Fantasy Sports: Subs. Req. No More!

filed under Fantasy : Baseball

What’s more fun than getting something for free? We here at Oddjack are all about ingesting as much fantasy news as we can on a daily basis—anything we can do to keep our team in the hunt for the coveted Yahoo Fantasy Sports champion screenshot which we plan to use as wallpaper on our laptop the rest of the year. But a funny thing happened to ESPN in the last year—they started charging for their fantasy news. (Sure we can get Out of the Box for free, but we’re on Tristan Cockroft overload of late.) Now, we actually have to pay to see the handsome mugs of Karabell, Engler, and Rounce every day. Sucks when that happens. So, from now on, as a service to our readers, we’ll not only round up everything that’s premium subscription for ESPN, we’ll give it you for free. After the jump, read Eric Karabell’s June round-up for fantasy sports. And shhhh…this is a secret. Well, not really.

On this July 1, we pay homage to those who, on Thursday, accomplished season-long firsts. Yes, even halfway through a schedule, it’s never too late for baseball players to do things they hadn’t done the first three months.
But first, let’s take a look back at June stats and see if there are interesting names. Remember, April was a while ago. If someone had a great June, isn’t that more significant?

June Leaders: The top hitters of the month were both Angels (Vladimir Guerrero, Adam Kennedy), but only one of them is owned in more than 10 percent of leagues. Can you guess which one? The other two players to top .400 are Chad Tracy and Derrek Lee. Again, which one of them is not owned? Andruw Jones, Carlos Lee and Morgan Ensberg all topped 10 home runs, but check out what Shawn Green, Jason Lane, Bill Hall and Joe Randa did. Interesting. In steals, Scott Podsednik, Jose Reyes and Carl Crawford reached double digits. No shock there. But Julio Lugo, Reggie Sanders and Kenny Lofton came close, and some other interesting players stole five or more bases (Marcus Giles, Bill Hall again, Chris Burke). And in runs scored, the very underrated Grady Sizemore reached 30! Times that by six months and he reaches 180!

For pitchers, four guys won five times, but John Smoltz and Roy Oswalt you know. How about A’s Danny Haren and Joe Blanton? Still available in a lot of leagues. And Gil Meche, Horacio Ramirez, Chris Capuano and D.J. Houlton all won four. The strikeout kings were Chris Carpenter, Randy Johnson (struggling? Not really), Pedro and Johan. But check out Doug Davis, Chris Young, John Lackey and Aaron Harang all in the top 10 for the month.

Now, to Thursday’s heroes and goats…

Kevin Mench swatted three home runs for the first time this season, and in his career. Not a bad day at all, with homers in three straight innings, five RBI in total. Fantasy owners have spent a lot of time complaining about this guy, known for his unusually large head and for being the No. 5 home run hitter all-time from Delaware. But he’s on pace for 32 homers, 88 RBI and a .297 average. Looks fine to me. The Rangers lead the league in homers, and Mench should contribute 30 or so by the end of the season.

Jake Westbrook, for the first time this season, has won four straight starts. He has, however topped this before, with a five-game streak last season. You know, Jake remains relatively ignored in fantasy, but he’s on his way to matching his 2004 stats, when he was among the league leaders in ERA and WHIP (his WHIP is there, the ERA is improving). Westbrook was 2-9 three weeks ago. Now he’s 6-9. His WHIP is 10th in the AL. In fantasy one trick, among many, is to get the hot player and enjoy the good stats, don’t get caught with the bad stats. Westbrook’s ERA in May was 3.93. In June it was 3.60. He’s exactly the type of guy you should’ve been adding a month ago and you should keep now, not stream him and dump him.

Chad Cordero saved another game, meaning he’s the first fella since 1996 to finish a month with as many as 15 saves. John Wetteland and Lee Smith also had 15-save months. You have to be good to get that many saves in a month, but also lucky. The Nationals won 20 games in June, and Cordero saved 15 of them. The A’s won 19 games, and their co-closers (Huston Street, Justin Duchscherer) combined for eight saves. A better comparison would be the White Sox, another first-place team with a single closer. Dustin Hermanson had seven saves in June, while the team won 18 times. Basically, Cordero, while dominant, was fortunate to get that many chances. His team doesn’t score enough to prevent save opps.

Jimmy Rollins hit the first home run of his career while batting fifth in the order. You know what, this is actually good news for the Phillies. It’s about time manager Charlie Manuel figured out that it’s tougher to score runs when your leadoff hitter is never on base. Rollins can be an electric player, but a .313 on-base percentage is poor. Rollins slugged .455 last season, hitting 14 home runs and 43 doubles. Why not drop him in the order to an RBI spot? Let him swing for the fences. The Phillies hit Kenny Lofton first, with his shiny .445 OBP, and he produced. The team got waxed anyway, but at least Manuel showed he was paying attention. Just because you’re fast it doesn’t mean you’re a leadoff hitter. Sticking with the Phillies, if you’re still using Jon Lieber, you’re just not paying attention anymore. Lieber had a first Thursday; it was the first time his ERA topped 5 for the season. He finished June with a 6.69 ERA. In May it was 5.88. Still waiting for that 3.03 April one? Lieber’s not much better than Eric Milton right now, and you don’t own him.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention what Carlos Beltran did in the seventh inning Thursday. A week ago I named Beltran the bust of the year for fantasy (see Blog archive), and despite his two stolen bases Thursday that doesn’t change. It can change if this is the beginning of a big second half. First of all, let’s get a few things straight. I didn’t rip Beltran because I am an angry Phillies fan and the Mets have been embarrassing the Phils all season. I concede the latter fact, and predict both the Phillies and Mets will finish the season with more losses than wins. I didn’t rip Beltran because I just traded him in an important league. I needed Pedro more in that league, and am winning steals anyway. I remain a Beltran owner in other leagues and really could use a 20-homer second half badly. By this point, I’ve looked elsewhere for the stolen bases. Finally, there are plenty of nominees for fantasy underachieving, but Beltran’s worse than Todd Helton, Jim Thome, Kerry Wood and the others. Also, he’s worse than Barry Bonds; you KNEW he was hurt. Those guys weren’t picked between first and fourth in 98 percent of drafts.

All that said, what if Beltran starts reeling off two-steal games every night now? Wouldn’t that be tremendous? Sure, I’d be pleased. But I watched that entire Mets-Phillies classic and Beltran didn’t exactly look like a $100-million man. Lieber was terrible, but he retired Beltran with relative ease three times (though the third try was a hard-hit ball to second and turned into a 4-6-3 double play). In the seventh Beltran drew a two-out walk off Ryan Madson, and following in the fleet footsteps of Cliff Floyd, who had stolen two bases off Mike Lieberthal earlier, Beltran took off as well. I was as surprised as anyone; Beltran’s only other steal came on April 6. And not only does he steal second, on the next pitch, with Madson still oblivious, he swipes third. Good for him, and his owners. Now, if he’d steal about 30 more, that would be nice. I do want to see Beltran follow through on his prediction that he’ll start running more. It’s bad for fantasy when one guy can ruin a season like this. None of this is personal.

Notes: Rainouts stink. No, really, even in fantasy, they do little good. The Orioles and Yankees, two teams with many fantasy stars, had their Wednesday game rained out. When will it be played? Not until Sept. 26. By then 90 percent of fantasy baseball leagues will have been decided, at least. And while it’s certainly possible that game will matter for either or both teams, chances are we’ll see quite a few September callups that day. Wednesday’s rainout was one less game for Miguel Tejada to knock in runs, in my opinion. Also, remember when these rainout games get played, because in some cases they are doubleheaders. If you play Diamond Daily or Baseball Challenge or even just regular fantasy, two games for the price of one is a bargain.

Finally, you’ll notice the fantasy pages are redesigned today. Are they perfect? Well, our people are working hard to make adjustments and fix the problems. I think the new pages are an improvement, but like anything else, take some getting used to. Feel free to keep e-mailing me your comments and concerns, and I will make sure the proper people see them. And be patient, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Have a great, long July 4th weekend everyone.

Karablog [ESPN Fantasy INSIDER (subs. req.)]