Posting will slow day a little bit for the next few days while I mess with the template, ponder the creation of a Million Dollar Podcast Show and prepare for a couple auction drafts coming up... stay tuned. no comments

Supply and demand can be a bitch. That is about the only way to explain a $30 bid on Jay Bruce. Picture MDS sitting there all smug, thinking his shit don't stink and he's going to snag Bruce for $15. Within a few seconds he was left sitting on the pot looking for makeshift toilet paper (pardon the French, I've had a few Leinenkugels). Yesterday Jay Bruce went for $30 in the RotoCommunity.com NL-Only auction league. I snagged him for $16 in the Roto Arcade Pro-Am a few hours beforehand, so what gives? Supply and Demand.

The NL-Only league was deep enough to leave managers wondering where they would find At Bats. We start 60 OF each day and we have to fill a UT spot. There simply weren't enuff OF to go around. The supply couldn't meet the demand. When people realized the depth of available Outfielders was getting shallow, they started spending. Bruce went for $30, Carlos Gonzalez went for $24, Carlos Lee went for $33 and even Garrett Jones went for an outrageous $18. Garrett freakin Jones. I had to spend $16 to get Conor Jackson. When Ricky Nolasco was the last difference making SP available, he ended going for more money than 5 Starting Pitchers I had ranked ahead of him and I was still disappointed I didn't land him. Jonathan Broxton went for $21 early in the draft, later on 5 closers were within $4 of that price. That is what a dwindling supply can do to managers. If you save your budget to acquire Middle Round depth, your plan can easily backfire on you; leaving you with a bunch of mediocre players.

Like all aspects of the game, you can take advantage. After I spent $41 on Chase Utley, I was the person to nominate Brandon Phillips, Dan Uggla and Ian Stewart. If I was going to spend big money on a 2B, I wanted others to do the same. I almost didn't care what I had to pay for Utley, the talent immediately beneath him in NL-Only leagues is Uggly. I think I was also the person to nominate Miguel Montero. In this league, there were only so many starting Catchers to go around. I wanted to nominate popular Catchers, hoping a bidding war would erupt. A lot of ppl love Montero. I like him, but not as much as others. You can't simply extrapolate his one good half season of play. He went for $17, I got Clement and Pudge for a combined $11 later on. Popular sleeper picks that you do not like are great early nominations.

Aside from the infamous $40 elbow bid, here were some other crazy prices in the NL-Only league (and yes, I have a Player Hating Degree, so I have the right to call out winning bids): $37 for Pablo Sandoval (I was involved in that one), $35 for Adam Wainwright, I spent $15 for Kyle Blanks, Rickie Weeks went for $20, Casey McGehee for $14, $28 for Andre Ethier, $29 for Aramis Ramirez (I helped drive up that price after Pablo escaped my grasp), $19 for Jorge Cantu, $17 for Francisco Cordero, $6 for Jason Motte. I can't really say that these were mistakes, but I can say they are crazy. Is someone wrong to spend $29 on ARam when the rest of the 3B options stink? If they have the money without other obvious needs, why not spend it? I tell ya tho, only in an Auction league will you see Carlos Lee and Tulowitzki go for the same price. F snake drafts. Bar keep, Another Leiney! please no comments

MDS drafted in two auctions today... the first, a 14 team H2H mixed league: the Roto Arcade Pro-Am hosted by Andy Behrens. I believe there will be a post-draft Q&A, so I'll wait for that to discuss my team. The second auction draft was for a 12 team NL-Only league with NFCB style rosters. I went in knowing every team wouldn't be able to field starters at each position, so my main goal was to fill up my hitters before spending too much on pitching. Finding At Bats can be frustrating in a deep league like this. I wanted to turn the general $180-$80 (hitting to pitching) budget into a $190-$70 budget, but it ended up being a $228-$27 split. My pitching is verrry sketchy, but everyone is going to have holes in a deep league like this and a few others have iffy pitching. I should be able to work around the issue. The (CBS) league has no max IP limit so if my ERA & WHIP are really that bad, I can stream Wins & K. Lame tactic, but those are the rules.

C Jeff Clement (8)
C Ivan Rodriguez (3)
1B Ryan Howard (42)
3B Chipper Jones (14)
CI Adam Laroche (15)
2B Chase Utley (41)
SS Everth Cabrera (12)
MI David Eckstein (RES)
OF Andrew McCutchen (21)
OF Nyjer Morgan (22)
OF Conor Jackson (16)
OF Jeff Francoeur (6)
OF Kyle Blanks (15)
UT Cameron Maybin (12)

P Carlos Marmol (15)
P Takashi Saito (1)
P Sean Burnett (RES)
P Takahashi Hisanori (RES)
P J.A. Happ (4)
P Kenshin Kawakami (2)
P John Lannan (1)
P Tom Gorzellany (1)
P Matt Maloney (1)

RES Drew Storen (1)
RES Madison Bumgarner (1)
RES Rick Vandenhurk
RES Ramon Ortiz
RES Jamie Moyer
RES Christian Guzman (1)

I'm happy with my hitting. I didn't like paying $15 for a closer, but I waited until it was down to Marmol, Capps and Dotel. After watching Cordero go for $17, Qualls go for $18, Franklin go for $17, KRod go for $18, I was happy to buy Marmol. Capps ended up going for $8 and Dotel went for $10. Billy Wagner is sure to keel over, so Saito should be good for some saves too. Storen could eventually take over for Capps. Yes J.A. Happ is my #1 SP and yes, I did dis him recently, but I paid $4 and the SP I had ranked around him were going for $7-$8. I waited forever for Nolasco to be nominated and then someone went to town and I couldn't go to $25. I wish I would have went $21 on Wandy, $21 on Johnson, $22 on Ubaldo or $23 on Gallardo. I spent $10 on SP. I can't imagine going into a draft planning this, but it happened. I'm not horribly disappointed with what I have, but maybe I am just in shock; it hasn't fully set in that I have Jamie Moyer on my team. These are the numbers I had projected for these scrubs:

J.A. Happ 7.0 K/9, 1.30 WHIP, 4.50 ERA
Kenshin Kawakami 6.5 K/9, 1.35 WHIP, 4.45 ERA
Matt Maloney 6.9 K/9, 1.35 WHIP, 4.50 ERA
John Lannan 4.1 K/9, 1.35 WHIP, 4.15 ERA
Tom Gorzellany 7.0 K/9, 1.40 WHIP, 4.45 ERA
Ramon Ortiz 6.1 K/9, 1.35 WHIP, 4.50 ERA
Jamie Moyer 5.2 K/9, 1.35 WHIP, 4.55 ERA
Rick VandenHurk 7.6 K/9, 1.40 WHIP, 4.60 ERA
Madison Bumgarner 7.2 K/9, 1.30 WHIP, 3.85 ERA no comments

Episode 4 of Aaron Murray's Roto Rundowns fantasy podcast has been posted at Roto Savants. We discuss "auction draft strategy and how to tell when a surge in production from a player is for real". Aaron will be representing Roto Savants in Blog Wars.

[Roto Rundowns] # 4 no comments

This is my first real draft of the season. 14 team custom H2H league, OPS and Holds added to standard 5x5 stats, 10 hitters, 9 pitchers, 5 bench. It's my BDay today and I drafted Homer Bailey so you can safely assume I have been consuming Flaming Homers leading up to the draft. I mixed together the remaining contents from near empty liquor bottles, some Krusty's non-narcotic cough syrup and cigarette ash from an ugly sister-in-law and just like that, Homer Bailey joined the team.

Hanley was a no-brainer, Youkilis had a .961 OPS last season (better than ARod & Longoria) and Sizemore was a nice grab in Rd 3. This guy owes me from last season and he helps me acquire speed without losing much in power. I like the balanced approach when it comes to steals. Shin-Shoo Choo also fit in well with this plan.

After Jon Lester was stolen from my hands (at pick 52), I went with Ubaldo Jimenez. He is a favorite of mine going into the season and it showed when I took him in front of Tommy Hanson (60), Johan Santana (64), Josh Johnson (65), Javier Vazquez (69), Kershaw (73) and Gallardo (76). I would like to have waited on the position a little while longer, but I wasn't going to get any of these guys with my next pick.

Berkman and Beckham will be a little bit of a nuisance during the first week. Berkman may not be ready for the Opener, but the only other decent option was Carlos Pena who is 2 for 28 this Spring and coming off finger surgery. In the end I sided with Berkman who had the better OPS (.908) and doesn't have the Batting Average issue. I'm not too excited to roster Berkman, but he's not as bad people make him out to be. Beckham won't have 2B elig until the end of the first week so he can play 3B and Youk can slide over to 1B while Berkman rehabs.

Wandy Rodriguez seemed to fall right into my lap at pick 111. This pick made me happy so I didn't mind reaching a bit for Brett Anderson. He was the next best SP in my ranks and I didn't feel confident getting him 25 picks later. Kevin Slowey was another SP I was hoping wouldn't be snaked in front of me. I have high expectations for Slowey. Carl Pavano isn't the best 5th SP to have, but he isn't bad. I'm really hoping one of my 3 upside pitchers (Bailey, Rzepczynski, Masterson) steps up and breaks out. Wade Davis was another I could have had and I may regret not taking him.

Sure I have some injury candidates in Chipper, Vladi and J.D. Drew, but the three of em are filling up my two UT spots. They all produce when healthy and I feel I can do well mixing and matching. Drew gives me OF depth (.914 OPS), Vladi could produce a profit playing in Texas and Chipper helps protect my 1B and 3B investments and could be a good trade chip when healthy and productive. My closer situation isn't too pretty, but I do have 3, potentially 4, closers. I prefer quantity rather than quality when it comes to my saves. Eventually Gregg will lose the job to Frasor, I mean cmon. In the meantime, I can use the Holds.

Maybe I reached for Napoli a little bit, but the OPS is great, he's having a good Spring, isn't dealing the shoulder issues from last Spring and is on the upswing of his career. I like the Power he possesses. Maybe I'll regret not waiting to take Jorge Posada later and maybe I missed out on Wade Davis, but if I do sulk over these picks and my team ends up not taking home the gold, I'll always have a place to go to drink my misery away. Happiness is just a Flaming Homer awayyyy. no comments

Are you buying the Tommy Hanson hype? I do believe some sabre nerds could be missing out of a great pitcher because of perceived luck in his BABIP, HR/FB% and LOB%.

I may be tempering my enthusiasm for Tommy Gun because I already have him on my dynasty team, so there is no need for me to camp out in front of stores to acquire his services. Then again, it's hard to not buy into the hype when you read stuff like this:

After excelling with three high-quality pitches as a rookie, Tommy Hanson has improved his fourth, the changeup, to the point where he’s confident throwing it in almost any situation. This is bad news for hitters. “It’s a lot better pitch now, and I’m a lot more confident with it”. Hanson already had a mid-90 mph fastball, devastating curveball and good slider, and upgrading his changeup gives the 23-year-old right-hander something softer to keep hitters guessing, particularly left-handers. He threw it last season, but wasn’t confident throwing it in some situations. Hanson worked on his grip with the pitch during the offseason and this spring, and has seen big improvement.

It's nice to see his only negatively valued pitch (1.6 runs below avg) improving and that he has something better to offer Lefties. Hanson's WHIP vs LHB was 1.52, compared to his 0.86 WHIP vs Right Handed Batters.

As for his 2009 numbers and "lucky stats", Hanson pitched four months and posted a boner inducing 11-4 record, 2.89 ERA, 1.18 WHIP with 116 Ks in 127.2 Innings Pitched. As a 23-year-old rookie, those are amazing numbers, but did he deserve them? His xFIP was 4.03, his BABIP was .280 compared to the league avg of .303, he stranded runners at a 80.3% clip (league avg was 71.9%) and he posted a 6.9% HR/FB% (about 4% below the league avg).

No sabre stat is perfect and I know that xFIP normalizes some stats, including HR/FB%. However, some pitchers do have the ability to maintain a HR/FB% below league average. In some cases we can say forget xFIP. Why do I think Tommy can maintain such a low HR/FB%? He's been doing it with his BABIP, so we know he has the ability to not allow batters to square up and make solid contact on his pitches. The last time Hanson had a BABIP above .290 was in 2006 Rookie ball (.308).

Hanson improved as the season progressed. In June his K/9 was 5.59 and his BB/9 was 5.28. This did not last long, his K/9 went up to 6.47 in July, 10.41 in August and 9.92 in Sept/Oct. Hanson's BB/9 fell to 2.53 in July, 1.95 in August and 3.23 in Sept/Oct. People who expect his 8.18 K/9 and 3.24 BB/9 to improve are probably looking in the right direction.

So what do we have? A rookie who experienced some luck and will experience some regression or a once a decade stud muffin who defies logic? Could he possibly be the 4th Hanson brother? Did he ghost write MmmBop? All I know is that he's 23, has plus control, great strikeout ability and 4 plus pitches. Batters and sabre nerds have a hard time figuring out what to expect. I'd draft Hanson with confidence and wouldn't be afraid to help reduce his 80.66 ADP. Close your eyes and pull the trigger on Tommy Gun. I originally had him slotted 19th in my SP ranks, but I'm finally coming around and I'll bump him up, maybe 13th, maybe even higher... I'm trying not to go too crazy tho. no comments

Want a free copy of MLB 2K10 for the game system of your choice? An Evan Longoria Fathead Jr? A Buffalo Wild Wings hoodie? Roto Experts has a contest and you gotta Fight For Your Write. Create a draft strategy from their Free Draft Kit, describe how you used their insight to get a leg up on the competition and claim your prizes. The winner will have their work published on the Roto Experts website and I think I already know who is going to win... MDS. Below you will find an excerpt from the soon to be winning article.

Fight For Your Write is an obvious play on the Beastie Boys, so picture Mark Strausberg and Chris Carbonell sitting on a couch talking about the contest, when MDS busts down the door with his size 13 boot. KICK IT!

"I have read all the great information provided by the Roto Experts staff and created the best eva draft strategy. I'm going to draft Joe Mauer in Rd 1 and draft another Catcher in Rd 2 and 3. The position is so shallow so I will have major trade bait after the draft. The guy who drafted Albert Pujols will come crawling to me and I’ll give him Russell Martin straight up for Prince Albert. In Rd 4 I will address Saves, going with KRod or Brad Lidge. KRod set the record not too long ago and Lidge was perfect in 2008. I can't miss! In Rd 5 and 6 I will draft Stolen Bases. I’m thinking these Rds are the perfect time to draft Juan Pierre and Willy Tavares. In 2003 Juan Pierre stole 65 bases, eat your heart out Carl Crawford. What! What!"

and it goes on from there. You have 2,000 words to best MDS. Good Luck.

A contest I actually want to win is Fan vs Wild with Bear Grylls. I've been camping in the Boundary Waters, solo style, for over 40 days so hiking, climbing and swimming with Bear wont be tough. I'm hoping for being stranded on a tropical island with plenty of coconuts, wild pigs and native women. I might not come back. no comments

MDS will be talking with Aaron Murray from Roto Savants for his Roto Rundowns podcast show. Aaron will be representing Roto Savants in the infamous Blog Wars league. He will let me gush over Jon Lester and we'll also talk auction league strategy. I'll link to the show when it's posted. For now, you can check out previous episodes...

[Roto Rundowns #1] Snake draft strategy

[Roto Rundowns #2] w/ Troy Patterson, sabre stats and player evaluation, Votto vs Gonz Solo no comments

As a sex crazed, self-proclaimed expert who has a passion for baseball and enjoys having fantasy affairs with one minor leaguer each season; I think I'm developing a soft spot for Crush Davis. Yes, the same Crush Davis who struck out in 38.4% of his At Bats and hit .238 last season for the Rangers. I almost wish it weren't true, but people do crazy things for love and a Third Baseman.

I know the Strikeouts are a huge cause for concern, but hang with me for a minute. He was striking out around 23%-26% in the minors; so I would think his major league K Rate would be near 30% initially and slowly get a little better. That's basically what happened in 2008 after his call up. In 2009, Davis was horrible and was sent down to work on his approach in an environment with less pressure. When he did come back, he hit .318 in Sept/Oct. This was with a .385 BABIP so let's not go believing he is a .300 plus hitter now, but he did cut the K Rate down in a big way. In March/April, Davis struck out 48.6% of the time. Every month after that he was able to improve the K Rate; 45.3% in May, 40.2% in June, 36.4% in July, 34.8% in August and 25.5% in Sept/Oct.

When Davis was sent down he was hitting .202 with 15 HR and 114 Strike Outs over 258 At Bats. During his time in AAA, he was able to cleanse his mind and work on his swing. He felt more comfortable, was seeing the ball better and made much needed adjustments. The results were pleasing; he hit .327 and struck out 39 times over 164 At Bats (23.8%).

So far this spring Davis has been impressive, even receiving praise from Ron Washington. Through 26 At Bats, Davis has hit .538 with 4 Strike Outs (15.4%). If you extrapolate that over the course of a full seaso.... just kidding, but what does MDS expect from Crush in 2010? I feel confident projecting a .270 AVG with 28 HR. Not bad numbers for a 1B/3B/CI at his 154 ADP. I'd really like to have him at the Corner Infield spot backing up a ARod, Longo, Pablo type 3B with his dual eligibility, but if I miss out on the top guys, I would feel comfortable with Crush manning the hot corner. In leagues with low replacement rates (deep leagues), I'd take Chris Davis over Chipper Jones (ADP 136).

If do you do select Crush, just dont draft Brandon "Nuke/Meat" Morrow too (take that Starbonell). Those two will be fighting over women and Crush will be tipping pitches. Plus no one wants to see Morrow in the clubhouse wearing women's underwear. Just don't tell Crush that his Spring Training stats are try outs for your team. He doesn't try out and he doesn't believe in quantum physics when it comes to matters of the heart. no comments

Salfino is going crazy people. Blackball and blackmail are just a few of the words he is throwing around after the latest Smackdown episode. Apparently I'm an amateur and notorious heckler who literally says, "debate me or I'll trash you." Maybe he didn't get the memo that I AM a self-proclaimed expert. He even goes as far to say we'd be implicit equals. I find that to be very offensive; he can't drag me down to his level.

What a funny dude. It should be known, I am the reason he created a twitter account and you can read all the juicy gossip [@RotoAction], where he basically wrote more than he would have needed to write in a response to my views of J.A. Happ. I'm pretty sure he didn't get paid to write that either. no comments