Roster Doctor 05/18/09

Welcome to THT Fantasy’s Roster Doctor. If you’d like your team to be analyzed by one of our fantasy baseball experts, please send your full roster to
. Also be sure to include your league’s player pool (mixed, AL-only, NL-only), number of teams, scoring format (roto, head-to-head, points, etc.), categories, whether or not it’s a keeper league, and any other pertinent information. If your roster is selected it will be analyzed in a future Roster Doctor column.

Player Pool: Mixed
No. of Teams: 12
Categories: Traditional 5×5 with OBP replacing Avg.
Scoring Type: Head-to-Head
Other notes: none
Roster:

C: A.J. Pierzynski
1B: Mark Teixeira
2B: Ian Kinsler
3B: Alex Rodriguez
SS: Rafael Furcal
OF: Carlos Lee
OF: Andre Ethier
OF: Matt Kemp
UT: Adam Lind
BN: J.D. Drew
BN: Yunel Escobar
BN: Scott Rolen

SP: James Shields
SP: Erik Bedard
RP: Scott Downs
RP: Mike Gonzalez
P: Joe Beimel
P: Roy Oswalt
P: Jon Lester
BN: Ricky Nolasco
BN: Edwin Jackson
DL: Ervin Santana

It should be noted that Alan recently acquired Lester and Bedard. I have to say that I love the acquisition of Lester, as he is a great buy-low candidate right now. His BABIP is a ridiculously high .389, he is striking out a ton of hitters (10.34 batters per nine innings) and his 3.06 BB/9 rate is in line with last year’s rate (2.82 BB/9). He’s giving up a few more fly balls this year (39.4 percent FB%) and an astounding number of those fly balls have turned into home runs. While HR/FB rates tend to hover around 10 percent, Lester’s HR/FB rate this year has been a whopping 18.5 percent (compare that to his career rate of 9.3 percent).

I do like Bedard but I am actually trying to trade him in one of my leagues. While I definitely like his skill set, I am a little concerned about his inability to stay healthy for an entire year. He has thrown over 175 innings only twice in his career, and over 140 innings only three times. In fact, he has already missed one start due to an injury, and though the injury wasn’t pitching related and isn’t considered serious, it still serves as an example of his fragility. I can’t imagine his value being any higher than it is right now, so my advice would be to trade him as soon as possible, before a seemingly inevitable trip to the disable list.

Another guy I would look to trade is Shields. His 3.98 ERA looks a little better than it really is, as his strikeouts are down and his walks are up, and his FIP is currently at 3.79. On the other hand, I like Nolasco, as his BABIP is at .387 and his FIP is nearly 4.5 runs lower than his ERA.

It looks like this team is doing fairly well in the power department, especially with A-Rod back. Its pretty clear, though, that stolen bases is a category this team will have difficulty winning on a weekly basis. I’d check the waiver wire for guys like Juan Pierre, Michael Bourn and Randy Winn. While I may not play them all the time, its still nice to have that speed option when you are up against a team who is also struggling with stolen bases.

For the hitters, I would try to trade Lind. He’s shown improvement this year, but it looks like he has nowhere to go but down. He is currently sporting a .366 BABIP, and ZiPS is projecting 13 more home runs for him. I’d try to trade him now as it seems like unlikely that his value will be any higher than it is now.

This team isn’t bad, and I’d expect this team to compete every week. When this roster was emailed to us 10 days ago, it was sitting in fourth place. It has some nice trade bait, and I think with the proper trades, this team could eventually work its way towards the top.


2 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
William
14 years ago

I have Bedard and his proneness to injury has been scaring me as well. Who would you say is a decent return for him in the trade market?

Alan
14 years ago

This is my team.  Since I’ve emailed this I have traded Shields, Oswalt, and Escobar for Lincecum and Stephen Drew.  I also dealt Lee and Lind for Bradley and Aramis Ramirez.  I hopefully bought low on Bradley before an offensive outburst, and was attracted to Aramis’ potential obp boost to my team come playoff time.

Now I’m just trying to get rid of Furcal, my worst draft pick since Chad Cordero last year