Fantasy Mlb Value Machine

Obviously the fantasy season is past the halfway point, but you gotta work with me here. There aren't any games that count for the next few days, so it's the perfect time to formulate these teams. Unlike the actual All-Star game, there are different parameters for judging who makes the fantasy All-Star team. Value matters. For example, Hanley Ramirez is obviously the best fantasy player in baseball. He was a high first round pick in every draft, though, so he's not really exceeding expectations.

There's a reason you make the fantasy All-Star team this way ... owners don't win leagues by drafting Hanley Ramirez first overall. You do, however, win your league by loading up on value picks like Josh Hamilton and Geovany Soto ... while you lose your league by taking some of the big names I'm going to list on the "bad" team.

I've named each team after their backstop. Why? I felt like it.

Let's have fun.

TEAM GEO (these are the fantasy All-Stars)

C - Geovany Soto -- You can convince me that you thought Geo was a top ten catcher and that he'd hit 20 home runs coming into the season. You can't convince me that you had him top three and on pace for almost 30.

Just this week there were two enormous injuries in the world of fantasy baseball: Alfonso Soriano and Albert Pujols. There were also significant returns in Jake Peavy and Matt Holliday. Those are four elite echelon players changing places in the span of only a three days.

They weren't alone. All around the league players are dropping like flies while also returning. It's been an onslaught. For the value machine, it actually makes sense at this point in the season. Sure, players are bound to get hot and cold, but for the most part we are approaching the dog days of summer ... most movement in fantasy leagues will be triggered by injuries.

We've covered Pujols, Soriano, Holliday, and Peavy already this week here on Fantasy FanHouse. Obviously the former two would have an evil next to their respective names while the latter two would have the nice, reassuring residing next to theirs. Here are the most notable of the rest:

Vernon Wells -- Returned Saturday to the Jays' lineup and announced his presence with authority on Sunday (3-4, HR). He stormed out of the gates this year, but he is a pretty inconsistent performer. Studly in 2003 and 2006 while disappointing owners in the other seasons of his career. Sell high time, as far as I'm concerned.

It's an odd time when the biggest newsmakers of the week are rookies -- generally that happens in the second half, or they at least wait until late June. But not this week. A pair of rooks massacred the media with all of the hype surrounding their major league debuts.

Jay Bruce, OF, CIN -- Cincinnati fans rejoice! You now see why your GM and manager kept him in Triple-A so long. Whatever. The Reds are actually heating up. I'm still sticking by my sell in single leagues just because there's absolutely no chance he keeps up his current pace. (Yes, I do know who Ryan Braun is.) Still though, this guy should be owned and starting right now.

Clayton Kershaw, SP, LAD -- The other "savior" type figure in the bigs right now, Kershaw looked good -- not great -- in his debut and "not so great" in his second and third outings. But hey, he's young, and besides, Cole Hamels gave up four earned runs in his second start too (and didn't really get dialed until later in the summer his first year).

Homer Bailey, SP, CIN -- Good week to be a Red, no? Homer got called early this week and started on Thursday. Is he hyped right now? Um, not particularly, considering his previous struggles. But you should still go snatch him up -- if/when he starts dealing you can sling him for high value. If he doesn't, just leave him on your bench and ride out the rough times. He's still young.

John Lackey, SP, LAA -- The would-be Cy Young candidate returned for the first time this season on Wednesday, throwing 99 pitches over seven innings, while allowing six hits, one earned run and one walk. He also struck out four. Good luck getting your hands on him if you don't have him already. He's a legit fantasy ace though, so if you can somehow still get him cheaper than normal market value, it's best to hustle up and do so.

Justin Duchscherer, SP/RP, OAK -- He only qualifies as a starter for fantasy purposes, and with the way he's pitched in the role, it is hard to imagine him going back to the pen. He hasn't allowed more than three runs in any game this year or walked more than two in one game. He's really just been a victim of no offense behind him. A very nice buy when you look at his 2.67 ERA, 1.19 WHIP and his 26:9 K:BB ratio against his 3-3 record.

Curtis Granderson -- Warm-up time, apparently, is for suckers. So are allergies. Granderson got plugged right into a Tigers lineup that is heating up and picked up the pace himself. Over the last seven days, he's hitting .350/.500/1.050 with three homers, six walks and three RBI. No stolen bases. I know. Sad, right? You'll live.
Justin Upton -- A very, very, very strong buy. Upton came out gangbusters, but obviously it wasn't going to last all season long. And over the last week he's hitting .143/.208/.190. He's not going to get any cheaper than this all season.

Cliff Lee -- Suite jebus. Another CGSO makes Lee the most popular player in fantasy right now. His BABIP is low and his strand rate is high though. He also hasn't allowed a homer despite 45% of his outs being fly balls. He might be ready for a big season, but not this big.
C.C. Sabathia -- Oh right. I guess he wasn't going to pitch like that all season.
J.J. Putz -- He be back. And he be savin'. Clearly start him in all leagues.
Curtis Granderson -- Well that didn't take long. Granderson already went yard, less than 48 hours off of the disabled list. I thought people were a touch high on him in the preseason, but he's still a must own.
Rafael Furcal -- "MVP candidate" might be a stretch right now (although not too much of one), but there isn't a hotter SS in the bigs right now. He's a sell high only because sustaining this production over the course of the season seems unpossible. Right?

Miguel Tejada went from a fantasy fave to a pariah in one season. No one wanted him where he really should have been drafted. His ADP (average draft position to the fantasy novices out there) proves as much. He was falling into the 60-range in many drafts. I took him as a late-thirties pick in one draft with Derek Jeter still on the board and got destroyed by a few owners.

Just look at the downsides:

- He suffered through full-season career lows in several offensive categories, including HR, RBI, R, and SB.
- For the first time in seven seasons he did not play all 162 games (in fact, he only played in 133).
- He was named in the Mitchell Report, so apparently he has to stay clean now and performance will be impacted in the power categories. You know, because they can test for HGH so easily.
- In a recent development we found out that he's actually 33 years old and not 31.

Of course, Miggy is out to a scorching start ... .370, 4 HRs, 18 RBIs, and 16 Runs in only 21 games. He's never come even close to his current .630 slugging percentage.

In light of all this, people are proclaiming him a sell-high candidate. What do I think?

Originally, I had planned to use C.C. Sabathia as the subject of Fantasy Felony today. He was a ridiculously obvious buy low, and I would venture to say that upwards of 40% of his owners were desperately looking to move him; it's not difficult to find fantasy expert mailbags galore where people are being consoled about their ownership of The Buffett.

Anyway, C.C. got straight dialed last night, pitching six scoreless innings (102 pitches), allowing four hits, issuing two walks and striking out a whopping 11 batters. He picked up the win as the Indians left poor Gil Meche bloodied and battered on the pitching mound, the victim of nine hits and eight earned runs through 33.1.

You may hear some people talk on Wednesday that "the Royals are good for what ails ya!" and other nonsense. C.C. just got his groove back. (Okay, you might hear that cliche type thing too.) The point is that Sabathia looked sharp as hell last night. He was hitting his spots, his fastball was dialed up and his breaking stuff was snapping in front of the plate. In other words: he is fine. Pitchers, even fantasy aces, don't go the entire season with near perfection. But a lot of people thought Sabathia was straight finished. So it's ironic that he got hot on a night when two other aces -- Brandon Webb and Jake Peavy -- struggled.

I don't think you can get Webb or Peavy on the cheap by any means. But I think that because it's early in the season, if you look at the freakout that Sabathia's struggles caused, you have to least inquire about both of them at some point today. Peavy didn't get the win; Webb did. But both guys didn't post huge numbers, which makes their owners at least somewhat vulnerable. You don't get many chances -- again, C.C. was one -- to land aces at a discount. But usually it's after they struggle and it's at the beginning of the season. So make sure and do your due diligence now.

We're two weeks deep in baseball and there's been a lot of shifting in value already. In order to make the proper roster moves and know what to look for when you begin trade negotiations, it helps to understand the perceived value shifts that happen each week. So that's when we bust out the complex algorithms and determine who's up and who's down.

Evan Longoria, 3B, TB -- Tee. Hee. Yes, that's correct. I'm flat out giddy over Longoria's call up. He picked up a ribeye on his very first hit and then followed it up last night with is first major league double and then his first major league home run. You should have already added him in every league you play in (or should be doing that right now .... ) And I've heard some people say that there are better, cheaper options for the same type of player; please. Longoria bleeds upside.
B.J. Ryan, CL, TOR -- Ryan missed all of last season after J.P. Ricciardi kind of/sort of tricked everyone into thinking he was healthy. Now he's back and he's closing already. He also looked like he might have dropped some LB's since he last pitched, which never hurt anyone. A very nice add on an underrated Toronto team, although if he gets too hot it might be worth a sell.