Article:Need For Speed?

From www.thebaseballfix.com   Most of us who play Fantasy Baseball understand the value of all the categories and stats that go into winning a league and building a championship team. We also need to understand the value of our pick(s) and how the contribute to these categories. Year to year trends develop and value can be found in terms of different stats. One this year is Stolen Bases. When breaking down the category I noticed one shocking trend. In terms of the top 30 from the past season 10 of them had an ADP over 100 and most over 150. Now, these are not all stars, names like Willy Tavares and Reggie Willits but if you can find a top ten in a category with the 200th pick of a draft and fill him in as say your 5th OF or MI you have struck gold essentially. Not just in the fact that they will help you immensely in a category but more how it affects the rest of your draft. For example, lets say you have the 11th pick in the draft and Ryan Howard and Carl Crawford are both there. You know that Crawford is a five tool contributor, however Howard is a virtual lock to be in the top three for home run’s. Usually you could go back and forth for quite some time, but when you know you can get Willy Tavares and 35+ sb’s between the 150th to 175th pick and as for the 40+ HR, well only 5 players achieved that fit last year.

The thing I would urge all fantasy owners to remember whenever you are looking for a player who really make’s a contribution in one stat and maybe is a little vanilla in a few others, is that you always need to build a strong core through your first 3-5 picks. The Howard example was a good one as it showed how having an eye on future picks can pay off big in the immediate round. *below you will find the list of the ten players and there ADP number as well

Player                    Stolen Bases           ADP Juan Pierre                 64                               94 Corey Patterson         37                              248 Willy Tavares             33                              167 Julio Lugo                   33                               249 Jerry Owens              32                               235 Dave Roberts             31                               388 Ryan Theriot             28                               319  Coco Crisp                  28                               281 Johnny Damon          27                               104 Reggie Willits            27                                21