There was a common perception that Jayson Werth is injury prone, but he went almost four years between stints on the disabled list (his previous being May 23, 2008). His loss hurts fantasy owners, though not nearly as much as it is likely to hurt the on-base-challenged Nationals. Meanwhile, mixed-league afterthought Rick Ankiel becomes a much better risk; the team really needs his power, even if he brings little else to the table offensively. In the fantasy realm, however, owners can do a lot better when searching for a replacement in most league formats, which is where Value Picks comes in...

It's a good thing most leagues don't count slugging percentage as a category, since the three picks from last week slugged a combined .278 over the past seven days. Fortunately, our much-discussed hero (at least in the comments), Michael Saunders, hit three homers, so good work anyone who had him active. Also, Gerardo Parra continued his wanton running, swiping three bases, and they say steals are more important when slugging is down.

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This just in: Matt Kemp and Josh Hamilton are good. While this column was one of the few sources to advise taking Kemp number one overall this season, it would be too easy—and misleading—to claim complete success in this piece of advice. After all, he's not going to hit .450 with 100 homers this season, and he hasn't been running nearly as much as he did last year. Such is the way of early-season predictions. A nameless author (ahem) picked the Nationals to finish last in the NL East, and while that prediction looks ridiculous in the early going, the Nats' success has had some measure of flukiness to it as well: playing weaker teams so far, out-performing their Pythagenport win projection, good health (the prediction was made after Storen was known to be injured), etc. The meta advice now is to capitalize on people who read too much into these hot (or cold) starts, to trade high or buy low.

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Back from a writing hiatus, your source for obscure outfielder observations returns with the baseball regular season, and a return to the usual format for Value Picks, as described by Michael Street Tuesday.  Before we get started, however, since I received so much mail (thanks, Mom) asking about my draft in the Fantasy Pros 911 Expert League on Wednesday, here's the squad.  Wish me luck; first place prize is a cruise:

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Baseball Prospectus is hiring. There are currently two positions open for detail-oriented people with SQL expertise and strong written communication skills. Familiarity with advanced baseball statistics is a big plus. The work will be remote and the hours very flexible, with a minimum expectation of about 20 hours/week.

TECHNICAL

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A month ago, Baseball Prospectus introduced the Scoresheet Draft Aid to help Scoresheet Baseball players with their drafts. Since then, the most common piece of feedback by Scoresheet players who have used it is that it's "too good" and that it levels the playing field, erasing the edge that can be gained by an opponent through hours, days, or even months of research. Now, to put that to the test, Scoresheet players who are in the final rounds of their public league drafts can try it out for free for three days, from March 21-23.  

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Not that anyone at Baseball Prospectus would be so shortsighted as to look at spring training stats when preparing for an important fantasy draft, but, um, connecting the Team Tracker to a sortable/searchable display of Spring Training statistics might have come out of such an endeavor.  

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Some of us have been sleeping this spring, including this author, who has been sleeping on baseball goingsons more than I'd like, due to other obligations.  But, in researching Value Picks this week, the real sleepers have been those fantasy owners who have allowed Dayan Viciedo's ADP to move from 215 to 283. If that includes you, dear reader, then wake up! He was a bargain at 215!

J.D. Martinez | OF | Houston Astros
Mixed: -$1 | NL-only: $11 | PECOTA OF Rank: 82 | OF ADP: 72

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Sometimes, when you realize you've stepped in something malodorous, there's nothing to do but pause and deal with the situation at foot. Keep walking, and the substance will remain on your shoe, where it will begin to attract unwelcome attention. We made a similar misstep, in a proverbial sense, with some of our PECOTA projections this season. Recently, we discovered that National League pitchers were projected to be substantially worse than PECOTA’s logic intended due to a bug that slipped past our testing.

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Hi Beta Testers -

As the title says, we have Percentiles for batters ready a lot sooner this season, and would like to hear feedback. This URL has all the players projected for 100+ PA:

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Some projects are a labor of love, and working on the latest Baseball Prospectus Fantasy product - Scoresheet Draft Aid - was that for me.  A look behind the scenes at how this unfolded involves resident  Scoresheet expert Ben Murphy discussing various possibilities with Scoresheet Baseball's crack programmer Dave Barton. With my inattention to this project - something about books and former Royals utility infielders kept me from thinking much about it - Mr. Barton wrote on January 26, "I don't know about aiming for opening day this year."  Well, I wasn't going to have any of that, and starting in the second week of February, I pitched a tent in the (virtual) Prospectus office and worked to get this out in time not only for Opening Day, but even in time for most Scoresheet drafts. 

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“Preseason Value Picks” is an interesting notion to begin with… who is going to benefit from such analysis?  The obvious answer is owners whose drafts come the earliest, and Scoresheet baseball drafts are already progressing. These are very slow processes, from the perspective of traditional fantasy players, in keeping with the more ponderous tone of Scoresheet. Most Scoresheet leagues allow at least 13 keepers without salaries to worry about. The games are simulated, generating a weekly report with, you guessed it, score sheets for each game. So, before diving in to outfielders this week, I wanted to mention a tool we released yesterday for aiding with Scoresheet drafts (but which is available to all Fantasy and Premium subscribers): The Scoresheet Draft Aid. I'm working on a blog post with some more details, but in the meantime, feel free to utilize it knowing that it's specifically geared toward things that help a Scoresheet team (offense, defense, pitching), not typical fantasy categories.

Returning from that Scoresheet tangent to some “real” fantasy (is that an oxymoron?), drafts are kicking off very soon. Most people know that the top outfielders are Matt Kemp, Jose Bautista, Jacoby Ellsbury, Justin Upton, Carlos Gonzalez, Curtis Granderson, Mike Stanton, and Andrew McCutchen, in some order (and we've covered several of these guys with Keeper Reaper articles). The order in which they are taken is as much personal preference as cold, hard analysis. In the USA Today mock draft I participated in, those guys went: Kemp, Ellsbury, Bautista, [gap], Upton, CarGo, [gap], Granderson, McCutchen, then Jay Bruce and Josh Hamilton (this draft was held last December) went before Stanton.

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