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Sunday, February 22, 2009

Player Spotlights - Troy Tulowitzki and Chien-Ming Wang

Troy Tulowitzki and Chien-Ming Wang February 21, 2009

Live Fantasy Baseball Mock Drafts, Fantasy Baseball Player Rankings, Player Trade Calculator, Fantasy Forums and more ! at FantasyBaseballXtreme.Com


SS Troy Tulowitzki,Rockies, After his breakout season in 2007, where we saw Colorado's young SS hit .291 with 24 HRs and 99 RBIs, Tulowitzki and his unlucky fantasy owners suffered through a dreadful 2008, where he missed over 60 games with quadriceps and hand injuries and finished with only 8 HRs, 46 RBIs and a disappointing .263 average. As a consequence, Tulowitzi has gone from an approximate 4th round fantasy pick in 2008, to around a 9th round pick so far in 2009. At that kind of ADP, Troy Tulowitzki makes an excellent player to target in the mid-rounds of your draft.Word is that he is almost fully recovered from his troublesome quadriceps injury and there is every reason to believe that the 24-year old can recapture the productivity we saw out of him two years ago. Our early projections have Tulowitzki hitting over .280, with 19 HRs and about 80 RBI in 2009.
SP Chien-Ming Wang, NY Yankees, - Chien-Ming Wang was cruising along as his usual productive self in 2008 until he was afflicted with a foot injury before the All-Star break, and forced to miss the remainder of the season. Understandably, he is presently being ignored in many fantasy drafts, typically going after the 16th round. At this kind of ADP Wang makes an ideal addition to your fantasy pitching corps, as a value pick who can easily deliver 15 plus wins. When Wang is on, he throws a pretty good combination of pitches consisting of a power sinker, and a late-breaking slider. His sinker is considered one of the leagues best, and it allows him to work deep into many games by virtue of the groundouts he produces. While he usually won't produce more than 4-5 strikeouts per game, Wang still looks like a great value player to grab in 2009 for Wins, a sub-4 ERA and good WHIP ratio.

Player Spotlights By Junkyard Jake JunkyardJake.Com 

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Draft Prepartion Tip #1: List Your Picks

One of the biggest problems people have with drafting is preparation. Sure you will have your favorite fantasy sites open to the cheat sheets, magazines ready to go, and some paper to write on. We all study players for weeks before the draft, but the mistake we make is we don't make a list of the players we want to pick in time for the draft. Sort of a dream team with several choices in each position. This blog will discuss the simple, but useful method of making a pre-draft pick list.

After you have studied all the players or better yet while you are studying the players you think will be the best options for your team, write them done in sequential order for each position. Say for 1B you have the following list:

Mark Texeria
Kevin Youkilis
Chris Davis
Joey Votto
Mike Jacobs

I think 4-5 players is fine. You could go deeper than that if you want to, but over preparing can be just as bad as under preparing. Make a similar list for each infield position and catcher. For outfielders make a list 15-25 outfielders . These guys go in bunches, so having at least 20 outfielders researched and selected will give you the best advantage when your sixty seconds comes up. List 10 closers minimum and for starting pitchers make three lists; Aces, Stable Pitchers, and Sleepers/Breakouts. I would have 10 or more of each. The reason you want to break up pitchers is to balance your rotation for at least the start of the season. You can have all aces and cheap sleepers you can draft, but you also must have your stable veteran pitchers who will do just about what is expected. An even mixture of those types of pitchers is a winning formula.

Once you have the lists completed and ready to go and you enter the draft room, you are now ready for most anything the draft can throw at you. Let's examine the first pick. We will assume you have the 2nd overall pick. Hanley Ramirez is off the board. before the draft you probably determined a draft flow strategy for which positions, player types, and scoring categories you would go for first if the option was available. We will do another blog of Draft Flow Strategy later this month. You determined you want speed and power early and infield if possible. You look at your 3B list ( I assume players only qualify for the position they will play):
David Wright
Aramis Ramirez
Chone Figgins
Edwin Encarnacion
Melvin Mora

You know David Wright is out there and he is speed and power. You check over your other lists and clearly he is the correct choice. Draft David Wright and cross him off your list. Its that simple. Now, let's skip to the 5th round. Your first four picks were 3B, 2B, OF, OF. You pick is up. Lots of players are gone, but your lists are still intact. You check your information, your flow strategy, which was get infield early plus speed and power. You then check the ADP and see guys that are going off the board at this time in the draft. Then you spot your pick looking at you 1B list.
Mark Texeria
Kevin Youkilis
Chris Davis
Joey Votto
Mike Jacobs

There is your pick. In the 5th round you get Chris Davis. This strategy won't make you the best overall draft master, but it will give you an advantage to creating your dream team. In every position there are countless player combinations that can win. If you trust your theories and research then use it along with your pick list to have a great draft. Don't be the guy that makes a critical draft mistake because 60 seconds wasn't long enough to research the best players in every position. Cut that work down into 8 lists and I promise time will be on your side. If you have any questions about draft strategy, email me at toodf@fantasybaseballsearch.com.


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