Cafe Home
Fantasy Football
Fantasy Basketball
Fantasy Hockey
by hambone1818 » Tue Dec 23, 2008 5:40 pm MrE wrote:You absolutely have to keep Miguel Cabrera. He started off last year a bit slow, but he finished strong. His numbers are almost a lock at .300/30/110 with 100 runs, and they can go as high as .330/40/130 with 120 runs. He is young. He is a stud. He may be moving to first after this year, but he is a top 10 player every year. KEEP HIM!!!!
As for the rest, it comes down to Vlad and Hamels for me. All things being equal, I personally prefer Vlad because he is an eternal .300/30/100 guy, but its tough to let go of a fireballing, young, ace lefty in Hamels. Vlad is aging, and you can definitely see a decline in performance. This could downgrade him a bit, but I still see him as a top 50 player (if not top 30). In a keeper league, I can say that it is a toss up for me, and in your situation of already having the OF solidified (Upton/Hamilton/Sizemore), I would probably keep Hamels. Still, I think that immediately means you are dropping Vlad into that 2 or 3 for 1 trade.
It isn't that I do not like Upton, and I definitely buy his long term value. I just think that his production this year does not warrant keeping him over the above mentioned on my list. I think he is probably two years away from his prime, but I can see it being a spectacular run when he does hit it. If he is your man, keep him. You would kill yoruself for years if he turned out to be a stud sooner rather than later.
Trust me, I love Miggy. But I think of all my top-tier keepers (the guys who I'd rank in the top 20 of all keepers: Miggy, Sizemore, Kinsler, Hamilton, Howard) he can be moved for more than he's worth. After this season I think he'll most likely just be 1B eligible, so he'll be 'competing' against Howard, Fielder, Pujols, Berkman, Youks, Morneau, Teix, A-Gon...and those guys aren't going away any time soon. At 3B the only guys who hold a candle to that group are ARod, A-Ram, Wright and Longoria. And while Miggy's 100-30-100-.310 is fantastic and you know he'll put that up, he doesn't strike me as the type who'll explode for 45+ HR like my other keepers. So it's not that I wouldn't keep him, just that I plan on packaging him for an upgrade at SP.
Regarding Upton, may be I'm overestimating his potential, but look at his numbers compared to Griffey (Griffey was 19 when he did this, while Upton was 20 last season):
Griffey: 455 AB, 16 HR, 61 R, 61 RBI, .264 BA, .329 OBP, .420 SLG, .748 OPS
Upton: 356 AB, 15 HR, 52 R, 42 RBI, .250 BA, .353 OBP, .463 SLG, .816 OPS
Now it's not fair to Upton to compare him to one of the greats--and quite frankly they're different types, with Griffey having speed, better contact ability and great defense on his side. This is more to illustrate a point: at a very young age Upton already has a very good eye (.103 Iso-D), a ton of power (.223 Iso-P), and the type of skills, swing and potential that scouts drool over--plus he compares favorably to one of the great phenoms to enter baseball in the past three decades. I would not at all be surprised to see a moderate breakout this season (say, 25 HR, 80 R, 80 RBI, .275 BA), followed by some absolute domination in 2010 (I'm thinking 40 HR, 120 R, 110 RBI, .290 BA). And frankly, for one season I'm willing to take that chance becasue my other OFers are going to be Hamilton and Sizemore...a dropoff won't hurt too much.
