Fantasy Tigers

Coming into the season, the Tigers were everyone's darlings. Why not? They had a ridiculous offense and a starting rotation capable of piling up the wins with the large expected run support. The problems that most overlooked were that the bullpen is awful (with injuries to Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumaya the main benefactors), Dontrelle Willis sucks, and Kenny Rogers is ancient. Personally, I didn't like them as much as others because of all this. Still, though, no one expected Justin Verlander and Jeremy Bonderman to struggle this mightily. Both should have been armed and ready for a big season.

Bonderman is still only 25 -- doesn't it seem like he's been around forever? -- and has shown the ability to strikeout hitters (202 K in '07) and control his pitches (only averaged 56 BB/season from '05-'07) with the best. His ERA has never been stellar, but with a natural progression and the bashers supporting him you had to expect he'd be able to garner the victories in '08.

Verlander is also 25, and he's a phenom. He won 35 games in the past two years while upping his punchouts to 183 last year in just over 200 innings. With a triple digit heater and some filthy off-speeders, you'd figure him for the Cy Young race this season.

Instead, something is wrong. With both of them.

Picking up Armando Galarraga in a league this evening, I got a little excitement out of the transaction, just because I started thinking about the "Big Cat", Andres Galarraga. The "Little Big Cat" went six and two-thirds innings on Wednesday night, holding the Indians to one hit, a David Dellucci first inning tater. Galarraga struck out six and only needed 81 pitches to pick up the win, retiring 17 straight Cleveland batters at one point in time.

Before you get excited though, there's a good news/bad news thing here. First the good: he's a two start pitcher next week, and he's a very legitimate start in AL-Only or deeper mixed leagues. He's also pitching for the suddenly hot Tigers, so in H2H formats, I'm taking the gamble. Now the bad: as Tom Herrera pointed out, he "seems like a AAAA player, but he could surprise". That's a pretty accurate statement; he plowed his way through the Cleveland lineup by pounding the strike zone with low 90's fastballs and a slew of sliders with some nasty bite to them, but he got a lot of quick outs from some free swinging Indians.

In other words, you have to wonder how much good a little patience would have done Cleveland. By the time they did start sitting back and taking some pitches, he was pretty dialed, and racked up some mid inning K's. In fact, he was dialed enough where he probably could have gone the distance but -- and we fantasy owners should applaud this -- Jim Leyland pulled him after he plunked two guys in the seventh and started getting a little wild through only 81 pitches.

I'm not expecting two outings like tonight's next week, but I feel like I can almost guarantee at least one win (which is rare enough already) and decent ratios with middling strikeout totals. That's more than worth the pickup in my mind, especially with the upside he could have in a one week league.

I dislike it when people given the privilege to write about fantasy sports discuss their own leagues, but I'm guilty of sometimes myself. Now is one of those times. But I have a good reason. In a league with a bunch of my close friends, one of our owners took David Ortiz in the first round. Nothing shocking there, really, especially when you consider the depleted player pool that results from it being a keeper league.

But this week, Papi is on his bench. WTF, brah? Buried jersey or not, four for 44 slump be damned, you don't bench Big Papi. Awkwardly, it's working out for him because Casey Kotchman is outhitting the big guy. But this owner's team still struggles, because his pitching -- self-admittedly -- is horrible. This is where you pounce in.

David Ortiz
Specs: .104/.246/.167, 1HR, 3RBI, 9BB, 6.2%HR/F, .114 BABIP
The first two sets of stats -- the averages and the homers -- are what people look at. The last three -- the walks, percentage of fly balls that go for home runs and batting average on balls in play -- are what you should look at. The walks say he's being patient and the last two, well, "Look ma! Bad luck!" Or something like that. Either way, I can absolutely, 100% guarantee you that Ortiz will not continue to suffer through either of those low numbers. In fact, you could Spackler his back right hammy and I still think you'd see them both rise. But for the last few years, people keep wondering when age/weight/DH-type skills will catch up. Those people want the new hotness too. Johnny Cueto + the hot hitting Raul Ibanez seems like a decent starting offer.

To get you ready for draft season, Fantasy FanHouse will be running through each major league team, covering lineups, rotations and sleeper/busts.

Meet the ...
"Playmakers." And I don't mean in game either. I mean, sitting around in the offseason, and someone in the front office said, "we need to make a damn play". And that's how the Tigers ended up shipping uber-stud Cameron Maybin to the Marlins for already-stud Miguel Cabrera and overrated sidewinder Dontrelle Willis. Of course, the Tigers make plays in games too -- Boston aside, this might be the most fantasy friendly roster in the bigs. The lineup is straight up stacked and the rotation combines a lot of youthful upside with some solid consistency. Oh, and some chicken. Giddeyup.

The Breakout
There's no one in either the starting lineup or the five man rotation that can be considered under the radar enough to really be called a breakout. However, Jeremy Bonderman is not getting a ton of love this year. That is probably because of his 2-8, 7.00 plus ERA second half of an egg that he laid last year. He got shut down early, pitching only 174 innings and ended up with a 5.01 ERA on the season. Bear in mind though, that Bonderman was coming off a 214 IP season in 2006 and spent the entire portion of the season that he struggled fighting through injury. Biggity, biggity bounce back.

The Bust
Magglio Ordonez is going too high in most fantasy drafts this year. That's because he hit a ridiculous AL leading .363 last year while smacking 28 taters. He will still be good this year, but if you draft him expecting last year's totals, or pay the auction price he will command, then you are going to be at the very least disappointed. Maggs' health used to be an issue, so that's a small risk, but more than anything it will be just too hard for him to repeat 2007.