Starbonell Station
Thursday, Feb. 17th at 7:30 PM
Call-in Number: (347) 324-3827

The NL West plays home to the majority of Fantasy Baseball's best Starting Pitchers. One is so good he doubles as a musician. Unfortunately, pitching and playing music halves Barry Zito's talent so he sucks at both. I'm only kidding (or am I?). All joking aside, there is plenty of talent to be found in this division. Make the jump to see why DLR makes me hot for teacher.

Today, February 9th, 2011, a date which will live in infamy. The MillionDollarSleeper.com blog and all of its Million Dollar Managers were suddenly and deliberately attacked by Charlie Saponara of the empire known as FB365. The Million Dollar Managers were at a moment of peace with FB365, looking toward maintaining said peace in the Fantasy Baseball blogosphere. Indeed, one hour after, Mr. Saponara commenced bombing. As commander and chief of our armed forces, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. I speak for the will of all the Million Dollar Mangers when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will see to it that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again. I, therefore, declare war on Charlie Saponara and the empire of FB365. After the jump, more information on the FB365 vs MDS Blog League. Enlist today, Uncle Andrew wants you!

This season you will see countless Fantasy Baseball articles comparing a Pitcher's xFIP or FIP to their ERA. They're going to tell you who has been "lucky" or "unlucky", they're going to tell you who is going to regress or bounce back. The majority of them will be wrong because FIP and xFIP are flawed statistics. I'm a fan of Socrates' question everything philosophy and I have one question which brings down the entire ERA forecasting formula, how are you going to calculate ERA without using Base Hits, Team Defense or Ball Park Factors? Make the jump to see exactly what I am talking about and why I'm able project ERA much better than FIP or xFIP.

Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball has opened registration. 100 minutes in, I already had eight teams! How about you? If you want a challenge, there is always the Million Dollar Challenge. A true test of Fantasy Baseball skills, the MDC is a 14-16-team, rotisserie league with an expansive and balanced scoring system. Later, I will announce another blog league (head-to-head) that uses similar stats. I only get to choose six of my finest commenters for that one. Stay tuned.

Blog Wars is up and running. The lineup of Fantasy Baseball bloggers/writers will be announced, eventually. You should be able to view the teams and auction draft results, in due time.

Now the bad news. Them mothe*****ng coc******rs at Yahoo did not give us a Weekly Max IP option for custom head-to-head leagues. I've been waiting for this for three years now. First I tried asking, then I started demanding and this year I began to beg. Do I have to tell them I have cheeseburgers? A Weekly Max IP option is the ONLY way to prevent streaming. Limiting moves does not get rid of the true problem behind streaming, the scoring systems are rewarding whomever starts the most SP during the week. Whether you have one move or unlimited moves, the goal is the same: start the most SP. With a Weekly Max IP, your goal is to get the best stats with what you're allowed. True fantasy baseball. Be sure to email Yahoo and tell them off.

Take a deep breath MDS... goosefraba. It could be worse, you could be playing at ESPN or CBS.

Our tour through the Starting Pitcher projections now takes us through the American League West, home of King Felix. If you're going to pitch in the American League, this is the division to do so. The Mariners, A's and Angels all play home games in pitcher parks and the presence of Nolan Ryan in Texas makes all Pitchers ride the gravy train with biscuit wheels. You don't squat on your spurs and you don't step up to Nolan without your A game.You also don't travel through the AL West without paying royalties to King Felix, be sure to honor thy king before making the jump.

The AL East is known for it's big bats, but there is plenty of good pitching to go around too. Jon Lester reigns supreme as C.C. starts to slow down. David Price, who goes about 10 picks after C.C., will outpitch him too. The division also plays hosts to some quality sleeper picks in Jeremy Hellickson, Brian Matsuz and my personal favorite so far, Brandon Morrow. Make the jump for some American League East Starting Pitcher projections.

Players and coaches don't shake hands. Players and coaches gotta hug!

The AL East just acquired another big bat and the Orioles lineup just got older. They have added Derek Lee, J.J. Hardy, Mark Reynolds and Vladimir Guerrero to an already solid corps of Brian Roberts, Nick Markakis, Adam Jones and the Chosen One, Matt Wieters. I held off on forecasting Felix Pie and Nolan Reimold because of the Vladi rumors (and my laziness), so now it's time for a Vladi projection. We'll take care of that here, right now, and update the OF Ranks after I finish the SP and RP projections.

My method of projecting numbers for Starting Pitching is time consuming. The plan of action starts out with processing information available in a player's Pitching/FX page. Then it's onto the four pieces of paper; one for calculating FIP and my improved version of the ERA forecaster, a second for calculating HR allowed and Hits allowed, another for chicken scratch and the last for recording all relevant information. I find the Pitch/FX tool to be far more useful than Pitch Values, which can be a flawed statistic. Anyway, onto the majority of AL Central SP.

The posting around here will be slow for a few days, maybe a week, while I'm working behind the scenes. I have officially declared war on xFIP with my newly created mdsFIP ERA forecasting system. I'm also working on a BABIP Gone Wild piece that will be included in the Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide that Charlie from FB365, Mark from FBHotStove and I am working on. I mentioned this during the And His Name Was Jose Lopez podcast (which you can listen to via the widget to the right or download here) so I thought I'd give you a little sneak peak of what I made reference to earlier. A small taste should only excite your ravenous hunger and keep me from appearing to be lazy. I'll probably start leaking SP projections within a week (7 business days). Make the jump for a sneak peak of what's to come.