Sunday, March 23, 2008

National Fantasy Baseball Championship Draft Results – Part 4 of 4

21) Wandy Rodriguez, SP – Love is K rate and he is a fully mature pitcher who should be up for a peak season this year, should be a solid #5 starter in our rotation

22) John Patterson, SP – Opening Day starter for the Nats is out of work, we’re still hanging onto him, if he can build up arm strength he has a solid chance to return to form, if that happens his upside would be top 12 round value, I’d be very happy with 100+ innings of league average stuff

23) Andy Sonnanstine, SP – Poor man’s Slowey just got named #3 starter for the Rays, should help ERA and WHIP and can get a decent win total, low K total dropped him this far but that shouldn’t be a problem for us

24) Jair Jurrjens, SP – Looks like he’ll win the 5th spot in Atlanta, more of a power sinker pitcher he won’t K a ton but we’re hoping for 200 innings of league average stuff, he is having a great spring so there’s real upside here – this ends our run of 5 straight pitchers

25) David Ross, C – Has 25 home run power at an incredibly thin position but would be lucky to bat .220, yet another reason that we grabbed Young and Helton early, in a perfect world he rides the pine all year but in a league that mandates 2 starting catchers he’ll probably need to fill in from time to time and we’ll take the power, great value in round 25 for a #3 catcher

26) Jeff Keppinger, SS – Should have the starting gig for the first couple of weeks of the season while Alex Gonzalez works his way back, has super high 330+ BA but does little else, he’s basically a bridge until Iwamura qualifies at 2B and we’ll soak up as much batting average goodness as we can

27) Gio Gonzalez, SP – My #1 pre-season rookie pitcher, he got sent back down but is blocked by a slew of injury riddled starters with the big club, I expect him by mid-May and think he’ll give us some great Ks as a spot starter

28) John Danks, SP – Pitched well at times last year and has a nice K rate, ERA and WHIP are a little high but he’s having a nice spring and should start day 1, he might ultimately only be a spot starter but has nice upside as well

29) Wladimir Balentien, OF – My #1 rookie outfielder this year, doesn’t have the long-term ceiling of Maybin or Rasmus but at 24 he’s filled out and ready to go right now, he’s blocked directly or indirectly by Brad Wilkerson (hasn’t manage 400 at bats or a 240+ batting average since 2004), Jose Vidro (the softest bat perhaps ever at DH) and Ritchie Sexson (who looks like he no longer possesses major league skills), I expect Wladimir to have a full time gig by early May, projected over a full season I expect an immediate rate of production of 275-285 BA, 25-30 HRs, 12-18 SBs, we need outfield depth and I think he’s a real key for us

30) Alejandro De Aza (shown in his Allen and Ginter 2007 rookie baseball card), OF – this may prove to be my greatest fantasy pick either, contrary to the hype Maybin is headed down to the farm and may stay there most of the season, De Aza is also leading the Marlins in slugging % this spring which is the one pre-season stat that can carry over, he’s got 40-50 SB potential which is exactly where we needed a little help, there’s a shot that our 30th round pick is a wire to wire starter for us

1 comment:

Kevin said...

I enjoy reading your blog. Hope you give an update on how your NFBC team did.