The Reds' Killer V's

The Reds 9-0 trouncing of the Cubs on Wednesday was the coming out party for one super prospect, Joey Votto, and the continued domination of another, Edinson Volquez.

Votto crushed 3 homers to bring his season total up to 7, to go along with 18 RBIs and a .302 average. He is showing fantasy owners who drafted him that the pre-season hype is not unwarranted. And while Dusty Baker continues to give Scott Hatteberg occasional starts, (stealing at bats from Votto), it won't be long before he's playing everyday as the Reds will be in a fight to stay in the wild card race.

Volquez has baffled NL hitters all season, and has now improved his record to 5-1, to go along with a Bob Gibson-like ERA of 1.06. He fanned 10 Cubs over 7 innings and probably would have had a chance for a complete game if his pitch count was not at 118 - the total elevated by 6 free passes. Volquez' incredible start is close to making MLB history. He has had 7 consecutive starts allowing only one earned run or less to start the season. Only Mike Norris of the 1980 Oakland A's has more, with 8, at the start of a season.

Both Votto and Volquez are players who should not be sold high, as is commonly done in the fantasy world after extreme statistical performances . Their well touted ablities are on full display now and there may be not be a peak for quite a while. If you can find a way to get them, do so. If you already have either one, ride the wave of the Killer V's.

2008 Breakout Wide Receivers

The third year breakout wide receiver theory has become one of the most known theories by fantasy football managers because of a few wide receivers who became dominant during their third season. Unfortunately, this theory is so well-known that most fantasy sites usually rank all third year wide receivers higher than they really should so if you want one of them you will have to draft them early and there are quite a few that do not breakout. In this article I decided to look at all wide receivers in years two to five and find out if there are actually more third year wide receivers that breakout. Moreover I looked at the WRs that did breakout and tried to find criterions that differentiate WRs that do breakout from the ones that don't.

First of all I just want to clarify that I am using the term breakout a little loosely and I still include WRs who might have had a strong rookie season, struggled in their second season and had a solid third season. My two criterions that a wide receiver had to respect to be considered a breakout wide receiver are: at least 150 points in a point per reception scoring system, an increase of at least 40 points per 16 games or a 25% increase in points per 16 games. Since 1993, there have been 110 wide receivers that had a breakout season in their second, third, fourth or fifth season out of a possible 444 which is equal to 24.8% of them. To qualify amongst those 444 the only criterion was that the player had to have at least 300 receiving yards in the previous year. The following chart has the breakdown of the breakout wide receivers by year:

Year	Breakouts	Number	%Breakout
2	24	72	33.3%
3	37	126	29.4%
4	27	132	20.5%
5	22	114	19.3%

The most interesting thing to notice is that there are in fact more third year wide receivers that had a breakout season than any other year but the percentage that did breakout is less than the percentage for second year wide receivers. There is also still quite a high number of fourth and fifth year wide receivers that did breakout but I need to find a way to increase those percentages since a one out of five chance at a breakout wide receiver isn't much. I applied three more criterions which are that the player must have had less than 80 catches, less than 1000 yards and 8 TDs or less in the previous year. These three criterions allowed us to eliminate 93 of the 444 players while only losing eight breakout players which increased the percentage to 29.1%. The following chart has the new breakdown of the breakout wide receivers by year after applying those three new criterions:

Year	Breakouts	Number	%Breakout
2	24	63	38.1%
3	33	107	30.8%
4	26	102	25.5%
5	19	79	24.1%

Those percentages are much better than before and it is quite surprising to see the very high percentage for second year wide receivers compared to third year receivers. I decided to take this one step further and try to find more criterions individually for each year to increase these percentages. Since we are dealing with relatively small samples this is a little tricky and I had to make sure the percentages were real and not simply a random coincidence. To make sure of this, when looking for more criterions, I made sure that I used rounded numbers so that I would not have criterions such as fewer than 63 receptions or over 13.7 yards per reception. The other rule I used is that I could remove players from my sample at both edges but not in the middle such that I don't have a criterion that says a wide receiver must have fewer than 40 receptions or more than 50. Although some of the criterions I will find may still be a random coincidence I think that by using these two rules I will limit that chance.

As shown in the first part of this article, although second year wide receivers are not as hyped as third year wide receivers on draft day they do have a better chance of having a breakout season. To increase the 38.1% chance from the first part of the article, I added two more criterions which are that the player must have had five TDs or less instead of eight and he must have had at least 13 yards per reception in his first year in the NFL. Those two criterions eliminate 30 players of the 63 while only losing seven breakout candidates and they make the percentage jump from 38.1% to 51.5%. This is a great improvement for adding only two additional criterions. It is also interesting to note that only three of the 33 wide receivers had their performance decrease by 25% or more compared to the 17 that improved by 25% or more so drafting players that meet these criterions is a low risk and high reward strategy.

There are three wide receivers that meet those requirements for the 2008 season and they are Calvin Johnson, James Jones and Anthony Gonzalez. Based on statistics from the past 15 years, one or two of these should improve their performance by at least 25%. At this point in the off-season it is too early to tell which of these if any have a favorable situation for next season but they are three players to keep in mind for your drafts.

Third year wide receivers are in demand on draft day and although there are many of them that breakout, many of them don't and it is difficult to predict which ones will. In order to increase the 29.4% chance from the first part of the article, I added three more criterions which are that the player must have had 30 or more catches but fewer than 65 and he must also have had more than 400 yards in his previous NFL season. Those three criterions eliminate 33 players of the 107 while only losing six breakout candidates and they make the percentage increase from 30.8% to 36.5%. Unfortunately it was not as easy as for second year wide receivers to improve the breakout percentage but 36.5% is still pretty good especially since the sample size is much larger than for second year receivers. Out of the 74 wide receivers remaining, there are 27 that increased by 25% or more but still 16 that saw their production drop by 25% or more. This is still pretty good and does show that some third year wide receivers could be worth drafting early and have breakout seasons but there is still a pretty high risk in drafting them.

In 2008 Santonio Holmes is the only candidate who meets the criterions identified above. There are eight wide receivers that had similar stats as him in recent years, four of which saw their production drop by at least 30% and only three had a noticeable improvement. He is someone you might want to consider drafting but it's likely that he'll go too early in drafts to be worth the risk and with Hines Ward recovering from his injuries combined with the strong competition at the WR position in Pittsburgh; I would personally stay away from him.

As shown earlier, the breakout percentage of fourth and fifth year wide receivers is around 25% and much lower than the percentage for second and third year wide receivers. To make the analysis of the fourth and fifth year wide receivers I had to use pretty strict criterions to increase the percentage but whether this is only a coincidence or if it really means something is for you to decide and use your own judgment. For fourth year wide receivers I added the criterions that the players must have had between 10 and 16 yards per reception and fewer than eight TDs the season before, at least 400 yards receiving two seasons before and must be 25 or 26 years old going into next season. By using these criterions I find that 13 out of 32 WRs who respect these had a breakout season which equals to 40.6% of them and only four had a decrease in performance by at least 25%. For fifth year wide receivers I added the criterions that they must be 26 or 27 years old during their breakout year, have less than 70 catches and fewer than six TDs the season before. There were 43 players who respected those, 15 of which had a breakout season which is equal to 34.9% of them. Although this percentage is quite low, it is very interesting to note that only three of those 43 players had their performance decrease by 25% or more which makes these players low risk and high reward.

For the 2008 seasons, there are four candidates who are fourth year wide receivers and five more are fifth year players. Mark Clayton, Matt Jones, Nate Washington and Vincent Jackson are the fourth year players while D.J. Hackett, Drew Carter, Jerheme Urban, Lee Evans and Roy Williams are all fifth year players that could improve quite significantly in 2008. Those nine players will require a more extensive analysis in order to determine if they are truly breakout candidates. However, I'd just like to add that all four of the fifth year WRs who respected these criterions and also had at least 8TDs two seasons ago bounced back in their fifth year which could be a good sign for Lee Evans in 2008. Unfortunately it is difficult to find an explanation for some of these criterions and they could simply be a random coincidence. I do not recommend drafting a player simply because he meets the criterions above but I do believe that these statistics mean something and if you find additional information that leads you to believe these players could be breakout candidates they could be very good players for your team in 2008.

Unfortunately it's not enough to know which players might break out and although I do think that amongst the thirteen I mentioned there are probably five or so that will have very good seasons there are other factors you will want to consider. The most important of those factors is where you expect to draft these players. In my next article I will look at average draft position for wide receivers based on their years of experience in the NFL and their previous year's statistics. Now that we know which players we expect to improve over their previous year's performance, it's important to also know which players the average manager expects to improve and only then will we be able to determine potential sleeper picks at the wide receiver position for the 2008 season.

Indianapolis Colts Offensive Line Analysis

2008 Projected Starters:
Left Tackle: Tony Ugoh
Left Guard: Ryan Lilja
Center: Jeff Saturday
Right Guard: Dylan Gandy / Charlie Johnson
Right Tackle: Ryan Diem

2007 Injuries:
LT Tony Ugoh: Weeks 8 to 12
RT Ryan Diem: Weeks 12 to 17
T Daniel Federkeil: Weeks 9 to 17

Overview:
The Indianapolis Colts offensive line has been one of the reason for Peyton Manning’s success in the past few years. About six weeks before the beginning of the 2007 season, starting LT Tarik Glenn announced his retirement which forced second round pick Tony Ugoh into the starting spot as a rookie. The Colts had to trade their 2008 first round pick as well as a fourth round pick in 2007 to move up and draft Ugoh but in retrospect it was a great move. The Colts depth on the offensive line was tested in 2007 when Ugoh went down in week 8 and backup tackle Daniel Federkeil went down the next week. This forced backup Charlie Johnson into Ugoh’s spot while RG Jake Scott had to shift to RT to replace Diem and Dylan Gandy stepped in at RG. Michael Toudouze was signed from the practice squad in week 10 and saw some action right away against the Chargers.

The Colts are in excellent shape at tackle with Tony Ugoh on the left side and Ryan Diem on the right. Ugoh is an excellent run blocker and showed it in college with Arkansas when blocking for the duo of Darren McFadden and Felix Jones. Ugoh still has to improve his pass blocking technique but definitely has the potential to become a Pro Bowl level tackle in years to come. Diem on the other hand has good technique and is very strong but his lack of speed can hurt him at times against speedy defensive ends. He is still only 29 and has a number of years left in the NFL as long as he can remain healthy. Backup tackle Daniel Federkeil is a very athletic undrafted free agent out of Canada who was used as a special teams player in 2007 but also provides depth on the line. Michael Toudouze who was signed from the practice squad last year played a few games in 2007 and did not look too bad.

At guard, the Colts recently resigned Ryan Lilja to a one year deal to return on the left side. Lilja is not the strongest or most athletic guard but his great technique and awareness allow him to create holes in the running game. The situation is a little more complicated on the right side with Jake Scott signing a long term deal with the Tennessee Titans in the off-season. The position will likely be filled by either Dylan Gandy or Charlie Johnson, both of whom saw action in 2007 due to injuries to the rest of the line. Both are young players who still have a lot to learn but who have both seen a lot of action in the past two seasons and should be ready to step in for Scott. Johnson is a tackle who could be moved to guard if he wins the battle over Gandy in camp.

At center, the Colts rely on another undersized lineman with excellent technique in Jeff Saturday. He is a leader for this line and a very hard worker who has been named to three straight Pro Bowls. Saturday will be entering his 10th season with the Colts in 2008 and has only missed two games since 2000. The Colts drafted Mike Pollak in the second round of the draft and he will likely be Saturday's replacement in a few years. Pollak has good power and decent quickness but lacks technique and is susceptible to being pushed into the backfield. He will however have a great mentor in Jeff Saturday and should be ready to come in sooner rather than later if required to do so.

2008 Outlook:
Last season, the Colts line showed they could adjust very well and be pretty solid no matter who was on the field. Gandy or Johnson should have no problem filling in for Lilja at RG but the problem might be if one or two linemen were to go down with an injury, there is little depth after those guys. Ugoh will continue to improve as he adjusts to the NFL game and although the rest of the line is aging, they are not a group that relies on their athletic abilities much so they should be able to continue to play at a very good level. Until Ugoh went down in week 8, the Colts had given up only five sacks in six games and were averaging 4.5 yards per carry. In the next ten games with either Ugoh or Diem absent, they gave up 18 sacks and averaged only 3.3 yards per carry. The loss of Lilja will hurt and I doubt the statistics will be as impressive as they were in those first six games but with a full training camp to work together, the line should be much better overall than it was in the injury filled 2007 season.

Cedric Benson on Thin Ice!

The value of Chicago Bears running back Cedric Benson continues to fall at an alarming rate. What little value he had is nearly extinguished after his recent run-in with the law. Benson was arrested late Saturday near Austin Texas and was charged with two misdemeanors, boating while intoxicated and resisting arrest. This is not Benson’s first encounter with legal issues. He was arrested twice before. Once in 2002 for possession of marijuana and then again in 2003 for criminal trespassing. With the Roger Goodell’s no nonsense policy, Cedric’s recent legal issues reek of a suspension. Of course, we would not expect any such disciplinary action from the league unless Benson is proven guilty. That is not to say however, that the Chicago Bears will not take action independent of the league. It would come as no surprise if the Bears decided to cut ties with Benson altogether. After Chicago parted ways with Thomas Jones, the weight of the rushing attack was placed solely on the shoulders of the former first round selection Cedric Benson. How did Benson hold up to the pressure? I think it is safe to say that he failed miserably. Benson spent 5 games sidelined with an injury, and in the games that he did play, he failed to live up to the expectations that the franchise placed upon him. Among all of the RB’s that played at least 11 games in 07’, there were only three with a poorer rushing average than Benson. His 3.4 yards per carry was the worst of his career. As if his vision was not poor enough, he had to go and get himself pepper sprayed for not cooperating with the arresting officer. Lovie Smith expressed his disappointment in the fact that Benson was arrested, and the Chicago franchise showed their disappointment in Benson as a player by the path they took at the draft in April. The Chicago offense, which ranked 23rd in passing touchdowns and 25th in rushing touchdowns, clearly had a number of holes to fill on offense going into the draft. They chose to go with the 6’2, 222lb RB Matt Forte, a guy who is high on skill and high on character. By drafting the Tulane product in the second round the Bears made the statement that Benson would not have his touches simply handed to him, as was the case in 07’, rather, he would have to earn them in an open competition against Forte. Well it is safe to say the score card reads in favor of Matt Forte as it stands now. Lovie Smith likes what he sees so far from Matt. “Matt Forte stood out,” Smith said. “I thought he caught the ball well. He showed some good quickness, he has good size. All the things we thought coming in, we got a chance to see.”
Fantasy Impact: Matt Forte is quickly moving up cheat sheets and Benson is moving down. Even if nothing at all should come of Benson’s incident by way of discipline, Matt Forte has the potential to come in and steal the bulk of the carries in Chicago as the season progresses. If the season begins with Benson as the starter, the safe bet would be to avoid both backs in early rounds. Benson is at best a third option in seasonal drafts. In keeper and dynasty formats, Forte will have the higher value of the two as he will likely creep his way into the starting role. Our daily updated cheat sheets will reflect these changes immediately. We will keep you posted on further developments.

Mike Milbury's commentary

How absurdly funny is it listening to Mike Milbury criticize Montreal GM Bob Gainey about trading Cristobal Huet at the trade deadline, leaving young Carey Price as the undisputed starter? This is coming from one of the worst General Managers in NHL history, and the same guy who traded Roberto Luongo for a couple of very forgettable forwards (Kvasha and Parrish) when he was running the Islanders into the ground.
If NBC wants someone to spout nonsense just for the sake of arguement, they found the right guy.

Giambi

What will happen first? Giambi getting a hit with runners in scoring position, or Giambi being able to field a ground ball cleanly to his right?

Digging Deeper For The Keeper

Digging Deeper for the Keeper

The Fantasy Sports Forum.com


For those of you who play in Dynasty/Keeper Leagues, here is a list of rookies and or minor leaguers who might be worth a bid.
This list mainly applies to deep leagues, but these players should come cheap, and can help lead to a championship down the road.
The qualifications applied here are: any player currently on a team’s 40 man roster and eligible for the Rookie of the Year Award.

Colby Rasmus, OF, St. Louis
The reason the Cardinals traded Jim Edmonds in the off-season. The only thing Rasmus hasn’t shown in the minors is a high batting average, but all of the other tools are there. Problem is the Cardinals have a bunch of outfielders in camp and Rick Ankiel is the leading option for centerfield as of now.

Cameron Maybin, OF, Florida
Was the centerpiece in the trade of Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis to Detroit. Probably still a year away from the majors, but with the dearth of talent in Florida they may feel the need to rush him to the majors.

Evan Longoria, 3B, Tampa Bay
Has all the tools to be a star in the majors. Can hit for power and average. Could win the starting job this season for the Rays. Long term prognosis is outstanding. Definitely worth a flyer, even in non dynasty leagues.

Clay Buchholz, P, Boston
Only pitched 22 innings in 2007, but what a start to his major league career. Pitched a no-hitter against Baltimore, and is considered the highest rated pitcher in the minors. Could be a number one starter.

Joba Chamberlain, P, Yankees
Hard to believe he still qualifies as a rookie. Has everything a pitcher needs; only question is how the Yankees will use him. Best guess is he starts the season in the bullpen, than joins the rotation when there is an injury, or at the all-star break.

Jay Bruce, OF, Cincinnati
Has outstanding power and will be playing in a band box. Can hit for average and play any outfield position. Many teams have called the Reds asking for his availability but have been told he is untouchable. Should be called up early in 2008.

Joey Votto, 1B, Cincinnati
Should get the starting nod over Scott Hatteberg. Can hit for power and average, and even steal some bases for you. Should solve the Reds problem at 1B for years to come.

Read more: http://www.thefantasysportsforum.com/article.php?ID=207