The Milwaukee Brewers made two big acquisitions this winter, adding starting pitchers Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum to their rotation in a bid to contend for the National League Central crown. Most analysis is focused on how well they’re going to pitch, but another key question is this: Can they hit? These two should provide a significant upgrade on the mound, and having two quality arms behind Yovani Gallardo in the rotation may give the Brewers the lift they need to get over the hump. However, the chances of the Brewers’ success hinges not just on how the new guys pitch, but how well they can adjust to life in the National League, where pitchers also have to bat.

Last season, the Brewers held a huge advantage over the rest of the league in offense produced by their pitchers. Led by Gallardo and his four home runs, the Brewers’ pitching staff hit .207/.249/.280, or just a little bit worse than the worst-hitting regular position player in baseball last year, Cesar Izturis. Being less productive offensively than Izturis is rarely a compliment, but when compared to the futility of other pitchers, Milwaukee’s performance looks positively Ruthian.

If you exclude the Brewers, the average line put up by an NL pitcher was just .137/.170/.167. Milwaukee trounced that, and its Weighted On Base Average of .239 was 83 points higher than the .156 wOBA of its competitors. With each team’s pitchers accounting for about 350 trips to the plate, the differences can really begin to add up. Greinke and Marcum are coming over from the American League, so we don’t know how they handle the stick. If they hit like typical pitchers, as opposed other Brewers pitchers, then Milwaukee stands to lose a decent amount of production on offense.

Below are the best and worst offensive performances from pitchers among NL teams in 2010. wRAA is Weighted Runs Above Average (or in this case, below average, since each team is in the negative compared to a league average hitting position player). Believe it or not, having a staff of good hitting pitchers can make an enormous difference.

The Good
1. Milwaukee Brewers: .239 wOBA, -23.9 wRAA
Gallardo was the second-best hitting pitcher in baseball last year (behind only Dan Haren), and his .363 wOBA was the same as Jay Bruce’s. Chris Narveson also brought some offense to the table, hitting .327 and posting a .365 on base percentage. He didn’t hit for any power, but he got on base enough to be a valuable offensive performer. Randy Wolf and Manny Parra didn’t embarrass themselves either, giving the Brewers some legitimate offense from the No. 9 spot in the lineup nearly each day they came to the park.

2. Arizona Diamondbacks: .207 wOBA, -33.7 wRAA
As mentioned, Haren was the star here, putting up a .364/.375/.527 line that was on par with what Luke Scott did for the Orioles as a DH. The D-backs lost some punch when they dealt Haren to Anaheim, and although Ian Kennedy and Barry Enright were respectable at the plate, Arizona got some awful performances from Rodrigo Lopez and Joe Saunders.

3. New York Mets: .191 wOBA, -36.6 wRAA
While the Mets didn’t get much offense from big bat acquisition Jason Bay, a couple of newcomers to the rotation managed to provide some offense from the bottom of the order. R.A. Dickey‘s breakout wasn’t limited to his knuckleball, as he hit .255 and struck out only eight times. Perhaps more impressively, Jon Niese drew eight walks in 66 trips to the plate, getting halfway to A.J. Pierzynski’s season total despite the catcher having 400 at-bats.

The Bad
1. Los Angeles Dodgers: .113 wOBA, -60.6 wRAA
Talk about a total team “effort” … Vicente Padilla and Chad Billingsley were the best of the worst, but the entire staff failed to hit. Clayton Kershaw and Hiroki Kuroda combined for just five hits — all singles — between them, while Jon Ely and Ted Lilly weren’t much better. Overall, the pitching staff managed just 24 hits, with only two of those going for doubles, and no home runs all season. It’s no wonder the Dodgers led the league in sacrifice bunts from their pitchers.

2. San Francisco Giants: .127 wOBA, -58.2 wRAA
While the Giants’ pitchers helped lead the team to a World Series title, they didn’t help their own cause very often in the regular season. Madison Bumgarner was the only member of the rotation to beat the league average line for a pitcher, and as a group, Giants pitchers drew fewer walks than Niese did by himself.

3. Philadelphia – .136 wOBA, -56.5 wRAA
The Marlins and Pirates posted worse overall lines from their pitchers, but wRAA accounts for the fact that the Phillies’ stadium is a pretty good place to hit — unless, of course, you pitch for the Phillies. We shouldn’t be surprised that AL escapees Roy Halladay and Joe Blanton aren’t much with the bat, but Roy Oswalt is a lifelong NL pitcher and he was just as useless at the plate.

Given that a team can add one win to its expected total for every 10 runs, the gap between the Brewers and Dodgers was worth nearly four wins in the standings last year. With two AL pitchers joining the group in Milwaukee, don’t expect a repeat performance. If Marcum and Greinke struggle as many pitchers do when switching leagues, they could give back a significant amount of their value at the plate. The Giants showed that you can win despite bad hitting pitchers, so this doesn’t necessarily spell impending doom for Milwaukee, but it is something they will have to account for this year. For all the gains the Brewers will make in terms of run prevention, they’re going to give some of that up on the other side of the ball.

Closers are a volatile crew. As many as a third lose their job from injury or poor performance from year to year – the Small Sample Size Blues if you will. If your league has jettisoned the save statistic, call yourself lucky to avoid the headache that is chasing saves all year.

If you aren’t so lucky, then you know the perils of punting, or even the risks of being cheap when it comes to your bullpen. If you spend on Brian Wilson, you get consistency and statistics that are great when compared to others at his position. There is such a thing as value over a replacement closer, and that’s probably worth paying for.

But, as with most rankings, there must be tiers. There will be a cheaper top-end closer and a more expensive mid-range closer, and you know which one you want. So let’s try to separate these guys into their respective groups. Get it sorted, right?

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Eno Sarris has submitted to this high-quality publication a list of rookies whom he believes might be of some use to fantasy owners this season. While I certainly respect Mr. Sarris’s able analysis and all-around expertise in the fantasy arts, I also harbor an irrational sense of confidence about my own prospecting skills.

To that end, I submit this: a full fantasy team’s worth of players who still possess rookie eligibility (i.e. no more than 130 ABs or 50 IP in the Majors), but who’ve appeared neither on any iteration of Baseball America’s previous top-100 prospect lists or, because BA’s 2011 edition of same doesn’t come out till late February, Keith Law’s 2011 top-100 list.

While I make no claims about potential playing time for any of the following, it’s my feeling that the players below — were they promoted and given playing time — would outperform the players on Eno’s list.

With a view towards standing by my claims, I’ve challenged Mr. Sarris to a bet. I don’t know exactly how we’ll determine the victor — probably using MLEs or something — but I can tell you for sure that the loser buys the winner a beer at Ron Shandler’s First Pitch Arizona event in November.

May the best nerd win!

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There’s nothing quite like the siren song of the prospect. Like with Christina Ricci in Buffalo 66, their youth can be exciting and yet vaguely uncomfortable to depend upon. Of course, sometimes you end up in jail or at the bottom of the standings.

Prospect lists are nice. This list is about players that will help this year. You don’t have to be in a keeper league to reap the rewards of drafting a high upside rookie for your bench. Just remember that most debuts don’t look like Jason Heyward’s, so don’t spend too many resources on these guys.

Oh, and to spice things up, Mr. Cistulli and I have put together a wager: his Bad News Bears against my Scout’s Darlings. I’m not nervous. Or, maybe I’m not not nervous.

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Fangraphs’ injury expert Jeff Zimmerman takes an in-depth look at how injuries could impact key fantasy players in 2011, and what you should consider before drafting them.

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Consider Adrian Gonzalez. No doubt, he has been an impact player – both on the field and for fantasy owners – over the past three seasons. Gonzalez is sixth among first basemen in homers over that stretch, along with ranks of ninth in AVG, sixth in runs and sixth in RBIs. Now, with Gonzalez’s winter move to Boston, the possibilities appear endless. After averaging 35 HRs per season, could an escape from PETCO mean 50 homers? Could a cleanup spot in the stacked Red Sox lineup mean 120 RBI after an average of 106? Indeed, every available projection system suggests that the highly favorable situation for Gonzalez will increase his performance across the board, potentially making him one of the top three fantasy first basemen in the game.

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Each team in baseball opens the year with half a dozen or more storylines that will determine how its season will play out. But some go beyond Player X staying injury-free or Player Y reaching the next tier. So, here are some of the big-picture items to look at as the 2011 season unfolds.

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When you go into a fantasy draft, you almost certainly have a shopping list of sorts. However, you are on a limited budget, and won’t be able to draft the best 22 players on your draft board, so you make sacrifices for the greater good. For some people that means waiting until the very end to find a catcher, and for some that means relying on some starting pitchers with upside in the last few rounds. Below are four scenarios and strategies you will likely recognize, and a couple of players that will help you cross something off your list.

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The sophomore slump has long been a thorn in the side of fantasy owners. Chris Coghlan, the 2009 NL Rookie of the Year, went from a .321 AVG with 84 R and 47 RBI as a freshman to just a .268 AVG with 60 R and 28 RBI as a sophomore, thanks in part to a knee injury. His AL counterpart, Andrew Bailey, saved almost the exact same number of games in 2010 (25) as he did in 2009 (26), but threw 34.1 fewer innings because of elbow and trunk issues. Geovany Soto went from a .285 AVG and 23 homers as a rookie to just .218 and 11 the next year. The list goes on and on.

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Is Mat Latos a keeper? How about Jason Heyward? Or Steven Strasburg? Nick Punto?

I think most people would say, “yes, yes, yes, no” but truthfully all four players could be a “yes” or “no” depending on the rules of your keeper league. Frankly, any player in baseball from Albert Pujols to Cesar Izturis could be a good or bad keeper depending on the league.

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