I almost always agree with Ray Flowers, but… (Or why h2h leagues are great)

In Ray Flowers (@BaseballGuys) latest mail bag, he wrote, in essence, that head-to-head (h2h) fantasy baseball is bastardizing the game of baseball completely.

Ray’s first point: “Baseball is a marathon with 162 games. H2H turns that marathon into a sprint.”

I’m not sure how h2h turns the 162-game schedule into a sprint. h2h leagues run for the entire season. Sure some of that includes the fantasy play-offs, however, aren’t there play-offs in baseball? Isn’t the World Champion the winner of the play-offs? Do they give the regular season winner the World Series trophy? Nope. The best team is decided by a play-off. h2h has that, roto doesn’t.Neither is exactly like real baseball, each have their similarities and differences.

Ray’s second point: “Baseball is about consistency and working through the grind as much as anything. When you play H2H you remove that aspect of the game completely.”

His main argument, I think, is that Pujols alternating good weeks with wretched weeks would ruin you in h2h, but not roto. Well, that kind of runs against his point. In roto, all that matters are stats at the end of the year, you don’t have to weather slumps at all.

Dusty Gets A New Arm To Wear Down for Razzball

Dusty Gets A New Arm To Wear Down for Razzball on the Cincinnati Reds and San Diego Padres trade involving Mat Latos, Yasmani Grandal, Yonder Alonso, Edinson Volquez and a fringe releiver with a cool name.

Article available at http://razzball.com/dusty-gets-a-new-arm-to-wear-down/.

The Future of Mark Buehrle

The Future of Mark Buehrle for The Platoon Advantage

The good: since 2001, when Buehrle began 11 straight seasons of 200+ innings, Buehrle is first in the majors in innings, 21st in BB/9 (min. 400 IPs), and seventh in WAR (Fangraphs edition) behind only Roy Halladay, CC Sabathia, Roy Oswalt, Javier Vazquez, Randy Johnson and Johan Santana. You can’t quibble with that consistent usefulness.

To date, Buehrle has a 3.83 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 2.48 K:BB rate and 45.9% ground ball (GB) rate. However, there are some chinks in the armor. He led the league in hits four times and, as Dave Cameron pointed out, his ERA likely benefited from some subjective ground ballness and how they are classified/scored as errors. As Cameron discovered, 10.1% of Buehrle’s runs allowed have been unearned. While his ERA puts him in great company, if you look at runs allowed, he seems more like Al Leiter, Barry Zito, Randy Wolf and Jarrod Washburn. You certainly can’t just assume all his unearned runs were a product of his insane amount of ground balls, but it is certainly possible he’s getting a little help from those scoring the games.

Another issue with Buehrle being the savior is that he’s old and has a tremendous amount of innings on his arm. Buehrle will be 33 years-old next year and has already pitched 2,476.2 innings in the majors. I wrote the majority of this before he signed, with the assumption that he would get a four-year deal, just based on the fact that every single team wanted him. I just don’t think he’ll stay productive that entire time, i.e., until his age 37 season. And I’m not sure I can find a pitcher similar to Buehrle who has.

Full article at TPA: http://www.platoonadvantage.com/2011/12/future-of-mark-buehrle.html

h2h Corner ~ Check You out on the Flip Side: Gary Gaetti

I write a lot for a living and for fun. So I get caught up in wording – both incredibly awesome turns of phrases and the unsuccessful. So, I ask, is it possible Topps got a computer to write the anecdotes for the backs of the 1993 cards? I’ve never heard of anyone enjoying the distinction of something – it sounds like one of those auto-Fantasy team name generators.

Regardless of how the card was worded, it’s a pretty cool footnote on a career to score the 20,000^th  run in a franchises’ history.

But it’s just a footnote, because what a career Gaetti amassed. When it was all said and done, he appeared in the 43rd most career games (2507) in baseball history – just behind Bill Buckner.

He finished with the 36th most doubles by a righty, oddly 36 more than Barry Larkin, Steve Garvey and Luke Appling. He also tallied the 42nd most RBIs by a righty — more than Mike Piazza, Hank Greenberg, Hugh Duffy, and others.

Of course, the bane of longevity is the GIDPs – Gaetti created two outs from one hit the 32nd most times in MLB history. He put in play a twin killing 236 times – one more than George Brett. He also swung and missed a lot – the 21st most times in MLB history. Still, with great Ks, comes great power: he has the sixth most HRs by a 3b in MLB history.

In all those games, he ended up participating in the 15th most losses in MLB history and ended 116 of the 1314 games he lost.

In addition to his milestone run scores, Gaetti was part of the seventh most triple plays in MLB history and was part of two in one game!

Still, he is most known for the 1987 post-season. He was the MVP of the American League Championship with a .300/.348/.650 line with two HRs, which happen to be the first time in MLB history that a player hit homers in his first two postseason plate appearances.

Gaetti had a long meandering career worth 37.9 WAR. Hey, he was even used as a reliever twice, by two different teams. He finished with a 7.71 ERA and one strikeout in three appearances.

@h2h_corner on twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/h2h_corner

Baseball Daily Digest Radio with Joel Henard and Albert Lang 09/05 by JoelHenard | Blog Talk Radio

Baseball Daily Digest Radio with Joel Henard and Albert Lang 09/05 by JoelHenard | Blog Talk Radio.

h2h Corner ~ Deep League Detective

A line-up consisting of barely owned players who can help you fill gaps

C: Josh Thole would have been my guy but he just took a ball off the hand – not so good.

Salvador Perez – On August 29, the plucky Perez came a triple short of the cycle and smacked his first major league dinger against Max Scherzer. Perez, just 21-years-old, decided to run roughshod over AAA in his limited time there: 49 plate appearances with a .333/.347/.500 line. His promotion to AAA was a little odd, given that he looked good at AA but not otherworldly (.283/.329/.427). Still, he had 10 homers across 358 plate appearances in the minors this season. While he doesn’t strike out a lot, he also doesn’t walk a lot, so he relies heavily on the balls he puts in play. So far, his line drive rate (22%) is impeccable and his swinging strike rate (9.2%) is serviceable. I think Perez is capable of three more homers and a .270 rest of the way.

Honorable Mention: Tyler Flowers

1b: Juan Rivera – Since July 30, Rivera has 108 plate appearances and a .281/.343/.406 line. Without striking out more or walking more, Rivera has improved considerably since joining the weaker league even though his line drive, ground ball and fly ball percentages remain similar. What has changed then? Well he’s making a lot more contact – his swinging strikes have gone down and his contact rate has jumped four percent. He is likely not a .285 hitter, but .270 with three or so more homers? Yeah, I’d bank on that and I am in some deep leagues.

Honorable Mention: Kyle Blanks, Paul Goldschmidt, Brandon Allen who I’ve covered a ton and are probably owned in competitive leagues

Don’t Look Back In Anger: Luke Hochevar, Mike Carp, Brandon McCarthy

For Razzball: Don’t Look Back In Anger: Luke Hochevar, Mike Carp, Brandon McCarthy

http://razzball.com/dont-look-back-in-anger-luke-hochevar-mike-carp-brandon-mccarthy/

h2h Corner ~ Katy Perry (Hot ‘N’ Cold Fantasy Baseball) All-Stars

Players get hot and cold over a seven-day period, it’s as sure as the samples are small.

That is why Katy created the Hot ‘N’ Cold All-stars.

‘Cause you’re hot…you’re yes…you’re in…you’re up

Rod Barajas – As stated in the Katy Perry All-star by-laws, Barajas must make at least one appearance every year (here, here and here). We were beginning to run out of time though, so it was nice to see Barajas really make a case for himself by going 9/17 with four homers over the last seven days. With Navarro out of the picture and the Dodgers still hating on A.J. Ellis, Barajas looks to be a “starting” catcher form here on out. Barajas falls into the Salty/Arencibia mold, he won’t hit much higher than .250 the rest of the way, but he could mash a couple of dongs here or there. He’s a nice get in deeper leagues.

h2h Corner ~ Katy Perry (Hot ‘N’ Cold Fantasy Baseball) All-Stars

Players get hot and cold over a seven-day period, it’s as sure as the samples are small.

That is why Katy created the Hot ‘N’ Cold All-stars.

‘Cause you’re hot…you’re yes…you’re in…you’re up

 Jose Constanza – I’ve resisted writing about Constanza for as long as humanly possible. But, as noted in the Chicken Roaster episode from Seinfeld, you just can’t shake the name or the jingle “By Mennen.” Alright readers, I’ll be honest, the first time I heard about Constanza, I found him very irritating, but after seeing him play for a couple of times, he sorta got stuck in my head, Constanza! Well, over the last seven days, the plucky fourth outfielder has gone 10/23 with a homer and three steals. After looking like a promising little player in 2008 (at AA for the Indians he went .282/.378/.342 with 49 steals), Constanza hasn’t done much of note. Even that impressive season is marred by the fact that he was repeating the level. Constanza’s one positive attribute, speed, is rendered nearly void by the fact that he hasn’t figure out how to walk or really get on base without a BABIP north of .360. His MLB BABIP sits at .450 this year despite a paltry line drive rate (15.4%) and massive ground ball rate (69.2%). He doesn’t swing and miss, so he will put the ball in play, and we all know how many seeing eye grounders it takes to turn a .250 hitter into a .300 hitter, but he’s never going to get on base enough to make his speed matter. His upside is a slightly broken down version of Juan Pierre.

h2h Corner ~ Katy Perry (Hot ‘N’ Cold Fantasy Baseball) All-Stars

Players get hot and cold over a seven-day period, it’s as sure as the samples are small.

That is why Katy created the Hot ‘N’ Cold All-stars.

‘Cause you’re hot…you’re yes…you’re in…you’re up

Kyle Blanks – It seems every Katy Perry All-stars includes a smattering of Padres. Blanks, a one-time love of mine, is now back in Katy’s good graces, following a seven-day stretch which saw him go 10/23 with two bombs. Those were his first two round trippers this year and he had previously been 3/29. So it’s not as if Blanks is suddenly a solid batting average guy. That said, he was torching the minors and should have no problem batting around .250 with some good pop. He’ll definitely be a factor in deep leagues and could even play his way onto 12-team rosters.