MDS,

You say Cain, Lilly, and Guthrie are inducing weak contact. Can you tell me what mechanically they do different to cause this?

We know pitchers with high groundball rates increase the chance of generating groundballs through downward movement and location. How do these other 3 pitchers(all with very pedestrian groundball rates) increase the chance of generating weak contact in the air?

Absolutely. Lots of manager are going to think price is a $25 player. Might as well use that leverage.

(grrr it ate my original comment)

So here's my reasoning for using normal, seasonal ADP. It's not to tell you when to draft a player, but whether or not a player on your roster should be redraftable if you let him back in. Snider's coming in at 200+ right now, so I highly doubt if Billy tosses him back in that he'll suddenly get snapped up within the first 50-80 picks. I'd rather take that chance letting him go, and having that early pick in Round 7 to possibly snipe a guy like Grady or Brett Anderson--injury risks that probably got thrown back. ADP serves one great purpose: it really is the consensus of over half of your league's perception of a player. I think you can easily apply that to any format.

As for using the picks on these younger dynasty players? I agree you absolutely have to consider it. However, I think you need to reserve that for younger players that have unquestionable potential. 6-10 keepers still has a good amount of turnover, so I don't think you need to horde "margainal" fantasy prospects.

If Billy was sitting on Moustakas, Carlos Santana, Daniel Hudson, Desmond Jennings, or Jeremy Hellickson, I would have easily named any of those players as guys for him to lock up. With no real penalty for "contract length" in this league, there's no reason not to.

I just don't see Max or Snider having that real impact potential. Scherzer (even though he's a SABR supporter so i love him) doesn't really seem to have much of a ceiling outside of a low end #2. Snider had a bunch of what if potential, and hasn't really shown that much yet. Both of these gusy are re-draftable, Scherzer much less. He'll probably go within the first 20-30 picks, but even if Billy saves himself one round, that's not bad. Even better, he might be able to snag a similar pitcher who's an upgrade over the long term. I'm pretty confident Brett Anderson will be available. I would definitely take the risk to swap them.

I'm afraid to go all in on Snider, so I couldn't pull the trigger on that. I do think reconsidering Strasburg is something I'd have to look at again. He fits that "dynasty" type player you can wait on, even though at best you might get 8 starts out of him this year. if you have a similar format, and you have a young player you really like who's ADP may not sync up, there's no harm keeping him

For the few margainal guys I looked at though, I didn't see that potential sitting there.

As for his team contending.. I really try not to look at a team and say you HAVE to commit to a rebuilding period pre-draft. Every team can get destroyed (or helped) by fluky injuries during the year. One thing Billy shoudl make sure he does is have some chips to toss around early if he doesn't end up having the star power to keep going. I want to make sure I still put him in the best chance to succeed right now. Some shrewd early draft picks can give him that edge, or can end up being trade bait later on. If his team does fade, I'd would immediately start shopping David Wright.

I wouldn't be surprised if Texas gives him DH and 1B at bats, similar to how the Tigers use Victor.

That is the biggest hurdle, and I hadn't mentioned it, so I'm glad you did. That's one of the big risks to jumping on this bandwagon.

Matt,

His 23.5% HR/FB rate was exceptionally and probably pie in the sky crazy in 2008, but his 2010 was actually an improvement from 2009 jumping from 16.5% to 19.3%, with only a negligible amount of less fly balls.

While his walk rate has slowly dropped, his strikeouts seem to be more predictable, and his line drive percentage has continued to improve. There's nothing about Napoli that screams "Time to Sell". Don't forget his drop in OBP was also greatly affected by his 50 point drop in BABIP. That .238 average looks more like an outlier than a trend.

Regardless of my feelings towards Napoli and the $86M waste in Vernon Wells, here's why I give the Angels so much grief: Jeff Mathis is absolute garbage at the plate.

Unless he's the reincarnation of Ozzie Smith at Catcher (and he's not) there was no reason for them to pin their hopes an dreams on have when they have a possible budding talent at catcher. Mathis is getting the shot because that's Scoscia's type of player, not the burly BB/K/HR guy.

I've always been a Napoli believer. I really hope he gets a chance to really show off in Texas and doesn't somehow get locked in any bit of a playing time share with Torrealba.

Ballsy, Aaron.

I have Adrian as the next 1B to take after Pujols, and the "Away Stat" argument is what I'm going all in on as well. I'm excited to see what a full year away from PETCO can do for a hitter who is unquestionably beefy on the road. Add in 81 games in Fenway, and I can easily understand the lofty possibilities.

My stance on Adrian is if I'm picking 3rd or later and he slips to me, I'll take that gamble. This isn't a gamble like CarGo where you hope last year's numbers won't regress (even though they should) to a late 2nd early 3rd value. This isn't taking Cabrera and knowing exactly what you'd get with his past 3 consistent seasons.

I'm willing to risk getting another 2010 out of Adrian for a shot of unquestionable greatness. i think that gamble is easily worth picking him 2-5 picks too early than he should (I think his ADP right now is 8).

I normally don't get worried about a hitter switching leagues, regardless of direction.

First, we have the argument that he's facing new, unfamiliar pitchers. I think this argument goes in both directions. The pitchers have never seen him, and scouting reports on what/where/how to pitch to him are lacking.

While the National League, as a whole, has a more favorable league-wide performance than the AL (check the xFIPs over the course of the 2010 season for all teams, the NL clearly looks better), they also are facing 1 less "real" hitter per game.

Even doing a quick sort by xFIP for all players, I see this for 2010:

1. R. Hallday
2. F. Liriano
3. A. Wainwright
4. J. Johnson
5. T. Lincecum
6. C. Lee
7. F. Hernandez
8. J. Lester
9. Latos
10. Gallardo

If not for Cliff Lee switching leagues, that'd only a 6/4 advantage on the top 10. If you instead take the average from 2008-2010, it's a 5/5 split, even with Cliff Lee switching leagues.

Now, I'd have to do a much more in-depth study on this, but honestly I think what's more important for evaluating Gonzo's potential is going to be how 81 games in Fenway, and 9 games in LHB homer-happy Yankee stadium affects Adrian's output.

As for NL West vs AL East pitchers, that may be something to look into.

That's good. Even more incentive to load up on offense early.

Kevin,

O/U on steals for Castro? Does he have 35+ in him?

Dennis,

While you're correct that Rios doesn't have many current comparables for us to draw a good conclusion from, I think his retention cost (7th) is an extremely high price to pay. In a keeper format like this, I shy away from most single-digit rounds unless these are truly elite or safe plays. That's why i barely considered him. If Chris said he could keep, say, Robbie Cano at a 7, I'd recommend him(If Cano was say, maybe a 4 or a 5 though, I would consider looking elsewhere). To me, formats like this usually benefit from trying to squeeze whatever I can out of those draft spots.

So, onto Prado. I don't disagree at all with your analysis of Prado's abilities. He's definitely the low end of a top 10 guy. My grade (while harsh, and maybe I should have explained my rationale a little more clearly) is more based on this "what return can I get for this guy" idea.

Here's how I picture it. Let's say Chris holds onto Prado instead of Hudson. He's now sitting on Ubaldo, who we expect to regress, and Morrow, who should be a bounce back candidate. However, he's lacking one detail that made me think he's more suited to hold onto pitching: He's not holding a truly elite bat.

Formats like this usually let you sneak an elite bat in at a very reasonable price(I, for example, have Carlos Gonzales for 2011 as a 16th rounder in my local league). While I consider Santana "elite" at C, he's not elite in a vacuum, and I bet lots of top offensive players are being retained. I can picture Chris' offense starting off much further behind the pack than his competition.

As I mentioned earlier, if he 100% has a shot at Hanley Ramirez(or Tulo), I think the Prado selection is ok. This basically locks up C, 2B, and SS with two elite players. He then can punt MI and just pour his entire draft budget into as much power overload as he can.

But in general, based off ADPs from last year, 2B really didn't have many sleepers(in the terms of people really cheating ADP). The elite players went at expected values, and I doubt any of them will be retained. Even if Dan Uggla got drafted 8th in Chris' league, a manager would be silly to retain him for a 5th, only one round above his ADP.

By holding onto 3 solid pitchers, I honestly think Chris could completely ignore pitching for the majority of his first 10 rounds, and be able to recoup the offense he's lacking since there are definitely going to be teams with bombs like CarGo in later rounds. If he keeps Prado, he's probably drafting at least two pitchers by round 7. I'd much rather just draft maybe one elite pitcher early, and then overload my offense after. Early ADP, tome, looks like lots of value with offense rounds 3-7, and a ton of pitching value in rounds 7-12.

Prado is a C to me because I'd rather try and draft a much more productive 2B bat in Rounds 2-5 (Utley/Cano through Uggla), then hold onto Prado and roll the dice with those Round 4-5 pitchers.

Anyway, that's my reasoning behind it. Maybe I shouldn't have shied away form the more detailed explanation. Hopefully you didn't mistake my reluctance to retain Prado as a knock on his abiltiies. I just think with a keeper selection, I want more than 15/5 in an optimistic year. In that case, I'll side with the upcoming pitcher and overload my bats in the draft.

Thanks for writing, Dennis!