For those fantasy baseball aficionados, I want to point your attention to two places. First, Fantasy Baseball 365. If this blog isn’t in your bookmarks and you plan on winning your league, well I can tell you, it won’t happen.
Another thing you should look at is subscribing to HEATER Magazine. It’s only $39 for a year ($34 if you sign up through here) and boasts writers such as Studes (of HardballTimes.com) and David Gassko (formerly of StatSpeak.net)… and yours truly! Yes, I am a contributor to HEATER as I have been asked to serve as the Red Sox’s team expert from now through spring training where I will be helping HEATER subscribers (does that mean you?) figure out how the Red Sox look from a fantasy baseball perspective.
The first issue of the year is ready to go, and I’ve been able to secure the first edition’s AL East page free of charge for you to look over. The link is here: radartrackingaleastfeb09.pdf. NOTE: It is a PDF, which means you will need Adobe Reader to view it.
As you can see, it’s full of some pretty good stuff, which we’ll go over here. If you find it useful, subscribe to HEATER and take advantage of the $5 discount (okay, that was my last shill). Oh, one last thing: this is the only time I’ll be allowed to give away HEATER content for free, so for the remainder of spring training, the only way you can check my work is to subscribe.
Runs Scored prediction: 830 (845 in 2008, 867 in 2007)
Runs Allowed prediction: 645 (694 in 2008, 657 in 2007)
Yep, I’m projecting the Red Sox to have a very good pitching staff. With the additions of Brad Penny and John Smoltz for crazy depth and Ramon Ramirez and Takashi Saito to the bullpen, the depth the Sox have is obscene. It will allow us to not lollygag around in case someone keeps throwing up a 5.50 ERA.
Our offense will suffer without Manny even though Jason Bay is a competent player. To stay competitive, the pitching (and fielding) will have to step up.
Julio Lugo prediction: Lugo will play roughly half the time
Before you kill yourself, hear me out. I’m not saying that Lowrie and Lugo will go into a direct platoon, but Lowrie will be the one to move around the diamond, not Lugo. And for good reason.
I have Lowrie playing 55 percent of the games at shortstop and also receiving a lot of time at third — 20 percent to be exact. Kevin Youkilis will regain the other 10 percent at third. Lowrie will also get five percent time at second base with Pedroia receiving the rest.
This leaves Lowell with 70 percent playing third. I don’t have anything to corroborate this, really, but I think the Red Sox are going to be more aggressive in resting Lowell.
If Lowell ends up playing 80 percent of the time, I would expect Lowrie to play short roughly 60 percent of the time and lose five percent of his playing time at third to Lowell. We’ll know a lot more as spring training develops, but this is how I see it playing out for now.
What does this mean from a fantasy perspective? I’d drop Lowell down a bit on your draft boards and push Lugo a little higher. Even if Lugo repeats his 2008, he hit for .268/.355 line. There’s value in that as a bench player.
Closer prediction: Okajima gets the saves Papelbon doesn’t… but if Paps goes down, Ramirez will get the saves
Over the last few years, Papelbon has pretty consistently gotten about 80 percent of the club’s saves. Okajima’s gotten quite a few during Papelbon’s off days and I see Ramon Ramirez and Justin Masterson picking up a spare one here and there.
Ramirez will likely split setup duties with Masterson and I expect Masterson to transition into more of a one-plus inning reliever, which will leave him unavailable for the eighth or ninth at times; this means Ramirez steps in.
If Papelbon goes down, I’m seeing Ramirez becoming the heavy favorite (60 percent) for saves and not Okajima. Ramirez has a power fastball and is considered by many to be a future (present, really, but he’s blocked) closer. He fits the bill more than Okajima does, but Oki will still get a lot of time if Papelbon goes down. Matchups will occur more often should Paps go down.
What does this mean from a fantasy perspective? It means that if Papelbon goes down, I would grab Ramirez. Otherwise, stick with Okajima throughout the year and he’ll give you a solid ERA, WHIP and a bunch of saves.
Prediction: Buchholz is the short-term fix at starter, Masterson the long-term.
Say Josh Beckett needs to skip a start; the club would call up Clay Buchholz to fill in rather than yank Justin Masterson back and forth between the bullpen and rotation.
Ah, but if Beckett’s out for three months, Masterson would be the one to step in with a reliever taking his place. Of course, this is all subject to change: Buchholz could impress in his one-two starts and get the promotion of a longer stint as needed. Also, obviously things are in flux when John Smoltz come back and we have a six-man rotation. Tim Wakefield can toggle between both roles easily, so he would slot in here.
What does this mean from a fantasy perspective? Depending on the circumstance on which a Red Sox starter gets injured, you’ll be picking up Buchholz or Masterson.
Again, if you want to see the rest of my predictions (like Varitek playing 70 percent of the time or Rocco getting 40 percent playing time), click here: The link is here: radartrackingaleastfeb09.pdf. Oh, and to subscribe to HEATER magazine so you get updates for the Red Sox and every other team in this situation and to manage your fantasy team as the year goes on, click here.
Okay, THAT was the last shill.
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