Fantasy baseball draft myths & advice: Done or Dunn?

There might not be another player in fantasy baseball that has such wide-ranging opinions.There are those that believe that he is an absolute albatross.
That simply by drafting him, you damn your team to an eternal hell of enduring rather lengthy droughts in exchange for some homers.
You know I’m not one of those people. I won a title with Dunn last year and will happily draft him if I get the chance this year.
Convince me otherwise.

Convince you not to draft a guy you already said you would draft? Look, The Jon has respect for what Dunn does.
He just gets drafted to high in a spot that is usually reserved for secondary fantasy producers. Dunn is a third option at best because of his up and down weeks of consistency. The only consistency the guy has is unpredictability. If you are drafting a team from scratch, you really need to be committed to offense to get the guy and can count on a rag-tag bunch of pitchers to be your staff.

Here’s the deal:

Two suckers looking from the outside

The Oz has been called many things.
Whipped. Bustah. Little Boy Blue.
And now he can be called loser after being knocked out of the playoffs by PoiDog. On a separate note, Newspaperman, FreeSanJose and PoiDog are all in the playoffs, and the only one who is writing about any semblance of the playoffs is The Jon.

Not like you would want to read PoiDog, that guy is out of here. The Jon feels Like KRS-One when he stated on one of his albums “D-Nice is not a part of BDP.” Actually come to think of it, PoiDog bears a striking resemblance to D-Nice … but The Jon digresses yet again.

Back to The Oz. The Jon e-mailed The Oz after his debacle and all he did was gripe about how he lost, blah, blah, blah.

Hey The Oz, The Jon is a dynasty, you should be asking The Jon questions, not the other way around. But alas, here is the official transcript, fools.

On a misssion from … Day 2

The biggest fantasy fad heading into this season was the young outfielder. The 25-something hitter that promised five-tool production and fantasy titles. Fantasy baseballers everywhere were spouting off how these guys would hit .330 with 30 homers and and 100 RBI. There was so much overstated hype, it brought out this drivel from Newspaperman.

Yes, even at TheBaseballStar”s” we were susceptible to all the fantasy baseball rage. In our now infamous draft advice entries, our experts had three such players in our top 10 outfielder class.

While the post was an epic display of knowledge, there names can always be put to the test … so let’s do it.

Fantasy Elation: Derrek Lee

I went into this year’s fantasy draft with one thing on my mind: offense.

With four starting pitchers as keepers, I knew my team would depend on the offensive players I was able to acquire early.

My first three off the board were Nick Markakis, Carlos Guillen and Brian Roberts — all of which I was happy with. But it was the fourth player that I was unsure about at the time. Today, though, I’m elated with him.

He’s a name fantasy owners might be familiar with: Derrek Lee.

The Jon knows these things to be true: Week 2

Should The Jon’s Panzer Dragoon edit have his finisher as the Fish Stretch Sleeper or the Super Rana? This is what the Jon could be deciding right now instead of serving The Jon’s loyal readers with another edition of “The Jon knows these things to be true.” It is probably a good thing The Jon isn’t playing Fire Pro Wrestling returns. When The Jon gets anal retentive about finishers in video games, it isn’t a good thing.

PoiDog knows of this. The Jon has called PoiDog many a time during WWF No Mercy’s heyday for the N64. “Hey PoiDog. Do you think my Cools edit would be better off with a Forward Front Russian Leg Sweep?”

The Jon’s a loser. let’s talk fantasy baseball: Week 2. Shall we?

Draft advice: Top 20 outfielders

After a week of tedious and arduous calculations that involved The Jon saying: “Hey, email me your OF rankings, suckers,” TheBaseballStars have finally compiled our top 20 list. PoiDog broke out his calculator and has recorded the most accurate rankings ever made. No stats, no hype. Just guts.

Welcome to the money position in fantasy baseball. Outfiled has every category you could need. Power, hits, speed, runs, SB, it is all there. And they could be had in the later rounds of a draft or off the wire. Outfield is the deepest postion in baseball. Some strategists say to grab infield and pitching and wait for outfieled picks. They only say that because they want to dupe the fantasy baseballer so they can grab all of the studs in the outfield. Screw that, any of the top 3 outfielders can be top 5 overall picks. Out of your first five picks in the draft, get a top outfielder as one of the selections. Do it. Let’s get cracking, shall we?

1. Matt Holliday (100 votes)
2. Vladimir Guerrero (90)
3. Grady Sizemore (88)

Manny being Manny … or Rios or Markakis

My how far the mighty have fallen. I was working on my positional rankings this morning and realized how far Manny Ramirez has fallen off in terms of fantasy value. It used to be that he was an automatic top-five outfielder and almost a given to be chosen in the first round. But as I sat down to compile my rankings, I didn’t even notice he was missing until I got to No. 15, where I ended up placing him. Manny has been a fantasy superstar for years, producing 30-plus homeruns, 125-plus RBIs, offering a .320-plus batting average and usually 100 runs. But as he’s gotten older, he’s played less games each year, ultimately leaving fantasy owners in a state of disarray when they realize their superstar outfielder is producing like one from the middle of the pack. Suffice it to say that when I wrote Manny down as my No. 15, I had to stop and see who was ahead of him. Of course there was Soriano, Holiday and Sizemore. But there were also names like Granderson, Markakis and Rios. Based on name value alone, Manny likely will be drafted ahead of most off these guys in a standard draft. But when it comes down to it, he may be worth about as much, if not less, than the latter three names.