Key Stats: What a strange career path Adrian Beltre’s bat has taken. He cashed in on a second place MVP finish at age 25 that many folks believe was a byproduct of steroids and headed to Seattle where he regressed tremendously for five seasons. Then he came to Boston and had another impossible to predict rise in production. Taking a stance on him last year was like taking a stance on a college football team in the state of Alabama. You either had to be a believer or you weren’t. Playing the middle ground meant that he wasn’t going to be on your team. He followed up on his great season in Boston with another in Texas – even after the contract was signed.

Looking at his splits, I’m actually a believer that Beltre was hindered by the friendly pitching conditions in Seattle. During his time with the Mariners, he hit 9 more home runs on the road and had a better road OPS all five seasons. Having spent the past two seasons in hitter friendly parks, Beltre has thrived – especially last year when his OPS was more than .300 better in Arlington.

Skeptics Say: Beltre is going to be 33 years old this season which makes the 37 games he missed last year with a hamstring injury a little scary. Beltre also had hamstring problems with the Red Sox in 2010 (although he never needed to go on the DL), so this is something that could obviously continue to plague him.

no comments

Key Stats: Since the 2006 season, only three starting pitchers have finished a season with a WHIP under 1.00. Cole Hamels became one of those when he finished last year with a 0.99 WHIP. In four out of the last five seasons, Hamels has finished in the top 60 overall in the player rater with last season being his best finish at 20^th overall.

Skeptics Say: Much of Hamels success in lowering that WHIP to the level that he did can be attributed to a more aggressive approach against hitters. This enabled him to establish a career best walk rate, but it also lowered his strikeouts by 1 per 9 innings. Hamels also enjoyed his lowest home run to fly ball rate, so expect a slight tick upwards in the ERA. no comments

Key Stats: A career .288/.355/.479 bat, Ryan Zimmerman has posted WAR's over 7 in two of the last 3 years. He has this odd little roller coaster career path starting in 2006 of good year, good year, hurt, good year, good year then hurt. Of course that is just observation and not scientific law, but if the cycle holds up, Zimms will have a fine year in 2012. Of course I will probably have to make a better argument for his success than cyclical patterns in his career. Since 2008 he has the 9th most HR's of anyone who qualifies at the position, while playing in less games than all but 2 players ahead of him. He has the 3rd highest WAR over that same span.

no comments

Key Stats: 2011 was the first time since Holliday's rookie season in 2004 that he didn't bat .300. His 22 HR and 75 RBI were his lowest totals since 2005 and 2004, respectfully. All is forgiven though since he was hurt part of the season and also appeared in (notice the theme) the least amount of games since his rookie season. If he had appeared in a full season's worth of games, while he may not have come close to career highs in those categories, 90 RBI's and 27 HR's wouldn't have been out of the question.  

Skeptics Say: We've reached a point in the countdown where everyone being profiled now is good. Really, really good. Holliday's down year, as pointed out before, was due to injury. His K% did jump up 5% but his walk rate was also up over 1% from 2010 as well. His ISO went up nine points. It's not uncommon for a player to strike out more at the expense of hitting more HR's, which contrary to the final outcomes, Holliday did at a more prolific rate in 2011 (18.5% HR/FB)than he did in 2010 (13.5% HR/FB). 

Peer Comparison: Matt Holliday is 1 of only 7ish active outfielders to have a batting average over .300 in the 7 year span of his career (2004-2011). The others are Ichiro Suzuki, Ryan Braun, Josh Hamilton, Jacoby Ellsbury, Manny Ramirez and Vladimir Guerrero. Suzuki isn't going ahead of Holliday in drafts, and I almost don't want to include Manny and Guerrero on the list since they are really just trying to hang on at this point. In any case, Ellsbury and Braun are a different type of player than Holliday and are also 1st round picks. Hamilton is the closest match here, and on my rankings they are a coin flip. Spoiler alert, I have Hamilton 11th and Holliday 12th in our soon to be released outfield position ranks. They are virtually identical players, with Hamilton getting the edge in steals, however Holliday (historically) isn't the injury risk Hamilton is.

Lineup Outlook: The Cards are short a Pujols, but if Berkman, who is taking over 1st, has any 2011 magic left, and if Beltran (taking over RF) can bat .285-.300 again with 20 HR's, they shouldn't miss him too much. They have done what they can to replace the best hitter in the game, and they didn't do too badly.

What They're Saying: CBS Sportsline - #10 Outfielder; Tristan Cockcroft of ESPN.com - #14 Outfielder & #45 Overall; RotoChamp - #47 Overall; Mock Draft Central ADP - #11 Outfielder and #37 Overall

Projection: A full healthy slate from Holliday will being him back to the production we expect of him.

.308 AVG, 26 HR's, 95 RBI, 86 Runs, 5 Steals, .385 OBP, .910 OPS in 560 AB's. no comments

Key Stats: C.C. Sabathia finished last season with 230 strikeouts. It was the second highest total of his career (his best came when he worked as a laborer and not a pitcher with the Brewers). That put him 4^th in that category last season after being 14^th in 2010 - a pretty significant jump for a veteran player.

Skeptics Say: Using the eye ball test, I’m not going to mention the fact that C.C. throws too many innings or is too heavy to stay on the mound. He’s been pitching a lot of innings on a lot of pounds for a lot of years. If nothing breaks why fix it? Sabathia is going to be among the league leaders in wins and he won’t hurt you in any other stat. The one thing to watch is his WHIP which was up a touch for the fourth consecutive year. Year to year he fluctuates very little (with last year being slightly better than the couple before), so there’s not a whole lot of noise needed from those that don’t believe. no comments

Key Stats: If there was ever a pitcher to have his diet scrutinized it should have been David Wells or C.C. Sabathia or Bob Wickman. Jon Lester doesn’t deserve it looking at his frame, but this off-season it’s all Red Sox Nation has been talking about. In terms of fantasy baseball, so what? Lester has averaged 16 wins a 3.33 ERA 1.24 WHIP and 196 strikeouts over the last four years. He’s only going to be 28 this year.

Skeptics Say: Lester has been historically very bad in the month of April. His WHIP is higher in that month than any other. Starting slow again this season could lead to greater pressure given all the questions about his character at the end of last season. It will be important for Lester to come out of the gates hot to start this year. no comments

Key Stats: For the second straight season, Jered Weaver was a top 20 overall player. Last year Weaver got there a different way than he had the season before. His strikeout total fell by 35 strikeouts, but his ERA went down by 0.60.

Skeptics Say: The ERA going down as far as it did was based heavily on luck. Weaver’s FIP was 3.20. His teammate Dan Haren (who has the same fielders behind him) had an ERA that was higher than his FIP. When you also add in Weaver’s nearly 2 K/9 drop off last season, it would appear that getting back to the top twenty overall rankings is unlikely. no comments

Key Stats: This is a true Fantasy Baseball 365 exclusive as you won’t see Rickie Weeks ranked in the top 40 anywhere else. Why? If I had that answer, I wouldn’t have ranked him in the top 40 now would I? Weeks was the 38^th overall player in 2010 and actually improved in two key categories last year: slugging percentage and strikeout rate.

Skeptics Say: Injuries have destroyed Weeks’ career who could be in the same class with Robinson Cano and Dustin Pedroia if he had more than one season with 130 games. Last year he missed 40 games with an ankle problem, but he’s had all sorts of injuries. He’s also been placed on the DL for problems with his right wrist (twice), left wrist, and knee. There are those that believe that 2010 was an aberration. no comments