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Archive March 2011

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Undrafted Gems

Your draft or auction is over and Opening Day has arrived, meaning all you need do is sit back and watch your team dominate, right? Of course not. Savvy owners will hit the waiver wire immediately after the draft, looking for high-upside players who may have slipped through the cracks. Here is a look at one player at each position who could be available and could make a big impact from the free agent list.

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More Predictions

With the season underway, all fantasy drafts are in the books, so let’s make some predictions for 2011:

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Last Chance! Rotowire/FanDuel $200 MLB Freeroll

Time is running out to register for your free entry to Rotowire and FanDuel's $200 MLB Freeroll.

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RotoWire's Mobile Apps for MLB - Including New In-Season App

Opening Day is here and there's a full slate of games this weekend. Many of you have drafted your fantasy baseball teams and now comes the hard part of managing your team during the season - often when you're away from your computer. RotoWire has a suite of mobile apps to help you manage your fantasy teams on the go.

We're building these apps with your feedback, so let us know what works. The links below take you to the apps, but it may be easiest to just search "RotoWire" in your app store to find them.

Our latest app we launched just today in time for Opening Day:

RotoWire Fantasy Baseball Pilot for iPhone . RotoWire's in-season iPhone app has full real-time player news, projected starters, watchlists, articles, closers grid and much more. A "lite" version and a version for the iPad are coming soon.

We also have fantasy player news apps:


RotoWire Fantasy News Center for iPhone. A free application for the iPhone which allows you to get real-time player notes for baseball and all sports on your mobile device. This is a great way to check in on the top news on the go.


RotoWire Fantasy News Center for Android is a similar free app for Android devices that has the top fantasy news for baseball and all sports. You can also search by player.

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Opening Day Live Blog

So ... should I be happy that I don't own Edinson Volquez anywhere, or upset as a Reds fan?

(Hint, it's the latter)

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MLB Season Preview

My season predictions:

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MLB Notes

A look around the league:

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Q&A with North County Times' Dan Hayes...

Over the last week, I had the opportunity to have a back and forth with, in my opinion, one of the best beat writers in the business, Dan Hayes of the North County Times. Hayes' tweets make it possible for me to do my job, as Friars beat writer here @ RW, on a daily basis. With that context, I wanted to get his view, from Arizona, on what he sees fantasy-wise for the San Diego lineup/staff in 2011. I tried to pick players that were being drafted heavily (Mat Latos), those who are under the radar (Will Venable and Tim Stauffer) and the kids coming (Anthony Rizzo and Casey Kelly).

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Power and Park Effects

Tracking offseason player movement is crucial for fantasy owners looking to gain a competitive edge when a power hitter moves into a more offense-friendly environment or when a pitcher gets an opportunity to move to a more spacious park such as Petco Park in San Diego or McAfee Coliseum in Oakland.

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DDD's WCOFB Team

A look at my WCOFB team:

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Old and Boring Bargains

While we rightfully are looking for players on their upward arc, often in that quest we leave behind veteran players that can prove valuable in the short term. The old-and-boring veterans that slide in drafts aren't going to have career years more often than not, but they will provide a pretty stable floor of production that their younger counterparts will more often miss. When you draft these types of veterans, frequently you're getting more consistent playing time and buying the confidence of the manager when that player goes through an early slump. These players are less likely to get benched, let alone demoted to the minors, as the Royals did to Alex Gordon last year (and the year before that). We all have our favorite breakout players, and you shouldn't avoid going after those players, you might want to balance your roster with a few stable veterans to temper the risk factor.

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Spring Training Notebook #6- Cactus League Final Edition

34 days after it began, my Cactus League marathon is over.

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Our WCOFB Team (Better than Liss')

Tim Schuler and I were in the Sunday morning session of the WCOFB main event. Once again, Dustin and Jill from WCOFS hosted an excellent event and have put together another competitive field for the $200,000 top prize.

The format is a 14-team mixed league, with 32 rounds (10 pitchers -- 6 SP, 2 RP, 2 P -- instead of 9, eight bench spots) and we had the 11th selection overall.

Here's the roster we assembled:

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TOP-10 KEEPER RBs

In the spirit of the season, with opening day almost upon us, I can't help but feel there is no better time to start the offseason fantasy football debate.

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My Portfolio

Five of my six drafts are in the books, so my fantasy portfolio is nearly complete. As usual, I've targeted the same players in multiple leagues which means two things: fewer rooting conflicts and truer outcomes. What I mean by the latter is either I'll win because I picked the right guys, or I won't. If you have six leagues, and you roster all different players, you almost can't help lucking into a win just because you have an investment in every possible scenario. And at the same time, there's almost no way all your teams will do well. But this year, I have a chance if five or six players pan out. Here are my various rosters:

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Playing to the Rules

Looking over the draft order for the first couple rounds of Major League Baseball's 2011 First-Year Player Draft -- set to take place in early June -- the observant reader will notice something peculiar. No, it's not that the Pirates have the first-overall pick -- for, really, what could be more predictable? Rather, it's that, of the first 89 picks to be made, a full 12 of them (or 13.5%) belong to the Tampa Bay Rays.

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A Fool and His Money Are Soon Parted: Or How I Lost My Ass in Vegas

I was somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when an idea began to take hold: I needed some basis for betting that evening's college basketball games when I arrived in Vegas in two hours. I called Yahoo!'s Brad Evans who can rattle off anything from where each team's three-point shooting defense ranks to who the third big man on Butler is. Brad told me he liked Arizona +9 over Duke and Butler +4.5 over Wisconsin. He also urged me to bet Arizona in the second half, and to take the over on the game.

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Expected Return Vs. Volatility

During a lengthy debate on the wisdom of my Mike Stanton pick in the fourth round of the 14-team Yahoo! Friends and Family League, a couple of the commenters panned the pick due to the possibility (they estimated 20 percent) Stanton would struggle would due to his low contact rate and get sent down to the minors. Whether or not that's true (I think 20 is too high, and if so, that would mean he was playing badly enough to get sent down which means getting sent down would hardly make things worse), the argument boils down to: "Stanton is a bad pick in the fourth round of a 14-team mixed league because his non-injury-related floor is too low." Setting aside the merits of the argument about Stanton in particular (which are laid out in detail in the debate linked above), I think the argument misses a key point generally.

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AL-Only Auction Live Tweeting

I'm about to start my home AL-only keeper league (12 team, 5x5, the usual stuff) auction. Rather than clutter up a thread with dozens of salaries for specific players, I'm going to Tweet them and use this space for any comments when I have time during the auction. Twitter account is http://twitter.com/ESiegristRW if you want to follow along.

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My WCOFB Team

I just drafted my World Championship of Fantasy Baseball team in Vegas this morning. It's a 14-team mixed league with standard offense, but 10 pitchers, two of which have to be starters and two relievers. I picked sixth. Here are the results:

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Spring Training Notebook #5

It's almost time for the bell to ring. Lots of roster action this week with more to come.

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Skype Video Chat Mock Draft

Members of Rotowire and other sites take part in a mock draft via Skype's new Group Video Calling tool.

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Closers in waiting

A look at some potential cheap saves.

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The Art of, and Advantage Gained from, Talking Smack

Like it or not, verbal sparring is a big part of fantasy sports.  Most of us like it, until it goes too far, and some of us are better than others at doling it out.  Smack talk can be entertaining, but it can also give you a psychological advantage against the other owners in your league, especially on draft day.

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Auction Bidding Strategy

I just got back from this year's Tout Wars events where I bought RotoWire's National League team, and I think it makes a good jumping off point for discussing auction strategy, specifically when it comes to nominating and bidding on players.

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MLB Notes

A look around the league:

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My Yahoo F&F Team - Reach For Drew Stubbs Edition

You've already seen Chris Liss' team, here's my squad - drafting out of the first spot.

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Best Player in the NBA by the Numbers

Derrick Rose is the leading candidate for the 2011 MVP.  Should he be?  Let's find out...

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Closer-Only Reliever Rankings

Last Week we talked about the concept of properly pricing closers, particularly those that we suspect will post poorer ERA's and ratio numbers compared to their competition. One suggestion I received from a reader was to have a separate set of rankings just for the projected closers of each team. While I think it's important to realize that some of the top set-up men will be worth more than the worst closers, I understand the desire to have one list of just those closers. Of course, this sort of ranking breaks down a little bit when a team or group of teams is projected to have a closer committee instead of one primary closer. So for this list, I'll note where there that uncertainty lies. Without further ado, here's our list of closer rankings with a brief comment on each closer.

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A Very Important Self-Exam

Most readers of this blog are familiar with Socrates’ declaration that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” What fewer people will know is that Socrates was speaking less in a general sense about life and more about fantasy baseball, specifically.

Yes, this is a fact. No, you shouldn’t look it up.

Read all of A Very Important Self-Exam

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