Month: June 2007

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer With the help of ESPN’s “park factor,” which compares the rate of stats at home vs. the rate of stats on the road, let’s take a quick look around the league to see how different ballparks have been playing over the first half of the 2007 season. Fenway…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer It’s time to throw some offers at the owner of Travis Hafner in your league. The window of opportunity to “buy-low” may be closing with two homers over his last four games, but his overall numbers still look quite stunted. His BABIP (.285) is more than .50 points…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer I hesitate to write about this, since RotoScoop readers are a savvy (and good looking) bunch, but I’ve recently discovered the best invention of the 21st century. It’s called Fantasy Sports Live, and in a nutshell, it’s basically a way to gamble on fantasy sports daily. Gambling may…

By Robby Wellington – Staff Writer Don’t look now, but the worst team in the bigs to pitch for suddenly has four quality starters.  Pitching in one of the league’s premiere hitter’s parks (Rogers Centre) and facing the Red Sox and Yankees quite frequently, I have long avoided Blue Jays starters.  However, this year is…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer Sports Illustrated recently conducted a poll among MLB execs asking them to name the first five players they would draft in starting a new major league baseball team. One of them picked Yadier Molina. Yadier! He of the .638 career OPS. RotoScoop’s prediction for this guy’s No. 6…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer 1. Francisco Rodriguez 2. J.J. Putz 3. Jonathan Papelbon 4. Billy Wagner 5. Joe Nathan 6. Mariano Rivera 7. Takashi Saito 8. Francisco Cordero 9. Trevor Hoffman 10. Jose Valverde 11. Jason Isringhausen 12. Brian Fuentes 13. Bobby Jenks 14. Al Reyes 15. Chris Ray 16. Ryan Dempster…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer Strand rate is the percentage of batters that reach base but do not score. A typical number is .75. If a pitcher has a STR this season that is extremely different from his career norm, then it’s safe to assume a correction in ERA from here on out.…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer The King is back. Felix Hernandez’s eight shutout innings Thursday has to be taken with a big grain of salt considering Jeff Weaver tossed a complete game shutout against the lifeless Bucs just one day earlier, but Hernandez was impressive nevertheless. His fastball was 2-3 mph faster than…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer 1. Grady Sizemore 2. Carl Crawford 3. Vladimir Guerrero 4. Gary Sheffield 5. Alfonso Soriano 6. Manny Ramirez 7. Ichiro Suzuki 8. Matt Holliday 9. Carlos Beltran 10. Bobby Abreu 11. Magglio Ordonez 12. Alex Rios 13. Carlos Lee 14. Jason Bay 15. Vernon Wells 16. Adam Dunn…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer It’s tough not to be critical of Toronto’s handling of pitchers right now. First, there was the J.P. Riccardi/B.J. Ryan fiasco, and now with A.J. Burnett. One of the more injury-prone pitchers over the last decade, Burnett was left in to throw 125, 117 and 130 pitchers over…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer 1. Chase Utley 2. Chone Figgins 3. Brandon Phillips 4. Brian Roberts 5. B.J. Upton 6. Rickie Weeks 7. Ian Kinsler 8. Dan Uggla 9. Kelly Johnson 10. Jeff Kent 11. Howie Kendrick 12. Robinson Cano 13. Orlando Hudson 14. Kazuo Matsui 15. Placido Polanco 16. Ray Durham…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer Rafael Furcal has been one of the bigger busts in fantasy baseball so far. Maybe the knee problem is to blame, but not only does Furcal have just seven steals on the season, he also didn’t hit his first home run until Sunday. The contact rate is actually…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer 1. Jose Reyes 2. Hanley Ramirez 3. Jimmy Rollins 4. Derek Jeter 5. Miguel Tejada 6. Edgar Renteria 7. Michael Young 8. Carlos Guillen 9. Jhonny Peralta 10. Julio Lugo 11. Rafael Furcal 12. J.J. Hardy 13. Orlando Cabrera 14. Stephen Drew 15. Bill Hall 16. Bobby Crosby…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer 1. Albert Pujols 2. David Ortiz 3. Ryan Howard 4. Prince Fielder 5. Travis Hafner 6. Justin Morneau 7. Derrek Lee 8. Lance Berkman 9. Adrian Gonzalez 10. Nick Swisher 11. Todd Helton 12. Mark Teixeira 13. Carlos Delgado 14. Paul Konerko 15. Casey Kotchman 16. Carlos Pena…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer The following are updated fantasy baseball rankings: I’ve rated them based on how I view them from here on out, not solely on performance thus far. First up, the hot corner. 1. Alex Rodriguez 2. Miguel Cabrera 3. David Wright 4. Aramis Ramirez 5. Ryan Braun 6. Chipper…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer The following are HR rates that pitchers will almost certainly be unable to sustain over the course of the rest of the season. Predicting the inevitable corrections before they actually happen could help influence the standings in your league. Home runs allowed per nine innings pitched – On…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer Jose Reyes, where has all the power gone? He’s a fantasy stud, and all ESPN anchors have it written into their contracts that they must call him “the most exciting player in the game,” but he has just two jacks this season and none since April 21. It’s…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer The following are abnormally high and abnormally low hit rates through 10 weeks of the season. Some of these players’ skill sets may have truly changed, but more likely, most will eventually regress to the mean. Act accordingly: BABIP = Batting average on balls in play or “hit…

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer Sure, this is mostly a sports blog, but if ESPN can devote a segment to The Sopranos finale, I can squeeze a small article out of it as well. The finale was brilliant. There, I said it. Why it is getting absolutely demolished among the media and fans…