Top Twenty Outfielders for 2008

You want to know where to draft the top twenty catchers – here. While you’re at it, here’s the top twenty 1st basemen, 2nd basemen, 3rd basemen and shortstops. Also, our Player Rater for 2007 is here to give you some prospective. But, really, the position that has you here is the top twenty outfielders for 2008. Without further ado:

1. Matt Holliday – See our top ten overall where Holliday ranked fourth.

2. Grady Sizemore – See our top twenty overall where Sizemore ranked 13th.

3. Carl Crawford – See our top twenty overall where Crawford ranked 14th.

4. Alfonso Soriano – He’s 16th overall, see his projections here.

5. Carlos Lee – 17th overall, see his projections here.

6. Alexis Rios – I went out on a limb and placed him 18th overall, see why here.

7. Vladimir Guerrero – 19th overall, see why here.

8. Nick Markakis – I obviously love Markakis as I admitted here. Miguel Tejada left the Greek God of Roto, so what now? Well, he didn’t have him for thirty games last year and actually hit better during that time. Projections: 100/27/115/.300/20 with the skill set to go above and beyond these numbers.

9. Carlos Beltran – I don’t know how he’s been able to make everyone look the other way, but Beltran is a .270 hitter with 25/20 skills. Good, but he’s not a top twenty overall player where he usually gets drafted. Maybe it’s his resemblance to Ricky from My So Called Life. Projections: 100/27/110/.270/18

10. B.J. Upton – See the top twenty 2nd basemen for his projections.

11. Ichiro Suzuki – The new manager of the Mariners, John McLaren, challenged Ichiro to hit .400, steal 80 bases and a staring contest. Ok, I made up the staring contest. I’ve never had Ichiro on a team. I stay away from guys whose number one benefit is a high average. More than likely, you only need a .280 average for your team to finish in the top three in your league. What, are you gonna turn your average points up to an eleven? But there is a place for Ichiro on a fantasy team, if coupled with Adam Dunn, Troy Glaus and Chris B. Young. Projections: 110/10/65/.330/45

12. Lance Berkman – See the top twenty 1st basemen for his projections.

13. Bobby Abreu – I rode Abreu’s second half last year to a title in one of my more important leagues, so maybe I’m prejudice. Then again, I rode Braun, Peavy and a host of others. Anyway, Abreu’s in a good lineup for runs and RBIs and won’t kill you in home runs and average while chipping in decent steals. I’m a believer. Projections: 120/15/110/.310/20

14. Curtis Granderson – In the same post about why I like Markakis, I broke down why I didn’t like Granderson. He’s too much of a free swinger for my taste, so I won’t have him on my teams, unless he falls way down from where I’ve been seeing him get drafted. Projections: 115/27/85/.280/25

15. Adam Dunn – Go ahead and guess Dunn’s age? Wrong, he’s only 28 for the ’08 season. It’s the 320 lbs. that confuses people. I’ll probably get reamed for putting Dunn this high, but follow along, he’s got a great eye and he’s hitting 40 homers and getting 100 runs and RBIs without question and he chips in some steals. Also, as players get older, their averages tend to get better. Projections: 100/45/110/.265/7

16. Eric Byrnes – Let me start by saying, I’m not drafting Byrnes this year. He’ll be overvalued/rated. But if the hype gets high enough on him, maybe the tide will shift and he’ll be underrated by draft time. (I’m seeing this begin with Braun in the reverse direction. Everyone started very high on Braun for ’08, and now people have begun to get cold on him.) I think Byrnes can get you decent numbers, just don’t draft him thinking you’re getting more than last year. You will get less. Projections: 90/20/75/.270/20

17. Torii Hunter – Torii landed on a good team for running and a crappy team for offense. (Celebrity Deathmatch: Billy Beane (the straight one) vs. Mike Scioscia) The word on the streets of The OC is Torii is going to be protecting Vlad. Well, who’s going to be protecting Double I? The Rally Monkey? Either way, I think Torii’s good for 20/20, act accordingly. Projections: 85/25/100/.275/20

18. Magglio Ordonez – Saw something the other day about Mags. It said he won his 1st batting title in ’07. Thought it was weird it said “1st” as if he’s going to win a second. He’s not a bad hitter; he’s just not going to hit .363 again. Since so much of his value last year was tied to his high average, be very careful drafting him. Projections: 100/30/110/.300

19. Corey Hart – He ran like a demonfish in the first half (mostly against righties) and kept consistent power and average throughout. As much as I feel weird saying it, I think Mr. Hart is here to stay. His OBP against righties is kinda icky, but you know who else is like that, Double I. That’s right, Corey Hart is the white man Torii Hunter. Projections: 95/22/75/.280/25

20. Brad Hawpe/Ryan Spilborghs – With only twenty outfielders listed (will do a second half to the outfielders at a later date), I wanted to reach a bit for number 20. Hawpe will be sensational this year and not hit lefties. He sported a .418 OBP last year against righties. Grab Spilborghs for next to nothing and platoon them yourself, cause Spilborghs had a .426 OBP against lefties. Hawpe/Spilborghs combo projections: 105/35/110/.300/5

After the top twenty, many obviously, but one name to absolutely avoid:

Jason Bay – I broke down various reasons to avoid him here. You may feel like he’s a bargain coming off a bad year, but he’s doesn’t run anymore, his lineup protection is from hunger and he compares to Bobby Higginson. Do I have to say more? Projections: crap/crap/and more crap.

But let’s end on a positive note. Someone I’m absolutely giddy about:

Shane Victorino – Last month I wrote about Victorino here. He’s Eric Byrnes seven rounds later. You’re welcome. Projections: 115/15/60/.280/40

Tomorrow, the top twenty starting pitchers to draft.

OTHER FANTASY NEWS:

Friday Recap and Hate Mail

With this past Monday being the last day to WGA picket for 2007 and no Project Runway this week (Sweet Pea!), there was plenty of time to write fantasy baseball blog posts this week and since it’s Friday, it’s time to recap. If you’re thinking to yourself, “Why are you making this sound like a regular feature of your blog when you’ve never done it before?” because it will be a regular feature, now stop pointing out the obvious and let’s recap.

The week started off with Jeff Francoeur being dissected. He was gutted, splayed out under a harsh fluorescent and picked apart for answers. What we found wasn’t pretty and Frenchy was rejected.

Next we turned our eyes to Eric Byrnes, a man I could see saying, “I hate Arizona’s lack of vegan restaurants, but please don’t say I said so -- I’m a fan favorite!” and Shane “Mahalo” Victorino. They were propped against a wall and analyzed. One came out on top, one came out with curly hair and they both undoubtedly smoke pot.

Then it was onto Jason Bay, the most vanilla baseball player since the 1950s. I picture the Pirates doing a stage rendition of “Far From Heaven” with Bay in the Quaid role. But I digress. Jason Bay had a miserable 2007, but next year can be a fresh start… though we predict that it will be more of the same.

Finally, we tried to understand Manny and his career trajectory. Does he have one good year left in him? Why do you do what you do, Manny? We looked at historical data, yearly statistics, career averages and then, finally, we made a few broad assumptions. Face it, Manny’s an enigma wrapped in a pupusa.

Now we leave you with a piece of Earl Weaver-style hate mail from one loyal reader… No, we didn’t get any hate mail this week, but I doubt that’s because everyone agrees with us. Feel free to troll, flame and be spiteful as all get-out in the comments section. I was beaten as a child and I could use the love. Thanks and flame on, flamer.

OTHER FANTASY NEWS:

Eric Byrnes vs. Shane Victorino

In 2007, Eric Byrnes had a career year, cashed out with a huge contract and became the first white spokesman for Soul Glo. Shane Victorino had a productive year, but was injured, costing him just over twenty games. Eric Byrnes will invariably go before Shane Victorino in 2008 fantasy baseball drafts, but should he?

Let’s look at how dramatically different 2007 was for Eric Byrnes compared to other years. His seasonal averages are 85/19/68/.267/23. Last year his numbers were 103/21/83/.286/50. He had a career high in runs, RBIs, steals and bested his seasonal average of homers. So when it’s said he had a career year, it's not an exaggeration. And if you’re just hoping to get at least steals from Byrnes, his previous high in steals was 25. Don’t get caught up in the perception that he’s on the rise. He was 31 last year. Sure, he hustles, but he always hustled and he didn’t always put up decent numbers. Maybe he finally feels like a part of organization with Arizona, but he was there in 2006 and he only stole 25 bases. Last year was a great year to have Byrnes, that doesn’t mean 2008 will be. Don’t compound your error of missing Byrnes last year by taking him this year.

Shane Victorino should be at the top of the Phillies lineup next year, which means 100 runs without blinking. His speed is obvious. Last year he had 37 steals in 131 games with only 4 times caught. His power is surprising and, in that ballpark, he’s good for 15 homers if he plays an entire year. His average is not a negative, after batting .285 combined in his first three years with the Phillies. He’s only 27. Just about the only thing Byrnes will definitely eclipse Victorino in is RBIs and that’s simply a result of where they will be batting in their respective lineup.

Finally, the most exciting thing about Victorino, he will be drafted after Byrnes in your league. Remember, always go for value over the name.
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How Do You Value Fantasy Baseball Hitters?

Part 3 of How Valid is the ESPN Player Rater?
By Senior Contributing Writer Rudy Gamble

In two previous articles (part 1 and part 2), we’ve laid out alternative views for judging the most valuable player in 2007 5x5 MLB fantasy baseball (we say Peavy) and for pitchers – using and abusing the ESPN Player Rater in the process.

In this article, we’re going to focus on valuing hitters. The questions we will tackle are:

1) What is the value of each hitting stat?
2) How does position depth/scarcity affect a player’s overall value?
3) How does our approach to hitter value compare against the ESPN Player Rater?

To download our player rankings for 2007, please click here. To view the ESPN Player Rater.

What is the value of each hitting stat?

Our approach towards valuing player stats is to look at two factors: 1) the difference between a player’s statistics and those provided by the best available option (BAO) on the free agent wire (which would take position depth/scarcity into account) and 2) the impact that stat difference might have on a league’s standings (ambivalent to position).

We’ll set position scarcity aside for a second to look at the composite stats for the BAO hitter in 2007: 67 Runs / 14 HR / 65 RBI / 6 SBs / .277. The closest player equivalent to these stats is Luis Gonzalez.

We used the final standings of our fantasy league to understand the impact of each statistic by looking at the standard deviations between teams’ totals. While it would be better if we had more league standings on which to base these standard deviations, we still feel this is superior to building ratios off team averages because it takes into account that some statistics have larger percentage gaps between teams vs. others. This is most evident when looking at HR vs. SB – while the average team in our league average 1.69 HRs to 1 SB and the BAO has a HR:SB ratio of 2.33:1, the observed impact on a team was actually 1:0.77 or that a HR has more value (not even counting the R/HR/RBI/AVG implications) to a team’s rank in the standings than an SB.

The ratio for these stats based on our analysis was: 3.3 Runs / 1 HR / 2.8 RBI / 1.3 SBs / .003 AVG. Points are credited based on these ratios (a point actually equals the above ratio * 4.6) after subtracting the BAO's stats.

Okay, let’s do two comparisons to show this works in action.

Eric Byrnes (103 / 21 / 83 / 50 / .286) vs. Miguel Cabrera ( 91 / 34 / 119 / 2 / .320)

This is an interesting one as it asks that inevitable question – how much are SBs really worth? Is it worth the addition 48 SBs to sacrifice those HRs, RBIs, and AVG that Miguel Cabrera provides? Let’s look at the points comparison of R/HR/RBI/AVG:

Runs: Byrnes 2.4 to 1.5
HRs: Cabrera 3.95 to 1.55
RBIs: Cabrera 3.95 to 1.43
AVG: Cabrera 3.48 to 1.01

(Note: While it might not look right that Cabrera’s 34 HRs could be worth 2.5x that of Eric Byrnes 21 HRs, remember that the BAO provides 14 HRs. So this is really a comparison of 20 HRs (34-14) vs. 7 HRs.)

Counting just these stats, Cabrera is about twice as valuable as Eric Byrnes (12.89 to 6.39).

But Eric Byrnes’ 50 SBs is huge given the average team only had 162 SBs in our league. A total like this could let you dominate SBs or focus on non-speed guys when filling out other positions (say, taking Khalil Greene’s 27 HRs instead of J. Lugo’s 33 SBs).

Eric Byrnes’ 50 SBs equates to 7.25 points in our scale while Cabrera’s 2 SBs equate to negative 0.45 points because it’s less than the BAO would’ve provided (which is 6). So factoring in SBs, Eric Byrnes is the more valuable fantasy hitter (13.6 to 12.4). But if your team was set for SBs, trading Eric Byrnes for Miguel Cabrera would be a no-brainer.

Placido Polanco (105 / 9 / 67 / 7 / .341) vs. Dan Uggla (113 / 31 / 88 / 2 / .245)

This comparison focuses on Polanco’s AVG contribution vs. Uggla’s power contribution.

Runs: Uggla 2.65 to 2.12
HRs: Uggla 4.0 to -0.78
RBIs: Uggla 1.94 to 0.30
SBs: Polanco -0.05 to -0.86

(Note: These comparisons do factor in position scarcity – hence, Uggla’s 2 SBs receive more negative credit that M. Cabrera’s above since the 2B BAO steals more than the average player.)

Counting these stats, Uggla is well ahead at 7.73 to 1.59 points, with the biggest driver being his 31 HRs which are worth 4.78 points more than Polanco’s 9 HRs.

But those HRs come at a price. Uggla’s .245 average is well below the BAO average of .277 (actually 2B’s have higher AVG than other positions so it’s even worse – examples of high batting average marginal 2Bs include Orlando Hudson’s .294, Luis Castillo’s .301, and Ronnie Belliard’s .290). Combining that bad average with his above average AB total (632), Uggla’s average would drop the average team’s AVG by .004 vs. the BAO 2B. This earns him a negative 3.28.

On the other hand, Polanco’s .341 in 587 ABs is worth a positive 4.77 points – more, in fact, than Uggla’s 31 HRs. He’s worth about an extra .004 on your team average meaning that swapping these two creates a .008 swing, a more dramatic swing than the 22 HR difference.

So while Placido Polanco is a negative on a team’s HR and SBs (and just about BAO level on RBIs), his high AVG catapults him into being a more valuable fantasy baseball contributor (6.4 to 4.4). If Uggla could just get to something like a .275 average or steal 20-30 SBs, his HR/RBIs could help catapult him up the 2B rankings (even with the anchor-like AVG, he ended up 7th most valuable 2B, well ahead of the .317 hitting ROY Dustin Pedroia).

How does position depth/scarcity affect a player’s overall value?

Position depth/scarcity plays a role from draft day through the end of the season.

During draft day, position depth/scarcity can increase/decrease a player’s value. A common practice is to ‘tier’ players at each position and try to group together similarly valued players. If there is only one player left in, say, the 2B tier and 5 similar valued players at SS, you may increase that 2B’s draft value because you can wait a round and likely get one of those shortstops.

After the draft, position depth/scarcity is used to compare the marginal benefit/loss of trading or adding/dropping one player over the next – e.g., I could trade Placido Polanco and replace him with little to no dropoff in any stat except AVG.

To factor this into our analysis, we extended our Best Available Option (BAO) concept to each position. We started with 10 rostered players for catchers and infield positions and 50 outfielders. We split the 1B/3B and 2B/SS positions equally and then divided up the utility position based on instinct and position depth (30% 1B, 2.5% 2B, 2.5% SS, 5% 3B, 0% C, 40% OF, 20% DH). We created composite stats for BAOs at each position – so for catcher, we took the 11th best AVG, 11th best HRs, etc. We then credited point totals based on the BAO at the position (“Position Points”) and averaged them with our average hitter BAO (“Player Points”). (Note: Since team rankings are position-agnostic – you don’t get more credit if it’s a middle infielder who hits a HR – there is a need to balance position depth/scarcity with overall stats. To keep it simple, we weighted it 50/50).

Below are the BAO stats per position (R / HR / RBI / SB / AVG) and some close statistical fits:

C – 47 / 13 / 57 / 2 / 0.273 (Paul Lo Duca, Johnny Estrada, AJ Pierzynski)
1B – 63 / 18 / 68 / 1 / 0.279 (Matt Stairs, Conor Jackson, Aubrey Huff)
2B – 79 / 11 / 61 / 9 / 0.288 (Orlando Hudson, Brendan Harris, Mark DeRosa)
SS – 72 / 11/ 60 / 11 / 0.279 (Brendan Harris, Jack Wilson)
3B – 70 / 18 / 72 / 4 / 0.279 (Kevin Kouzmanoff, Mark Reynolds, Aubrey Huff)
OF – 67 / 14 / 65 / 6 / 0.273 (Luis Gonzalez, Austin Kearns, JD Drew)

The most interesting about these BAO totals is how relatively close they are. The corner positions have a slight advantage in power and the middle infield spots have a slight advantage for runs, SBs and average. Catchers are weakest – particularly in Runs as catchers play less games and are disproportionately hitting 6th to 9th (less run opportunities).

Perhaps most surprisingly, the OF position looks no better than the middle infield positions. Wouldn’t you expect OF was a deeper position than middle infield? Isn’t BJ Upton more valuable as a 2B than an OF? Short answer: not really.

Here’s why: You’ve got roughly 15 2B, 15 SS, and somewhere between 52-57 outfielders on league rosters (OF are often used for UTIL positions). Looking at MLB rosters, you have roughly 30 starting 2B, 30 starting SS, and 90 starting OFs. FLB rosters, thus, are cutting deeper into the percentage of starting OFs vs. 2B/SS.

In addition, 2B/SS have added some pop over the years. 29 middle infielders hit at least 12 HRs. Granted, some had bad averages (Bill Hall, Juan Uribe, Stephen Drew), but the perception of those positions being power-challenged is outdated. (What IS true, though, is that it’s rare to find a middle infielder with 30+ HR power).

Outfielders, on the other hand, aren’t that deep. Only about 55 hit 15 or more home runs and that includes some players that might be at other positions (Berkman, Upton, Stairs) and the weakest ones look an awful lot like Luis Gonzalez and Austin Kearns (the BAO matches).

So while we did factor position depth/scarcity into our analysis, it really didn’t play a major role for hitters. The greatest impact was at catcher where the troika of great catchers in 2007 (Jorge Posada, V-Mart, Russell Martin) got about a 2 point boost because the Catcher position was the weakest in terms of BAO.

So Hanley Ramirez and Jimmy Rollins had extremely valuable fantasy years but the fact they played SS really didn’t add any significant value (maybe +2-3%).


How does our approach to hitter value compare against the ESPN Player Rater?

ESPN has a much simpler approach for estimating hitter value than the approach we have described above. It creates a cap at 5 points and a floor at 0 points. 5 points are awarded to the MLB leader in the stat and then each other player’s total is divided into the leader’s total and then multiplied by 5 to get their total – e.g., A-Rod led with 54 homers. David Wright had 30. He received 30/54 (.556) * 5 = 2.78 points in HR. Average is done in a slightly more complex way but the lowest possible total is zero (even if the player’s average has negative value).

From a macro-perspective, this simplistic approach works fine. The top hitters are going to appear near the top, the okay hitters in the middle, the bad hitters on the bottom. At a micro-perspective, we think ESPN’s simplistic approach has greater flaws vs. our approach. These flaws are less for hitters than pitchers, though, as the greater issues arise around ratio/average based stats and pitchers have two (ERA, WHIP) vs. one for hitters (AVG).

In a previous article, we identified four issues with ESPN Player Rater for valuing pitchers

1) Capping High Points at 5
2) Positive Ratio/Average Contributions Are Undercredited
3) Negative Contributions Aren’t Penalized
4) Overcrediting of Slightly Above Average Performance

These four issues all play a role for valuing hitters but #2 and #3 are not as major an issue because ERA/WHIP are more polarizing than AVG. For example, even low value hitters may hit .290 but only a great starting pitcher can manage an ERA near 3.00 ERA.

An additional issue we’ve found is:

5) The league leader used as the points base distorts the distribution of points – While the leader in Runs and RBIs is relatively close to the other leaders (no one had, say, 200 Runs or RBIs), A-Rod’s 54 HRs and Reye’s otherworldly 78 SBs set a very high bar for 5 points. This creates odd situations where Eric Byrnes 50 SBs (tied for 4th in majors) is worth less in ESPN Player Points than his 103 Runs (outside the top 20) and Jimmy Rollins’ 30 HRs (tied for 20th) are worth less than his 94 RBIs (tied for 42nd).

Here is the assessment on a stat by stat basis:

Runs – Overcredits for all players. For above average performance, Issue #4 plays a role (the Best Available Option’s 67 Runs warrants 2.3 points). For below average performance, Issue #3 starts taking effect (less than 67 runs should warrant negative points). An additional issue throughout is that runs are so plentiful across players that the value of a run is less than other stats (A-Rod’s 143 runs warrant 4.95 points in our estimation vs. 8.29 for his 54 HRs)

Home Runs – Undercredits great performance like A-Rod and Fielder (Issue #1). Issue #5 plays a role in underestimating the value of everyone at 25+ Homers. Players between about 15-24 HRs are slightly inflated based on Issue #4. Anyone below the BAO average of 14 are overestimated based on Issue #3.

RBIs – Undercredits the great performances like A-Rod and Matt Holliday (Issue #1). Overcredits above average performance (Issue #4). Undercredits below average performance (Issue #3). Issue #4 affects more hitters than Issue #3 (which is limited to speedsters and some 2B/SS – examples are Reyes’s 57 RBIs and Pierre’s 41RBIs)

SBs – This is the category where Issues #1 and #5 play a huge role in underestimating SB value. We have Jose Reyes’ 78 SBs at a whopping 11.5 points – the most points awarded for any offensive category. Teammate David Wright’s 34 SBs earned him a respectable 4.8 points (equivalent to Holliday’s 36 HRs and Vlad’s 125 RBIs). This underestimation affects hitter values all the way down to about 10 SBs. Issue #3 plays a very minor role – greatest for 2B/SS as speed is most common in that category (Freddy Sanchez’s 0 SBs earned him a negative 1.19).

AVG – Issue #1 only affects the top 3 hitters as Magglio, Ichiro, and Matt Holliday’s averages warranted 6+ points in our ratings. Issue #2 plays a role for the rest of those with averages above .330. Issue #4 plays a role in overestimating the value of hitters lower than .330 but greater than BAO (e.g., Luis Gonzalez’s pedestrian .278 warrants 1.99 ESPN points where it should be worth zero). For low average hitters, Issue #3 plays a role in greatly overestimating their value as they should have negative value. Uggla’s aforementioned average of .245 gets .86 ESPN points compared to our -3.28 points.

Amazingly, though, the cumulative effect of these issues seems to have little bearing on the ranking of hitters. We agree with the top 10 OFs from ESPN Player Rater with slightly different ordering. The top 10 2B match down to the order. The differences play more of a role in total player rankings – below are some examples of players differently valued (Our Ranking, ESPN Ranking).

Eric Byrnes (25, 43)
Jorge Posada (58, 92)
Juan Pierre (78, 117)
Derek Jeter (86, 106)

It’s worth noting that almost every hitter is higher valued in our rankings vs. ESPN because ESPN overvalues pitchers out of the top 20 and this pushes down all the hitters.

So while we find faults in ESPN’s methodology, we can’t fault using ESPN Player Rater to understand hitter position rankings. It works surprisingly well for hitters given its simplistic approach - it’s possible that its flaws are a bigger issue as you move down the player rankings. That said, we would caution against using the combined hitter and pitcher rankings given the flaws we’ve seen with their valuing and ranking of pitchers.
OTHER FANTASY NEWS:

Top 10 Outfielders 2007

1. Matt Holliday
.340/120/36/137/11
I had him on every team. I'm not prescient. Not Nostradamus. Not even Ms. Cleo. Frankly, I'm more surprised Schwarzenegger is the governor of California than I am about Holliday's season. Ten years ago, you wouldn't have believed Schwarzenegger PLAYING the role of Governor. You would have said, "I liked the movie's action effects, but Schwarzenegger playing the Governor was completely unbelievable. Eastwood I believe, Schwarzenegger I ain't buying." Anyway, Holliday was 27 and playing in Coors. Of course he was going to have a good year. I'll cover next year in a future blog, but he will be overpriced next year. As someone who watched 500 of his almost 700 at-bats, he swings and misses a lot and doesn't walk enough. You heard it here first. You'll hear more in a future blog; I promise.

2. Magglio Ordonez
.363/117/28/139/4
Take a second and look at his average again. Um, WTF?! He never hit higher than .320 before. And that was 5 years ago. When you top your career high in average by forty points at age 33, you're having one of those seasons where everything hit found a hole. I don't like the Detroit sportscasters and dislike the city even more, so I didn't watch a whole lot of Mags' season, but I guarantee he was lucky. You just don't hit 50 points above your career average without some luck. It's just not possible. Let's move on before my head explodes.

3. Ichiro Suzuki
.351/111/6/68/37
I contemplated writing just Ichiro for his name, but why should I? Why does he get to go by only Ichiro? How does he even get away with putting only Ichiro on his jersey? Why hasn't more been made of this? Can you picture the brouhaha (That's right, I used the word brouhaha. Deal with it.) if Manny showed up at a game sporting a jersey that said Manny on the back? How about Pedro? Or just Torii? What happens if another Ichiro is picked up by Seattle? Does he start going by Ichiro S. or does one have only his last name put on his jersey and Ichiro keeps his first (which I think is his last name in Japan or something like that)? How does MLB allow this? Onto his season, Ichiro Suzuki hits for a high average every year, no surprise here. At some point, Ichiro Suzuki is not going to hit for that great of an average and I don't want to be the last person standing on that Kotaka when it starts sinking, if you catch my drift.

4. Eric Byrnes
.286/103/21/83/50
Okay, sidenote: About three years ago, I pitched around Hollywood a baseball reality show, the theme of these meetings all came to the same conclusion. They liked the idea, but they needed a "name" attached. Someone that would generate interest in the baseball world, but, even more so, THEY needed someone that meant something to the average fan. We went after Steinbrenner. We got as far as his personal driver. That's right, I have a connection to Steinbrenner's driver! Anyway, since I'm writing this you can probably figure out, Steinbrenner passed. We couldn't get any "name" interested. The one "name" we could get... Wait, for it... A fourth outfielder on the Oakland A's, the one and only, Eric Byrnes. This time we passed. Eric Byrnes meant bupkus. Now he means, a 20/50 season. I'm happy for him. I'd still rather have Steinbrenner.

5. Carlos Lee
.303/93/32/119/10
I took thirteen years of Spanish and I can say two phrases, "Mi mama cocina en el bano." And, "¡El Caballo!" You had to draft the horse pretty high so you probably were hoping for more, but he did what he could. Did the horse lose your season for you? Neigh.

6. Carl Crawford
.315/93/11/80/50
Dude, eleven homers really isn't gonna cut it from a first round outfielder. Fifty steals or not. I'm sorry. Can we get twenty homers one of these years? Please. Stop teasing. It's not nice. And, I'll tell you what, you need to draft so home run heavy later in the draft to make up for 11 from your first outfielder, that you're really not happy with Carl right now, are you? Of course you're not. Pain felt.

7. Curtis Granderson
.302/122/23/74/26
That Curtis came in seventh in a deep position makes me think I don't know a damn thing about FLB. I wouldn't have picked up Granderson if he were on waivers. No joke. He should be an eight hole hitter on an NL team. Seriously, isn't Granderson a middle class man's Endy Chavez? His numbers are a testament as much to his natural skills as they are to Leyland's foolhardy stubbornness in keeping Grandy a leadoff hitter.

8. Vladimir Guerrero
.324/89/27/125/2
"From his head to his toes, that's how Vladdy goes," says Rex Hudler 81 games a year. Sigh. At least it's not Don Sutton. Matt Chico isn't good, Sutton, I don't care how many times you say it. Vlad looked like a surefire MVP for the first two months of the season. Then the tennis balls came off his walker and the opposing teams realized they should try challenging Kotchman.

9. Carlos Beltran
.276/93/33/112/23
You know someone that goes from very hot to very cold? Beltran, the Latin Jason Bay. Also, his resemblance to Ricky from My So Called Life, while covered many times before now, is uncanny and, frankly, distracting. I half expect him to hit a home run then celebrate by giving Delgado an open mouth kiss. All this aside, Beltran didn't give you the numbers you might have hoped for when you drafted him in the second round, but he did give you exactly what you should have expected. His numbers are above-average, but not spectacular, year in and year out. Stop expecting more and you'll no longer be disappointed. Now go kiss Delgado!

10. Nick Markakis
.300/97/23/112/18
Here you got some really nice value for where you had to draft him. In a league of mine, when Markakis started slow, I tried to pry him away from his owner. Didn't happen. You know who I like a lot for next year... The Greek God of Roto! Opa! But that will wait for another column.

With outfield being such a deep position, there's so many more to talk about from 11-20 that it might need its own column. For now, know that: Grady (11) wasn't in the top ten, Abreu (12) wasn't that bad from June on, Torii (13) cooled off in a major way after July, Dunn (14) didn't have that many 0 for 20 stretches, Rios (15) is set to catapult into the top ten, Soriano (16) deserves his own column for how far he fell short of expectations, Rowand (17) um, it's Aaron Rowand, he had a good year, you got lucky, Berkman (18) was covered in the 1st base column, B.J. Upton (19) also covered previously, and then, the one and only, Corey Hart (20). How can Corey Hart not have his own column? The guy has the same name as the guy who's married to Pink!
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