Pitcher Research

The Baseball Analysts has two great pieces on the tenancies of pitchers throughout MLB last season. Rich Lederer takes a look at pitchers based on ground ball percentage and strike out rate, and broke it down for the starters and for the relievers. Tendencies are really helpful in predicting how a pitcher will fair in the coming year, or years. Perhaps a pitcher with a low K-rate and low GB% put up great numbers and somehow didn't let up a lot of home runs. It's probably safe to say, in my instances, that it was a fluke, and you shouldn't expect it to repeat itself. These would be classic "sell-high" situations in many keeper leagues. If you have the time, I highly recommend reading through both articles. If nothing else, you'll leave with a better understanding as to why certain pitchers put up the numbers that they do, fantasy-wise. The more you understand about the game, the better fantasy owner you'll become.

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Friday Notes

Fake Teams
Some more player values from Cincinnati and the Chicago Cubs, plus Pittsburgh and Arizona

RotoAuthority
Tim lists his top first basemen going into 2007.

Red Sox Closer Situation
Here are a few links to blogs that talk about the Joel Pineiro signing by the Red Sox and their whole closer situation. Mixed reaction all around.
Boogey Blog
Baseball Crank
ESPN
Red Sox Nation Daily

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Thursday Tips

Fake Teams
The site has been hard at work putting prices on players for the 2007 season. Here's a few based on MLB team, enjoy:
Seattle and Texas
Anaheim and OaklandCleveland and Kansas City
Minnesota and Chicago White Sox
Houston and Milwaukee
Toronto and Detroit
New York Yankees and Tampa Bay
Baltimore and Boston
Washington and St. Louis
Florida and PhiladelphiaAtlanta and New York Mets

RotoAuthority
Tim takes a stab at projecting the 2007 seasons of 2006 AL ROTY Justin Verlander, Aubry Huff as a member of the Orioles, Dodgers' 25-year old southpaw Hong-Chih Kuo, and the newest $100MM man Barry Zito.

Extreme Fantasy Baseball
Can't get enough projections? Check out Aaron's projection of Bill Hall.

Minor League Ball
John lists his top 20 prospects for the Rangers, Padres, and Pirates.

Mock Draft Central
If you haven't seen it already, take a look at the Mock Draft Central's 2007, well, mock draft. A bunch of fantasy baseball "experts" took part in the experiment. It's interesting to see the value some of them hold on certain players.

Baseball Digest Daily
They listed their 51-100 top prospects to look for 2 weeks ago and followed up with numbers 1-50 the other day.

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