Added/Dropped Players

[Kevin]

Here is the list of players added to and dropped from the DTBL roster for the 2007 season. Please post a reply if you have any comments about the list. If you feel I have forgotten someone, please point it out. Otherwise, the current free agent list will be the official pool for next month's draft.

Catchers
Added:
Eliezer Alfonzo, Josh Bard, Kenji Johjima, Gerald Laird, Russell Martin, Mike Napoli, Ronny Paulino, David Ross, Chris Snyder
Dropped:
Ramon Castro, J.D. Closser, Humberto Cota, Ryan Doumit, Toby Hall, Mike Matheny, Doug Mirabelli, Jason Phillips, Yourvit Torrealba


First Basemen
Added:
Prince Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez, Scott Hatteberg, Conor Jackson, Mike Jacobs, Ryan Shealy, Ty Wigginton, Kevin Youkilis
Dropped:
Jeff Bagwell, Tony Clark, Eric Hinske, Dan Johnson, Casey Kotchman, Carlos Pena, Chris Shelton, Dmitri Young

Second Basemen
Added:
Josh Barfield, Aaron Hill, Howie Kendrick, Ian Kinsler, Jose Lopez, Brandon Phillips, Dan Uggla, Jose Valentin
Dropped:
Ron Belliard, Craig Counsell, Luis A. Gonzalez, Mark Loretta, Aaron Miles, Todd Walker

Third Basemen
Added:
Wilson Betemit, Nick Punto, Freddy Sanchez, Scott Spiezio, Ryan Zimmerman
Dropped:
David Bell, Aaron Boone, Vinny Castilla, Corey Koskie, Dallas McPherson, Bill Mueller, Joe Randa

Shortstops
Added:
Jason Bartlett, Yuniesky Betancourt, Stephen Drew, Hanley Ramirez
Dropped:
Russ Adams, Clint Barmes, Angel Berroa

Outfielders
Added:
Chris Burke, Eric Byrnes, Melky Cabrera, Mark DeRosa, Chris Duffy, Chris Duncan, Andre Ethier, Jeremy Hermida, Reed Johnson, Nick Markakis, Matt Murton, Xavier Nady, Carlos Quentin, Luke Scott, Marcus Thames, Josh Willingham, Delmon Young
Dropped:
Jeromy Burnitz, Frank Catalanotto, Ryan Church, Brady Clark, Jose Cruz Jr., Victor Diaz, Carl Everett, Lew Ford, Joey Gathright, Ryan Klesko, Jason Lane, Matt Lawton, Jason Michaels, Jeremy Reed, Shannon Stewart, Cory Sullivan, Rondell White, Bernie Williams

Starting Pitchers
Added:
Chad Billingsley, Boof Bonser, Dave Bush, Matt Cain, Jeff Francis, Cole Hamels, Clay Hensley, Orlando Hernandez, Rich Hill, Chuck James, Jason Jennings, Josh Johnson, Ted Lilly, John Maine, Gil Meche, Scott Olsen, Vicente Padilla, Nate Robertson, Anibal Sanchez, Ian Snell, Jeremy Sowers, Justin Verlander, Chien-Ming Wang, Jered Weaver
Dropped:
Kris Benson, Paul Byrd, Gustavo Chacin, Shawn Chacon, Bruce Chen, Matt Clement, Aaron Cook, Adam Eaton, Zack Greinke, Jon Lieber, Rodrigo Lopez, Jason Marquis, Carl Pavano, Odalis Perez, Oliver Perez, Brad Radke, Horacio Ramirez, Carlos Silva, Jorge Sosa, John Thomson, Josh Towers, Jarrod Washburn, Jeff Weaver

Relief Pitchers
Added:
Jonathan Broxton, Matt Capps, Todd Coffey, Octavio Dotel, Pedro Feleciano, Geoff Geary, Seth McClung, Cla Meredith, Pat Neshek, Jonathan Papelbon, Scott Proctor, Chad Qualls, Jon Rauch, Dennys Reyes, Takashi Saito, Rafael Soriano, Mike Stanton, Taylor Tankersley, Matt Thornton, Oscar Villarreal, Adam Wainwright, Joel Zumaya
Dropped:
Luis Ayala, Rafael Betancourt, Yhency Brazoban, Neal Cotts, Brendan Donnelly, Eddie Guardado, LaTroy Hawkins, Dustin Hermanson, Roberto Hernandez, Brandon Lyon, Ryan Madson, Gary Majewski, Jose Mesa, Chad Orvella, Cliff Politte, Chris Reitsma, Arthur Rhodes, David Riske, Rudy Seanez, Julian Tavarez, Tyler Walker, Matt Wise, Jay Witasick

[David]

There were a few players that I was a bit surprised to see on the dropped lists at the various positions. I don't want to be getting too much into the business of splitting hairs between Yuniesky Betancourt and Angel Berroa (just a random example), but there were a couple of relief pitchers that I thought it would be worthwhile to bring up.

It seems like every year, there are maybe a couple too many starting pitchers available on the waiver wire and perhaps a few less relievers than there could be. With this in mind, I present my weak cases to keep Chris Reitsma and/or Rafael Betancourt on the available list of players. I am aware that Reitsma is coming off a serious injury and Betancourt is a middle to late reliever coming off a substance-enhancer-suspension-shortened season (4 "s" words out of 5 and 2 Betancourts mentioned in one post... not bad, eh?). However, both of these gentlemen get a decent amount of strikeouts, maintain a relatively respectable ERA, and are candidates to pick up a save here and there. Furthermore, in both of their teams' cases, the closer's role is far from stable, and Reitsma in particular has had experience closing in the past and could be a candidate to take over in midseason. Betancourt could potentially pick up a half dozen saves in a closer-by-committee type situation.

Ok, I'm going to wrap this up since I'm sure nobody else actually cares. Frankly, I'm surprised that I do. Nevertheless, I thought that it was worth bringing to the attention of our honorable commish and the rest of my esteemed (not to mention superior) fantasy runningmates.

Keep it real.

- Super Darkhorse (read: Dingbat) Dave

[Nick]

I never thought I'd see an Atlanta Braves' fan actually defend Chris Reitsma ... but I guess that's what makes fantasy baseball so fun.

Kevin -- As always, great job with the rosters. The only guy that stuck out to me as a possible forgotten man is Anthony Reyes, a budding young star for the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals. His regular season numbers weren't great, but he pitched that gem in the World Series and at least deserves mentioning.

[Kevin]

Dave and Nick, thank you for your feedback. Not surprisingly, most of the players you mentioned in your posts received strong consideration from me.

First, I'll address Dave's comment about there being too many starting pitchers and not enough relief pitchers on the waiver wire. Personally, I never noticed that to be the case. Now if we are talking about number of players that are actually worth signing at those positions, then I definitely agree. However, that is mostly because the total number of relief pitchers worth having is probably less than the number that each of us are required to start. Beyond the closers, relief pitchers don't do much for you. So my fear is that no matter how many relief pitchers were on the league roster, there still wouldn't be enough worthy guys to fill all of our RP slots.

Just to clarify how I came about with the number of players at starting pitcher vs. relief pitcher, it is almost identical to the number of players who are required to be on your active roster at each position. 4 out of 9 (44.4%) pitching spots belong to relievers. The overall number of relief pitchers in the league is 70 out of 160 total pitchers (43.8%). I suppose I could add another RP slot or two, but I don't think it would do much good. Also, it would cause me to drop a couple starting pitchers and I already had a hard enough time limiting it to the 90 you see.

As for the individual players you each mentioned... Rafael Betancourt happened to be the last relief pitcher I dropped. In fact, I actually had him on the roster until I realized a player I had cut was on someone's roster (I won't bother saying who that was). Having said that, Betancourt is probably entering spring training as a distant third in the race for that closer spot. Borowski and Foulke are the leading candidates. While I wouldn't be surprised if both those guys got hurt or failed, I tend not to consider the third option... at least not based on his saves potential.

Chris Reitsma had such terrible numbers last year that the only way I would have considered keeping him is if I thought he was a likely closer. J.J. Putz had a terrific season last year as the Mariners closer, so I really don't see Reitsma getting a shot unless Putz falls apart or gets hurt. I suppose an injury is inevitable for a guy named Putz though...

Anthony Reyes is an interesting case because he might be the #2 starter for the defending World Series champs... a team that can definitely give him some run support. However, I stayed away from him because, you probably all know this by now, I tend to favor veterans over rookies or second year players. If Reyes had made it, it certainly would have been more for his post season performance than anything he did during the regular season. I do think he is going to have a good year, but would like to see him prove it during the regular season before adding him to the league. If you can rally enough support from others though, I'd consider putting him in. Of course, that would require dumping someone else too.

Keep those comments coming!

[Marc]

Hey guys, nice to see you're all hard at work already this season.

I'd like to suggest Ryan Garko to replace either Sean Casey, Kevin Millar or Scott Hatteberg - who are likely to spend the whole year in the free agent pool.

I was surprised to see Brandon McCarthy not among the RPs this year - maybe Kevin doesn't see him as mentally tough enough for the DTBL. Not to mention his new home park. ... I was hoping for another year of Oliver Perez in the DTBL, but as much as I tried, I couldn't piece together a solid argument for a guy with a 6.55 ERA. The best I had was that he complained the Pirates tried to make him a finesse pitcher, which sounds so dumb that it might be true.

OK, let's make some trades

[Kevin]

Marc, the problem with Garko is that he isn't even assured a starting spot for the Indians. They might put Casey Blake at first base instead. He certainly has more upside than the other guys you mentioned, but I tend to give the nod to the veterans, especially when the new guy isn't even a lock to be a starter.

As for McCarthy, I like to keep the number of relief pitchers who are actually going to be starters to a minimum. I realize they are extremely attractive for that reason, but I'll stay away from them unless they have numbers deserving of a spot, which McCarthy does not. Honestly, I don't think anybody is going to want him on their roster anyway because he is going to serve up a ridiculous number of home runs in Texas.

[Kevin]

As mentioned in my reply to Nick's blog entry regarding Foulke, I have dropped Foulke from the league roster and readmitted Rafael Betancourt. Betancourt now appears on the available players list so update your lists accordingly if you already printed them out.