River Avenue Blues

RAB Fantasy Football Update

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Back in August, a few of us casually brought up the idea of starting a fantasy football league, and an idea that went from “yeah, it sounds like it’ll be a nice hobby” exploded into a massive 20-team league with more than enough trash talk to go around.

Having this many teams means that resources are scarce. Free agency and the waiver wire are basically barren, backup QB’s are at a premium, and third string RB’s are often trade targets. My original roster has undergone quite a facelift, although it hasn’t helped much.

Gone are Rashard Mendenhall (injury), Kevin Faulk, Dennis Northcutt & Joe Jurevicius, replaced by John Carlson, Bobby Wade, Justin McCareins & Harry Douglas. That’s how scarce decent players are. Vince Young’s meltdown has forced me to start Chad Pennington, and Todd Heap’s suckiness threw Carlson into a key role. San Diego’s defense is sorely missing Mr. Merriman, as is my team. Michael Pittman’s been a Godsend, covering for Ryan Grant, who’s allergic to the endzone.

My top two players are Brandon Jacobs & Calvin Johnson, scoring 72.10 & 65.20 points, respectively. The second tier includes Pennington, Pittman, Kevin Walter & Antwaan Randle El, all of whom are in the 53-60 point range. I own exactly one of the top 52 point getters in the league, and just four of the top 65. It’s shaping up to be a long season, unless VY starts performing like he’s playing USC every week.

Standings after the jump. If any of the other teams want to chime in, leave your two cents in the comments (if I missed a link to someone’s site, let me know).

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Scouting the Yanks in Hawaii

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Thanks to loyal RAB reader Bryan for sending along this tidbit last night….

Jason Grey, a graduate of the MLB Scouting Bureau’s Scout Development Program and two-time Tout Wars champ is scouting the Hawaii Winter League for ESPN. In yesterday’s entry, he offered up his takes on two Yankee pitching prospects, Andrew Brackman and Jeremy Bleich.

We know a lot about Brackman’s pitching style already. He’s tall; he throws hard and has some plus breaking pitches. Grey offers up his take on Brackman’s efforts as he rehabs from Tommy John surgery. He likes Brackman’s seldom-used slow curve as a surprise out-pitch and offers up some encouraging reports on Brackman’s rehab:

He’s still battling his mechanics, keeping his delivery too closed at times, and is having the predictable command issues that occur after a ligament replacement in the elbow, but the important thing is his raw stuff has come back, and the 22-year-old could start moving quickly next season. He profiles as a potential front line starter.

The other Yankee pitcher — lefty Jeremy Bleich — was another first-rounder. Drafted this year, Bleich will move through the system as a starter. Grey, however, sees him as a reliever at the big league level:

His fastball was clocked between 88 and 91 mph with easy arm action, and he coupled it with a potential plus pitch in an upper 70s curveball. Though he has a changeup, he put it in his back pocket for his first outing. He had some command issues, leaving the ball up in the strike zone way too much, but if nothing else he profiles as a solid bullpen arm in the big leagues, and perhaps more if he can find more consistent command.

I’m more excited to see what Brackman can do, but it’s great that ESPN is providing readers with a non-Insider blogger covering the winter leagues. The Minor League-obsessed masses will eat this right up.

Pudge might get Type A status

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We’ve got a ton of afternoon content in the pipeline, but I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss Ivan Rodriguez’s free agent status. I was thought that he’d get the Type B label, and that the Yanks wouldn’t go through the pain of offering him arbitration, only to have him accept and saddle them with a hefty contract for a declining player. Eddie at Detroit Tiger Thoughts whipped up his reverse-engineered Elias Rankings, and it appears Pudge could be a Type A. This complicates matters.

You can head over there to find out the entire reasoning, though as Mike said after reading it, “my head hurts.” Eddie puts the probability of Pudge garnering Type A status at 80 to 90 percent. If that’s the case, is he worth the risk?

Yanks won’t renew Meacham’s contract

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According to Ed Price of the Star Ledger, the Yankees will not renew the contract of third base coach Bobby Meacham. There was considerable criticism of Meacham this year, as he made a few obvious blunders early on. On Baseball Prospectus yesterday, Steven Goldman took a look at the Meacham situation, concluding that the Sox and Rays made more outs-at-home blunders. It’s tough to break this down by numbers, though, since not every situation is the same. We saw Meacham blow what should have been obvious calls, and have therefore called for blood. Today, we got it.

Musings on Marte’s Type A status

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Last week, we ponedered the Damaso Marte question. The Yanks, long in the hunt for an effective lefty out of the pen, hold a pricey $6-million option on Marte. Last week, I advocated re-upping with Marte. It is, after all, only money.

Today, we introduce a new wrinkle into the debate. Eddie Bajek released his Elias rankings for relievers, and Marte seems to have earned himself Type A status. (Of note is Kyle Farnsworth. He didn’t even garner Type B status. We’ll find out about Pudge later today.)

Bajek speculates that the Yankees will decline Marte’s option. I don’t agree with this conclusion, but the Type A status makes things interesting. If the Yanks let Marte go and if they happen to sign two or three Type A free agents this year, they recoup the draft pick they lose by letting Marte go.

Now, I know a lot of Yankee fans and analysts are high on the idea of getting more draft picks. After all, if you throw enough things against the wall, something’s going to stick. But I approach draft picks more guardedly than that. Simply put, draft picks are an unknown quantity. The best can’t-miss prospects miss, and the guys in the later rounds that some team takes a flyer on becomes an All Star. Having more picks in the first round just gives a team like the Yanks a little more margin for draft error.

But the Yankees have another advantage: They have a lot of money. They have money to spend on Major League-ready free agents; they have money to spend on international free agents. If they miss out on one of their draft picks because they feel Marte — or a similar player — has a role to fill at the Big League level, then so be it. They’ll just snap up the next best guy on the international scene.

This news about Marte’s status isn’t surprising. It just adds one more dimension to the decision Brian Cashman and Co. will have to make in three or four weeks, and on this one, I don’t really know the answer. I like Marte’s stuff, and I like his left-handedness. But if the Yanks opt to safeguard some draft picks, I can’t argue with that decision either.