Clearing The Bases

With the season being a little less than 50% over we’ve decided to take a look at players who have played below expectations so far this season.  Once again I’m not looking to choose players that no one expected much out of anyway, but players who many thought would at the very least have a […]

Clearing The Bases

With the season being a little less than 50% over we’ve decided to take a look at players who have played above expectations so far this season.  Now I’m looking at players who have the best value.  I know Joey Votto is having an MVP like season, but he was selected in the 1st or […]

Clearing The Bases

I was supposed to write this column last week, but ended up spending way to much time on another project, so I apologize, but here we are with news and notes from the National League.   New York Mets:  Well, 1B Ike Davis may have awoken from his season long slump.  His average is close […]

Clearing The Bases

What shall we talk about tonight?  So many things going on in the world of fantasy baseball that I feel we need a news and notes column to go over each team.  We’ll do the American League first, followed by the National League on Thursday.  As always, these teams are in no particular order.   […]

Clearing The Bases

Tonight’s column isn’t going to deal with the fantasy relevance of Major League Baseball, but more of some of the rules I would like to change if I were the commissioner.  I wrote a similar column last season and I’m happy to say that Bud Selig listened to one of my suggestions and moved a […]

Clearing The Bases

We are now about 1/3 of the way through the 2012 baseball season, which means we are about the same amount of time through the 2012 fantasy baseball season.  The time has come now to face some harsh realities about your team.  Any player that has been on your roster since opening day has now […]

Clearing The Bases

Today we are going to start a debate.  We are going to talk about fantasy players on the New York Yankees and New York Mets.  Rather than just talk about different players and why they are fantasy worthy, we are going to rank Yankee and Met players in the order of which they should be […]

Clearing The Bases

Injuries are probably playing a big part in how your fantasy team is performing this season.  It seems every week we are seeing three to four players land on the DL, and I’m not talking about a long reliever or backup middle infielder that no one cares about, I’m talking about top of the line […]

Clearing The Bases

We can’t have a surprise column without a disappointment column now can we?  Earlier this week we talked about our Top 9 pleasant surprises, and now we will visit the opposite end of the spectrum.  Maybe I’m a negative kind of person, but it seemed that there were quite a few players/teams I could put […]

Clearing The Bases

Clearing The Bases                                                                                                                          May 22, 2012 by George Kurtz In my mind, Memorial Day marks the end of the first third of the season.  We have had time to adjust our rosters somewhat, but if things still aren’t going your way and you’re still at the bottom of the standings, than it’s time to make […]

Clearing The Bases

With all of the injuries throughout Major League Baseball and the natural progression of fantasy teams claiming players off the waiver wire, the pickings have become pretty slim in deeper leagues.  With that in mind we are going to talk about minor league players that could help your team in the coming weeks or months.  […]

Clearing The Bases

Major League Baseball teams for the most part use the first third of the season (April, May) to evaluate their team, the middle third (June, July) to make acquisitions to help the team, and the last third (August, September) to fight for a playoff run.  Now trading won’t really pick up for another month or […]

Clearing The Bases

As Fantasy owners we have been complaining all season about one of three things.  Players who are off to slow starts (Albert Pujols, Jose Bautista), injuries (Jacoby Ellsbury, Chris Carpenter, Carl Crawford), and the weekly merry-go-round that has been the closer situation throughout baseball (half the league).  This week however, we are starting to get […]

Clearing The Bases

On April 10 I wrote at column detailing the closer situation for each team because there had been a few injuries during spring training that took a couple of closers out for the season.  Well a month later half of baseball no longer has the same pitcher closing for them that they planned on to […]

Clearing The Bases

Pretty big night in the world of sports this Thursday.  We have the NFL draft, which I will be following closely along with two Game 7s in the NHL not to mention a smattering of games in MLB, doesn’t really get much better.  As for fantasy owners I have another Top 9 list for you, […]

Clearing The Bases

Tonight we will continue with another Top 9 list with a look at a few players that have gotten off to a hot start that can’t possibly keep up this pace all season long.  For fantasy purposes these are players that you probably selected in the later rounds of your draft and that are paying […]

Clearing The Bases

What is our next top 9 list you ask?  Well it will be about some of the best players taken in the first couple rounds of most fantasy drafts that have gotten off to slow starts in one way or another and what should be done with them.  General rule of thumb is that most […]

Clearing The Bases

I love to play fantasy sports, whether it be baseball, football, or hockey, but I do understand that it’s just a game and not the most important thing in life.  That’s not to say that I’m not a more pleasant human being when my teams are doing well.  I do have a tendency to go […]

Clearing The Bases

The season is only 6-7 games old for most MLB teams to this is certainly no time to panic no matter how bad your fantasy team has started off.  Standings can change dramatically in the span of a couple of days.  Like every season, there are plenty of players that are off to slow starts.  […]

Clearing The Bases

We always say at draft time don’t overpay for saves, and that piece of advice seems to be especially important this season.  Closers normally take a beating as it is the one spot on a baseball team that is sure to have the biggest turnover year after year.  Not every relief pitcher is capable of […]

Clearing The Bases

Well my draft season has ended.  Tuesday night was my 15th and final draft.  I said to myself just before the draft how happy I was that it was finally over, but the truth is I will miss it.  Love to draft.  Now I don’t get to experience that feeling again until football season is […]

Clearing The Bases

I completed all of my spring training rankings for each position last week.  Now that I have done that it’s time to go back and take a look at each set of rankings and see if there are any changes that I would make.  Now by changes I’m not talking about one or two spots, […]

Clearing The Bases

Today we are going to start a debate.  We are going to talk about fantasy players on the New York Yankees and New York Mets.  Rather than just talk about different players and why they are fantasy worthy, we are going to rank Yankee and Met players in the order of which they should be […]

Clearing The Bases

Time for our predictions about the National League.  Have to be honest, I’m not really sure about anything in the NL.  Philadelphia and San Francisco have outstanding pitching staffs but their offensive deficiencies bring them back to the pack.  Milwaukee and St. Louis were hit hard in free agency, perhaps the Reds take the Central.  […]

Clearing The Bases

Now that the fantasy players rankings are done it’s time to rank the teams they play on.  Yeah I know that predicting which team is going to finish where isn’t really fantasy relevant, but I do like to put my predictions on paper.  This column is dedicated to the American League.   With the addition of […]

Clearing The Bases

Closers can be a tricky position when it comes to fantasy as it is the one spot with the highest turnover as a couple of blown saves can cost someone his job.  When do we select them?  How many do we want?  These are all questions we ask ourselves.  Now in a 10 team league, […]

Clearing The Bases

The last of our batting positions is designated hitters.  Now there are only a handful of players that qualify as a DH, and less than half of those will be drafted in most fantasy leagues.  I’ve added a few names onto this list just to lengthen it some, but the last four players are nothing […]

Clearing The Bases

When I first started playing fantasy baseball, late 80s, it seemed like there were plenty of outfielders to go around, not so much anymore.  Sure there is a nice top 10, even 15, but after that the pickings get real slim real quick.  In most leagues two of the top four picks will be OFs […]

Clearing The Bases

To finish out our infield rankings we come to the spot that defines position scarcity.  What I mean by that is fantasy owners will reach to grab a shortstop earlier than they probably should because they don’t want to be stuck with someone who is going to be a black hole on their team all […]

Clearing The Bases

Time to get to the left side of our infield, starting with the hot corner, third base.  Most major league teams believe 3B is a position where power is required, and fantasy teams are no different.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that this position is pretty deep, with at least 12-14 I could live […]

Clearing The Bases

Today we will complete the right side of our infield with rankings for second base.  Position scarcity comes into play at 2B as some owners will move players up their draft board a couple of slots because they are worried about selecting an undesirable player that will hurt their team, therefore they take one of […]

Clearing The Bases

It’s time for the third in our series of player rankings, first base.  In the past I have refused to spend a top pick or top money on a 1B because of the depth of the position.  The depth remains strong, I listed 15 players below, and didn’t include players like Mike Napoli and Carlos […]

Clearing The Bases

It’s time for the second in our series of player rankings, catchers.  Catchers don’t necessarily get much love in fantasy leagues because they just don’t seem to be able to put up the offensive numbers that other positions can.  Why is that?  There is an old saying in baseball about playing catcher, “tools of ignorance”.  […]

Clearing the Bases

This may be my favorite time of the season.  Pitchers and catchers have reported.  Instead of the anticipation, we have actual baseball action.  We can start to dream about warm summer days watching a ballgame in the backyard and having a barbecue.  Some of my favorite times.  Speaking of favorite times, draft day.  For me […]

Clearing The Bases

    Well the 2011 season has successfully come to an end with an unlikely champion, the St. Louis Cardinals.  Who saw that coming?  Manager Tony LaRussa goes out on top as he retired a champion, have to wonder if his retirement will push free agent Albert Pujols towards another team.  That is a perfect […]

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