Yeah it’s Opening Day, The Greatest Day of the Year!!!!!
I know everyone is as excited as I am to finally get to the start of the season. We have been talking about draft and auction preparation for so long its time to see our preseason work go into action. This could turn out to be a very interesting season. There is a lot of speculation that in the wake of the steroid scandal baseball will get back to the basics. This means for hit and run, stealing, bunting, etc as managers prepare for a decrease in homerun output. How this will impact the fantasy landscape remains to be seen but this is definitely something to keep an eye on. In this Opening Day edition of the newsletter I am going to take a look at some of the interesting things going on around the league.
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Rotochamps In-season Tools
Player Tracker
You can save up to 50 players to track in your player tracker. It will update their stats throughout the season and list the most recent news updates on each player. This is a great way to track sleepers you are watching for possible free agent acquisitions later.
2 Start Pitchers
Beginning today the old Pitching Probables will now be Weekly 2 Start Pitchers. Use this tool to plan your pitching staff for the coming week.
RotoRankings
Beginning tomorrow our 2005 RotoRankings scores will begin calculating. Find out which players are really the most valuable during the season. Also the Hot and Cold lists will be updating daily on the hompage providing a clip of the best and worst players over the last 7 days.
Closer Notes
LA: With Eric Gagne on the DL Yhency Brazoban has been named the interim closer. He will be a great short term pickup and start.
MIL: Mike Adams has been named closer officially but if he falters the team may quickly give Derrick Turnbow a shot at the job.
COL: With Tsao on the DL the team announced they will be using the dreaded closer-by-committee. This means if the team manages to create any save opportunities they will be split amongst Brian Fuentes, Ryan Speier, and Scott Dohmann. Good luck trying to predict how this works out.
FLA: Guillermo Mota has not been able to get his velocity up to mid-season form yet and has only struck out 3 hitters this spring. There is no indication of injury but he may be a bit hittable if he can’t touch 98 on the radar gun.
ARI: Greg Aquino still appears to be the front runner for the closing job but manager Bob Melvin has been enamored with Brandon Lyon and may be quick to make the switch.
Other Interesting Managerial moves
WAS: Nick Johnson has been leading off for the Nationals the last few spring games and has hit well from that spot. It appears he could stay there for the start of the season.
CIN: Ken Griffey Jr. is slated to open the season hitting #2 in front of Kearns and Dunn. This will be bad for his RBI opportunities, let’s hope he gets dropped to the #4 or 5 spot soon.
NYM: David Wright is slated to hit #8 rather than the anticipated #3 for the Mets. This should change quickly if he gets off to a hot start.