Last week I appeared on the Minor League Report with Jay Burnham, Eric Little, Sam Siegel, and Mike Passanisi to talk some minor leaguers in fantasy baseball. Their crew is heavily involved in minor league baseball so they know what they’re talking about and if you’re someone who cares about the minors, you should be listening to their show. Click the picture below to access the iTunes feed of The MLR.
I’ll have an update regarding the release date of the SP Guide very soon. I’ve been spending just about every waking moment on the guide now for several weeks. We’re in the homestretch and it’s going to take some more sleepless nights if I’m going to hit the 3/1 target release date. By the way, the time spent on the guide these last couple of weeks is why content here has been scant, but once you see the guide I hope you understand why I had to make the tradeoff. And more importantly, I hope you end up thinking it was worth it.
Neck-deep in the SP Guide so no time to post much today, but I do have three things worth sharing.
First, if you follow me on Twitter, you know I love Jennifer Lawrence (who doesn’t?). So here’s essentially a primer on her awesomeness courtesy of Jezebel. She looked wonderful at the Oscars last night:
Edit to add this 26 Faces of Derp that my friend sent me shortly after I posted. This link crystallizes the point from the first link that she’s perfect because she’s not.
And then there was this:
That was his day today against the Astros. Wrench got his rake on.
And then finally:
(courtesy of FanGraphs.com)
Miguel Cabrera destroying Jonathan Papelbon‘s life. I’m just not a Papelbon fan on any level whatsoever so to see my favorite team crush him today was great. Jeff Sullivan over at FanGraphs broke it down.
Only Jennifer Lawrence can top Allen Craig AND Cabreraat this site.
I was going to do a post letting everyone know that At Bat’s 2013 iteration was available, but my BP colleague Maury Brown already did all the fantastic leg work so I’ll point you to his preview of the app instead:
Meanwhile, after a pair of fake fake games yesterday as the Red Sox split up to take on a pair of colleges, we get real fake games today with four Spring Training games on the docket. This is a beautiful site:
I had Mike Gianella as a co-host, filling in for Jason Collette, and Bret Sayre as a guest on this week’s Towers of Power podcast. Gianella and Sayre are both new additions to the BP fantasy team for 2013.
This probably won’t become a new thing, especially since I share YouTube videos on random days all the time. The only unifying links between these two videos I’m going to share is that they’re about baseball and they’re housed on YouTube, hence YouTube Thursday!
The first may require earplugs. The sound off of Jorge Soler’s bat when he treats this ball how Chris Brown might a woman was insane:
Update: Harry Pavlidis shared this Javier Baez video with my co-host Jason Collette while they were discussing Soler’s blast.
The next is a video-cast (a vodcast perhaps? I’m sure someone has called it that before) between two industry stalwarts, Jeff Erickson and Chris Liss of Rotowire, discussing position scarcity.
I’m in the home stretch with the SP Guide which is why content here has been a bit light. It’ll pick back up once we release (target date remains: 2/28-3/1).
I’d love to know how long this took the creator to complete. It brought many of the LOLs.
On Thursday the Red Sox are playing a pair of split-squad games against a pair of colleges, on Friday there are real fake games, and then Saturday at noon, we get real fake games on MLB Network.
Some did not like the new form of Countdown entries as they’d gone away from the player profiles. That was because of time and I apologize, but I’m just devoting a lot of time to make sure the SP Guide gets out on time. Maybe in March once the SP Guide is done and things settle a bit I can pick the player profiles back up again.
In the meantime, we’re just three days from games and today was a big day in the minor league community as Baseball America released their top 100 prospects. In addition:
In the age of the internet where seemingly any information can be found, the Cardinals broadcast scrambled to identify a farmhand during a Grapefruit League game against the Mets. Instead of scrapping the opportunity for a graphic, the team in the truck went with their gut and the result was awkwardly hilarious:
Of course, many of us baseball diehards knew ol’ Minor League Guy to be Oscar Taveras, the team’s second-best prospect according to Baseball Prospectus. Flash forward about a year and the broadcast team shouldn’t have any trouble identifying Taveras in a Grapefruit League game. First of all, he should be in the game well before the ninth inning, but more importantly he is now baseball’s second-best prospect or at least no worse than third-best.
Like last year, there is a triumvirate of guys – once again two hitters and a pitcher – and the order will vary from outlet to outlet and person to person. Last year it was Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, and Matt Moore; this year it’s Taveras, Jurickson Profar, and Dylan Bundy.
MLB.com
ESPN’s Keith Law
John Sickels (split lists hitters; pitchers)
And that is just from the early lists. Baseball Prospectus and Baseball America will have their top 100s out soon and I’d be surprised if they disagreed on the trio.
Though it was probably a bummer to get labeled as simply “Minor League Guy” on television, it looks like Taveras will have the last laugh as he now stands atop, or at least nears the top of baseball’s prospect heap. Imagine if he pans out on the Vladimir Guerrero comp that some have thrown on him, maybe he’ll end up being labeled as “Hall of Fame Guy” on a broadcast 20 years down the line.
Dusty Baker did his best Lee Corso imitation on Saturday when it came to the topic of Aroldis Chapman and the rotation for 2013. Baker was careful to note that we entered 2012 under similar assumptions before Chapman headed back to the pen and eventually took the closer’s job in late May. The money quote from Hal McCoy’s article:
Manager Dusty Baker emphasized that point Saturday morning when somebody said, “Your rotation was good last year, but you’re still making the move with Chapman. . .”
At that point, Baker interrupted and said, “Maybe. That’s a maybe. It’s the same situation as last year. We started with Chapman as a starter. Then Ryan Madson (closer) went down. We had no clue Chapman would be as good as he is as a closer. I don’t think anybody did.
We didn’t know if he was going to throw enough strikes,” Baker added. “We put him in a set-up role, going two innings, because he was groomed in spring training to be a starter and that helped him to get his control. So, right now, we’re in the same boat — trying to get him multiple innings in case he doesn’t start he can still be sharp.”
While this does make him more difficult to rank and project for 2013, it doesn’t really hurt his fantasy value. If anything, it’s a boon to it because unless he pulls a Chris Sale in the rotation, he is far more valuable to fantasy managers as a closer, especially at his current cost. In current NFBC mock draft data, Chapman is going 83rd overall whereas the unanimous #1 closer Craig Kimbrel is going 49th. It is only unanimous because we’ve been led to believe that Chapman is set to be Cincy’s 4th or 5th starter. If he ends closing again, he’s right there with Kimbrel and all of sudden becomes a huge value for those who are getting him at 84 or later.
Meanwhile, if they get a full-time starter who isn’t Sale 2.0 or better, then they vastly overpaid. Stay tuned as I’m sure we will learn much more in the coming month.
I’ve discussed these on the podcast more than once, but I have to mention them again. An M.Willis has developed a series of soccer style jerseys for every MLB team and he is unleashing them by division over at his site. They’re positively brilliant. It would be a stretch for me to consider anything close to a soccer diehard. I started paying attention to the English Premier League a couple years back and I enjoy it, but I’m still very new to the game. The bulk of my interaction with soccer is tied to FIFA for Xbox 360. Even still, I can appreciate this amazingly creative series from Willis.
The detail and effort put into the jerseys is so incredible and the writing is an added bonus. He lets team history and tradition influence his decisions as he tries to make the best guess for corporate sponsor – a big part of soccer kits – and manufacturer of each set. I recommended reading the accompanying pieces not only because they’re good, but they will also clue you in on some details within each kit that you may’ve missed at first glance.
The recent release of the AL Central was obviously especially interesting to me as it contained his take on my Tigers. I ended up really liking it. It’s very clean and he blended the sponsor perfectly. His desire to mix in some orange and his execution on it was excellent, as well. Here is a look at the Cabrera jersey.
Choosing a favorite is nearly impossible because I love so many of them. As much as I loved the Tigers one, my absolute favorites would probably be the Royals and Astros iterations. If he could make them available for purchase, I think I’d have exactly zero dollars to my name after buying one of each team. This was such a wonderful idea and even more fantastically executed. I can’t wait for the NL East conclusion. I wonder if he will choose Stephen Strasburg or Bryce Harper for the Nationals sample.
Baseball By Paul 