Every week, Baseball Prospectus’ own Bret Sayre puts together The Stash List. This list is an invaluable resource. I often use it not only to ascertain who might be close to making an impact in my deep leagues but also to get a feel for what the market value might be for a player. In leagues where I can bid on minor leaguers, this gives me a feel for when I might need to bid; in leagues where I can’t bid on minor leaguers, this tells me what I might need to bid.

However, in some of the deeper leagues I play in, Bret’s list isn’t of much use. Two of the expert leagues I’m in allow owners to stash minor leaguers, and the reserve lists are deep enough that even in non-keeper formats the top prospects that might make it up in 2013 are long gone. Speculation also runs rampant in these types of cutthroat leagues. If you think you’re going to be the lucky soul that snags Christian Yelich a week before his call-up, forget about it. Yelich is already owned in Tout Wars and in most deep leagues with any appreciable reserve depth.

If you’re anything like me, trading can sometimes be a scary proposition, especially if your team is shaping up to be a contender. Nothing is worse than an ill-advised trade initiating a team’s downward spiral when maintaining the status quo of players would have been the better option.

As unpleasant as the outcome of a trade can be, equally as displeasing is the feeling of discomfort during negotiations.  I’m sure you’ve felt before the pressure to respond decisively to an offer and maybe even formulate a logical counter of your own when really you just want to avoid making any drastic decisions.

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Welcome to the Weekly Pitching Planner. Each week I will cover the pitchers are who slated to make two starts and help you decide who you should start and who you should sit. Sometimes guys will be in the “consider” where they might have one good start, but a second tough one and then your league settings might determine whether or not you should go forward with him. The pitchers will be split by league then by categories:

Auto-Starts – These are your surefire fantasy aces. You paid a handsome sum for them either with an early draft pick or high dollar auction bid so you’re starting them anywhere, anytime. Guys can emerge onto or fall off of this list as the season evolves. There won’t be many – if any – notes associated with these groupings each week. We are starting them automatically so why do I need to expound on how awesome they are and will be in the coming week?

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Derek Dietrich, 2B (Yahoo! and CBS)/SS (ESPN), Miami Marlins

Ownership: ESPN: 0.3% Yahoo!: 1% CBS: 5%
2013 Stats: 2 R, 1 HR, 4 RBI, 0 SB, .400 AVG

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Welcome to Baseball Prospectus’ Reliever Report: Fantasy Edition. This is a fairly standard article in the fantasy community, so a long, drawn-out introduction is unnecessary.  The focus every week will be on:

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The Giants saw enough from Ryan Vogelsong in his first season back from oblivion that they gave him a new contract that could keep him in San Francisco through the 2014 season. In 2012, Vogelsong picked up right where he left off in 2011, but that success story has not continued thus far in 2013.

To date, opponents have hit .323 against him with a 939 OPS and a .370 batting average on balls in play. Those numbers are a dramatic spike from the past two seasons, when batters hit .243 against him with just a 680 OPS and a .286 BABIP.

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It’s getting to be that time of year where you can start weeding out the non-contenders from the eventual non-contenders. And for those franchises, it means decisions about when to call up their prospects. Through Monday, there were five teams with a winning percentage at .400 or below—but for the purposes of this discussion, I’m going to throw out the Blue Jays and the Angels. Both of those teams were expected to be division contenders, and they both have too much talent to be this bad the whole year and nothing coming on the farm (at least in the near future).

But those three remaining teams (the Astros, Marlins, and Mets) are not going to be contending at any point this season, and have strong prospects in the upper minors. However, each organization has treated their top guys differently. The Marlins are apparently just throwing caution to the wind, as they have both Jose Fernandez and Marcell Ozuna on their active roster—both of whom ended the 2012 season in High-A. The Astros, on the other hand, appear to be letting their prospects marinate until they are closer to a contention window. They have Jarred Cosart throwing well in Triple-A and George Springer absolutely killing it at Double-A, but I don’t expect to see either any time soon. Finally, the Mets have been burdened recently by financial constraints, so it was no shock to see the reports break that Zack Wheeler would be kept down in the minors until the Super Two deadline passes. The same would have been true for Travis d’Arnaud if he had stayed healthy enough for it to matter.

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Adam Rosales, 2B/SS, Oakland Athletics
Ownership:  ESPN: 0.4% Yahoo!: 1%  CBS: 4%
2013 Stats: 5 R, 1 HR, 3 RBI, 0 SB, .313 AVG

Although he’s still not an everyday player, Rosales is finding his way into the lineup and producing enough to warrant consideration at middle-infield spots in mixed leagues. In 50 at-bats, he’s slashing an impressive .313/.400/.458 with a home run. And, as you may know, his homer total should really be two, given he was the batter victimized by the Angel Hernandez blown video-review call. It’s worth noting that the glass-boned Jed Lowrie and the ineffective Eric Sogard are currently limiting his playing time, meaning Rosales’ role could easily be expanded in the future. Rosales is currently filling the MI slot on my Tout Wars squad, a 15-team mixer, and could be a decent option for yours as well.

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We are about to hit a big date in the fantasy baseball world: May 15. While it doesn’t carry any inherent significance on the calendar (unless you’re John Smoltz, George Brett, Josh Beckett, Justin Morneau, Michael Brantley, Brian Dozier, or Brandon Barnes; happy birthday, gents!), it is another mile marker on the fantasy landscape, as many see it as a point beyond which they should begin addressing needs and making serious moves with their ballclubs. With the general chorus of advice being that you should be patient with the players you drafted, there are a handful of these early mile markers at which fantasy managers feel they have been patient enough based on their perception of what it means.

The first is usually Tax Day, April 15. Yes, two weeks is long enough for some, and then it’s time to get in there and start rearranging the puzzle pieces. For others, May 1 is a big day. Essentially a sixth of the season has passed, we’ve flipped the calendar, and now trading large chunks of your original squad doesn’t seem like such a panic move. The other two biggies are May 15 and Memorial Day (or June 1, but those are close enough that we can lump ‘em together). Not only are these markers used for deciding whether or not you should make that big eight-player deal with Fred from accounting, but the fantasy community also uses these dates to start judging the legitimacy of performances.

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Most fantasy web sites and other resources do little if any analysis on playing for next year, or what is known less elegantly as “dumping.” Some analysts refuse to even acknowledge that it is part of the game and advise that it is always best to trade with this year in mind and worry about future consequences next year.

In reality, if you’re in a keeper league, you will probably have to give up and play for next year sooner or later. If other teams are building rosters for 2014 around cheap players such as Bryce Harper, Matt Harvey, and Shelby Miller, and you are sitting back while your team languishes in seventh place with little hope of winning, you are not doing yourself any favors.

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Selling high on fast starters is largely a myth these days. There is simply too much information available for fantasy gamers. Not all fast starts are created equal, though, and sometimes it pays to inquire on the availability of some of these players. Occasionally, owners will feel like they are selling at peak value, and now is the time to make a deal with them. In other cases, those owners are selling a player at peak value, and it is best to avoid acquiring him now. The key is determining which hot players are likely to sustain their high level of success.

There were quite a few players for me to pick from, and I opted to eliminate superstars from the discussion. Superstars do great things, and telling you that Miguel Cabrera will continue to play well and is worth acquiring isn't terribly useful. With that in mind, I selected four hitters that had an ADP outside the top 100 at the end of March for NFBC leagues.

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Welcome to the Weekly Pitching Planner. Each week I will cover the pitchers are who slated to make two starts and help you decide who you should start and who you should sit. Sometimes guys will be in the “consider” where they might have one good start, but a second tough one and then your league settings might determine whether or not you should go forward with him. The pitchers will be split by league then by categories:

Auto-Starts – These are your surefire fantasy aces. You paid a handsome sum for them either with an early draft pick or high dollar auction bid so you’re starting them anywhere, anytime. Guys can emerge onto or fall off of this list as the season evolves. There won’t be many – if any – notes associated with these groupings each week. We are starting them automatically so why do I need to expound on how awesome they are and will be in the coming week?

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