The guys over at The Great Mambino Blog asked me for my two cents on pretty much any fantasy topic I wanted. Given that McMillen and I have been writing about peer comparisons for the last couple of months I decided to focus on the rankings that I thought were wrong. Here's a snipet:

"A-Rod is old and getting worse, but Pablo Sandoval has no right to go ahead of him in drafts. You’ve got a guy with the anti-midus touch and a guy with the Nutty Professor touch off the field, but disregard that for a sec. Kung Fu Panda has never driven in more than 90 runs, hit more than 25 home runs, or scored more than 80 runs in a season. A-Rod did it for 12 years in a row before last year. CBS, ESPN, Yahoo all seem to think that Sandoval is better anyway. Look, I know he’s old, you don’t like him, and you don’t want him on your team. All I’m saying is don’t pick Kung Fu Panda over him."

For the complete story go to The Great Mambino.  no comments

Key Stats: Prince Fielder took his talents to the Motor City after a fifth consecutive season with over 30 home runs. Only Ryan Howard has more home runs since 2007, but Fielder has an OPS that is more than 50 points higher than Howard during that stretch. Fielder is one of only a handful of hitters in the league that have hit 50 home runs in a season and could do it this season.

Skeptics Say: Fielder had a home OPS that was .227 points better at home than it was away from Miller Park last year. In 6 games at Comerica Park he is a .174 hitter. It’s a small sample size, but concerning nonetheless. Last season, Comerica was actually one spot ahead of Miller Park (9^th and 10^th) according to the metrics at ESPN Park Factors. Oh and let’s not forget the possibility for a total lack of motivation after getting paid.

Peer Comparison: Albert Pujols stole most of the headlines away from Fielder’s departure, but what player will benefit most from the lineup around him? The easy answer is to say that it’s Fielder because of Miguel Cabrera’s presence. Yet if we add the totals for the 8 starters on each team from last season, the Angels actually have 7 more home runs (including Mark Trumbo and not Kendrys Morales). Obviously this ignores the number of at-bats a player like Andy Dirks had or the fact that Chris Iannetta wasn’t on the Angels last year. The Tigers lineup did have more runs from their other eight hitters and more RBI. no comments

Key Stats: The big story in baseball today is the Wilpon’s settling out of court in the Madoff case. So the Mets avoided court… yay? How come no one is taking the Yankees to court when they stole Granderson from the Tigers in 2009? I’m not sure what the statute of limitations is on grand larceny in NY State, or is this a Federal matter since it crossed state lines? In anycase, while Ian Kennedy has held up his end of the deal, Phil Coke isn’t as good as Coke Zero and Austin Jackson is like Curtis Granderson before Curtis Granderson decided to be Curtis Granderson, but somehow we feel will never be Curtis Granderson. 2011 numbers and major league rank in parenthesis follow: 41 HR (2^nd), 119 RBI (3^rd), 136 Runs (1^st…by a lot), let’s not forget the 25 steals he had as well. It is not an outlandish statement to say Granderson helped many people win championships last year. Career year? Career year. Do we pay for career years the following season? Not always. Can he do it again? Maybe…

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Key Stats: Roy Halladay has been ranked among the top 15 overall players in fantasy baseball for four straight seasons. The only other player that can claim the same is Albert Pujols. Coming from a pitcher that’s amazing. While I would contend that Miguel Cabrera and Ryan Braun are more of a sure thing than Halladay, Halladay is probably the fourth best guarantee in fantasy baseball.

Skeptics Say: In three starts so far this spring, Halladay has an ERA north of 10. Halladay claims that he is not hurt and just said that it will take him longer to get going as a veteran with lots of miles on his arm. Does that mean he won’t be good in April? I doubt it – last year he had a 2.14 ERA and 0.99 WHIP in that month. no comments

Key Stats: Cliff Lee is like a fine wine. At age 32 last season, he had the best year of his career. He had an 0.45 ERA in the month of August and that was bad compared to the June that he had. He demolished his best strikeout and ERA seasons, threw more innings, and had six complete game shutouts. We can say that he was lucky, and to an extent he was, but he was also as dominant as ever.

Skeptics Say: Both Lee’s FIP and xFIP were higher than his ERA. Also, he will be 33 this season. Pitching as well as he did at age 32 isn’t quite unheard of, but replicating last season will be a very tall order. Lee had just a 9.3% swing and miss rate, but managed a K% close to 26%. By comparison, John Danks also had a 9.3% swing and miss rate, but had a K% of 18.5%. Lee does rely on called strikes of course, but expect this number to drop anyway.

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Key Stats: Dustin Pedroia finished last year as the 16^th ranked overall player. It was the same ranking he had in 2008 when he was named the American League MVP. Pedroia did everything statistically. He was tied for 4^th in home runs among second basemen and finished in the top 3 at the position at the other four standard categories.

Skeptics Say: There’s no telling what Bobby Valentine’s philosophy will be regarding Pedroia’s stolen base potential. He doesn’t have blazing speed, but is a smart enough player to get good jumps and steal 20. Also in terms of power, he had a career low in fly ball percentage, so he was lucky to end up with as many home runs as he had. no comments

Key Stats: Mark Teixeira has averaged 697 plate appearances the last four seasons. With good health comes a better chance for numbers to accumulate. Sure enough Teixeira has driven in at least 108 runs in each of the last four seasons and at least 105 in the last eight seasons. No other player in the game can make that claim. Teixeira has also had at least 30 long balls every season since 2004.

Skeptics Say: Last year Teixeira followed up a .256 average in 2010 with a .248 campaign. He was supposed to bounce back to the kind of player that hit .297 in five seasons before that.  The problem lies in Teixeira’s batting average on balls in play and more specifically the fly balls that he’s hit. His BABIP in New York was just .218 last year. He is probably too drawn to the short porch in right field. While the 39 home runs were great last year, fantasy players might want to trade in five of them for 40 to 50 points in batting average.

Peer Comparison: Teixeira will be 32 this season, so perhaps the batting average is a trend of the times to come as he slowly should see his numbers come down. Teixeira isn’t the only first baseman that is going to be 32 and has driven in at least 100 while bopping 30 home runs in each of the last six seasons. No I’m not talking about Albert Pujols. He didn’t drive in 100 last season. Ryan Howard has done this for the past six seasons. Howard is currently coming off the board 113 selections after Teixeira on drafts at Mock Draft Central. no comments

Key Stats: Despite playing in only 133 and 121 games each of the last two years, Hamilton has been able to put up numbers that rival the best players in the game. He has a 12.7 WAR over that two year span and a .329 AVG, those numbers are 5th and 2nd best in baseball. Last year in only 121 games he was tied for 9th in OF homers and 8th in RBI. He is without question one of the best producers in baseball. Let's not forget that 2012 will be a contract year for Josh, and with his history of problems (injury and substance abuse) he could feel like he has a lot to prove for a big payday.

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