Bruce Chen has had a fine little run for Baltimore this season. He was the perfect endgame dollar play in this year's draft. I lucked out and nabbed him off the free agent wire after watching his curveball dazzle Yankee hitters early in the season. Sometimes hunches pay off like that. My hunch is that next year won't be the same for the intelligent hurler. He gives up too many home runs and he maintains a razor-thin margin of error in his K/BB ratio. That's a bad combination. If he loses even a little control, those long balls will become a lot more painful to your team ERA.
But look at those numbers. Decent wins, ERA and WHIP for 2005. That means Chen has officially been penciled in on my Ramiro Mendoza List. That is, the list of pitchers I will nominate at next year's draft to fill up my opponents' rosters, and then sit back and watch them implode and destroy my enemies' stats. You know, the same way George Steinbrenner paid Mendoza to pitch like crap for the Red Sox ...
... Don't fret over Francisco Liriano's recent struggles. This is still one of the top young arms to watch entering 2006. While he won't be as consistent as teammate Scott Baker (profiled in this space previously), his upside appears to be much more significant. So, when you're looking to fill that final slot in your starting rotation and trying to decide between Baker and Liriano, the former will round out a solid staff, and the latter is the one to take if you need the risky upside ...
... Garrett Anderson looks like he could very well be next year's Bernie Williams. I can just see the guy's face who bids a few bucks too many on Garrett next year. He'll check his magazine to see why the bidding wasn't what it should have been. He'll look at the stats. He'll look at the list of available and comparable outfielders who will inevitably be cheaper later in the draft. And he'll curse himself, because he knew it was a down year, but he didn't remember exactly how far off the power had dropped. Anderson has turned into a useful player in a B.J. Surhoff/Jeff Conine type of way, but not a true offensive asset in most leagues ...
... Whenever I see Adrian Beltre's name come across the ESPN news ticker, I think "big time sleeper next year." Bad news is that if it's that obvious to me now, he will probably headline every pundits' comback player of the year column, and therefore actually become an anti-sleeper ...
... As the ridiculous David Ortiz-for-MVP push gains momentum (no glove and no baserunning ability!), he is getting pushed out of my 2006 price zone. I will be one of the owners paying $31 again for the underrated Manny Ramirez at my draft next year, while other owners chase Ortiz's career year and fork over $40+ while praying he doesn't twist his ankle ambling to first base ...
... No Lou Piniella next season means the Devil Rays are a team to monitor for fantasy purposes. While the team is awful in real baseball, Tampa Bay has a number of very good fantasy baseball players. Under Piniella, many of these players (i.e., Carl Crawford, Julio Lugo, Johnny Gomes) have displayed the coveted asset of speed on the basepaths. A new manager could put a dent in those numbers with a different philosophy. It could also mean that some of the young players in the Tampa Bay organization get a shot ...
... A final reminder of how silly making projections can make one look. Find me one preseason publication that was even remotely close on accurately predicting David Dellucci's 28 home runs. Most probably didn't even give him half of that.