For those who chose to put either closer Kerry Wood or set-up man Bobby Howry on their roster and failed to spread a little Marmol-laud on their fantasy roster this season, you may come to regret that decision.

For those of you believe Kerry Wood outpitched all the possible Cubs closer alternatives this spring, consider the statistics.

Chicago Cubs (Inside the Numbers)

While I’m a believer in Marmol well before his Opening Day line of three K in 1.1 innings, his control remains an issue (case in point his spring walk total). The dark horse is Michael Wuertz, who has more of the complete package of typical closer skills than anyone in the Cubs pen, including Wood. Unfortunately the Cubs don’t seem to realize what they have in Wuertz and it make take a trade to another team for the fantasy value of the 29-year old Wuertz to be better exploited.

Despite his first blown save of the season, Wood still seems to have a stranglehold on the Cubs closing job for the foreseeable future. That said, it’s a situation that his fantasy owners should monitor closely and if they don’t have Marmol and possibly Wuertz on their roster, consider changing that.

In case you missed my post earlier this spring on White Sox youngster Alexei Ramirez, you should check it out. At that point in camp it was far from certain that he would have a regular role with the team or even make the roster. Now there are reports that he has made the Opening Day lineup and will start in center field.

”He earned it,” Sox manager Ozzie Guillen told the Chicago Sun-Times Saturday before the Sox’ last exhibition game. ”It was a real tough decision between Brian [Anderson] and [Carlos] Quentin, but ‘The Cuban Missile’ got it. I think this kid has a great chance to be special. I think he did everything he was supposed to do to be on the ball club and in the lineup.”

The real question is what happens to Brian Anderson, Carlos Quentin, and Jerry Owens. Owens was a player who seemed locked into a lineup spot and while he played reasonably well, he wasn’t healthy enough to play up to his full potential. The report seems to indicate that as long as Ramirez continues to play at least as well as he did this spring, the job is his indefinitely. Count me among the believers.

It’s been a few days since the news of Kelvim Escobar’s shredded shoulder emerged. There is a fine write up of this news over at Disabled List Informer that should shed some light on the situation for you. If you want my take on the injury, all you need to know is I removed Escobar from my player rankings entirely. There is NO league format in which I would recommend you draft him.

Just want to direct your attention to the updated player rankings as we head into the most popular weekend for fantasy baseball drafts! Good luck to all in their drafts and/or auctions!

Since it seems highly unlikely that the same crew of contributors won’t send their favorite bust this week (they’re prepping for baseball drafts), it seemed logical for me to write up what is likely my last Sleeper Showdown of the spring given the close proximity to Opening Day of the non-Japanese variety. If you saw last week’s reader’s sleepers, you recognize the fact that shortstop/second baseman/third baseman Yunel Escobar is becoming something of a popular sleeper. ESPN currently has Escobar and the Diamondbacks’ Stephen Drew ranked 18 and 17 respectively among shortstops, confirming the fact that these two players are both sleepers, and expectations for the pair are very similar.

SS Yunel Escobar, Braves (2007)

SS Stephen Drew, Diamondbacks (2007)

Drew obviously has the edge in terms of family pedigree, right down to the inability to stay healthy–2007 was the first year he was able to play at least 150 games. He was downright awful in the first half of last season, hitting just four bombs while striking out 57 times in 306 at bats. Despite those struggles, he’s just 25 and it’s worth noting that his underlying skills rebounded nicely in the second half, particularly spikes in his fly ball rate, walk rate, and batting eye.

Escobar emerged last season and made enough of an impact to convince the Braves to deal Edgar Renteria in the offseason. While Renteria is gone, as is promising SS prospect Elvis Andrus, the Braves have a talented young shortstop prospect in Brent Lillibridge, who has performed well this spring and is poised enough to challenge Escobar for playing time. Reasons why that might not happen is the fact Escobar hit .336 with four homers, 17 doubles, and 39 runs scored after the All-Star break. Despite a slide in his contact rate, his fly ball rate, walk rate, and batting eye all improved after the break. What this all amounts too is a highly unlikely probability that he maintains an average above .290 ever again, but some tempting power potential that could suggest a 20-25 homer season is in his future.

This showdown is a tough one to gauge since both hitters are just 25 years old and have a few kinks in their game to iron out. At this point, the only category Escobar significantly distanced himself from Drew in was batting average and the numbers suggest that may not be a trend in coming years. Since I owned Escobar last season I think my heart really wants to choose him to win this battle, but the reality of the situation is he’s edged out by Drew. That’s right, I FAVOR STEPHEN DREW IN THIS SHOWDOWN by a very narrow margin. The deciding factor for me is that only two National League ballparks are more friendly to left-handed hitters, particularly when it comes to hitting for power. It may seem like a small factor in this showdown, but it’s a very significant one in my mind.

My column this week over at Mock Draft Central is up and now that the Line of Questioning series is complete, I took this opportunity to dig deeper into a discussion I was having with a friend in one of my leagues about how easily it is to make up ground in certain categories in our rotisserie league. You’ll find the article linked above and pasted below.

REFLECTING ON THE NUMBERS

Hillary and Barack aren`t the only people debating lately. I`ve been deep into a discussion with another owner in one of my leagues about the different methods of player evaluation and trying to hone in on the most effective way to do so as we prepare for our 5×5 rotisserie leagues. This has raised a couple very interesting questions regarding how certain stats should be factored into your draft prep and I want to address those inquiries.

The first idea in question was if it`s tougher to make up ground in batting average than it is the other traditional 5×5 roto stats (HR, runs, RBI, SB). Many fantasy owners are scared to take on the low batting average of a slugger like Adam Dunn, because it`s so difficult to make up ground in an indirect percentage-based statistic like average, but isn`t it just as difficult to play catch up in a direct, simple cumulative stat like home runs or RBI. So first I wondered what the average numbers a fantasy team in a standard 5×5 mixed rotisserie league need to accumulate to win the league and thankfully the fine folks at Baseball HQ have done that research for me. The numbers would obviously vary based on the number of teams and size of rosters in a specific league, but years of research have suggested the following numbers should be goals for a fantasy team chasing a championship.

This begged the question, “Well, how many hitters reach certain milestones in some of the categories we`re discussing here?” We can argue about the benchmarks for these categories, but I think the numbers I picked make sense based on the goals established by HQ above.

While the numbers above suggest there are fewer significant sources of stolen bases, I`m skeptical this means we need to aggressively chase any source of 20 or more swipes. Why? The goal totals suggested by HQ claim you need fewer SB to be competitive than you do homers, RBI, or runs. Where the argument with my buddy heated up was to what extent we should use multipliers to weigh stolen bases or homers in a formula we plug into our projections. I told him to tone down the stolen base multiplier because keeping it as aggressive as he had it, would discount home runs. The other difference I saw was that if you chase guys who are putting the most balls over the fence, you are essentially going to benefit (to a certain extent) in three categories: homers, runs and RBI as opposed to just one in stolen base. After some additional discussion, my buddy was on board.

We`re getting slightly off task here… back to why average is harder to make up than homers or steals. If your team starts the season with a month or two of a paltry batting average, it will be difficult to make it up by the end of the season. Why? Consider the fact that the average player`s batting average over the last five years is .269. I contend that if you have a handful of average players and your team is hitting .270 or below, you`re not going to make up much ground by adding a couple .275 or .280 hitters. You`ll need more than a couple .300 hitters to pull that team average up in time to make a difference, hence, my decision to add the .300 column above. There are obviously much fewer .300 hitters than there are 20 homer or 75 RBI guys.

What should we take from this? Let me assure you that I don`t evaluate which hitters to take by batting average, homers, steals, runs or RBI. I look to stats like Contact rate, Fly ball rate, On Base plus Slugging Percentage (OPS) and Batting Eye. It`s nearly impossible to forecast potential player performance using batting average which is where these sabermetric stats come into play.

-Contact rate measures a batters ability to get the head of the bat on the ball by subtracting their strikeouts from their at-bats.

-Fly ball rate can forecast possible power outbursts because if a player is hitting the ball in the air, all the need is a bit of luck and a few minor adjustments to their swing to make more of those outs, homers.

-OPS combines the two main ingredients of offense in the ability to get on base and the ability to move base runners around those bases.

-Batting Eye is one of the stats I like the most because it tells me how well a player does at distinguishing between balls and strikes.

It`s important to note that using these types of stats focus more on skills rather than past results. If a player owns a certain skill set, he is likely to produce better or worse in coming seasons. Stats like batting eye and contact rate can shed light on a player`s skill set and you can start to project the way a hitter is trending in something like batting average or power. When it came down to it, I think I swayed my buddy a bit, though I hope it wasn`t enough to change his draft strategy to closer resemble my own as I don`t need additional challenges at the draft table this weekend.

Before I dig deeper into this post, I should profess the fact I’ve never been an Adrian Beltre fan. It seems like he’s a one year wonder who put up an incredible year in 2005 with the Dodgers and has been largely average in each of his other nine seasons. It’s not as if I needed another reason to move him down my rankings, but yesterday, I got just that.

Beltre will play the 2008 season with torn ligament in his left wrist.

“If I had known that in October, I would have had surgery,” Beltre told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Monday. “But it was December when I found out about it. If I had surgery then, I would have missed a month now, maybe two. So I didn’t have surgery.”

Beltre will now attempt to make it through the entire 2008 season before having surgery, which should be challenge considering he continues to have pain in the wrist. While it’s promising that the injury hasn’t gotten any worse, it doesn’t get a chance to heal since he’s trying to play through it.

“It hurts to hold the bat; it hurts every time,” Beltre added. “There’s always pain.”

What a ringing endorsement. The reality of the malady is that the problem is exactly where the bat sits in his left hand, between the thumb and forefinger, and right-handed hitters like Beltre generate all of their power with the left arm. It’s tough to say what to expect considering his best season in 2005 came despite bone spurs in his ankle that made it so difficult for him that he had to adjust his stance at the plate. He’s played through injuries in many of his seasons and it’s certainly a positive sign that he’s hit reasonably well this spring and done so without the injury getting worse.

Consider me among the skeptical. He plays half his games in a pitchers park and the majority of his fantasy value comes from his ability to produce decent power numbers. It’s pretty hard to generate power with a bum wrist, making topping last year’s 26 home run season nearly impossible in my mind.

Despite a strong showing this spring, the Rays optioned uber third base prospect Evan Longoria to Triple-A Durham on Monday, putting an end to the rampant speculation on whether or not he would make the roster out of camp. Longoria was disappointed with the decision, but seemed to understand.

“It’s a tough thing to swallow; just going to go back down and keep doing what I’m doing,” he told the St. Petersburg Times. “There’s a lot of reasons for it, but it’s not really my say on that. It’s what the front office has to say and they made the decision.”

Despite being just 22 years old, Longoria was not overmatched against major league pitching, hitting .262 with three homers, 10 RBI, and 10 walks. Rays management made it clear from the beginning that there would be many factors weighed in making this decision, but the popular opinion is the Rays didn’t want to start his arbitration clock a year early. On top of that, they insist they’re handling this situation without regard to how other franchises have dealt with their prized prospects, but with the recent demotion, one can’t help but draw comparisons to the Brewers handling of Ryan Braun last season.

“It was a tough decision; it’s something that was a collaborative process and we spent a lot of time thinking about it,” Rays executive VP Andrew Friedman told MLB.com. “It wasn’t a unanimous decision. It’s one of those things I think with the way he played this year and the way he carried himself his timetable has been expedited even in our minds.”

While most fantasy owners don’t like it, this is the right decision for the Rays. If they keep him in the minors a mere three to four weeks it would delay free agency until 2014–something that could be key in keeping a very talented young crop of hitters together through what could be the Rays most competitive years.

For a keeper league owner like myself, I love it when something like this happens to an overhyped player prior to my league draft because I truly believe it knocks the value of that player down a bit. I consider it a reality check of sorts. If it means owners in my league are unwilling to take Longoria early (I consider 15th round or earlier to be too early in my upcoming 40 round keeper league draft). I think in this case Tampa’s loss is both Triple-A Durham and fantasy owners’ gain at this point.

EDITORS NOTE: Oh yeah, and not uber prospect Willy Aybar is penciled in at third base until Longoria is “ready.” Aybar is spanglish for “nausea inducing player you don’t want on your fantasy roster.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, the battle for the Cubs closer spot may be in it’s final round (contrary to the belief of some in the Chicago Sun-Times, the winner of the battle has yet to be named).

Kerry Wood struck out two of the three batters he faced in Saturday’s spring exhibition with the White Sox and could officially be named the closer on Monday after he’s scheduled to toss one more inning against the Padres on Sunday.

“This will be a real nice test for him, because he’ll pitch back-to-back days and three out of four days, and that’s as good a test as you can give anybody,” Cubs manager Lou Piniella told MLB.com. “Hopefully he’ll come out of it fine, and we’re in business.”

Wood tossed one inning on Thursday after back spasms forced him to miss a previously scheduled outing. His anticipated outing on Sunday will fulfill the requisite consecutive days that Piniella wants to see to judge someone worthy of the closer role. This spring, the battle for the job has been between Wood, Bob Howry and Carlos Marmol, but Piniella has hinted the setup pitchers need to be more durable than the closer. Most notable is the fact that Wood has not walked a batter in nine innings over nine games.

As an owner in keeper league I was obviously pulling for a youngster like Marmol to win the job, but he clearly hasn’t pitched as effective as Wood this spring. It feels like fantasy owners and experts alike are getting a bit complacent with the success that guys like Wood and Harden are enjoying this spring and it seems we are a bit quick to dismiss their War and Peace-thick injury file. Despite the upside each hurler possesses in their respective roles, I’ll take a pass when they’re passed around the auction or draft table.

In Friday’s Cactus League game between the Royals and Mariners, we may have seen the first step towards the fantasy value of third baseman Alex Gordon getting a boost. He batted third and went 1-for-3 with a two-run homer off M’s ace Erik Bedard.

Shortly after Trey Hillman was hired to be the new Royals manager ths offseason, he scratched out a lineup that penciled face of the future of the franchise (Gordon) in the seventh spot, leading to riots in the greater KC area. That may be a stretch, but it’s tough to convince the loyal fans of a franchise that has just three seasons above .500 in the last 17 years that it’s a good idea to put the player who has the potential to be the best hitter you’ve had since George Brett so far down in the order.

“It doesn’t matter,” Gordon told MLB.com. “Wherever they put me, I’m going to be the same player–third, seventh, it really doesn’t matter. “You’re going to have runners in scoring position more when you’re in the three-hole, so you’ve got to step up a little bit more.”

I’m sure Hillman appreciates Gordon’s willingness to assume whatever role the team wants him to, but he’s not exactly correct in his statement. Over the last three seasons, the Royals No. 7 hitter has produced 63, 63, and 70 RBI while their No. 3 hitter has driven in 79, 91, and 102 runs.

It does seem quite possible that last year’s No. 3 hitter Mark Teahen (hit third 113 times last year) could swap spots with Gordon, who has hit from the three hole in eight of the last 11 spring exhibitions and seems comfortable in the role. Obviously most fantasy owners are overlooking Gordon because of last year’s hiccup and prospect flavor of the season in Evan Longoria, but it seems like more than a casual suggestion that he could be hitting third in the Royals order. That’s enough reason for fantasy owners to upgrade the face of the Royals future.