Taurus Bulls: In-Depth Analysis

The time has come once again to leave the mundane world of actual Major League Baseball and journey into the realm of the fantastical.  It's been nearly a week since the constellation of Taurus completed its passage through the sky, during which span another (roughly) 1/12th of MLB players celebrated their birthdays.  And now, for the next chapter in my ongoing Astrology Baseball project, let's examine the strengths and weaknesses of a fantasy team made up of just those players: the Taurus Bulls.

To compile the depth chart below, I went through (roughly, it's a very rough project) the top 300 scoring players in the fantasy world (150 pitchers and 150 position players) and pulled all the players born under the Taurus sign.  With each team having logged at least 40 games in the books (1/4 of the season, can you believe it?), I think we now have a large enough sample size that we don't have to rely on the pre-season rankings that I used to build the initial rosters.  This sample size also means that each player has played enough games to establish new positional eligibility without having to rely on 2011 stats.  So thanks to ESPN Fantasy Baseball's real-time point calculator, here's a position-by-position run-through of the Taurus team from top to bottom.

TAU is notable in that their top point scorer is also MLB's top point scorer: Josh Hamilton will doubtless be the first player to top 1,000 points this year... and I passed up my chance to draft him in my league because I was convinced he would get hurt like he's always been doing.  But in the meantime, he's leading the league in all 3 triple crown categories.  Hamilton has played as many games in LF as he has in CF, which is why his name appears on the depth chart twice, with his secondary position in parenthesis.  However, if not for Emilio Bonifacio's sprained thumb, he would likely shift Hamilton to left to maximize points - Bonifacio still leads the league in SB despite being on the DL for the past 3 days.  Another guy whose primary position is CF is Gerardo Parra, who wasn't even expected to start when the Diamondbacks acquired Jason Kubel.  Primarily playing LF through his career, Parra's had some time at CF with the injury to Chris Young, and he's shown more speed than power so far in '12.  With so much depth up the middle, Michael Brantley's purely a backup of a backup.

The most surprising offensive success story of this team has to be RF Carlos Beltran, who has continued his career resurgence with the Cardinals.  Like Hamilton he leads his league in HR, but also like Hamilton he's had his share of injury troubles in the recent past - so much so that despite a nice 2011 with the Mets and the Giants, Beltran didn't even crack the top 200 ranked players prior to this season.  Jayson Werth was projected to start in RF until a fractured left wrist landed him on the DL for at least 12 weeks.

TAU's next highest-scoring player is Prince Fielder at 1B, a position with (predictably enough) plenty of depth.  Unlike fellow huge free agent contract recipient Albert Pujols, Fielder hasn't been a huge bust since moving to the AL, even though his Tigers haven't lived up to their lofty, star-powered expectations.  Next on the depth chart at 1B is Adrian Gonzalez, who currently also sits first on the depth chart at DH.  Although - like the Aries situation with Miguel Cabrera and Adrian Beltre - if defense is at all a factor, Gonzalez (0.6 defensive Wins Above Replacement so far in 2012) should be in the field and Fielder (-1.0 dWAR) should DH.  But depending on how David Freese hits, Gonzalez might be forced to sit, as he currently trails Fielder by nearly 100 points.  There are still a few more first basemen on this roster, but with so many top producers at the position, no one else has a lot of fantasy relevance.  Carlos Pena has been slumping since getting off to a hot start, but perhaps a move to the leadoff spot will improve his fortunes.  Justin Morneau  has yet to return to star status due to concussion troubles and a sore wrist.  And James Loney still hasn't taken his career to the level he should be at heading into his first year of free agency.

At 2B, Astros sophomore Jose Altuve has outplayed Nationals sophomore Danny Espinosa.  The shortest player in the league is one of the lone bright spots for a Houston franchise that is pretty far removed from the good old days of the Killer B's.  Chase Headley and David Freese are locked in a back and forth battle for the 3B job, the former with his high OBP approach, the latter with his superior power.  This leaves very little space for future Hall of Famer Chipper Jones in his last season before retirement, despite the fact that he's having a nice season.  Taurus has two rare commodities rounding out the lineup: a productive catcher and a utility infielder with versatility.  Matt Wieters showed he can live up to the high expectations set for him last year and has continued to flash a lot of power behind the plate.  Sean Rodriguez has outperformed struggling SS Dee Gordon in his superutility role: he has also earned eligibility at 2B and 3B for the Rays.

The pitching staff is led by elite starter Roy Halladay who, as I mentioned in my post on the Phillies, trailed only the two Cy Young winners in total points last season.  However the real staff ace, at least when 2012 is concerned, is another surprising success story Lance Lynn.  We knew he had talent when Cardinals manager Tony La Russa used a roster spot on him in the postseason, but few could have predicted at league-leading 7 wins for the big right hander.  After these two, the production drops off considerably: Ryan Dempster has been pitching well despite being winless for a last place Cubs team.  Neftali Feliz had been enjoying his transition from the bullpen to the rotation before elbow inflammation landed him on the DL earlier this week.  And Barry Zito has been serviceable... not to say his 1.24 K/BB ratio justifies his $19mm paycheck.

Based on pre-season rankings, neither Zito nor Lynn began the season in the rotation.  Their spots were held by amateur golfer Josh Beckett and 6'7" Aaron Harang, who had his 15 minutes of fame this year by striking out 9 Padres in a row.  Their backups were Dillon Gee, whose ERA is up a full point from last year, and Homer Bailey, who has put together a couple of good starts of late.  This team is famously light on bullpen depth: Rafael Betancourt is the only true closer on their roster.  That's not to say they didn't have some prospects before the season began: Joakim Soria was poised to make a big comeback, but he was lost for the season with his second reconstructive elbow surgery.  And Francisco Cordero might have closed some games like he did last year until he fell to #2 on the depth chart for Toronto behind Sergio Santos.