first basemen, but LaRoche is simply hapless before the All-Star break. He has found a way to be consistently inconsistent. His career OPS after the break is .907, a very respectable mark that we would come to expect from a slugging corner infielder. As for his first-half numbers, let's just say they were possibly the inspiration for Edvard Munch's The_Scream. LaRoche has averaged a .771 OPS in first-half play, making him unownable until July. Drafting LaRoche is a senseless mistake, unless your league is ocean-deep. I'm serious, you better be finding Radiolarian ooze down there if you plan on drafting LaRoche. The better play is to let one of your ill-informed colleagues draft him, get dissatisfied quickly and send him to you for a lowball offer before he turns on the proverbial jets. Make it happen.
I hope I have provided you with useful analysis here. In formulating these evaluations I have used the same tried and true methods that have delivered a Victory Bobblehead to my doorstep every October. Good luck, and don't forget: don't chase saves, buy low, sell high, never draft Jeff Francoeur and any other cliched crap I didn't mention. Most importantly, have fun.
