There’s an old adage in fantasy baseball to “draft skills, not roles.”  The reasoning behind this is that the cream will rise to the top, that the better player will eventually take on the more prominent role.  This advice is often given in regard to closers, but it’s advice which I’ve expressed my disagreement with on multiple occasions.  While “draft skills, not roles” is a romantic notion, studies I’ve run in the past have shown that role is far more important than skill when it comes to saves and that closers in waiting are generally poor investments.

When Fernando Rodney received the first two save opportunities following Kyle Farnsworth’s injury, one site said that “while it would be nice to think that the 35-year-old will continue to close out games so effortlessly, his track record and bullpen competition probably make him one of the biggest sell-high candidates in baseball.”  Rodney proceeded to roll off seven more (consecutive) saves en route to becoming one of the most valuable closers in baseball over the first six weeks.  He had the role, which is more difficult to lose than most assume.

In recent weeks, I’ve discussed my stance on being aggressive early in the season, both in terms of FAAB bidding and in terms of trading.  Of course, there are different reasons for making a trade.  Ignoring the “making a trade for the sake of making a trade/being active/shaking things up,” which is never a good idea, there are two main reasons to make a trade: because you’re getting the better players or because you’re filling a need.

A number of readers have requested my advice on trades recently, with the conversation often starting something like, “I’m weak in Category A.”  Of course, stating with such certainty that you’re weak in a category when we’re just 19 percent of the way into the season is a tricky business. After all, there are a lot of games left to be played, and a lot of things can happen between now and October.  You don’t know how player performance will change, who will get injured, what trades may present themselves later in the year, who will come available on waivers, etc.

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Well that was quick.  Barely a week after he was given the closer’s role in Anaheim, Scott Downs appears to be DL-bound after injuring his leg Sunday while avoiding a comebacker, leaving fantasy players scrambling to find his replacement.  Who that replacement will be, however, is currently up in the air.  Of course, that won’t stop us from speculating.  Today, I’ll try my hand at handicapping the situation.

The Yahoo! Friends & Family experts league is always an interesting barometer for this sort of thing.  It’s a daily transaction league, and any time a ninth-inning changing of the guard may be taking place, owners race to the waiver wire to pick up anyone with a chance for saves.  By yesterday evening, five Angel relievers had been picked up (if they weren’t already owned) in Yahoo! F&F: Downs, Jordan Walden, LaTroy Hawkins, Ernesto Frieri, and Jason Isringhausen.  Let’s take a look at the chance each has of saving games for the foreseeable future.

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I’ve received a few questions recently from readers in the save-speculating business.  There’s been quite a bit of ninth-inning turnover in the early going of 2012, so it’s natural to wonder who’ll find themselves in a closer’s chair next.  While I don’t recommend save speculating in shallower leagues—closers-in-waiting have a low success rate—it can certainly be worthwhile in deep leagues where a reliever’s ratios have some value unto themselves and where the value of a bench spot is minimal.  Even if you play in a shallow mixed league, though, it’s important to keep up with who is next in line should a mad dash to the waiver wire eventually be required.  After all, it does the fastest runner no good if he doesn’t run in the direction of the finish line.

As such, over the next couple of weeks I will be examining some not-so-obvious late-inning situations to try and suss out the player who is next-in-line for saves.  Today, I’m going to delve in the bullpen of the Minnesota Twins.

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One of the most common pieces of advice at this early juncture of the fantasy baseball season is to be patient.  While this is very wise, we’re often told that, as part of being patient, we shouldn’t make any trades until a certain point—the middle of May, the start of June, whenever.  This, however, is a piece of advice I strongly disagree with.

This piece of advice usually comes with one of two explanations.  The first is that you should wait a while to see how your players perform before you decide to trade them.  But this line of reasoning is flawed.  If you wait to make trades for this reason, one of two things will happen: your player will play well (so why would you trade him?) or your player will play poorly (so who would want to trade for him?).  Waiting for this reason accomplishes nothing except getting games in the books, all the while passing up opportunities to improve your team.

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It may sound strange, but one of my absolute favorite parts of running a fantasy team is finding undervalued relievers.  Having Matt Kemp fall to me in the middle of the first round and getting 10 home runs through the first three weeks?  Eh.  Having my 24^th-round pick throw a perfect game?  Color me mildly elated.  But grabbing Jason Grilli for $1 in Tout Wars?  I’m throwing a parade in my mother’s basement!

Middle relievers can be an underappreciated source of value, especially in AL/NL-only leagues and in leagues with innings caps.  Not only are they capable of producing elite ratios, but they can also match near-elite starters in wins on a per-inning basis, which is incredibly important in leagues with innings caps.  Even if your league doesn’t have an innings cap and is simply deep, these relievers can be worth several dollars.  Your pitchers are going to get injured, and when you find out that Michael Pineda is done for the season, there aren’t exactly a lot of options out on the waiver wire.  In a lot of leagues, there may not be a single starter available at all, even of the Adam Wilk variety.

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Last Thursday, I decided to have a little fun with small sample sizes, checking out the success (or lack thereof) of my value picks from my preseason Fantasy Tier Rankings.  While I looked at the hitters on Thursday, today we’ll move on and inspect the starting pitchers.

As I did last time, I’m going to ignore the Four- and Five-Star Value Picks because, well, most of them weren’t really values.  Everyone knows that Clayton Kershaw is a good player, so I’m not going to bother going over him.  Instead, I’ll focus on the one-, two-, and three-star guys that you likely acquired on the cheap.  These are going to be the money-makers of a fantasy team, the guys that you’re hoping to make big profits on.

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I received an e-mail earlier this week from a Baseball Prospectus reader congratulating me on the early-season success of my value picks from my Fantasy Tier Rankings.  While celebrating the success of these players in April is akin to celebrating a new American Pie movie before experiencing the disappointment of actually seeing it (read: premature… see what I did there), it’s still kind of fun.  And hey, combined, my value picks have accrued 669 plate appearances—roughly a full season’s worth of at-bats.  So today, I’m going to take a (very early) look at which of my picks are panning out and which aren’t.

I’m going to ignore the Four- and Five-Star Value Picks because, well, most of them weren’t really values.  Everyone knows that Albert Pujols is a good player, so I’m not going to bother going over him.  Instead, I’ll focus on the one-, two-, and three-star guys that you likely acquired on the cheap.  These are going to be the moneymakers of a fantasy team, the guys that you’re hoping to make big profits on.

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During my chat with BP readers last week, there were a number of questions right out of the gate from panicking Tim Lincecum owners and, on the other side of the coin, owners wondering whether they should take advantage of their league’s panicking Lincecum owner.  I gave a brief response, but I wanted to go into more detail today for those who asked during the chat and for those who didn’t have a chance to stop by.

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On Monday, I began a discussion about using your FAAB budget in the early weeks of the season.  To summarize, I advocated being very aggressive in spending FAAB dollars early.  After all, the earlier you purchase a player, the longer he’ll be on your roster accruing stats.  I discussed this in very general strokes, though, and wanted to go into a bit more depth today.

When deciding exactly how aggressive you should be in placing your FAAB bid, there are a number of factors that you should consider.

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One of the most important skills a fantasy player can develop is the ability to manage his Free Agent Acquisition Budget (FAAB).  Fantasy players put a lot of emphasis on the draft—and rightfully so—but FAAB bidding often gets unduly overlooked.

I bring up this topic today because, despite our being less than a week into the season, there is an important decision facing fantasy owners.  On Saturday night, the speculation over who would win the White Sox-closer gig came to an end, when manager Robin Ventura handed the ball to rookie reliever Hector Santiago in the ninth inning with the team up 4-3.  And if there was any ambiguity left, Ventura confirmed verbally that Santiago was indeed the team’s sole closer.

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Taking a page out of the book of industry friends Pat DiCaprio and Mike Podhorzer, who used to engage in this exercise at the start of the season as far back as their Fantasy Baseball Generals days, today I’m going to make 10 bold predictions for the coming season.  These aren’t meant to be most-likely scenarios by any means.  These aren’t average expected performances.  We’ll define “bold” as Pat and Mike did, which is to say that I believe these things have at least a 20 percent chance of occurring.  Feel free to let me know what you think of these predictions and what bold predictions you’re making yourself for the 2012 season!

Clayton Kershaw maintains a BB/9 below 2.75
PECOTA has Kershaw pegged for a 3.4 BB/9 after he posted rates of 4.8, 3.6, and 2.1 from 2009-2011, but PECOTA fails to take into consideration the breaking-ball change Kershaw made last year that contributed heavily to his improvement.  In 2011, Kershaw shifted away from a tougher-to-control, big breaking curve and toward a tighter pitch that he can spot more easily in the zone.  A 2.1 BB/9 might be nearly impossible to repeat, but expect him to keep most of the gains.

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