 John Burnson
Derek Carty Marco Fujimoto Eriq Gardner Matt Hagen Jonathan Halket Rob McQuown Troy Patterson Paul Singman Michael Street And here's the full roster. Got a question for our fantasy baseball experts? Email us:
Heater MagazineAdd 10 MPH to your fantasy team — see for yourself
HEATER MAGAZINE Winner, 2008 CBS Sportsline Fantasy League of Experts  Plus our Statistical Definitions Most Recent Comments
Worst Monday: Week 4 results (2)
Fantasy Fallout: DeRosa to Cards (1) How to handle league-switchers in AL and NL-only leagues (2) Clone Wars: Jacoby Ellsbury and Juan Pierre (3) Explaining LIPS (17) Monthly Archives
July, 2009
June, 2009 May, 2009 April, 2009 March, 2009 February, 2009 January, 2009 December, 2008 November, 2008 October, 2008 September, 2008 August, 2008 July, 2008 June, 2008 May, 2008 April, 2008 March, 2008 February, 2008 January, 2008 December, 2007 November, 2007 October, 2007 September, 2007 August, 2007 July, 2007 June, 2007 May, 2007 StubHub is where fans buy and sell Yankees Tickets, Red Sox Tickets, White Sox Tickets, Mets Tickets and all other baseball tickets. If you are looking for World Series Tickets, ALCS Tickets or NLCS Tickets, you can find them at StubHub! More hot selling tickets include: Cubs Tickets, Astros Tickets, Dodgers Tickets, Angels Tickets and Detroit Tigers Tickets. Gear up for baseball season with Chicago White Sox tickets and New York Yankees tickets. LA Angels tickets, Houston Astros tickets, and Atlanta Braves tickets are hot sellers! You can get Boston Red Sox tickets, San Diego Padres tickets or Chicago Cubs tickets for your favorite baseball fan. Coast to Coast Tickets has the best MLB tickets like Minnesota Twins tickets, LA Dodgers tickets, Milwaukee Brewers tickets, New York Met tickets and St. Louis Cardinals tickets.  All content on this site (including text, graphs, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
Monday, May 19, 2008My first big trade of the yearPosted by Derek Carty at 4:36amUp until this point, I have only made a couple of small trades in my fantasy leagues. Last night, however, I finally made one that was of a little bit greater magnitude. I won't be discussing every trade that I make throughout the year, but this one included a player that I wanted to make a note about anyway. This trade gives me a good opportunity to do so. The tradeI receive: Johnny Cueto and Kerry Wood I give: Dustin McGowan and Ryan Franklin The player I wanted to talk about was Cueto. There was a good article by Dave Cameron over at FanGraphs earlier this month talking about Cueto and how he had struggled with runners on base. This was probably a little worrisome to some people considering that Cueto was a rookie pitcher trying to adjust to the big leagues. It wasn't unfathomable that he was having difficulties when pitching from the stretch. The good news is that Cueto has since been very good pitching from the stretch. Here are his numbers on the year: Situation IP K BB HR Bases Empty 34.2 38 11 9 Runners On 17 15 2 3 Cueto currently has a 5.75 ERA this year, but the fact that he is now pitching well out of the stretch leaves me with no doubts that his 61 percent Left On Base Percentage is simply bad luck. So is his 18 percent home run to fly ball ratio (HR/FB), for that matter. Once those regress, his numbers on the year should give you a pretty good idea where his ERA will be. IP K/9 BB/9 GB% xFIP 51.2 9.23 2.26 36% 3.76 Great at striking guys out, very good control. The only problem is the low flyball rate combined with Great American Ballpark. Plenty of guys succeed despite low flyball rates (Aaron Harang, for one, who actually pitches in the same park as Cueto), though, and Cueto should be fine. Even if his HR/FB ends up being 12 or 12.5 percent, he should still be a very good pitcher. This creates a perfect buying opportunity. A high ERA, from a rookie pitcher, who may or may not be perceived as having trouble pitching from the stretch, will lead plenty of owners to jump ship. Don't be one of them. I will be buying Cueto wherever I can, and I think I did a pretty good job in this trade. Sure, he could regress, but I think it's far more likely that he'll continue to pitch well. I like Dustin McGowan, but he hasn't shown any improvement over last year (he's actually been worse). Cueto's numbers were there in the minors last year and are there in the majors this year. That I was able to swap Ryan Franklin for Kerry Wood only made it that much better, in my opinion. Kerry Wood has sneakily been very good this year with, 8.3 strikeouts per nine innings, 1.7 walks per nine innings, and a 47 percent groundball rate. While he has blown three saves and has Carlos Marmol to worry about, I trust him far more than I trust Franklin. Franklin doesn't have the skills to be a closer, has Jason Isringhausen to worry about when he comes back, and has guys like Russ Springer, Kyle McClellan, and Chris Perez to worry about right now (not to mention himself!). It's really only a matter of time before either Izzy gets healthy and takes the job back or Franklin implodes and loses it himself. Sure, Marmol is more talented than Kerry Wood, but Lou Piniella and the Cubs chose Wood for a reason. With him pitching well, it makes no sense to make a change now. Sure, he could start pitching poorly, catch some bad luck (which he has had a little of already), or get injured, but he still is a better percentage play than Franklin. Concluding thoughtsIf you guys have a different opinion on this trade, feel free to comment or send me an e-mail! Also, I've got some exciting things planned for this week, so be on the lookout! Derek Carty is a Mets fan currently residing in New Jersey. In addition to writing for THT, his work has also run either currently or previously at Rotoworld, Sports Illustrated, and FOX Sports. He was the champion of the FOX Sports Experts Fantasy Baseball League in 2008 and will be competing in five expert competitions in 2009, including LABR NL. He welcomes questions via e-mail. Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. Next Post: No knee to worry: Papi is back>> <<Previous Post: Waiver Wire: National League (Week 7) |
