Roto talk
Happy Groundhog Day! Just remember - if you wake up and it hasn't moved on to February 3rd, you can try to seduce Andie McDowell but then you need to start doing good deeds. If you do that, eventually, you'll get out of it.
ESPN's feature today is about Jason Giambi. Both Bob Klapisch and Eric Karabell (who has the second best job in America, right after Bill Simmons) wrote that they expect Giambi to follow up his comeback 2005 campaign with a strong 2006. Karabell rates him the 11th 1st baseman for fantasy. How does this sound? I think it's about right. We know that Giambi had some strange health issues (steroid related or otherwise) that slowed him down in 2004. Those seem to be history. I think it's also safe to say that he's not doing steroids and his July surge was legit. Yes, that's right, all of you steroid monitors out there, (Adam Cohen) I think it's safe to say. How crazy would Giambi have to be to be on the juice again? I just don't believe that he is.
But nobody hits 14 homers a month consistently. The good news is, though, looking at the splits, Giambi hit 6 homers in August and 7 in September - both of which project out to very strong power totals over a full year. In each of those months, however, he hit in the .250 range. This is worth paying attention to, as it could point to a trend. My gut is that Giambi's better than that, but he may be done as a .330 hitter. If Giambi is good for a .280 average with 35 homers and 105 rbi (reasonable in that Yankee lineup), Karabell pegged him just about right as the 11th 1B. Those aren't $35 bid, 2nd round type numbers, but certainly solid production you'd want on your team.
My prediction though, is that more people will be oversold on Giambi than will be leery of him. Just a feeling I have. It's easy to figure that Giambi is back and worth a top pick as he was when he was on the juice. As I said, I think he'll be good, not that good. Watch what happens with him in your drafts and don't get sucked into bidding on him as you would, say, Teixeira.
On that note, we have a February 2nd birthday I'd like to mention for roto: Melvin Mora turns 34. I'm one of those guys who never bids on Mora and never trades for him, not wanting to get stuck when he finally comes back to earth. As an aside, you'll never catch me blaming the Mets for this one. Mora was 28 when they traded him and had to that point shown now signs of being a particularly good player. The Mets needed Mike Bordick, with Ordonez done for the year at the time. And Mora didn't even excel for Baltimore for three more years. So this is a fluke thing, and no Mets fan should be too pissed about it. Anyway, back to the point. I think Mora is definitely at the point where the astute roto player avoids him. He's eligible only at 3B now and hit .283 with 27 HR and 88 RBI in '05. That sounds just ok, but it ranked surprisingly well for 3B last year (tied for 5th in hr, ranking 9th in rbi). However, with Mora turning 34, he should logically be on the way down. And let's not forget that he doesn't hit in a particularly good lineup. A slight decrease in those numbers would pull him to the middle to lower tier of 3B. He may help your team, and there are worse players to be stuck with, but be careful on him. I know I'm going to steer clear, once again.
ESPN's feature today is about Jason Giambi. Both Bob Klapisch and Eric Karabell (who has the second best job in America, right after Bill Simmons) wrote that they expect Giambi to follow up his comeback 2005 campaign with a strong 2006. Karabell rates him the 11th 1st baseman for fantasy. How does this sound? I think it's about right. We know that Giambi had some strange health issues (steroid related or otherwise) that slowed him down in 2004. Those seem to be history. I think it's also safe to say that he's not doing steroids and his July surge was legit. Yes, that's right, all of you steroid monitors out there, (Adam Cohen) I think it's safe to say. How crazy would Giambi have to be to be on the juice again? I just don't believe that he is.
But nobody hits 14 homers a month consistently. The good news is, though, looking at the splits, Giambi hit 6 homers in August and 7 in September - both of which project out to very strong power totals over a full year. In each of those months, however, he hit in the .250 range. This is worth paying attention to, as it could point to a trend. My gut is that Giambi's better than that, but he may be done as a .330 hitter. If Giambi is good for a .280 average with 35 homers and 105 rbi (reasonable in that Yankee lineup), Karabell pegged him just about right as the 11th 1B. Those aren't $35 bid, 2nd round type numbers, but certainly solid production you'd want on your team.
My prediction though, is that more people will be oversold on Giambi than will be leery of him. Just a feeling I have. It's easy to figure that Giambi is back and worth a top pick as he was when he was on the juice. As I said, I think he'll be good, not that good. Watch what happens with him in your drafts and don't get sucked into bidding on him as you would, say, Teixeira.
On that note, we have a February 2nd birthday I'd like to mention for roto: Melvin Mora turns 34. I'm one of those guys who never bids on Mora and never trades for him, not wanting to get stuck when he finally comes back to earth. As an aside, you'll never catch me blaming the Mets for this one. Mora was 28 when they traded him and had to that point shown now signs of being a particularly good player. The Mets needed Mike Bordick, with Ordonez done for the year at the time. And Mora didn't even excel for Baltimore for three more years. So this is a fluke thing, and no Mets fan should be too pissed about it. Anyway, back to the point. I think Mora is definitely at the point where the astute roto player avoids him. He's eligible only at 3B now and hit .283 with 27 HR and 88 RBI in '05. That sounds just ok, but it ranked surprisingly well for 3B last year (tied for 5th in hr, ranking 9th in rbi). However, with Mora turning 34, he should logically be on the way down. And let's not forget that he doesn't hit in a particularly good lineup. A slight decrease in those numbers would pull him to the middle to lower tier of 3B. He may help your team, and there are worse players to be stuck with, but be careful on him. I know I'm going to steer clear, once again.
posted by Eric at 11:52 PM
4 Comments:
Bordick is one of the worst mets ever. He was an all star that year and then he was traded to the mets and he cant even hit the ball. Bring back ordonez
man, how many NY Jews are there named Adam Cohen? I feel like I went to Ramaz with six of them...
anon:
You did.
Agree with you on Mora. Disagree w/ Giambi, he is clearly juiced. Why wouldnt he do steroids again? He already hit rock bottom, about what fans think about him, so what can he lose by doing them again and being caught, lose the respect he no longer has?
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