Manny Machado

Profile: Manny Machado went through the usual rookie struggles last season. He was far too much of a free-swinger, walking in just 4.5% of his plate appearances. He did show solid power, hitting seven home runs in 202 plate appearances, and he has a track record of adding value on the basepaths. He’s a good bet to be in a full-time role next season, but it will probably come at third, where Machado would have much less value. His value would increase substantially if he moved over to short, where he could be a fringe starter in most leagues. He’ll be just 20-years-old this year, so he may need more time to adjust to the majors. He might not become a star next season, but he’s still on the path to be a very promising player in the future. His positional eligibility will play a big role on whether he’s worth a mid-round pick, and J.J. Hardy is still under contract until the end of 2014. (Chris Cwik)

Quick Opinion: Machado is far more valuable as a shortstop, but is slated to play third next season. At just 20 years old, he can’t be expected to perform like a star immediately, but his potential makes him an intriguing late round pick.

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Jarrod Saltalamacchia

Profile: Of the 193 players to post at least 400 plate appearances last year, only seven had a higher Three True Outcomes percentage (walks + strikeouts + homers divided by PA) than Saltalamacchia’s 45.09%. Looking strictly in the catching realm, only Mike Napoli had a higher TTO% than did Saltalamacchia. Staying among the catchers, we find that of the 18 that posted at least 400 PA, only two hit more homers than did Salty, which points to him being a potentially valuable commodity. But unfortunately for him, there are generally at least four other categories, and in those he fared poorly — 11th in runs scored, 13th in RBI, 17th in batting average and tied for dead last in stolen bases. This makes him a generally poor play in linear weights leagues like ottoneu, and a potentially odious play in standard 5×5 leagues. Also clouding Salty’s outlook is his playing time in the coming year. He may be squeezed by Ryan Lavarnway and David Ross, and potentially Mike Napoli as well. Salty could also eventually be traded, but even if he manages to equal his 2012 playing time, he’s unlikely to help your team all that much. (Paul Swydan)

Quick Opinion: A Three True Outcomes beast, Saltalamacchia doesn’t have enough success when he does put the ball in play to be a great fantasy option. If all you need from your catcher is home runs, he’s a decent play, but if all you need from your catcher is home runs then your league is weird.

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Fernando Abad

Profile: For lack of a better pun, Fernando has been pretty Abad thus far in his major league career. In 88 games (six starts) for the Astros, Abad has thrown 84.2 innings with a 1-11 record, a 5.09 ERA and a 1.559 WHIP. Abad now finds himself with an invite to Spring Training with the Nationals. At the end of last season, Abad had a few starts with the Astros and unsurprisingly he didn’t pitch all that well, but most of the damage occurred in the fifth inning (six earned runs in two innings) when Abad’s stamina was likely an issue after pitching out of the bullpen for the entire season. While Abad might be better suited for a fantasy razzball team, he is a lefty and there is a reason fathers joke about forcing their sons to only use their left hand. Abad’s handedness should give him another chance at the major league level, and it might occur this season for the Nationals. But of course, the chances aren’t too high that he will be any Agood. (Ben Pasinkoff)

Quick Opinion: Whether it’s starting or relieving, lefty Fernando Abad has a chance to make the the Washington Nationals’ opening day roster.

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Armando Galarraga

Profile: After walking more batters than he struck out in an inauspicious stint with the Astros’ big league club last summer, he was outrighted to Triple-A and currently has no value even in the deepest of leagues. (JP Breen)

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Darren O’Day

Profile: Darren O’Day is a great under the radar relief pitcher for 2013. First, he is good. Taking out his 2011 season when he spent time on the disabled list for his shoulder and hip, the 30-year-old righty has had an ERA under 2.30 in every of the last four seasons. To go with the low ERA, his career WHIP stands at 1.06 and he also owns a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3.4. The K/BB stood at 4.9 last season. The Orioles used O’Day exclusively as the eighth inning set up man over the last month of the season with him getting a hold in each of the last five games in which he appeared. Nothing points to Johnson losing the closer role before the start of the season, but pitchers get hurt or blow up. O’Day looks primed to be a closer and he can generate some great counting stats in the mean time. (Jeff Zimmerman)

Quick Opinion: Darren O’Day is lights-out as Baltimore’s setup man and could step in if Jim Johnson falters as the closer.

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Tyler Austin

Profile: The New York Yankees’ outfield prospect Tyler Austin deserves a top-100 ranking. Just how high is up for discussion, though, as Austin’s not the impact offensive talent he’s reported to be. This often happens to Yankees prospect who receive a turn in the hype machine. Austin projects as a .275/.330/.475 player in his prime. And while that level of production is good enough for deeper dynasty leagues, it’s also possible to acquire veterans who produce those totals now — and you could do so while spending less than Austin’s current prospect value. If I were an Austin owner, I’d be looking to sell high. (Mike Newman)

Quick Opinion: Austin should be rated highly when compared to the entire group of minor league prospects in baseball, but he might also be highly over-rated because he also belongs to the group of Yankee prospects.

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ZiPS. Marcel. Bill James. Cairo. PECOTA. Steamer. These are not the names of my pet hamsters. They are the names of some of the most well-known baseball player projection systems out there. All of them derive their forecasts by throwing various historical data into a blender and spitting out a projected performance line. These systems are pretty darn good, but for the most part, very little is shared about the formulas that make up their guts. So at some point, you might get that urge to begin projecting players yourself, rather than rely on these systems that are unaware of injury issues or changes in a pitcher’s repertoire, for example.

For over 10 years, I have projected players myself for use in my local fantasy leagues. As such, I have never projected any non-fantasy statistics such as hitters walks, doubles, triples, etc (which is why I don’t mention them below!). This is how I do it.
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Some clichés are unique to the hometown announcing team — The White Sox’s TV voice, Hawk Harrelson, has one for every possible occasion, though some announcing teams are a little more judicious with their use — but there are also truisms that are far more widely used throughout the game. Some have been around so long, they don’t even seem like clichés anymore, they’re just part of the vocabulary of baseball.

By and large, as long as the repetition doesn’t bother viewers too much, these common turns of phrase are relatively harmless, though many of them assert truths that may not be quite right. Routine groundballs are seldom exactly that and may give viewers an unkind view of fielders who have trouble corralling them even if the particular grounder in question was anything but routine, for example. That particular turn of phrase is virtually impossible to test on any sort of larger scale.

One phrase that a number of broadcast teams have used – likely all of them, though I cannot assert that with certainty – occurs when one of the team’s faster runners reaches on an error by one of the opposing infielders. “They know he’s so quick coming out of that box” the color man might quip. “His speed forced the defense into that error!”

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An auction is still an auction. No matter your settings or your belief system, an auction requires a number of fantasy managers to sit down and bid fake money to buy real players for their fake teams. And so there are aspects of preparation that are common to all auctions — thence the first part of the title.

And then, once you have the basics down, it’s time to start considering the nuance. How will you divvy the money between your position players and your pitchers? What sort of player talent distribution will you favor? When do you throw guys you like? And guys you don’t? That’s where the ‘strategies’ come in.

Either way, let’s get going. We’ll start with the stuff that every auction manager should do. And then we’ll give you the options you should consider once you have the basics down.

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We’re calling this lesson a 401 because it’s not going to be a “101” as in, “this is a snake draft and you should do your homework to prepare, fill in the bubble, and turn in your sheets,” but it’s also not a graduate level seminar where we can all sit around in the Socratic method and pontificate each individual inquiry. So a 401 it is.

Some quick ground rules before we dive in.

The target audience is primarily those of you that are in simple points or standard 4×4 or 5×5 rotisserie style fantasy baseball which use the love-it-or-hate-it snake draft to select players. The most common leagues are found on CBS, Yahoo!, and ESPN. And just for any of you 101’ers out there, a snake draft is where you have a draft slot, 1-12 and then it “snakes” back so that the person with the first pick also gets the 24^th and the last person gets the 12^th, but also the 13^th. Rinse, lather, repeat. There are a variety of opinions about what the best draft slot might be but we’re not going to worry about that right now.

I’m going to use my own personal approach from the 2012 draft, and as such, I’ll be referring to players where they were most commonly valued back in March of 2012, not for your 2013 draft. This is designed to serve as a model, not to tell you who to draft this season. There will be a thousand of those articles for you to pour over in the coming weeks. This is also very heavy on the draft preparation side, and not in the “be prepared” vein but in trying to give you some tools to set up in advance that will help you keep a straight head on draft day.

Off we go.

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