Archives For Friday 5

Friday Five: A little bit of everything.

Clave Jones —  January 11, 2013 — Leave a comment
Does Homer Bailey have any upside? Photo by Keith Allison.

Does Homer Bailey have any upside? Photo by Keith Allison.

Just a few short months ago Friday Five was a weekly feature at Crackerjacks. Each week I’d share 5 fantasy baseball links that I thought were interesting or informative.

I got busy is the only excuse I have. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to have a Friday Five ready to go each friday, but I have one today. Do I make you happy?

  1. The same day I wrote a player profile for Salvador Perez, I saw one from Ray Flowers. I’m quite bullish on Perez, whereas Ray doesn’t seem to like him as a fantasy catcher to target. It’s fair to share both sides of the argument, and you can make your own decision going into the 2013 draft.
  2. It’s past time to think about league discipline, by gosh! I ran across LeagueSafe. I haven’t used it, but thought it was interesting. Do you need a 3rd party to hold your fantasy baseball league fees, then distribute payouts? That’s what LeagueSafe does. And if you have a bitter league dispute you can send it in to the Dear Mr. Fantasy Baseball Podcast because starting in March they’ll be running a segment called “Fantasy Judgment”. People can send in their league disputes and the Doctor and I will weigh in with our opinions. Then, we will ‘open the envelope’ which reveals the official decision from Michael Stein at Fantasy Judgment. His ruling will be final and can be used by the league in question. Some cool stuff to keep down the drama.
  3. Any Cubs fane out there? Obstructed View gives their thoughts on Baseball America’s top ten prospects in the Chicago Cubs organization. I didn’t see Shawon Dunston anywhere on the list.
  4. Fangraphs just wrote about picking your fantasy baseball projection system. I’ve written about this very thing a couple times. Read them all as the different perspectives will give you greater wisdom going into the draft.
  5. I missed this when it was first posted, but better late than never. A profile of Homer Bailey and thoughts on if he has any upside left.

There you go. The links are all over the place, but I hope they give you a good fantasy baseball distraction this Friday.

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Friday 5: Tweet-ily-Links

Clave Jones —  February 24, 2012 — Leave a comment

Every Friday we share five links that we think make for interesting, helpful, practical or informative reads. Any time you have an hour to kill, just click ‘Friday 5‘ in the category list to the right and you can get lost in some great fantasy baseball reading.

This Friday 5 is just a little different though. We’re linking 5 Twitter accounts. Sure, you can click through to the article or post they link, but I highly encourage you to click through to the Twitter feed itself and give them a follow. I share these five because I’ve consistently enjoyed them.

I guess I’m making you work a little harder this Friday because, rather than link you directly to a single read, I’m showing where you can find a solid source of good fantasy baseball information. Well, *ahem* other than Fantasy Baseball Crackerjacks, of course (follow us on twitter here). Better to teach a fantasy baseball player to fish, no?

1. @DJAubain is a co-founder of Full Spectrum Baseball. If he can juggle being a father of four and still manage the time to produce quality fantasy baseball advice, you can manage 5 minutes to give him a good look!


2. @MikeTSchmidt is not that Mike Schmidt. But I’ve found myself nodding my head in agreement at more than one of his tweets. I often find myself in line with his thinking on rankings and projections.


3. @ERolfPleiss is a twin and writes about the Twins over at Puckett’s Pond. He’s also good for a little snarky quip or two.


4. @mikegianella writes over at Roto Think Tank about finding value. I was joking with him that I enjoy reading his stuff because I really appreciate someone who knows how to squeeze every last dollar out of an auction.


5. @cmcbrien has the most generous spirit on Twitter. He’s the first to offer help with questions and quick to offer a good word toward others. Who doesn’t want to follow a feed like that?

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Friday 5: Hard Working Prospects

Clave Jones —  February 16, 2012 — Leave a comment

Every Friday we try to provide you with 5 links that will be fun and valuable fantasy baseball reads.

1. I love how nerdy Trevor Bauer is. He’s a man after my own heart. I know there isn’t a mathematical formula for measuring a man’s work ethic and his attention to his craft, but the value for Trevor Bauer would be off the charts if there was one.

2. A lot of people have questions around a player’s average draft position (ADP). A great article from the Hardball Times on Solving for ADP. (I wholeheartedly agree on Joe Mauer. In fact, I wrote how AVG is scarce.)

3. Maybe I link two many articles profiling prospects, but I think it’s important to have a good pulse on who the next generation of great players will be. This compares two great 3B prospects.

4. Jonah Keri does a great job looking at the patience of the Cincinnati Reds. Sometimes it’s not best to be the first out of the gate when it comes to signing free agents.

5. What chances to the Washington Nationals have in 2012? Here’s a hopeful look. There are a lot of fantasy relevant players in the team.

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Friday 5: All Over the Place

Clave Jones —  February 10, 2012 — Leave a comment

Our links are all over the place this Friday, but it’s nice to have a little variety in life!

1. Fangraphs wonders if you should you downgrade Valverde in your drafts? With Miggy now at 3B and the Tiger’s overall defense taking a hit you have to wonder if you should slide all Tiger pitchers down a spot or two in your drafts.

2. Fake Teams has a list of late round speed sources. And who isn’t looking for steals in the late rounds of the draft?

3. More from Fake Teams. I’m calling shenanigans on most of these predictions, but that’s why they are called BOLD. Plus, it’s just fun to read lists of bold predictions!

4. Will the addition of Albert Pujols offer protection to Howie Kendrick, giving his numbers a boost? More broadly, does lineup protection make much of a difference in fantasty baseball?

5. Full Spectrum Baseball launched this week. Hop over there and give those guys some support. (Well, after you give Fantasy Baseball Crackerjacks a good read, of course!)

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Friday 5: Baseball Bloggers Alliance

Clave Jones —  February 3, 2012 — Leave a comment

This Friday we’ll link to five posts from fellow members of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, Fantasy Baseball Chapter. We’ll link five good ones below, or you can click here and get a full membership listing, if you 6 days of spare reading time, that is.

1. Check out the Closer Report. Even though you shouldn’t over pay for saves, they are still a category, so make sure you know the latest about the 9th innings. They have individual closer profiles, plus team closer analysis.

2. The Fantasy Fix has some team-by-team rotation previews available.

3. I really like the Roto Think Tank. If you dig through there you can find some real gems of advice, particularly around real vs. perceived player value. Remember the Golden Rule of Fantasy Baseball: “Draft stats, not players.” Roto Think Tank can help you with that.

4. Dear Mr. Fantasy is very active, particularly in interacting with fellow fantasy baseball fans on his Twitter and Facebook feeds.

5. Clubhouse GM has updated position rankings.

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Friday 5: Homer Links

Clave Jones —  January 27, 2012 — Leave a comment

This isn’t 5 links to articles on home runs. I’m talking homer links, as in links to great posts about my local team. It’s not wrong to be a total homer and root for the Minnesota Twins, even if they stand zero chance (Bonus link!) in the AL Central. Plus it’s the eve of Twinsfest (Bonus number two!), so let’s make our Friday 5 be all Twins, all the time. For this Friday at least…

1. Local sports write Tom Powers emails Ron Gardenhire his predictions for the Twins 25-man roster at the beginning of every January. Here’s who he thinks will crack the Twins roster this year.  Hint: It won’t include, Kevin Slowey, for this lengthy list of reasons! (Darn it, a third bonus link! I’m being too generous here.)

2. Crackerjacks just became the proud sponsor of Joe Benson, willing to do whatever it takes to support the scraps that is the Twin’s farm system. Will it be enough to help make Joe Benson be the Twin’s fourth outfielder in 2012? You decide.

3. Want a fair and thoughtful player profile for Ben Revere? It also features a brief comment exchange between the author of the profile and yours truly. Hint: I’m not as a big a Ben Revere fan, although it’s hard not to want to give the little guy a hug when he flashes that winning smile!

4. Hidden nugget of a post, discussing the Minnesota Twins’ offseason moves. Brandon Warne says the Twins worked a full count.

5. How bad were the Twins in getting on base last season? 2012 might not suck as bad as 2011.

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Friday 5: High Value Reads

Clave Jones —  January 20, 2012 — Leave a comment

For this Friday’s 5 I wanted to share some links that could potentially become new bookmarks for you.

1. You want to know who your favorite team’s fourth outfielder might be? Of course you do! Try MLB Depth Charts. They do a pretty good job of staying up-to-date on team-by-team positional battles and lineup changes. You can also follow them on Twitter @mlbdepthcharts.

2. Want to know if your favorite ballpark is a hitter’s park or not? Park Factors is a great site that does exactly what is says it does, it goes ballpark to ballpark and gives a quick analysis, including current weather patterns. It’s good fun.  Thanks to Ryan at Analysis Around the Horn and  @AATH_Baseball for cluing us into this in the comments.

3. Park Factors is just one of Scouting Book’s great collection of sites. Top 400+ Prospects is another, and it’s clean design makes it useful for hopping on and getting a quick word on that hot fantasy baseball call-up.

4. Chances are if you’re into fantasy baseball even casually you’ve run across Baseball Reference. It’s the standard bearer for last season’s numbers to more junk stats than you can imagine. You could get lost in there for hours. I bring it up because, rather than just hop on to pull some quick stats, it’s useful to really get to know, as you can learn a lot with it’s advanced features like “Splits” and it’s customizable report creator. Really get to know this site because it will make you a better fantasy baseball player.

5. A brand new site! What could it be? Let’s support fellow fantasy baseball guys and get a teaser for Full Spectrum Baseball, which will be launching soon.

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Friday 5: Joe Morgan and Scott Boras, a Couple Knuckleheads

Clave Jones —  January 13, 2012 — 1 Comment

1. Nash says Jason Heyward should be drafted in the 12th Round, which I agree with. He was dreadful in 2011, but is there reason for optimism in 2012?

2. Is there a limit to how good MLB players can get? Is Joe Morgan right that yesteryear’s players were better than today’s? (Side note: Is Joe Morgan right about anything?) Here’s an interesting read on the limits of baseball.

3. Is Big Papi clutch or is it just in our head? Here is some 2003-2011 data from when Papi was up in a walk-off situation. It will really make you appreciate those times when Papi claps those big hands together, digs his cleats into the box, then stares down the pitcher with the game on the line.

4. Do you also play fantasy football?  Here is a quick little read on why fantasy baseball is better than fantasy football. Flame on!

5. I’ll take any chance I can to question Scott Boras, But did he ruin Ryan Madson’s career? Being that Madson may have made more in arbitration than he ultimately did in his one year deal with the Reds, you have to ask if Boras played too heavy a hand, too early. Or maybe Philadelphia still hates Scott Boras over the JD Drew draft incident. So much hate toward Scott Boras…

Each Friday I try to dig up 5 links to scratch your fantasy baseball reading itch. You can continue the conversation in the comments or by following us on twitter @fbcrackerjacks.

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Friday 5: Contracts and Gyroballs

Clave Jones —  January 6, 2012 — 2 Comments

Here are five fantasy baseball posts that you may have missed this week:

1. You ever want to get the basics of all the MLB pitches, from the Two-Seam Fastball to the 12–6 Curve or Gyroball? Know what your fantasy baseball team will be throwing in 2012! Leave it to Wikipedia to offer a great compilation.

2. Who will close for the Oakland A’s in 2012? This guy or this guy? Or maybe Nash has the answer.

3. You like BOLD predictions? Well, the Hardball Times does.

4. If you are into the finances of baseball then you’ll like these thoughtful points on the backloading of BIG contracts.

5. Finally, if you are looking to get lost into a little baseball reading material, you’ll like this end-of-the-reveiw from Puckett’s Pond, collecting all the big 2011 posts highlighting the Minnesota Twins.

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Friday 5: The Twins suck. Anyone up for Chinese?

Clave Jones —  December 30, 2011 — 2 Comments

Each Friday I scour through my feeds to find five fantasy baseball posts you may have missed this week.

1. I wish I could be this optimistic, but here’s one fan who thinks the Twins may not suck this year, and his reason is…that the Twins can’t hit the ball out of Target Field?

2. Speaking of the Twins. Here are some Twins prospects who currently suck and need to turn it around. I’m thinking the list could’ve been longer actually when you factor in that the Twin’s 2012 Major League roster will in include a Little Leaguer. Hello Ben Revere (picture actual size). Good luck throwing that ball to home plate.

3. Ah, Buster. What would we do without you? I could think of a couple things. Still, it is fun to speculate which team has MLB’s best rotation.

4. Who are the prospects at 3B? Don’t expect any of these guys to have any fantasy baseball relevance this year, but take a peek in case you play in a dynasty league. By the way, the town I lived in had a great Chinese restaurant called the Dynasty, which had absolutely nothing to do with fantasy baseball.

5. Finally, which catching propect catches your eye? Mesoraco or d’Arnaud? You decide.

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