Ah, Fantasy Baseball. You time suck. Masticator of mornings, nosher of nights.
Did you know that more Americans obsess over their fantasy lineups than their own family? It's true. I looked it up.
Did you know that my fool-proof system of randomizing my strategy every year finally worked last year and I won hella leagues? Do you care? Probably not. But I'm going to waste your time telling you about my fantasy strategy anyway. The first and only rule you need to know as a Giants fan when playing Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball is
DO NOT DRAFT GIANTS!
"But Bryan, I love the Giants. Certainly more than your words of wisdom. Definitely more than my own family (second only to Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball, of course). I have no intention of listening to this terrible advice," you'll say.
Fine! Ignore the first and only rule you need to know as a Giants fan when playing Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball.
The last time I drafted a Giants player was 1999, when I drafted... BARRY BONDS. And he got hurt and that was that. Never again, I said. Never. Again.
We already kill ourselves watching each game. Why add the drama and pressure of Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball standings to another 1-0 Padres game?
But okay, you're committed and you hate me for suggesting this. I suppose the least I could do is try to give you some guidance. We all have a general notion of who the best players are, so that's not really difficult:
PLAYER
R/W
HR/K
RBI/ERA
SB/WHIP
OBP/SV
Buster Posey
78
24
103
1
.408
Matt Cain
16
193
2.79
1.04
0
Madison Bumgarner
16
191
3.37
1.11
0
Pablo Sandoval
59
12
63
1
.342
Tim Lincecum
10
190
5.18
1.47
0
Hunter Pence
87
24
104
5
.319
Angel Pagan
95
8
56
29
.338
Sergio Romo
4
63
1.79
.0.85
14
Brandon Belt
47
7
56
12
.360
Ryan Vogelsong
14
158
3.37
1.23
0
Top ten players based on Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball O-rank:
Posey (29), Cain (34), Bumgarner (48), Sandoval (53), Lincecum (109)
Pence (118), Pagan (142), Romo (136), Belt (184), Vogelsong (186)
I decided to dump everything into one table for the sake of simplicity. These are the most typical categories anyway. Some thoughts on this list:
Pablo's injury situation is a bit tricky and I think that his health should be considered when drafting. Pence could have a meaningful season for the Giants and another pretty okay season in terms of fantasy. In both these cases, though, you can find value elsewhere. It certainly depends on what categories your league might have, too.
People and Yahoo! underestimate Ryan Vogelsong at their peril.
I like Pagan if your league includes slugging percentage or even a triples category, and I love him if you're in an NL-only league. But if I were to pick a player or situation that could prove to be a fantasy bust this year it would be the entire Giants' outfield. It's possible Pence provides more offense than RBI next season. It's possible Angel Pagan is able to play 154 games, but drafting anyone in the Giants' outfield seems like a big risk. There are definitely more "sure things" out there.
On the other hand, Brandon Belt could be a late-round or low-bid first baseman who could really break out this year. Hot spring stats, a more confident-sounding player... all the makings of a break out. If your league uses OBP he has value and you can actually get some stolen bases out of the 1B position which is really nice. Power might not really be there for that position, but OBP and stolen bases and an overall better line in terms of RBI and runs will cover the lack of home runs.
Finally, I'm in a league that's doing SAVES + HOLDS as a category. Romo may not get every save chance and he may not remain as the de facto closer all year, so a category like this is really great for the majority of the Giants' pen. Casilla and Affeldt are sure to get save chances and they'll certainly come in for holds, but even a guy like Kontos and even Javier Lopez could get you numbers here if you're desperate.
It's tough to prognosticate the fantasy values of players and you see that I really just talk out what I think could happened based on what information I have and my experience from watching baseball and playing fantasy before (NO GIANTS!).
You can certainly look at Grant's community projections for some of the players (Crawford, Torres, Pence, Romo, Pagan, Scutaro, Belt, Zito) as this series is still ongoing (also, if I've missed some of these, link in the comments below). See also Grant's post discussing the Giants' PECOTA projections (or subscribe to BP, you animal) or FanGraphs' positional rankings or Dan Szymborski's ZiPS projections.
But really, don't draft Giants. Don't jinx the season. Do draft Clayton Kershaw, because he helps you in three possible ways: 1) you get a dominate pitcher 2) jinx his season or 3) lord it over Dodgers fans who might be in your league. Win-win for a Giants-loving Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball player.
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