I’ve been playing around some more with the formula I have created to rank players on a keeper league basis and have decided that while a formula can give me a good structure to my list, it has to have some human adjustment. In spite of the fact that he has shown some skills at some point in the minors, there is no way you can convince me Tyler Greene will be a Top 10 shortstop in the next three years and even if Derek Jeter will be pushing 40 soon, he will still be good enough to be in the top half of the shortstop lists.

With that in mind, I have decided that once I get the players ranked via my keeper formula, I will then need to adjust. Since there is no way to account for playing time and/or injury issues over three years, I will just have to assume I am skilled enough to make some judgment calls. Of course, if anyone out there has any suggestions, by all means send them my way.

With that in mind, I give you my current catcher rankings, projecting which players will be the most valuable over the next 3 years.

1. Carlos Santana, Cleveland
2. Joe Mauer, Minnesota
3. Brian McCann, Atlanta
4. Buster Posey, San Francisco
5. Geovanny Soto, Chicago Cubs
6. Chris Iannetta, Colorado
7. Matt Wieters, Baltimore
8. Carlos Ruiz, Philadelphia
9. Victor Martinez, Boston
10. Miguel Montero, Arizona
11. Alex Avila, Detroit
12. John Jaso, Tampa Bay
13. Jorge Posada, New York Yankees
14. Russell Martin, Los Angeles Dodgers
15. Chris Snyder, Pittsburgh
16. Ryan Doumit, Pittsburgh
17. Ryan Hanigan, Cincinnati
18. Kelly Shoppach, Tampa Bay
19. Yadier Molina, St. Louis
20. Nick Hundley, San Diego
21. Rob Johnson, Seattle
22. Kurt Suzuki, Oakland
23. John Buck, Toronto
24. Jason Castro, Houston
25. Miguel Olivo, Colorado
26. Adam Moore, Seattle
27. Jonathan Lucroy, Milwaukee
28. Josh Thole, New York Mets
29. Jeff Mathis, Los Angeles Angels
30. J.P. Arencibia, Toronto
31. Ramon Hernandez, Cincinnati
32. Gerald Laird, Detroit
33. Ronny Paulino, Florida
34. Yorvit Torrealba, San Diego
35. Rod Barajas, New York Mets
36. Jason Varitek, Boston
37. A.J. Pierzynski, Chicago White Sox
38. Ivan Rodriguez, Washington
39. Jason Kendall, Kansas City
40. Bengie Molina, Texas

As with the shortstop rankings, this list is more to give you an idea of who to keep if you are trying to decide between two catchers on your team and/or any catchers that may become available in your league. If you are in the process of rebuilding or are in the middle of a multi-year plan, it would be most valuable to target some of the young catchers at the top of the list.

I realize it has been a while since I last posted here but I promise I haven’t been neglecting the blog. In all honestly, I have been trying to create a formula that takes a players skills and projects where they will rank over the next three years. 

I am not ready to release how the rankings are calculated but I wanted to get some feedback on where I’m at so I ranked the starting shortstops (who would be starting if healthy) of all 30 teams. I am a big fan of Ron Shandler’s work and I will say I have used his metrics for power, speed and expected batting average, along with walk rate and age to get a basic ground work for ranking players for longer than one season.

Basically the formula for this list was assigning point values to ranges for each metric, adding the scores together and multiplying that number by the score assigned to the players age.

As you look at this list, keep in mind that these ranks are for a three year span so when Derek Jeter appears no where near the top of the list, it is because of his projected skills decline and the fact that he will be 39 at the end of the projection model.

One final thing to keep in mind is that even the best prognosticators are only 70% accurate and that is projecting a players’ value for one year so there is a good chance the margin of error here is pretty big.

Ok, so without further rambling, here are the how today’s shortstops should fare fantasy-wise at the end of 3 years.

1. Hanley Ramirez, Florida
2. Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado
3. Jose Reyes, New York Mets
4. Stephen Drew, Arizona
5. Ian Desmond, Washington
6. Jimmy Rollins, Philadelphia
7. Yunel Escobar, Toronto
8. Tyler Greene, St. Louis
9. Erick Aybar, Los Angeles Angels
10. Elvis Andrus, Texas
11. Asdrubal Cabrera, Cleveland
12. Cliff Pennington, Oakland
13. Everth Cabrera, San Diego
14. Alcides Escobar, Milwaukee
15. Alexei Ramirez, Chicago White Sox
16. Rafael Furcal, Los Angeles Dodgers
17. JJ Hardy, Minnesota
18. Starlin Castro, Chicago Cubs
19. Jason Bartlett, Tampa Bay
20. Ramon Santiago, Detroit
21. Yuniesky Betancourt, Kansas City
22. Tommy Manzella, Houston
23. Ronny Cedeno, Pittsburgh
24. Cesar Izturis, Baltimore
25. Derek Jeter, New York Yankees
26. Marco Scutaro, Boston
27. Alex Gonzalez, Atlanta
28. Orlando Cabrera, Cincinnati
29. Edgar Renteria, San Francisco
30. Jack Wilson, Seattle

Again, these rankings are more based on trying to assign keeper value to players so the older the player, the less value they will provide over a longer period of time. Also, I realize that value of Starlin Castro is pretty low which is just due to a lack of data. I tried to use stats from 2008-present, and for those with less MLB service time than that, I used Major League Equivalents (MLE’s) to try and assign skills value.

I am open to any suggestions of other skills to include in the formula or for any problems you have with this list and hopefully I will be able to put something together shortly after the end of the season so you will have a long-term list to use to make long-term decisions about your multi-year team. Please leave your suggestions in the comments section below.

As I have mentioned before, every keeper league and every manager’s experience is different. While many people join a keeper league during the league’s inaugural season, many of us also come in as a replacement for a dud owner who failed to pay attention to his team and just let it fall apart.

I fall into the latter category.

I have shared before how my team was built from the leftovers of two abandoned teams so I won’t rehash that again but it should be sufficient to say that there was not a lot to work with once I was finally in. So for those of you who are taking over an abandoned team, are in the middle of a major reconstruction project or just need ideas on how to build a long-term contender, here are some guys taken after pick 50 that should be considered worth building around (Note: ADP numbers are from Mock Draft Central and players listed are under the age of 28).

• Andre Ethier – OF – Dodgers – 71 ADP: The window is closing fast on acquiring Ethier given his hot start but it may stay open a little longer given his recent trip to the DL. Ethier is one of the two players I have chosen to build my team around and I know the owner I got him from is kicking himself for letting him go. The power appears to be legit and growing and once the Dodgers lineup hits its stride, Ethier should be a good source of RBIs and Runs too.
• Billy Butler – 1B – Royals – 77 ADP: If you’re looking for a young 1B to build your squad around, Butler is a great choice. Playing in the wasteland that is Kansas City should work to your advantage as Butler doesn’t get as many RBIs or Runs as some of the other young 1Bs. But looking past those numbers is the fact that Butler is still pretty young (just turned 24) and his power stroke is developing.
• Matt Wieters – C – Orioles – 94 ADP: Wieters is the perfect example of why ranking players for a keeper league is so drastically different than ranking them for a one year league. If you play in a one year league, Wieters; ADP of 94 was way high for the player he is right now. But if you play in a keeper league and believe he has multiple 2009 Joe Mauer-type years in his bat, then he should have been drafted well before pick 94. This is probably the low point of Wieters bright future so if you covet this highly-touted C, now may be your only chance to lock him up for the long haul.
• Ian Stewart – 3B – Rockies – 123 ADP: Now I’m sure that once you saw Stewart’s name the word strike out was probably one of your first thoughts, but hopefully home run was somewhere close to that too. Only 25 this year, Stewart seems to have reversed the K issues he had last year and gotten his K rate closer to his 2008 level, without sacrificing the power gains he made last year. Stewart is off to a solid start so it may require more to get him than other 3Bs, but if you can pay less for him than Evan Longoria or Ryan Zimmerman you will be a happy owner when he reaches that same level of production.
• Brian Matusz – P – Orioles – 291 ADP: I hate having two Orioles on this list, especially given how 2010 is going for them so far but I wanted to include a young pitcher that projects as a future Hall-Of-Famer and while Tommy Hanson would be another great young arm to build a staff around, he is widely considered one of the best pitchers in baseball already and probably won’t come cheap. The thing I like about Matusz is that he has four pitches that can all be thrown for strikes and while he has limited pro ball experience, he is already having success at the MLB level. If you think being on the Orioles ends up hindering his production, other SPs in the same mold are Clayton Kershaw and David Price.

Hopefully those names give you some ideas as you look to build your title contender for 2011 and beyond.

I don’t like to tinker with my roster a whole lot before the season begins but every once in a while you just have to. At the conclusion of my league’s auction I was feeling really good about my team but the last flier I picked up I realized was just going to eat up space again this year. So I decided to drop that player to pick up Brett Cecil (who I just talked about) and felt like having an extra SP would help me out.

Looking through moves other owners had made, I then realized Cecil was about to hit the free agent pool again.

One of the keys to sustained success in a keeper league is knowing when to dump a player. And fortunately for me, one of the other owners in my league dumped Joe Nathan in my lap. Granted, Nathan is a terrible play for 2010 but looking at Nathan’s value past 2010, he still has the potential to be one of the top closers in the game once he returns.

Sure, I kill a roster spot (a DL slot once the season begins) for all of 2010, but knowing that my team probably is more suited to compete in 2011 rather than in 2010, I think the potential benefits outweigh the current downside. Now, maybe looking at his team, Nathan’s previous owner decided he was contending this year and therefore couldn’t afford the dead roster spot but I personally would disagree with that assessment.

So my advice to current Nathan owners is to hold onto him if you can. If you have no bench or only 1-2 spots then that move has to be made but if it is at all possible, you should seriously consider keeping Nathan. And if he is out on the waiver wire right now? Make room for him – you will be glad you did once he goes back to saving 30+ games in 2011.

NL West | AL West | NL Central | AL Central | NL East | AL East

With less than a week left before the regular season starts, it seems only fitting that I conclude my look at potential keepers for 2011 this week. We will leave off here in the Al East, a division that not only seems to have all the money in baseball, but some intriguing hidden talent as well.

Baltimore – Felix Pie – OF
This will probably be the last chance to get Pie while he is under the radar, especially considering the fact that he has beaten out Nolan Reimold as the starting LF. Now, Reimold is sitting because of some injury woes but after last year’s performance, all Pie really needed was a break to lock down consistent playing time – and now he has it. The HR, RBI, AVG and OPS have all increased with increased PT and in the middle of Baltimore’s lineup, there is another trend up waiting to happen.

Boston – Daniel Bard – P
I have tried to lock up Bard on a number of my teams this year and it seems to me that a lot of people realize this kid not only has the talent to help now, but could end up as a closer in the near future. The 3.65 ERA last year is a little high for a reliever but who can resist adding a P with a K/9 of 11.5? He probably walks a few too many guys right now (09 BB% of 4.0) but he still managed almost a 3.0 K/BB in spite of the high walk totals. As this guy further adjusts he should become more and more dominant, and he is surely displaying skills that will land him a more important bullpen role.

New York – Brett Gardner – OF
In the land of overpaid ballplayers, it is tough to find someone who is undervalued but Gardner is that guy. The Yankees seemed to send a pretty clear message this offseason when they let Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui walk and traded away Austin Jackson. Now its Gardner’s turn to return the favor. Gardner’s biggest asset is his speed and as long as he gets the ABs, he will produce SBs. Just look at his 09 numbers in which he stole 26 bases in 248 ABs – that’s a nice undervalued source of speed.

Tampa Bay – Sean Rodriguez – 2B
Rodriguez is one of those guys from the Adam Dunn-Russell Branyan school of baseball, and at 2B that can be a valuable commodity. At a position where SB and AVG usually dominate, Rodriguez gives you extraordinary power. But be warned, he also strikes out a ton. He has yet to get much of a chance in the majors but seems to have played his way onto the Rays this spring with 6 HR and a .439 AVG in 57 AB this spring. He has also struck out 14 times so the danger is there. Many analysts are calling him this year’s Ben Zobrist and that may not be a bad comparison. Grab him before his value shoots up like Zobrist’s did last year.

Toronto – Brett Cecil – P
The final player in this series comes from Toronto, where the Blue Jays are now trying to fill in the giant hole left in their rotation from the Roy Halladay trade. There are a lot of guys with a lot of interesting stories trying to make the Jays rotation but I think that by the end of the season the best starter in Toronto will be Cecil, a former first round pick. Cecil’s stats were hit and miss last year as he did post a 7-4 record, but it was with a 5.30 ERA and 1.65 WHIP. Looking under the surface though you see that Cecil posted an acceptable 6.7 K/9 and was really done in by the long ball (1.6 HR/9) and an unlucky BABIP (.338). Reverse those two and you should see marked improvement from Cecil. Add in that Cecil will only turn 23 in July, and it seems that he could easily break out.

That does it for this series, and hopefully there is at least one guy on this list that can help you build towards the future. If you have any other players you think will be future fantasy studs, share them in the comments section below. Good luck in 2010.

NL West | AL West | NL Central | AL Central | NL East | AL East

There are less than two weeks until we reach opening day so it is time to go through another division to find potential keepers for 2011. You know the drill, so here are some guys to keep an eye or two on.

Atlanta – Kris Medlen – P
Most of the pitching focus the last two years has been on teammate Tommy Hanson, but Medlen came along far enough last year that he could be a surprise in the Atlanta rotation this year. He should begin the season in the pen but could be the first guy called upon to start. If he can bring the skills he showed out of then pen last year to the spot starts he receives, he could play himself into the rotation.

Florida – Chris Volstad – P
Volstad is another young arm with a bright future who mainly needs to cut down on the walks in order to take the next step. Volstad was also victimized by a 1.6 HR/9 rate which lead to a 5.00+ ERA. Florida always seems to have loads of young talented players ready to break out at any point in time and Volstad should be the next in line.

New York – Ike Davis – 1B
I originally had P Kelvim Escobar pegged for this spot but given his continued injury problems I decided to change to Davis given his youth and the gaping hole the Mets have at 1B. New York really perplexes me if I’m being brutally honest but Davis could be a guy that if he wasn’t picked up in your minor league draft, could probably be nabbed off the waiver wire. It is my guess we will see Davis manning 1B before the end of the season so nab this rising prospect before his bat puts him on the radar of other owners.

Philadelphia – Carlos Ruiz – C
Anytime you can find an undervalued C, you have to pick him up and Ruiz is just that. Looking at C’s that have gone in my leagues, his name is nowhere to be found despite the fact he posted a .355 OBP and .780 OPS in 322 AB in 09. He still has a lot of growing to do but I would rather take a chance on having Ruiz develop while on my bench then having to roster a Molina brother because all of the other C’s in my league have been grabbed.

Washington – Justin Maxwell – OF
The Nationals are a team loaded with potential keeper talent but it seems like a lot of the players have decent followings already so they are hardly flying under the radar. Enter Maxwell, who probably begins the season as the 4th or 5th OF, but has the skills to earn more PT as the season goes on, especially now that Elijah Dukes has been released. In 89 AB last season Maxwell had 4 HR and 6 SB, and I don’t care who you ask, all fantasy owners are always looking for the power-speed combo guys and Maxwell could be one.

NL West | AL West | NL Central | AL Central | NL East | AL East

As we enter the second week of Spring Training, let’s take a look at some guys in the AL Central that could potentially become keepers for the 2011 season. Again, some of these players you may have to trade for but hopefully they come with a low price tag.

Chicago – John Danks – SP
Danks only turns 25 this year but with three full seasons as a starter under his belt, he seems primed to make a move from a solid starter to rotation anchor within the next year or two. He did seem to lose steam as the season wore on but that should only help lower his asking price.

Cleveland – Justin Masterson – P
Masterson started the season off solidly but his surface stats took a big hit once he reached Cleveland. Posting a 1-7 record with a 4.55 ERA in his new home, the biggest question with Masterson is how he will be used. He seemed more effective coming out of the pen for the Red Sox but maybe coming into 2010 with a defined role as a starter will help him properly prepare for the 2010 season.

Detroit – Scott Sizemore – 2B
There has to be something special about this 25-year-old for the Tigers to throw a consistent .300 hitter back on the streets and if your league has the same scarcity perceptions mine does, you will want to nab up Sizemore before anyone can determine if the Tigers are right. He had solid BA and SB numbers in AA and AAA last year and as long as you don’t need him to be a starter this year, he should be a great speculative pick to help build for the future.

Kansas City – Mike Aviles – SS
While there may be more depth at the position than in recent years, I truly believe MI spots are hard to fill on a yearly basis so most of my fliers tend to focus on guys at those positions that I can stash away and Aviles is one of those guys. Injuries derailed his 2009 after 120 AB and while most of them weren’t pretty (only a .183 BA), he did have a strong rookie debut. I don’t believe Aviles will be a .325 hitter again but I do believe he will provide a .280-.290 BA with 15-15 potential. He won’t set the world on fire but that could be useful in your quest to win your league.

Minnesota – Francisco Liriano – SP
Liriano is one of the toughest players to gauge in fantasy – both in terms of production and how others in your league feel about him. The latter is now even tougher given that Liriano is now being mentioned as a darkhorse candidate to fill Joe Nathan‘s role this year. This may make him tougher to get but I do believe he has soured enough owners the last two years that you can get him for below market valuse. But that’s besides the point so let’s keep this to what we know. In 2006, Liriano was as dominant as they come before being derailed by injury. Needing Tommy John surgery, Liriano missed all of 2007 and struggled in three April starts in 2008 before being sent to the minors to regain what he’d lost. He came back with a vengence, going 6-1 over the last two months of the season and giving owners hope for 2009. He then followed that up with a 5-13, 5.80 2009. Give the Liriano owner in your league this history and see if you can’t nab him for low. If this guy turns it around, he could be elite again.

Agree? Disagree? Is there a better candidate we overlooked? Let us know in the comments section below.

About half the content I have created for this blog is personal stories that have happened since I joined my first keeper league prior to last season. Like many of you, my league recently began preparations for the 2010 via an auction.Previously this league distributed non-keepers via a draft but during last season we decided (some of us reluctantly) to change to an auction for 2010. While many of us were excited for the change, there was one major hurdle we had to decided upon, auction dollars. Because our league does not have contracts, there are no dollar values attached to the players you decide to keep. The only rule is that you have to keep 14 players.

After some discussion we decided each team will get $135 to fill its final 13 roster spots for the auction, hoping that number would be consistent with the standard $260 budget most leagues use. What we quickly found out was that $135 was way to high.

Since we are scattered all over the U.S., our league is using a message board to hold a slow auction. Each team began by nominating a player and could bid on any of the 12 players on the auction block. Once a player had received no bids for 12 hours, that player was awarded to the final bidder and the team that nominated the player opened the bidding on the next guy.

I am by no means an auction expert as I have only participated in a handful of auctions (not all of which are baseball) but I know that I had as much or more experience than most of the other managers in the league. And this is where I got into trouble early.

Thinking I might be able to get a player or two on the cheap early while the other owners adjusted to the system, I threw out Billy Wagner (one of my top targets in the auction) out in the first round of nominations for a moderate price, hoping his age and recent injury history would keep owners away. In less than an hour his price jumped from $7 to $32 and I knew I would have to pay way more than I ever thought if I wanted to acquire this target.

I thought I had Wagner won once I went to $33 a few minutes later and I slowly began second guessing my decision to blow so much money on such a volatile player. I really like Wagner and feel he will have a great season in Atlanta but would he come close to being worth the $33 I was going to pay for him? Not likely, even if he escapes 2010 without any trips to the DL.

Then a funny thing happened – almost six hours later a bid for $34 was posted and it was not from the manager I bid furiously with hours earlier. At that point, after I had let reason set in, I decided it would severely limit my strategy to go $35 and I let my top target go.

Hours later the same thing happened to me again, this time the target was Torii Hunter, arguably the most consistent offensive player in the draft. This time the bidding got to $36 before I stopped myself and finally realized that I had my strategy all backwards. I wasn’t supposed to get these guys early, I needed the other managers to blow through their money first, then get my targets second.

And it worked for the most part. While many of the managers bid $30+ on guys like Denard Span and Raul Ibanez, I found the pockets of value and picked up undervalued veterans like Adrian Beltre ($9) and Mark DeRosa ($4) for less than $10.

I still found myself having to outbid owners here and there for some of my targets but that never would’ve been possible if I had opened my draft by spending more than half my budget on two players. And I also know that our auction budgets need a little more tweeking if we want the values to be on the $260 scale.

So my warning to all of you out there who have yet to get to filling out your rosters this offseason is this: sit back, find the value and don’t get in bidding wars. It will be a lot easier for Mark DeRosa to provide more than $4 worth of to your squad than it will be for Billy Wagner to provide $34 worth of value.

NL West | AL West | NL Central | AL Central | NL East | AL East

Here is Part 3 of our look at some potential keepers to pick up for 2011 and beyond. Again, some of these players may be owned in your league but the key here is that you should be able to get them either easily via trade or as an end game pickup.

Chicago – Geovanny Soto – C
One thing I have noticed about a lot of players who were injured in ’09 is that the value they are carrying into 2010 is nowhere close to the value they had going into ’09, and a prime example of that is Soto. This guy was going to be the next great power-hitting backstop but after an injury-riddled sophomore year, his bandwagon is pretty empty. But consider this, he hit 6 HR in June alone and enters spring training 40 pounds lighter than last year. If he is healthy this season he improves upon his rookie power numbers from 2008. Now’s the time to get him before his value soars again.

Cincinnati – Jay Bruce – OF
The good news for Bruce owners is that he has power – the bad news is his average last year was worse than Adam Dunn‘s. Some of Bruce’s BA woes seem to be fueled by a BABIP of .221 so there is some hope that his BA can reach the .260-.280 range, which shouldn’t kill you. Given that he will only be 23 this year, this is the perfect kind of guy to pick up and watch him grow into a potential future star.

Houston – Bud Norris – SP
Young pitching is always a huge gamble but on a team that is getting really old in a hurry, a post hype prospect such as Norris is exactly the guy to target here. Norris wasn’t spectacular in his MLB debut but he has had an extended look and a clear path to playing time. There is no doubt that there will be some growing pains with Norris but the patient will clearly benefit if he puts it all together quickly.

Milwaukee – Mat Gamel – 3B
The Brewers seem to be in the middle of a youth movement in their infield but Gamel seems to be the forgotten man here. Depending on your league rules you may have to acquire and put Gamel on a MiLB or reserve roster depending on where he starts the year. He does possess power at a position that seems to be getting thinner by the year so the benefits of getting Gamel now could be big.

Pittsburgh – Jeff Clement – 1B
In a system rife with young talent, I am reaching deep here and going with a guy who has not come close to living up to the hype that surrounded him as a prospect. Now 27, this may be Clement’s last shot to show something if he wants to be a major leaguer. Clement needs to decide if he wants to focus more on power or contact and live with that choice but there was a reason he was hyped all those years ago and if he can flash that talent again, Clement could be one of the biggest bargains of the last few years in fantasy. Don’t draft Clement but make sure you keep an eye on Pittsburgh to see if he finally gets it.

St. Louis – Colby Rasmus – OF
For some reason I have trouble separating Bruce and Rasmus in my mind and when you look at the stats, Rasmus’ rookie season is eerily similar to Bruce’s. Bruce has a little more power but Rasmus is in the better lineup and should be able to improve his stats just through his natural growth curve. He has low BA/OBP/SLG numbers right now but as he ages he should be able to increase those numbers. Another long term project but there is potential profit to be had.

I will continue to keep this series going and as always, if you have a question about a specific player leave a comment.

NL West | AL West | NL Central | AL Central | NL East | AL East

It’s time for Part 2 in the series of potential keepers you can pick up on the cheap, and this part will focus on the AL West. Again, these are guys that should be easy to get, either via trade or on the cheap at the end of your draft or auction and have the potential to be keepers in 2011.

Los Angeles (or Anaheim if you prefer) – Kevin Jepsen – P
I went back and forth with a couple of players here but I decided on Jepsen for two reasons – Brian Fuentes and Fernando Rodney. I doubt either Fuentes or Rodney finishes the season as the closer and I fully believe Jepsen has the skills to succeed in the closer role, giving him plenty of value and long-term value. Jepsen has a solid K/9 and his undoing last year was an abnormally high BABIP. If that comes back down to a normal level he should post solid rates until he gets the opportunity to close.

Oakland – Jake Fox – 3B/OF
Fox once again enters the season as a talented guy without a full time position. His bat was solid enough last year though to force the Cubs to find ways to get him in the lineup and I think it will be solid enough again to force Oakland to do the same. Fox has plenty of power and hopefully will be able to raise his BA a few points so it won’t completely kill you. The multi-position eligibility is also a big plus, especially when 3B seems to be playing out as a pretty shallow position this season.

Seattle – Brandon League – P
Yes, this suggestion is for another mid-inning closer with no value to start the season. And that is why I am suggesting him. League would’ve been in the saves mix in Toronto if the Blue Jays hadn’t had a ton of other guys like him. Like Jepsen, League had a terrbile ERA last year, especially for a middle reliever, but with a K/9 of 9.2 and a WHIP of 1.24, this guy knows how to get outs. The only guy in his way is David Aardsma, and while Aardsma had one of the more talked about years last year, his track record indicates it could just be a matter of time before League gains more fantasy relevance.

Texas – Max Ramirez – C
The Rangers were another squad with multiple options for this pick but I chose to go with Ramirez because there is no better time to buy him then right now. In fact, if your league has a farm system, this is a guy to stash on it with one of your last picks/dollars. Coming off a wrist injury that seemed to keep him at the Double A level, Ramirez may not stick at catcher for long. Obviously this guy’s bat is more important than anything else and hopefully it will get back on track with the wrist injury healed. Again, he may not have much value in 2010 but if he develops the way many experts thought he would, he could make himself a cornerstone player for 2011 and beyond. Stash him away.