My Razzball team

Rudy Gamble over at razzball.com was kind enough to invite me to participate in his annual Razzball fantasy league. For those of you who haven’t heard of the Razzball leagues, it is a points based fantasy league where the goal is to try and assemble the worst possible team. The scoring is:

Batting:
At Bats (AB) 2
Hits (H) -3
Home Runs (HR) -10
Runs Scored (R) -4
Runs Batted In (RBI) -4
Strikeouts (K) 2

Pitching:
Innings Pitched (IP) -1
Hits Allowed (H) 1
Walks Issued (BB) 1
Earned Runs (ER) 1.5
Home Runs Allowed (HR) 4
Strikeouts (K) -1
Losses (L) 8

Obviously, you can’t just go for bad players – you have to go for bad players that get good amounts of playing time. Clearly, the point system encourages you to draft speedy players with little power. Players like Willy Taveras have a lot of value in this league. The positional requirements are fairly hefty; the five outfield slots and the three corner infield slots are tough to fill. Picking pitchers is a bit more nuanced. Obviously, innings eaters like Livan Hernandez are great. But there aren’t many of those. Flyball pitchers tend to get more strikeouts than ground ball pitchers but they also give up more home runs. I had a ton of fun researching and drafting for this league. Going forward, it’ll be a nice change of pace to keep an eye out for when journeymen like Freddy Garcia might get a spot start for a team struggling with injuries.

My roster for the first fantasy week is:

C Jason Kendall
1B Billy Butler
2B Emmanuel Burriss
3B Bill Hall
SS Jeff Keppinger
2B/SS Khalil Greene
1B/3B Jed Lowrie
OF Cameron Maybin
OF Fred Lewis
OF Randy Winn
OF Travis Snider
OF Kosuke Fukudome
UTIL Miguel Olivo

Bench
Kelly Johnson
Pablo Sandoval

Pitchers
Kevin Millwood
Vicente Padilla
Tim Wakefield
Matt Harrison
Jorge De La Rosa
Adam Eaton
David Purcey
Anthony Reyes
R.A. Dickey

Bench
Fausto Carmona
Trevor Cahill
Josh Outman
Jeremy Bonderman

Though Millwood burned me with his first start of the year, I am hoping for good (bad) things out of the Texas pitching staff this year. Purcey is one of my gambles and he also fried me a bit with his first start. Still, he’s a fly ball pitcher on a mediocre to bad team with little depth to replace him if he goes through a rough patch. Some people have high hopes for Matt Harrison. I do too, only in the bad kind of way. Last year his ERA was 5.49, which his FIP of 5.20 and an xFIP of 5.12. His K/BB and K/9 are 1.35 and 4.51, his ground ball rate is only around 40 percent and he’ll be pitching in Arlington.

My strengths in the field are my catchers. Even though catchers are often Razzball all-stars for most teams, I’m especially high on my catchers. Kendall has zero offensive capability but, with Mike Rivera backing him up, he should get a lot of playing time. Olivo has a bit of power unfortunately, but I love his 7.05 K/BB ratio.

Billy Butler hasn’t yet found the power stroke that scouts were projecting years ago. I plan on riding him until he does. I actually have Burriss and Lowrie on one of my regular fantasy teams. Burriss’ speed doesn’t hurt me here though. Lowrie is eligible at third base in ESPN leagues, which is the system Razzball uses, so while I have Lowrie at short in my other league, I think he’ll do well for me at the shallower corner infield spot here.

Maybin and, in particular, Snider could hurt me in short run as teams challenge them with fastballs. I am banking that teams will figure out how to pitch to them and I’ll get to enjoy the ensuing mid-year slump.