Guys, it’s inevitable. Vinnie Pestano is going to be a trendy late-round draft pick this year as a potential saves sleeper. On the surface, it seems obvious why he would be. Cleveland’s closer entering 2012 will be Chris Perez, whose numbers were bad by middle-relief standards last season, much less by those of a closer:

Chris Perez – 2011 Season Stats

Yesterday, I set a new low in the MLB.com Fantasy411 Industry mock draft when I drafted Gavin Floyd 57 spots below his current ADP. Floyd has a current ADP of 229, which ranks him 85^th among all starting pitchers for the 803 mixed league drafts run over the past two weeks.  Floyd is currently being drafted behind the likes of Vance Worley, Edwin Jackson, Matt Harrison, R.A. Dickey, and Ivan Nova while coming in ahead of Ted Lilly, Mike Minor, Drew Pomeranz, Brett Anderson, and Mark Buehrle.  

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Earlier this week, Tout Wars made a couple of announcements for the upcoming fantasy season. First, I found out who my competitors would be in the Mixed League as the third and final lineup for Tout Weekend was set. Additionally, rule changes for 2012 were announced, and one of those changes is quite dramatic and unique.

Prefacing these rule changes, the Tout crew wrote:

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Cruise ships are wonderful getaways from the stresses of life: three or more days out at sea, away from it all—and that includes data coverage, unless you are willing to pay a per-minute fee that is on the level of what a beer costs at most ballparks these days. Couple that with spending time with 13 other guys as we honor the last days of our good friend’s bachelorhood, and the last 96 hours have been quite a blur of inaccessibility, little sleep, and lapses in memory, but today I rejoin the daily grind.

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Carlos Marmol | Chicago Cubs | CL | Under Contract | Staying on in the Ninth

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We know that at an auction table, there is a finite number of dollars that can be spent to acquire talent. What we do not know is how many players will go on to produce positive dollar values for our teams or how many players will have a chance to contribute. For any of us that have been playing this game for awhile, we know just how volatile each position can be from year to year. Yet, knowing what total or percentage of players at each position end up contributing can help you set your benchmarks for your cheatsheets at a draft. In a standard 15-team mixed league draft, you know that there will be 135 pitchers taken, and it is your job to either project which guys will be the ones you and your opponents will be purchasing as pitchers you feel will have positive value.

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Hanley Ramirez | Florida Marlins
Shallow: NO
Medium: BORDERLINE
Deep: YES
NL-only: YES
Super Deep: YES

Again, it is extremely difficult for this author to remain completely objective when it comes to Ramirez, who is perhaps the face of the (soon-to-be Miami) Marlins franchise. Ramirez's performance in 2010 was disconcerting but still well in the range of excellence for shortstops. Ramirez's 2011 performance, on the other hand, was an abject disaster. Not only did he post his worst batting line by far (.243/.333/.379), but he did so while suffering through his most injury-riddled year ever after going through two seasons of creeping minor injuries.

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Rumors abound that Yu Darvish, perhaps the most hyped player to come from Japan since Daisuke Matsuzaka, will be posted by his Nippon Pro Baseball team this winter. If that happens, Major League Baseball teams will have the right to bid on exclusive negotiating rights with Darvish in the hopes of securing his services for their rotation. This possibility has the blogosphere abuzz, with many a writer speculating on where he’ll end up or how he’ll fit in with a blogger’s favorite team.

But the big question on everyone’s mind is how much of this buzz is merely hype and how much is legitimate. As Michael Street has shown, Japanese pitchers (particularly starters) have a very spotty track record when they come across the Pacific, and even a guy like Matsuzaka only managed one above-average season before giving way to injuries and ineffectiveness.

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Tough keeper decisions can come down to a number of concerns. Was the off-year due to aging, bad luck, or skill erosion? Can a player recover from injury? Will he continue to start or shift into a platoon? Is this young hitter for real? Sometimes, a more important question to ask is, “How will other owners assess his 2012 value?” Even when a player is expected to rebound, it might be wiser to cut him loose and rely on the short-sightedness of other owners to deflate his draft day price. Any gap between real and perceived value is worth exploiting, and I’ll look at all of those questions in this week’s column, headed by one of the biggest fantasy disappointments of 2011.

As always, please leave suggestions for other players you’d like to read about in the comments section.

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It was reported by SI’s Jon Heyman early yesterday on Twitter that the Tigers are expected to pick up the $9M option on Jose Valverde to return as the closer for the club in 2012 after converting all 49 of his save opportunities in 2011. The immediate I-hate-closers-in-fantasy-baseball guy in my brain immediately screamed, “Why??!!” Admittedly though, it does not help that I closely follow a team (the Rays) that has spent as much on their primary closer over the past seven seasons as the Yankees and Red Sox have spent to pay their closer for just this past season.

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Once again, today’s list of starters is entirely generated from your requests, and I’ve tried to hit a few new teams that don’t get much discussion around here. Keep ‘em coming!

Bud Norris | Houston Astros
Shallow: NO
Medium: NO
Deep: BORDERLINE
NL-only: YES
Super Deep: YES

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Joe Nathan | Minnesota Twins | RP | Free Agent | Taking Less to Close?

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