NFBC drafting – Team one

♦ February 20, 2017 ♦ 2 Comments

They say no one is interested in reading or hearing about roto drafts, but if that was true Fangraphs, Rotowire, and BaseballHQ wouldn’t have the traffic they have.

I might as well write about something I love to do and try to make it as Dodger-centric as I can.

I just completed my 3rd NFBC draft. Two were of the 50 round 15 team (750 players) variety, and one was of the 12 team, 30 round variety.

I don’t like mock drafts to get ready for the Main NFBC draft so this year I did a few real drafts and I plan on doing at least two more before the main one.

I’ve learned a few things. Trea Turner is a hot commodity. He has gone 7th, 9th, and 1st overall in my three drafts. I personally think that is crazy and reminds me of teams picking Carlos Correa in the first round last year.

I’ve got a smattering of Dodgers on my teams.

This is my first draft picking from the 6th position. I would have taken Kershaw but he was gone.  I’m loaded on offense but light on pitching and closers. When Tanaka and Teheran are your front line pitchers you better do good work later in the draft. I don’t think I did enough to make up waiting that long to get in on the pitchers. Pitchers have gone earlier and earlier each year and being my first draft of the season I didn’t pull the trigger early enough. However this kind of league is a league of attrition as you can only use the original 50 players drafted so if injuries beset a team, you better have some solid backups to get through the 162 game season.  You have to remember that this is a 15 team league so no one is going to have a great pitching staff.

I sure do like my offense though. Doesn’t matter that Dozier may not be a 2nd round pick, I got Pollock in the 3rd and Braun in the 4th. Next year at this time Bregman will be at least a second round pick.  I actually started this draft back in January when I thought the Dodgers were going to acquire Dozier instead of Forsythe.

It wasn’t until the 15th round that I got my first Dodger and that was Puig. At 15 he’s not even a gamble unless he regresses more in 17 than he has so far.  Brandon McCarthy was my second Dodger and I didn’t nab him until round 28. Could pay off nicely if he can crack the rotation and stay in it. Andre was still available at my spot in round 39. I needed a backup outfielder and he fit the bill perfectly.

As pure gambles,  I took Jose Fernandez and Willie Calhoun. I expect nothing from either but just wanted them on my team. When you draft 50 players, at least five of these guys will never see the major leagues for any significant minutes. Remember at this point we are 700 players deep and every starting player has been long gone.

The secret to this strange draft is that I used the rankings of Todd Zola who is quite famous in the NFBC world. Since I’m doing multiple drafts, for this one I just used his ranking. The other drafts will be different takes. I wanted to compare a Todd Zola drafted team against a team that I would have preferred.

For example,  I never would have taken Eduardo Nunez in the 8th round but Todd has him ranked as the 84th best roto player in a 5 x 5 league so I went with it. He only had players ranked until 330 so for the last 25 rounds I was on my own.

I also ended up with the Ross brothers.  For better or worse I have Finnegan on all my teams

Players I was excited about getting. Arenado, Pollock, Bregman, Thames, Puig, Kang, Strahm, Duffy,  and T Ross.

I also threw a flier at Frankie Montas.

One other note, while some Dodger fans don’t think they will miss Jharel Cotton, roto players think he’s the bomb and he’s going pretty early for a guy with such little major league experience. He went in the 19th round in this draft, 18th in another, and 19th in the final draft. Paul Sporer who writes for both Fangraphs and Rotowire recently came out with his top 100 pitchers, and Mr. Cotton ranked 68th overall at Fangraphs.

Dodger Draft notes:

Rotation:

  • Kershaw was the 3rd pick
  • Kenta in the 8th
  • Hill in the 9th
  • Urias in the 13th
  • Wood in the 24th
  • Kazmir 26th
  • McCarthy 28th (Me)
  • Ryu in the 31st
  • Brock Stewart 39th

 

Ross Stripling was the only rotation option not drafted

Bullpen:

  • Jansen in the 4th
  • Dayton 29th
  • Pedro Baez in the 39th
  • Romo 39th

Infield:

  • Seager in the 2nd (23rd overall)
  • Turner in the 8th
  • Grandal in the 1oth
  • Gonzalez went in the 11th round
  • Forsythe in the 14th
  • Barnes 33rd
  • Chase 36th

 

Outfield:

  • Joc in the 13th (Todd Zola is not a fan)
  • Puig in the 15th (Me)
  • Toles in the 24th
  • Andre in the 39th (Me)
  • Gutierrez in the 44th

 

 

 

Round Rank First Name Last Name Team Position S/B
1 3 Nolan Arenado COL 3B S
2 17 Brian Dozier MIN 2B S
3 18 A.J. Pollock ARI OF S
4 36 Ryan Braun MIL OF S
5 72 Masahiro Tanaka NYY SP S
6 60 Alex Bregman HOU 3B/1B S
7 98 Julio Teheran ATL SP S
8 84 Eduardo Nunez SF SS S
9 100 Albert Pujols LAA 1st S
10 126 Tony Watson PIT RP S
11 121 Russell Martin TOR C S
12 173 Hector Neris PHI RP S
13 95 Eric Thames MIL OF-1B S
14 180 Drew Smyly SEA SP S
15 174 Yasiel Puig LAD OF S
16 207 Joe Ross WAS SP S
17 231 Ryan Madson OAK RP S
18 154 Jung Ho Kang PIT DH S
19 244 Cameron Rupp PHI C S
20 184 David Peralta ARI OF S
21 229 Matthew Strahm KC SP S
22 206 Matt Duffy TB 2nb/SS S
23 318 Brandon Finnegan CIN SP S
24 NR Tyson Ross TEX Bench-SP B
25  NR Ozzie Albies ATL Bench-2B B
26 NR David Wright NYM Bench-3B B
27 255 Eddie Rosario MIN Bench-OF B
28 NR Brandon McCarthy LAD Bench-SP B
29 330 Ryan Dull OAK Bench-RP B
30 NR Wily Peralta MIL Bench-SP B
31 NR Mauricio Cabrera ATL Bench-RP B
32 337 Brad Brach BAL Bench-RP B
33 NR A.J. Reed HOU Bench-1st B
34 NR Frankie Montas OAK Bench-RP B
35  NR Chance Sisco Bal Bench-C B
36 NR Josh Phegley OAK Bench-C B
37 NR Norichika Aoki HOU Bench-OF B
38 NR Chad Pinder OAK Bench-2B B
39 NR Andre Ethier LAD Bench-OF B
40 NR James Shields CWS Bench-SP B
41 NR Brett Anderson CHC Bench-SP B
42 NR Keone Kela TEX Bench-RP B
43  NR Jose Fernandez LAD Bench-2nd B
44 NR John Jaso PIT Bench-1st B
45 NR Wade Miley BAL Bench-SP B
46  NR Coco Crisp FA Bench-OF B
47  NR Willie Calhoun LAD Bench-2b B
48  Nr Kelby Tomlinson SF Bench-2B B
49  NR Ronald Torreyes NYY Bench-3B B
50  NR Henry Owens BOS Bench-SP B

Will 2017 serve up anything close to the pleasant surprises of 2016?

♦ February 20, 2017 ♦ Leave a comment

With spring training about to go full bore this week I was thinking about where we were last year at this time and the shocking developments of 2016.

No one could have predicted that the following players would impact 2016:
Brock Stewart – Single A pitcher – Climbed from A to AA to AAA to the majors and pitched one of the best games against the World Champion Cubs anyone threw all year.
Andrew Toles – Single A outfielder, missed all of 2015 – Climbed from A to AA to AAA to the majors and was the Dodgers starting Left Fielder in the postseason.
Charlie Culberson – fighting for a utility role – would hit the coolest home run of 2017 for the Dodgers

or that

Carlos Ruiz – big time hit in the postseason
Will Venable – ugh
Chris Taylor – one of the biggest offensive games of the season as a Dodger

would get at bats

or that

Howie Kendrick would get more starts in LF than anyone else

or that

Puig would get sent to AAA on August 1st ( maybe you could have predicted that)

or that

Urias would get a start in May  (OK, I did predict that)

What shocks will 2017 bring?

This is us – The sweetest embrace of them all

♦ February 20, 2017 ♦ Leave a comment

The problem with television today is that there is too much good stuff and deciding what to watch can be a daunting task while still putting together a productive life.  The one constant over the past few years is that it was rarely the old network TV that would put out a show that was must watch TV.

That changed this past season when NBC unveiled “This is us”, one of the best character driven drama’s I’ve seen on the old network TV in a many a year. Many times TV is simply an entertainment device, but on rare occasions,  it is a teaching device. This is us, is a teaching device. I wish the show had existed when I was eight. or ten. or twelve.

This past episode, the final scene left me wondering if I’d seen a sweeter embrace on TV in my lifetime. The way the writers built up to this scene from the first episode was a work of art.

I’m one of those viewers who will find many a hole in just about any script, but this season, this script, this embrace, it was as touching as it can be. Many times you feel manipulated into tears, but this didn’t feel manipulative, it felt real.

It all starts with the Dad being one of the greatest real person fathers in television. He’s someone we should all know, all his weaknesses all his strengths.  The egocentric son who has all the emotional failings of an artist. The type A son who succeeds in everything he tries because he puts everything into it. The sibling rivalry, the jealousy of the artist toward the Type A, the Type A who only wants his brother to love him as a brother. The complexity of the sibling relationship raised as multi-racial triplets is layered and I won’t be able to do it justice here.

When the cracks start to show in Randall,  I never felt the writers would go the way they went but the last two scenes left me in tears. The jealous brother as a child looking at his perfect brother who is showing emotional cracks and could use a brotherly show of affection, but Kevin simply isn’t emotionally mature enough to deliver that hug at that stage of his life. He knew what he should do, he simply didn’t do it.

Most of us have been there. We can look back at our childhood and pinpoint so many times we made the wrong emotional decision because we lacked the growth that life gives us. It is often with remorse that I think of those bad decisions and the pain I might have caused others simply because I was emotionally ignorant.  To have a do-over. Yes, please.

Kevin looks to his dead father for guidance as he is about to embark on a big night for his career. When Randall makes a call for help without actually asking for help, it seems that Kevin doesn’t get the clue. The setup was excellent, about to step on stage, Kevin thinks once again about what his father would do, and this time it wasn’t about what his father would do as an actor to help him kill it on stage, it was about what his father would do for his family. This only works if you have created a father like Jack who tries to do the right thing time after time because it is the right thing to.  All of those life lessons weren’t lost, and Kevin leaves his make-believe stage for the real stage and sets off to find his flailing brother.

The final scene could have played out any number of ways, but the simple embrace of his brother said all that needed to be said. Kevin got his do-over with Randall.

And the writers hit a home run with me.

For now, the Dodgers choose Segedin / Eibner over Nuno

♦ February 19, 2017 ♦ 1 Comment

In an effort to clear a spot on the 40 man roster for Franklyn Gutierrez the Dodgers traded Vidal Nuno to the Orioles for a Moseley.  Per the Dodgers press release:

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Dodgers today acquired minor league right-handed pitcher Ryan Moseley from the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for left-handed pitcher Vidal Nuño.

 Moseley, 22, made his professional debut last season with the Orioles’ Single-A Aberdeen IronBirds, going 0-1 with four saves and posting a 3.20 ERA (7 ER/19.2 IP) in 12 relief appearances. Moseley posted a 1.12 WHIP and limited batters to a .191 average, including a .091 mark (2-for-22) against lefties. The Lubbock, TX, native was originally selected by the Orioles in the eighth round of the 2016 First-Year Player Draft out of Texas Tech University.

 Nuño, 29, has a 5-20 record with a 4.02 ERA in 126 games (42 starts) in four Major League seasons with the Yankees (2013-14), D-backs (2014-15) and Mariners (2015-16). The National City, CA, native was acquired by the Dodgers on November 7, 2016 from the Seattle Mariners.

On the one hand the Dodgers have a plethora of left-handed pitchers on the 40 man roster with Kershaw, Urias, Wood, Kazmir, Hill, Ryu, Dayton, Avilan, and Liberatore so you can understand moving Nuno, but on the other hand Nuno has some solid peripherals and would probably help a team more than Rob Segedin or Brett Eibner.

Later this week I was going to post the LAD relief BPV numbers and Nuno clocked in at a solid 100.  Higher than either Liberatore or Avilan.

Hard for me to see a spot for Segedin for the Dodgers in 2017. Rob expressed frustration while in the Yankee organization at never getting a chance.  He got a cup of coffee with the Dodgers in 2016 but was probably unlucky to be traded last spring because Bird got hurt and the Yankees might have used Segedin a lot more than the Dodgers in 2016. Unless massive injuries take out Turner and company he’s destined for another frustrating season in AAA.

Brett Eibner has some skills but not enough for two smart teams with severe outfield shortages to keep him around.

I don’t really like this move for the Dodgers.  Not a big deal, fringe move but I was hoping to watch one of the best control pitchers in baseball get in some work for the Dodgers.

Building a LAD rotation with BPV

♦ February 19, 2017 ♦ 1 Comment

If you want to discount scouting and simply go by some analysis to configure a pitching staff, one way to do it would be to use baseball HQ’s BPV formula.

Pitching BPV: ((Dominance Rate – 5.0) x 18) + ((4.0 – Walk rate) x 27) + (Ground ball rate as whole number – 40)

This formula combines the individual raw skills of dominance, control and the ability to keep the ball on the ground, all characteristics that are unaffected by most external team factors. In tandem with a pitcher’s strand rate, it provides a complete picture of the elements that contribute to a pitcher’s ERA, and therefore serves as an accurate tool to project likely changes in ERA. BENCHMARKS: A BPV of 50 is the minimum level required for long-term success. The elite of the bullpen aces will have BPV’s in excess of 100 and it is rare for these stoppers to enjoy long term success with consistent levels under 75.

We weren’t kidding when we felt the Dodgers had ten legitimate rotation options, and the skill levels bear this out.

Lastname Firstname Age BPV
Kershaw Clayton 29 173
Urias Julio 20 116
Maeda Kenta 29 110
Wood Alex 26 110
Stewart Brock 25 102
Hill Rich 37 98
Kazmir Scott 33 89
Ryu Hyun-Jin 30 83
Stripling Ross 27 79
McCarthy Brandon 33 67

Rotation spots aren’t simply dictated by skill levels, and if Kazmir can pitch and is on the Dodgers you have to imagine he’s in the rotation. And when healthy that is just fine, because when healthy, Scott Kazmir is a solid rotation option. I’d throw the Ryu numbers out the window, simply to much time has passed since he’s actually thrown any meaningful innings. You have to like the number that Ross Stripling put up. The BPV of 79 would easily be a number five starter on any team in baseball.

Jose De Leon, by the way, has a BPV of 101. When people say they see little difference between what De Leon and Stewart will produce, they may be right.

For context,  this would be the Giants. Top heavy, little depth. They will need to get 120 starts from their top four pitchers.

Bumgarner Madison 27 140
Cueto Johnny 31 114
Samardzija Jeff 32 97
Moore Matt 28 73
Beede Tyler 24 54
Blackburn Clayton 24 54
Stratton Chris 26 53
Blach Ty 26 51
Suarez Albert 27 47
Crick Kyle 24 -32

The Padres are as bad as you thought they might be. Offense might be exploding at Petco in 2017.  Adding Weaver doesn’t help any. Basically,  Ross Stripling would be the Padres best starting option.

Perdomo Luis 24 71
Lee Zach 25 54
Friedrich Christian 29 50
Chacin Jhoulys 29 45
Richard Clayton 33 34
Clemens Paul 29 8
Cosart Jarred 27 1
Jenkins Tyrell 24 1
Weaver Jered 34 40

Now let’s look outside the division and at the 2nd best rotation in the NL. With the addition of Brett Anderson,  the Cubs can go five deep. But once you get past Anderson it gets dicey, and while the Dodgers can try to cobble two pitchers from five injured pitchers in Hill, Wood, Kazmir, McCarthy, and Ryu, the Cubs have all their hopes on one Brett Anderson. Given we saw Anderson get hurt simply trying to field a ground ball, I don’t think their bet pays off.  Past the five injured pitchers the Dodgers are counting on,  they still have Stewart and Stripling, the Cubs have diddly squat. Maybe Montgomery is going to keep coming on. Maybe.

Lester Jon 33 125
Hendricks Kyle 27 108
Arrieta Jake 31 100
Lackey John 38 100
Anderson Brett 29 89
Montgomery Michael 28 69
Buchanan Jake 27 54
Zastryzny Rob 25 53
Butler Eddie 26 9

Tomorrow we will do the relief pitchers and Pedro Baez might blow you away.

Jose Fernandez joins Dodger camp

♦ February 17, 2017 ♦ 5 Comments

My worries about Dodger visa’s proved unfounded for Jose Fernandez who joined the LAD spring training camp today.

From Dodger spring training notes:

¡BIENVENIDO!: This morning, the Dodgers announced that recently signed infielder Jose Miguel Fernandez (#87) has joined the club’s big-league camp as a non-roster invitee. The 28-year-old Cuban native signed with the Dodgers as a free agent on January 11 and enters his first professional season in the United States. Fernandez last played in 2014 for Cocodrilos de Matanzas in Cuba’s Serie Nacional and played for the club for eight seasons (2007-14). He has posted a career .319/.403/.424 slashline with 37 homers and 318 RBI and ranked No. 3 on Baseball America’s April 2014 rankings of the Top 20 Cuban prospects list. Fernandez played second base for the Cuban National team and represented Cuba in the 2013 World Baseball Classic where he hit .524 (11-for-21) with three doubles and six RBI along with a .545 on-base percentage and a .667 slugging percentage.

This will be the first look for many of Jose Fernandez so his play should generate a lot of excitement. Hopefully, he does not follow in the footsteps of previous Cuban infielders the Dodgers signed who proved to either be lousy and temperamental or simply lousy.

I’m not sure why the Dodgers signed him having Turner for the long term and Forsythe for at least two years, but maybe he’s simply a major league utility infielder at best.

Ruf be gone

♦ February 17, 2017 ♦ Leave a comment

That sigh you heard might have been Scott Van Slyke who just saw his biggest competition for backup 1st baseman leave the Dodgers to sign a deal in Korea. Darin Ruf can earn twice as much in Korea and doesn’t have to worry about playing AAA instead of Los Angeles.

SEOUL, Feb. 17 (Yonhap) — South Korean baseball club Samsung Lions on Friday announced their signing of former major league Darin Ruf.

The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) club said they’ve inked Ruf to a one-year deal worth US$1.1 million.

Maybe he can change his career path much as Eric Thames did. Thames left a few years as a back up major league outfielder and came back to sign a mega-million dollar deal with the Brewers after acting like Babe Ruth in Korea.

The over/under on Ruf Korean home runs is 39.5.

This opens up a spot on the LAD 40 man roster for Franklyn Gutierrez who the LAD signed several days ago but hasn’t been made official as they tried to figure out how to get him on the 40 man roster.

Mike Petriello / MLB.com follow up on Dodger depth

♦ February 17, 2017 ♦ Leave a comment

A few days ago I looked at how a possible 2017 Dodger rotation might look trying to assign games started to the plethora of options available. The one thing I noted was the depth the Dodger front office has assembled in the rotation. They kind of had too, since that depth included multiple injury question marks.

Mike Petriello / MLB.com takes his own look at this depth and how it might play out in 2017. Mike used starter innings based on 920 while I simply looked at games started.

200 — Kershaw
160 — Maeda
140 — Hill
110 — Kazmir
100 — Urias
90 — Wood
80 — McCarthy
10 — Ryu
40 — Others

Given the decline of Kenta and Kazmir as the season wore on do you give them more rest early, or simply ride them early and move onto Urias/Stewart/McCarthy/Wood later?

Anyway, this 2017 season is going to be interesting, I don’t recall a LAD rotation having so much depth and so many question marks at the same time.  If even 50% of the rotation is healthy and productive at every point of the season, it could their best rotation in years.

TC – 9 – Neil Young – Sleeps with Angels / Freedom

♦ February 17, 2017 ♦ Leave a comment

Tape Chronicles:

neilyoungfreedom_albumcover

Yup, Neil Young again. I’m going to guess that I got most of my Neil Young out of me in the first ten tapes but hey, his catalog is massive so who knows. I know Weld has to be waiting for me, can’t wait.

I won’t’ be able to review this tape because while I have the Tape holder, I don’t have the tape. Probably in another tape holder, misplaced by foolish hands.

Luckily Amazon Prime has both of them so I can stream them to hear what my tape would have had to offer me.

Side A:  Sleeps with Angels

The album leads off My Heart, followed by Prime of Life. My Heart is a soft sweet song that would have felt in place on Harvest.

Sleeps with Angels is the fourth track, and as I heard it for the first time in years I remembered how grunge it sounded. A quick look at the Rolling Stone review reminded me that it was written for Kurt Cobain. This LP was released in 1994, Cobain committed suicide in April of 94, so Neil must have written and produced this fairly quickly after his death.  If I knew that Cobain referenced Neil Young in his suicide note I had forgotten. This is what Rolling Stone had to say:

APPARENTLY THEY missed each other by a matter of days. Early last April, Neil Young tried, through the usual managerial channels, to get in touch with Kurt Cobain. It was a gesture of concern and support following the Nirvana guitarist’s near-fatal drug overdose in Rome the previous month. But Cobain never got the message. Instead, he left behind one of his own, a suicide note of graphic pain and rambling logic that pointedly quoted one of Young’s most famous lyrics: It’s better to burn out/Than to fade away.
Young – who’s had plenty of experi- ence writing hymns for the dead and dying (Ohio, The Needle and the Damage Done, Tonight’s the Night) – surely never meant those words to be taken so literally. But “Sleeps With Angels,” written by Young in quick reply to Cobain’s ghastly misinterpretation and the centerpiece of this extraordinary new
album, is not a song of either grief-driven anger or stinging self-rebuke. On its surface, it’s startlingly matter-of-fact, a short, simple totem marking the loss with an almost paternal delicacy: She was a teen queen/She saw the dark side of life/She made things happen/But when he did it that night/She ran up phone bills/She moved around from town to town (too late/He sleeps with angels (too soon).”

Western Hero followed, and as the soft notes flowed around me, I remembered this song and how much I always liked it.

I don’t have the patience anymore for the fourteen minute Change Your Mind and skipped it after three. It is a good song, but I’ve never been much of a fan of long song treatments.

Enjoyed Train of Love

This is a good Neil Young LP, not a great one. Piece of Crap is a hoot because my wife went through her QVC stage and it drove me crazy, all the crap we acquired.  Still not a song I’d listen to again.

————————————————————————

Side B: Freedom

Released in 1989 after eight years of Reagan and the beginning of the Bush era, Neil was not happy with the decade that had just been completed.

Freedom is the sound of Neil Young, another decade on, looking back again in anger and dread. The songs are populated by the walking wounded and littered with dashed hopes and drug paraphernalia. The ties that bind — faith, love, charity — are coming undone, and betrayal is the norm. Then Young throws all this hurt at you, and it hits like a bucket of ice water in the face. You register shock at first, then indignation and finally a kind of vengeful exhilaration. As with Rust and Everybody Knows — and with other contentious classics like On the Beach, Tonight’s the Night and Re*ac*tor — Neil Young’s tour of Freedom‘s wasteland leaves you feeling both exhausted and invigorated, dismayed at what we’ve wrought yet determined to set it right.

The LP opens with an acoustic version of “Rocking in the Free World” and ends with an electric version of the same song. They are both dynamite and offer the best of Neil Young from both spectrums.

I love this LP from beginning to end.  Unlike “Sleeps with Angels” I must have listened to this LP over and over because as each song came up on the playlist, it washed memories over me that could only happen with repeated listening.  Might be one of my favorite Neil Young albums.

 

 

Blake Griffin wins POTW

♦ February 16, 2017 ♦ Leave a comment

blakegriffin

Blake Griffin came back from his surgery in the nick of time. It took him a few games to get back in gear but once he did he has shown once again that when completely healthy he’s one of the ten best players in the NBA.

Griffin won his sixth career Player of the Week award by helping the Clippers to a 2-1 week behind averages of 26.0 points, 10.3 rebounds and 9.3 assists in 35.7 minutes. He posted his fifth career triple-double on Feb. 6 at Toronto and scored a team season-high 32 points in New York on Feb. 8. Griffin shot 49.2 percent from the field for the week, including 4-of-8 from three-point range, and totaled 24 assists and only three turnovers.

The problem for Clipper fans is that he’s rarely completely healthy and never seems to be completely healthy at the same that Chris Paul is completely healthy. As we wait for Chris Paul to heal we can only hope that this year is different and that the Clippers can enter the playoffs with Blake/Paul/Jordan playing together so we can really get a feel for how this team can do with the big three. Might be the last time we get to find out.