Fantasy baseball frustration: Fakin’ the funk

TheBaseballStarsNote: We will look at the players that have been disappointments on our respective teams. Obviously Newspaperman has no disappointments because he is the Michael Jordan of baseball. Hitting fifth (Newspaperman as the cleanup hitter?) is mwa, The Jon lowlighting one of the most overrated players heading into the season … Placido Polanco. Enjoy.

The term Fakin’ the funk was overused during it’s heyday between 1992-1996. The Jon has only heard the phrase used right on two occasions before now. The first time was by this girl named Carol who let’s just say got around and she once said she had to fake the funk with this one high school wrestler.

Sure she was a garden utensil, but she was still cool.

The second of course was by the group The Main Source with the Large Professor. It was off the soundtrack of White Men Can’t Jump hence the appearances of Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson. At least it wasn’t Passenger 57 …

Gaaaawd, what an awful movie. But not as bad as Placido Polanco has been. So much so that he is now the third instance of using the term Fakin’ the Funk correctly. Let’s see why …

Fantasy Baseball frustration: Save J.J Putz!!!

TheBaseballStarsNote: We will look at the players that have been disappointments on our respective teams. Obviously Newspaperman has no disappointments because he is the Michael Jordan of baseball. We now turn our attention to The Oz, who got permission from his wife to come out and play. And J.J. it is The Jon, not The Brad. Enjoy.

I had a couple picks that looked plain dumb on draft day. One was Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who I knew had been sent to AAA, but drafted anyway. The other was Kelvim Escobar, whose injury I didn’t know about and who never made it only my roster anyway – since I had more draft picks than roster spots.

Neither of those guys, though, is my most disappointing draft pick of this year.

At this point, it’s the guy who has given me exactly one good day of fantasy worth: J.J. Putz.

Three-peat starts here (Draft Results)

The road to the three-peat has begun.

On Saturday three of TheBaseballStars got together for the SLO League draft. TheJon took part by Yahoo Instant Messenger while PoiDog and myself hung out with the other owners. I’m not going to run down every bit of the draft, it’s a bit complicated since it’s a keeper league. But I will share my results. Reminder: I entered the draft without a first-round pick, and with these keepers: Victor Martinez, Chase Utley, Carlos Lee, C.C. Sabathia and Justin Verlander; rookie keeper: Cameron Maybin. Here’s what my team looks like today …

Draft Advice: Top 10 Closers

There’s no less stable job in baseball than that of the closer. It’s also one of the most frustrating positions for fantasy GMs. There’s nothing worse than looking at your squad’s output for the day and seeing that you’re closer — the guy you depend on for saves, Ks and low marks in ERA and WHIP — blew a game, got you a loss and bloated your ERA.

It works the same way in real life, which is why big-league closers have as much job security as NFL kickers. Changes happen — often. As fantasy owners, we have to be aware of this and manage the good and the bad that comes with it.

The bad: The guy you pick to be your closer might not even make it through the season, unless you’re shopping early for one of big names.

The good: There are always going to be new closers crowned throughout the season. So if you come away from the draft disappointed with your picks, keep your eye on those unstable situations and be quick on those waiver requests.

Draft advice: Top 20 Starting pitchers

Every league has a pitching guru. Not to toot my own horn, but more times than not, I proudly proclaim that mantle. Once upon a time, I insisted on keeping five pitchers. But even I know that’s not a sound strategy. I prefer to take one or two studs early and fill in my staff with high-upside hurlers on the young side of 30 who are capable of becoming dominant. I’ll leave low-WHIP, low-ERA, low-K, low-risk guys for someone else. Our rankings largely reflect that philosophy. Although The BaseballStars had a pretty wide level of varience — some of our top-10 pitchers didn’t even appear on everyone’s top-20 list — I would feel perfectly comfortable following this list straight down.

Draft Advice: The top 5 value picks

Fantasy baseball drafts are all about hype. As fantasy baseballers we feed off of it. When Jose Reyes, David Wright, Hanley Ramirez and Ryan Braun all have big seasons forever changing the fantasy landscape, we want to be the ones that said we saw it coming and that we told you so. That’s why Parrish was at this top of this post before the video becam no longer available seeing how his solo career was so successful. We all remember when Parrish Smith broke off from EPMD and the Green-Eyed Bandit. Yeah, that was successful. But guess what sweethearts, like a lot of solo careers, you can’t win by the rule of “I saw it comin” without solid producers — the value guys that keep on churning 180-plus hits, 30 or more homers, 100 RBI or 100 runs season after season. Your own Green-Eyed Bandit so to speak. What a weak piece of writing that last paragraph was. Videos no longer available sucks.

But still, we have humps out there saying Wright will drop 40 bombs along with Ryan Braun because they are under 26. Screw that. Let the other guys grab the sexy picks of Jose Reyes, David Wright, Hanley Ramirez and Ryan Braun, while you grab the sure things that are four-to five category studs. Get results, not predictions. Get value not teenage fandom. Here are the top 5 value picks in the draft:

Purple Lips: Yeah, no brainer right? Well, you would be surprised how many people

Carl Crawford in full effect … brothaaaah

All Public Enemy aside, The Jon bought the fantasy mag today to see how the lesser fantasy baseball experts went about their rankings. The one bought was done by The Sporting News and smack dab on the cover was their overall players rankings. It got The Jon to thinking of this particular song by one of the top three rap groups of all time and it was a way to get y’all to read this post. And here is the ranking infraction:

Carl Crawford was No. 8 overall.
No. 8.
Overall.