Pitching

From 2008 Cy Young Winner to Early Round Draft Pick in 2009?

The news that Tim Lincecum and Cliff Lee won the Cy Young awards for the AL and NL respectively brings a nice finish for fantasy baseball managers lucky enough to draft either of these players.

(Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press)

In Yahoo fantasy baseball drafts, Lincecum probably went in rounds 8 or 9 and Lee may have gone somewhere around the 15th round.  In one of my leagues, Lee wasn’t even drafted.

So does that mean fantasy baseball managers should push these guys up to elite status in their 2009 fantasy baseball draft?  Not so fast.  Let’s take a look at some of the historical data supporting this argument.

The Ultimate 2008 Fantasy Baseball Draft

Based off of Yahoo Sports’ average draft positions, imagine if this was the fantasy baseball team drafted at the beginning of the 2008 MLB season.  Assume a standard 5×5 rotisserie scoring system.

Fantasy Baseball Case Study: Streaming Starting Pitching

Last week I wrote about how to overcome fantasy baseball pitching injuries. One of the recommendations was to stream in starting pitchers in order to take advantage of the right match-ups.

Here is a look at 3 starting pitchers (and the results) I picked up over the course of last week, based on match-ups and statistics, to compensate for a weak pitching roster.

5 Tips for Getting Fantasy Baseball Pitching Help Through Injuries

In recent weeks I’ve lost Shawn Marcum, Adam Wainwright and JJ Putz, all on one roster. I’m only running with 2 starting pitchers there right now and the rest of my staff is on the DL or the minor leagues.

If you can stomach the anxiety and work through injuries, take solace in the fact that losing a starting pitcher may not be as bad as it seems. With a bit of investigative analysis and probably a bit of luck, here are a handful of tips to keep in mind when looking for mid-season help with your fantasy pitching roster.

2 Baseball Injuries That Never Seem To Go Away

There are injuries that cost a player the entire season. There are injuries that make the casual baseball fan laugh in amusement.

Ryan Zimmerman (Photo: The Canadian Press)

And then there are injuries that end up lingering through the season, never seeming to heal and always impairing the performance a fantasy manager hopes for.

• For hitters, it’s a shoulder injury.
• For pitchers, the elbow is the culprit.

5 Closers to Avoid & 5 Waiting in the Wings

Closers are a necessary evil in fantasy baseball because aside from the elite (the Jonathan Papelbon’s or Joe Nathan’s), they are only essential for one scoring category: the save.

Team managers often have to sacrifice reasonably good rounds in the draft at the start of the season to ensure they can fulfill that category.  If you lose your closer to injury (Chad Cordero, Jason Insringhausen, etc), the low level of contributions (in 2007, closers with at least 11 saves only pitched an average of 64.4 innings) get even lower.