Divisional All-Stars 2016 American League

Last week, I presented Divisional All-Stars lineups for the National League (all three divisions and one wild card team), and now I present the same for the American League! Here's how the four teams shape up in terms of total fantasy points of players on their respective 25-man rosters:

1. AL East: 40,427
2. AL Central: 37,983
3. AL West: 36, 158
4. AL Wild Card: 33,417

Even though a Central team won the AL Pennant this year, I'm going to present these teams in order of overall points, because this AL East team scored the most out of any division, beating out the NL West by a measly 77 points. Let's check out this heavily Boston-influenced roster:

Everywhere you look, there's another Red Sock: Mookie Betts scored the most fantasy points among all batters in 2016, Rick Porcello won the AL Cy Young award, Koji Uehara still has closer-worthy stuff even at age 41, they're solid up the middle with Pedroia, Bogaerts, and Bradley Jr., and David Price's "disappointing" season still landed him just outside the top five scoring starting pitchers in the league. The elephant in the room is retired DH David Ortiz, who trailed only Betts, Porcello, and the previous year's AL MVP Josh Donaldson in fantasy points last year (while finishing just ahead of his fellow Dominican DH Edwin Encarnacion, who is also making his final appearance on this division's roster... for now). If we honor Big Papi's decision to step away from the game (and assume that he wouldn't be willing to return for (at most) 11 games for this special occasion), the DH spot would be filled by Orioles third baseman Manny Machado. While it would definitely be a waste not to put someone with his defensive prowess in the field, his bat definitely plays well enough for a DH, although this change would create a ripple effect for the AL Wild Card team, but more on that later.

A quick look through this roster reveals that there are only two players who comes from a team that's not the Red Sox, Blue Jays, or Orioles: number three starter Masahiro Tanaka (flanked by two Blue Jays stars J.A. Happ and Aaron Sanchez) and bench bat Tim Beckham. Based on playing time, Yankees rookie Gary Sanchez could technically have qualified as a bench piece, but despite his short season, his role was clearly as a starter when he played. Technically there is one player who spent some time with the Atlanta Braves (reliever Jason Grilli), but he qualified with the Toronto, plus he doesn't really figure to eat into the playing time of Baltimore's three-headed-monster of arguably the league's top closer Zach Britton, All-Star Brad Brach, and 2016 rookie Mychal Givens. Speaking of three-headed monsters, neither of Yankees much heralded setup aces Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances qualified as middle relievers last year due to their time spent closing games, and not even fireballing Aroldis Chapman could compete with Britton when judged as a closer.

Despite representing their league in the World Series, the Indians only has one representative in each of the four categories in this Divisional All-Star roster: Shortstop Francisco Lindor in the starting lineup, ace pitcher Corey Kluber in the rotation, underrated workhorse Dan Otero in the bullpen, and beloved veteran Juan Uribe on the bench. If not for the ridiculous depth at second base in this division, Jason Kipnis might have had a spot here, but he couldn't compete with the prodigious power of Brian Dozier or the all around sterling production of Ian Kinsler. As it is, Kipnis will still be involved in these proceedings as part of the AL Wild Card team, joining his teammate Carlos Santana at DH. However, there are a couple of stellar pitchers in Cleveland (Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar come to mind) who could make this list next year if they manage to have full seasons, possibly replacing former Chicago ace Chris Sale, who traded in his White Sox for the Red variety this offseason. I could also see relief aces Cody Allen and Andrew Miller taking a couple of bullpen spots, depending on their usage: if they end up splitting time as closer, it might be difficult to make a case for either of them.

Two long time Detroit stalwarts headline the rotation and the lineup (Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera, respectively) and neither look to be leaving anytime soon due to their massive contracts and no-trade protection. Speaking of trades, it was somewhat controversial to plug recently shipped off Adam Eaton into the center field slot, given that he spent most of his time in right field last season for Chicago. However, the alternative was platoon specialist / speedster Rajai Davis, and Eaton is slated to play center next year with the Nationals, after playing nearly 50 games there this past year. On the topic of roster moves, Jose Quintana might have spent his final year as an AL Central Divisional All-Star, based on how much his name has been bandied about the rumor mill this offseason, while Royals ace Danny Duffy will likely be around for the foreseeable future after just inking a new deal this offseason. Speaking of Duffy (and his teammate Salvador Perez, who also appears on this roster), I'd like to offer my deepest condolences to the Royals organization after the untimely death of Yordano Ventura, another rising star who was taken from the baseball community all too soon.

As is the case with any list that includes the current AL MVP, this lineup is all about Mike Trout. Well, actually, Jose Altuve was almost as impressive as the Angels center fielder last year, forming half of perhaps the best double play combo in the majors with Astros shortstop Carlos Correa. And don't forget the tremendous home run power of Nelson Cruz. And then there's future Hall of Famers Albert Pujols and Adrian Beltre. And George Springer is a darn fine ballplayer as well. Come to think of it, this is a very strong lineup. It would look a lot less strong if I hadn't played somewhat fast and loose with positional eligibility: both Cruz and Pujols spent the majority of their 2016's at DH. And given the presence of Robinson Cano, neither of the two aforementioned sluggers would even have made the roster if I didn't make an exception - Cruz would be replaced by Ian Desmond (see the AL Wild Card team, below) and Pujols would give way to his real life teammate C.J. Cron, whose 1,258 points on the year should not put him in the conversation of division's best first basemen. I did however make the opposite decision regarding another majority DH, Evan Gattis and his 1,467 points. Even though Gattis did play 55 of his 128 games at catcher, I figured you would want a more regular option behind the plate since the catcher position is significantly more defensively challenging than first base and the outfield. Plus Stephen Vogt made his second consecutive All-Star appearance this year, and plus GO A'S!!!

Where this team lags behind the other divisions is the starting pitching. Cole Hamels had an ace caliber season in Texas and Rich Hill pitched like a number one when he was healthy enough to take the field. But the issue here is that many projected key players didn't live up to their expectations, for a number of reasons. Injuries prevented Yu Darvish, Sonny Gray, and Garret Richards from reaching their full potential, and both 2015 Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel and perennial ace "King" Felix Hernandez fell completely out of relevance for some reason. Things don't get much rosier at the back end of the bullpen: a proven closer Sam Dyson ain't, but the fact that he went from minor trade deadline acquisition to unheralded setup option to ninth inning force all in the span of one year is a pretty neat story. The bullpen behind Dyson is really solid, led by baserunner strander extraordinaire Ryan Dull, long reliever / swingman Chris Devenski, and hard-throwing lefty Jake Diekman (who just underwent a scary surgical procedure on his colon - here's wishing him a speedy recovery). And the bench has a good mix of speed, defensive versatility, and upside, in the form of Billy Burns, Shawn O'Malley, and Jurickson Profar, respectively.

I've mentioned four of the top five hitters in the AL Wild Card lineup above, and at this juncture I would like to point out that in the event that Manny Machado would have to replace the retired David Ortiz in the AL East lineup, he would be replaced in the this lineup by Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager (2,123 points, with Evan Longoria and his 2,052 points waiting in the wings). This outfield is quite shaky defensively, and that's even with Hanley Ramirez moving to first base full time: Ian Desmond has less than a year's experience in center field, and both Carlos Beltran and Khris Davis are best suited for DH work. But at least they have defensively gifted reserve Jake Marisnick ready to take plenty of late innings in the outfield.

If you thought the AL West rotation was shaky, you might want to turn away before looking at these pitchers. Not one of them even reached 1,700 points on the year, and the most impressive on a points per game basis (Michael Fulmer with 60.6) had an abbreviated rookie season due to innings limitations. Chris Tillman was the top scorer on an underwhelming Orioles staff and Jake Odorizzi led the Rays in pitching fantasy points (even if Chris Archer is the de facto ace of that team), but Marco Estrada has dealt with some injury issues and Ian Kennedy is vastly overpaid. The only saving graces are 2016 Cubs bullpen teammates Aroldis Chapman and Mike Montgomery, the former of which will nail down the ninth inning, while the latter could even be used to shore up a weak rotation. Not a single one of these middle relievers are worth writing home about. Which means that if I do a video game simulation, the MLB: The Show AI will absolutely 100% make sure that this team wins it all.


So that's it for the 2016 Divisional All-Stars! Lots of fun baseball stuff coming up soon with Spring Training just weeks away and the WBC in March, and I've also been playing a lot of Batman video games, so stay tuned to this channel for some fun updates!

Divisional All-Stars 2016 National League

If I talk about Divisional All-Stars in the context of the fairly recently completed 2016 baseball season, is that a pretty self-explanatory concept? Like, for every year that I do this feature, do I really have to reiterate that these are rosters made up of the best players at each position from each of MLB's six divisions (plus one Wild Card team from each league)? Well, I've just gone and done it again, so I guess I won't have to ask this question again until after the 2017 season. This year, I took a step beyond my usual lineup/rotation/bullpen structure and included a bench section, which means that I'm presenting full 25-man rosters, of the type that might someday face off against each other in a simulation using an upcoming MLB: The Show video game...

For this hypothetical matchup, I haven't decided whether I would use traditional playoff structure (with only one Wild Card team, of course) or a round robin style, following the structure of the image at right from ErasableTournamentBrackets.com (you're welcome for the free plug), wherein each team from each division would play each other once, with the winners of each going on to face each other in a winner take all series. To determine seeding for the playoff format, I added up the fantasy points from each player on each roster, with the following results:

1. NL West: 40,350
2. NL Central: 39,796
3. NL East: 38,769
4. NL Wild Card: 32,682

But despite the point totals, let's start thing off with the division that produced this year's World Series champion Chicago Cubs, the National League Central:

It's not difficult to see that those World Series champs were the dominant force in this division: 9 of the 25 players, or 36% of the roster, played for the Cubs. That includes 4 out of 5 members of the starting rotation, which is the same amount of TOTAL players contributed by each of the Pirates and Brewers. (The Reds came in second with 5 and the Cardinals brought up the rear with 3.) NL MVP Kris Bryant is the team's overall fantasy point leader, and I left him batting second because that's where he started the majority of his games in 2016 (83 to 62 batting third). However, I separated Bryant from his usual lineup protector, Anthony Rizzo, because in these compilation-type lineups, it's fun to switch things up from how they would normally look in real life - also because Joey Votto had the superior offensive season, both in terms of fantasy points and in offensive rWAR (5.4 to 4.6). The reason why Votto has to languish in the DH spot (yes, I'm using a DH spot for both leagues, don't make me explain why again) is because he was worth a career-worst 2.4 defensive wins BELOW replacement in the field, while Rizzo just about broke even with the glove (0.2 defensive rWAR).

I did put a fair amount of thought into these batting orders, and I understand the implications of placing two left-handed hitters back-to-back, but considering that both Votto and Rizzo put up OPS's above .830 when facing same-handed pitching, I don't think it would prove much of an issue. Some of this thought process included going against fantasy points with Andrew McCutchen's spot in the batting order for mostly sentimental reasons: the Cubs and Reds already had representatives in this lineup, and McCutchen has been the face of his franchise for so long that he deserves a shot at redemption. Since any bench that includes super utility type Sean Rodriguez is automatically a plus, the one weakness of this team has to be the bullpen after closer Mark Melancon, who is eligible for the NL Central because he spent the majority of his season there before being traded to the Nationals in the NL East. Kevin Siegrist has been a solid lefty option for three out of his four years in the bigs and Raisel Iglesias pitched well as a swingman with closer potential in 2016. But the rest of the relief corps is filled with regression candidates and significant question marks. But then again with a starting rotation this stacked (which is basically World Series winning rotation plus Carlos Martinez of the Cardinals), the bullpen likely has some significant breathing room.

A big factor in why the NL West earns the top spot in the rankings is a whopping five position players who topped the National League as a whole in production at their respective positions. The complete list is: Nolan Arenado (3B), Paul Goldschmidt (1B), Charlie Blackmon (CF), Jean Segura (2B), and Buster Posey (C), although Segura probably deserves an asterisk, since he also spent a significant amount of 2016 at shortstop (where he will presumably play next year in Seattle). Even with that caveat, the West is still the clear leader: the NL Central owns Jonathan Villar at SS and Ryan Braun in RF, while the NL East has just Christian Yelich in LF (with Daniel Murphy filling in at 2B in the unlikely event that Segura is disqualified). Even though the top of this lineup is heavily skewed to Arizona and Colorado, all five teams in the division are represented, thanks to Rookie of the Year Corey Seager of the Dodgers at SS and Wil Myers from San Diego as the DH. And even if you're so backward-thinking as to leave out the DH, Matt Kemp qualified for the West because he spent the majority of his resurgent 2016 season in San Diego before being shipped to Atlanta at the trade deadline.

Even though the West doesn't have the top-scoring NL pitcher (read on to find out who that is), they do have numbers two, three, and six. These are, respectively, Madison Bumgarner and Johnny Cueto of the Giants, and Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw, who earns the top spot in this team's starting five due to his astronomical points-per-game average, even though he missed the most significant time of his career due to injury in 2016. The last two pitchers in the rotation, Kenta Maeda and Jeff Samardzija, just reinforce how much starting pitching in the NL West was a two-horse race last year. The same can be said about relief pitching in the West, but with the Padres replacing the Giants as the other horse joining Kenley Jansen and the Dodgers, thanks to two breakout lefties from San Diego. I know that it's cheating slightly to put Jon Jay in a bench role, since he started for the Padres until his season ended due to a broken forearm, but with iron gloved Matt Kemp and Carlos Gonzalez in the outfield corners, this team needs all the defensive help it can get.

Despite MVP candidate Freddie Freeman, near-batting-champion Daniel Murphy, and once-and-future superstars Bryce Harper and Yoenis Cespedes, the NL East has the weakest offense of the three National League divisions. I mean, Christian Yelich has a lot of potential, and his possible eventual move to center field is a big plus, since I'm not that high on Odubel Herrera (despite the awesome name - and what are the odds that he's on the same Divisional All-Star team as someone named Asdrubal?). And not that this will impact any proposed simulation involving these rosters, but Wilson Ramos is due to miss some time next year after undergoing knee surgery, and his best backup option, current free agent A.J. Pierzynski, is not only uninspiring offensively, but a polarizing clubhouse figure to boot.

Speaking of players that won't make an impact in any potential simulations, a word has to be said about the tragic death of Jose Fernandez, who would have been this team's number two starter behind overall 2016 fantasy points leader Max Scherzer. I left his name in the document as a monument to his greatness, but I also provided another starter to take over for the Cuban phenom. Fernandez was a rising star who will be missed not only by his family, friends, and Marlins teammates, but by the baseball community as a whole.

On a more positive note, this pitching staff makes up for the lackluster offense with a surplus of aces to go with Scherzer. Noah Syndergaard has emerged as the clear leader of the Mets starting staff after Matt Harvey's injury troubles and Jacob deGrom's regression. Stephen Strasburg pitches behind Scherzer in real life, but he could serve as the ace for most MLB clubs. And their Nationals teammate Tanner Roark could move to the bullpen in a four-man playoff rotation scenario in favor of Julio Teheran who has started for his entire career. Like Wilson Ramos, closer Jeurys Familia will also miss the beginning of the 2017 season, albeit for more sinister reasons. But this team has his real life Mets backup, Addison Reed, ready to fill in. Also ready in the wings is the pitcher who might end up closing games for the real life Nationals if they don't get active on the free agent or trade market, Shawn Kelley.

I haven't run the numbers on this, but I'm pretty sure it's mathematically impossible for the Wild Card Divisional Roster team to finish anything but fourth place out of four in overall fantasy points. Because by design, every player on this team has at least one player at his position who outscored him (possibly more for position players because of the DH spot, many more in the case of pitchers). But despite that, this lineup looks pretty solid overall, including a batting champion (DJ LeMahieu), a home run leader (Chris Carter), and recipients of two of the winter's largest free agent contracts (Dexter Fowler and Justin Turner). Plus, when you look at the contributions on both offense and defense from cornerstones of their respective franchises Starling Marte, Yadier Molina, and Brandon Crawford, you have the makings of a scrappily underrated club. Of course, Carter still hasn't found a home and the Mets can't seem to give Jay Bruce away, but that's mostly due to quirks in the market than any deficiencies in the players themselves (excepting, of course, Bruce's struggles down the stretch last year).

This team clearly would have looked stronger with Julio Teheran atop the starting rotation instead of Dan Straily (a recent addition to the NL's All-Acquired roster), but that's obviously the least significant effect of the Jose Fernandez situation. As it stands, Straily will join fellow All-Acquired rotation mate Bartolo Colon, qualifying offer recipient Jeremy Hellickson, and Drew Pomeranz (who qualifies for the NL due to spending more time (and pitching better) with the Padres than the Red Sox last year) as the top options in a playoff rotation. Interestingly enough, lefty Travis Wood, who rounds out this team's bullpen, could potentially return to starting next year, but he would be unlikely to unseat any of the regular starters. OH also, looking at this team's bench, the presence of David Ross is obviously a historical anachronism, since the beloved backstop retired after helping his Cubs win the World Series last year, but I've already taken the screenshot (which shows that Google Docs does not recognize the abbreviations for Relief Pitcher or the Cincinnati Reds), so I'm not going to go back and fix it. He should have been replaced by Diamondbacks backup Chris Herrmann, who actually outscored Ross in terms of fantasy points (548 to 533), but who lacked the requisite 200 AB to merit official consideration on these lists.


Stay tuned for the Divisional All-Stars for the American League!

Developed World Series Teams 2016

When writing an email, have you ever MEANT to click "Save as Draft," but instead you clicked "Send?" Something very similar happened to me this past Wednesday on this very blog, when I wrote the title of this post about Developed World Series Teams 2017, then quickly clicked the wrong button before going about the rest of my day. Seeing as three people have already looked at this blank post in bewilderment over the last three days, I suppose I'd better follow through on what I was going to write.

Developed Teams are probably my second favorite of the various baseball rosters project that I do, finishing behind Astrology Teams, just ahead of Divisional All-Stars and All-Acquired Teams, and well ahead of Hometown Teams. As a refresher, players get assigned to a particular developed team if they spent their formative years in that team's minor league system. A team does not have to draft or sign a player to an amateur deal to count as that player's developed team, although I've found that that's usually the case. Nor does it matter with which team a player makes his big league debut, although I do stop each player's "developed clock," so to speak, as soon as he hits the majors for the first time.

I don't like to rehash this project too frequently, because things don't tend to change too much year over year. And while I last devoted significant time to the project after the 2015 season, where I covered roughly 1/3 of the league, I figured it might be fun to see how this year's World Series would have gone if it featured the developed versions of the participating teams. (Ignoring, of course, that if all 30 teams played a full developed SEASON, it's unlikely that the Cubs and Indians would face each other, but you get the point.) One more point: these charts were compiled at the close of the 2016 season, so any offseason transactions will not be covered.

So without further ado, on to the lists, batters first, organized not by a projected batting order, but rather by position on the diamond, from 2 thru 9 + DH (yes, each team gets a DH, deal with it), regardless of each player's primary position in 2016:

The first thing you might notice about the Developed Cubs 2016 roster is that, much like their real life 2016 counterparts, they are carrying three catchers. Well, the FIRST thing you notice is probably the sheer offensive prowess of NL MVP Kris Bryant, and the not-unimpressive performance of NL batting champ DJ LeMahieu. But if you start looking at the Position column, you'll probably notice the three catchers, which is easier to do when one such player (2016 rookie and #2 prospect in the Cubs organization Willson Contreras) is also your starting left fielder. It's also easier to do when you have a player like Marwin Gonzalez on the roster, who will likely take over first base from Justin Bour against lefties, but function as a super utility type the rest of the time. Speaking of that first base platoon, neither Bour nor Gonzalez debuted with Chicago, as evidenced by the * in their "Developed Team" column at the far left. But looking at their pre-MLB careers leaves no doubt which team they belong to: they each played more than 500 minor league games in the Cubs system, compared to just one season with the teams who acquired them and called them up for the first time.

Before moving on, a quick note on the color coding of certain columns. A Green field in the Position 1 column indicates that player had rookie eligibility in 2016, while Green in the Position 2 column denotes a new addition to my database prior to the 2016 season. If a player's Rank is highlighted Red, that means his rank in MLB's preseason player rater has been trending down over the course of the offseason. Even though there are none of the following examples in the Cubs' batters chart, a player whose rank was trending up receives a Green highlight, while a player who was added to MLB's list after it was first published gets a Purple highlight. And for the Name columns, a Yellow highlight indicates an offseason acquisition while a Cyan highlight goes with a player who was traded midseason. Color coding for the Astrology Sign and Contract Status columns should be self explanatory.

It's clear that this lineup kind of falls apart if Victor Martinez isn't able to suit up at first base every day. There's still plenty of pop without him: Francisco Lindor is a budding star, Jason Kipnis is a force either at the top or in the middle of the lineup, and Jose Ramirez had a breakout season in 2016 (while adding some defensive versatility). But Cleveland has such little depth that the next first base option on the depth chart is Jesus Aguilar, who amassed a whopping -7 points in the big leagues in 2016. It should be noted that third catcher Chris Gimenez has played a little first in the minors, but his bat barely plays behind the plate, let alone at the spot where you want your top offensive contributor. Yes, this roster also has three catchers too, but that's largely due to the aforementioned lack of depth at other positions. Plus, Tony Wolters has enough offensive potential to serve as a decent DH, while also logging some innings in the infield.

The developed Cubs rotation is a reminder of how crucial shrewd trades and timely free agent signings are to building a real life major league pitching staff: the only member of Chicago's World Series winning rotation who they technically developed (Kyle Hendricks) only made his way to the franchise via trade (from the Rangers for Ryan Dempster). Three of Hendricks's other four rotation mates pitched for the actual Cubs in some degree: Jeff Samardzija rather effectively as both a reliever and a starter, Rich Hill had about 1.5 strong seasons' worth of good innings over his first four years in the bigs, and Andrew Cashner didn't develop into a starter until he was traded to the Padres (in the deal that brought Anthony Rizzo to Chicago). Ricky Nolasco (who jumped straight from the Cubs' farm system to the Marlins' big club after his 2005 trade) wasn't really on anybody's radar prior to 2016, until he rebuilt his value after a midseason trade with 11 solid starts for the Angels.

The biggest weakness of this team by far is the bullpen. Not only do they lack a proven closer, but you could actually make a case that the pitcher who had the most successful 2016 season (Carl Edwards Jr.) actually belongs to the developed Texas Rangers. (Edwards threw more minor league innings in the Texas system, but he has more minor league appearances in Chicago, where he was converted to a full time reliever in 2015.) In fact, Edwards, Blake Parker, and swingman Chris Rusin are the only members of this relief corps who have actually suited up for the Cubs in real life. And hard throwing Tony Zych didn't even end the 2016 season on the Mariners' active roster, despite the somewhat antiquated tradition of September Call Ups. Unless some minor league reinforcements are on the way in the near future, this team could be in for some nerve wracking late leads.

Unlike the Cubs, 80% of the developed Indians rotation has played a significant role for the team's real-life equivalent. Veterans Bartolo Colon and CC Sabathia both debuted in Cleveland and combined for over 2,500 innings and four All-Star appearances for the team over more than a decade between them. Colon was with the team from 1997 to 2002, Sabathia from 2001 to 2007, and both saw their Indians tenures come to an end via a blockbuster trade.  Meanwhile, Danny Salazar and Josh Tomlin figure to make 2/5ths of the Tribe's starting rotation in 2017 after performing admirably in the 2016 postseason. And although well-heralded prospect Drew Pomeranz didn't pitch for Cleveland's big club, he was the centerpiece in the trade that netted the team Ubaldo Jimenez, who was a pitcher who pitched for the Indians for a number of years. Notably, one of these pitchers (likely Sabathia) would likely be replaced by knuckleballer Steven Wright (who spent five seasons in Cleveland's minor league system before heading to the Red Sox), were it not for Boston manager John Farrell's foolish pinch running decision late in the 2016 season. Wright's hypothetical roster spot would go to Cody Anderson, who would join Ryan Merritt in a long relief / swingman role.

This team is also pretty much the polar opposite of Chicago in terms of shutdown bullpen arms, as the developed Indians employ no fewer than three (3) relievers who closed for a significant portion of 2016. Cody Allen course serves as the team's current closer, assuming manager Terry Francona continues to utilize Andrew Miller in the multi-inning middle-relief role in which he excelled during the 2016 postseason. Jeanmar Gomez finished games for the 2016 Phillies, although no one seems to be particularly bullish on the prospects of him holding onto that privilege going forward. And Hector Rondon (a Rule 5 pick, which means by definition that he didn't spend ANY time in the minors for his new team before making his debut) was the Cubs' go-to for saves from 2014 thru the first half of 2016, when Joe Maddon suddenly lost faith in any reliever not named Aroldis Chapman. The weak link in this bullpen is clearly former Phillies minor league lefty Elvis Araujo, who is an injury replacement for the much more accomplished Zach Putnam.


So there you have it: developed rosters for the 2016 World Series participants. Who do you think would have won the Fall Classic if these were the teams that took the field last October? Sound off in the comments and stay tuned for more posts with actual words this time!

All-Rookie Teams 2016

It's been ten days since the conclusion of the World Series, and it took me that long to finish my aforementioned SWP by Teams project for the 2016 year. This has resulted in a 32-page document (one page per team, one snazzy title page, and one bonus page showing how many fantasy points the various postseason MVPs accrued during their award-worthy series), which will quite likely be seen by no one but me. But throughout the offseason, I will publish various excerpts taken from this document, such as projects like Divisional All-Stars, and this list of rosters made up of the best 2016 rookies from either league. Let's start with the National League, of which the World Series winning Chicago Cubs are a member.

The most impressive hitter among the entire 2016 rookie crop is obviously Silver Slugger Corey Seager, who led his Dodgers to an NLCS berth, while also leading their offense in fantasy points. But what's even more impressive about this league's rookies in particular is that the next two overall scoring rookies wouldn't even show up on this list if I didn't add a DH: Aledmys Diaz beat out Trevor Story for the second string shortstop job by just a single point (1,510 to 1,509, if you don't want to look over at the numbers). The reason I chose the breakout SS of the Cardinals over that of the Rockies is because of the season-ending thumb injury suffered by Story at the end of July. While Trea Turner was just slightly below the above-mentioned pair of shortstops in terms of overall points, no offensive player in all of baseball who exceeded 40 plate appearances could match Turner's 19.4 points per game. Turner's multi-positional eligibility (he also qualified at 2B, but was a SS through most of his minor league career) could also open up some playing time for Padres CF Travis Jankowski (863, 6.6), who finally provides the Gemini Astrology Fantasy team with a starting center field option.

Without Story making the cut for this lineup, the Rockies' lone representative is David Dahl, who could force a trade issue in Colorado's crowded outfield. Speaking of the outfield, Brandon Drury played more games in the corner outfield than at third base, but his 29 games at the hot corner are more than enough to qualify. Cleanup hitter Tommy Joseph put up good enough numbers to unseat face of the franchise Ryan Howard at first base for the Phillies, and that's even without holding the platoon advantage the majority of the time. Meanwhile, the Padres have a team-leading two players in this batting order, both of whom are rather opportunistic starters. Ryan Schimpf took over second base when Cory Spangenberg went down with an injury, while the door for Alex Dickerson to take over left field was forced open with the trade of Melvin Upton Jr. to the Blue Jays. And while Willson Contreras was only one of three qualifying catchers for those world champion Cubs, but he was the best performer of the three and most likely to stick behind the plate long term.

Kenta Maeda's status as an MLB rookie is a bit deceptive, as he had eight strong seasons in Japan's NPB before coming stateside (despite the fact that he's only 28 years old). That's only two years younger than this year's most effective rookie starter in terms of points per game, Junior Guerra, who came out of nowhere to form half of a solid rookie tandem with Zach Davies atop Milwaukee's rotation. Jon Gray is one of a number of young pieces that will hope to end Colorado's long period of pitching futility, along with honorable mention for this list Tyler Anderson (887 points, 47.5 PPG). And of course we've already seen Steven Matz perform on the sport's biggest stage in last year's World Series, but a bone spur in his elbow prevented him from putting up a full season's worth of numbers.

If you're hung up on the whole Japanese league import thing and don't consider Maeda to be a "true rookie," the next starter on the rookie depth chart would be longtime Pirates prospect Jameson "Tie-OWN" Taillon (935, 51.9). If you have the same concerns over new Cardinals closer Seung Hwan Oh, who had 11 seasons as a star closer in the KBO and NPB before coming stateside, you need look no further than Carlos Estevez (607, 9.6), who closed games for the Rockies while Jake McGee and Adam Ottavino dealt with various injuries. Other guys on this list with closer experience in 2016 include Mauricio Cabrera, who earned six saves in Atlanta's unsettled Jim Johnson/Arodys Vizcaino situation, and Jake Barrett, who had the second-most save opportunities for the Diamondbacks after Brad Ziegler was traded, but only picked up four saves in the process. Seth Lugo and Alex Reyes both look like they will develop into effective starters, but they were hit with the ambiguous "P" label because they racked up more relief appearances than starts in 2016.

Sticking with pitchers, Detroit's Michael Fulmer (late of the Mets from the Yoenis Cespedes trade) probably has the best shot at AL Rookie of the Year honors, but as a whole the junior circuit's rookie starters were a lot less effective than their NL counterparts. That's not to say there weren't some heralded names in the bunch: in addition to Fulmer, Sean Manaea and Blake Snell were also on MLB.com's top 100 prospect list heading into the season, compared to only two National League starters, Jon Gray and Stephen Matz... or three if you count Taillon. Meanwhile Joe Musgrove did make an appearance on Houston's list of top 30 prospects prior to 2016, while Ariel Miranda come out of nowhere to put up big numbers following a trade from Baltimore to Seattle.

Speaking of Seattle, Edwin Diaz filled in so admirably for an injured Steve Cishek in early August, that the rookie took over the Mariners' closer role over the final two months of the season. He headlines an AL rookie bullpen that doesn't have a weak link in the bunch. Ryan Dull was so adept at preventing inherited runners from scoring (only 13% of whom scored on him in 2016) that I suggested he use "Enter Strand Man" as his entrance music with runners on base. Mychal Givens blossomed into the top setup man in front of arguably the game's top closer. Michael Feliz didn't have a great ERA, but his ability to pitch multiple innings drove up his fantasy points. And the Rangers' rookie tandem of Matt Bush and Tony Barnette should solidify the back end of their pen for years to come. Speaking of multiple innings, the two "P's" on this list have very different career trajectories. Dylan Bundy will absolutely transition into Baltimore's rotation - he was used in the bullpen this year to limit his innings - while Chris Devenski was used as a spot starter / long reliever and in my opinion has the best shot at turning into the next Andrew Miller. You heard it here first! Maybe!

There are some impressive bats in this AL rookies lineup, but the main force here is obviously catcher Gary Sanchez. It's almost too bad that he squandered his rookie eligibility on a season where he only played 50 games, because if he put up production even approaching his 17.4 PPG over his first full season, he would probably garner consideration for AL MVP in addition to handily winning the RoY award. Nomar Mazara jumped all over the opportunity afforded by Shin-Soo Choo's early season injury in Texas by putting up the most overall offensive points by a 2016 AL rookie. After Mazara and his German corner outfield mate Max Kepler, White Sox leadoff hitter Tim Anderson has the next-most impressive prospect pedigree in this lineup, who joins with Trea Turner to form a very strong young core for the Cancer Crabs Astrology team. Ryon Healy's emergence at 3B for the Athletics was a big reason why Danny Valencia was just shipped to the Mariners yesterday. For the Royals, Whit Merifield had a rather clear path to the team's 2B position (at least until Raul Mondesi finishes his development), but Cheslor Cuthbert was plugged in at 3B as an injury stopgap for Mike Moustakas. Jefry Marte also played some 3B and LF for the Angels. And CF Tyler Naquin is the only rookie on this list to play for the AL champion Indians.

Thoughts about the 2016 World Series

Upon completion of the 2016 World Series, when Joe Maddon's Cubs orchestrated an improbable comeback against World Series legend Terry Francona's Indians, I felt a bit like C-3PO in this scene from The Empire Strikes Back:


The joke here, of course, is that up until this moment, Threepio had done nothing but spew criticism at R2-D2 as he tried to unlock the doors and aid in the Rebels' escape - much like how I reacted to seemingly every one of Joe Maddon's pitching changes from Game 3 onward. G3: Justin Grimm in the 5th with the bases loaded? G4: Pulling John Lackey after just 84 pitches? G6: Bringing in Aroldis Chapman in the 7th inning for the second time in two days? (For the record, the G5 decision was defensible, and perhaps the only way the Cubs hold on to a 3-2 lead - but then to use him the next day when up 7-3, and then to leave him in after he sprained his ankle covering first, and then AGAIN after the Cubs tacked on another two runs!?) G7: Bringing in Jon Lester, the guy who will never throw to a base, with a runner on in the 5th? And then trying to use Chapman for multiple innings for the third game in a row!? You have a bullpen full of specialized relievers! Why not use some of them!?

But somehow, the Cubs prevailed, cashing in on a best-in-baseball 103-win season, and finally getting the 108-year-old monkey (or goat?) off their backs. By the way, when I was explaining the legend of the Billy Goat Curse to my wife last night, I immediately thought of Black Phillip from last year's epic frontier horror film The Witch. Goats are capable of some nasty things: it was true in the 17th century, it was true in 1908, and it's true in 2016! The only thing capable of removing their influence was the actions of two of baseball's most famous curse breakers: Theo Epstein, the baseball operations executive responsible for building both the 2004 Red Sox and the 2016 Cubs, and Terry Francona, the manager of the aforementioned Red Sox team back in '04 (and in 2013 when they won again), but also of the opponent of this year's Cubs team. So win or lose, Tito will always be remembered fondly by followers of baseball superstitions.

Bill Murray wouldst like to live deliciously...

One could argue that Francona's pitching choices did as much to help the Cubs as Maddon's choices did to nearly sabotage them. I know his starting rotation has dealt with some devastating injuries towards the end of the season, but asking ace Corey Kluber to pitch on short rest for the third time in the postseason must have been too much for him to handle. Don't get me wrong, I still think Kluber was the best option for Game 7, especially given how dominant he had been throughout the rest of the playoffs. I was among those who thought that Chicago was surely done when I saw that Cleveland's three-man rotation would send Kluber to the hill in the potential deciding game after they fell behind 3-1. But it was the overuse of relief ace Andrew Miller that might have been the final nail in the coffin for Francona's club. The more a batter sees of a pitcher, the more familiar he gets with the hurler's stuff and strategy, while the batter's game plan remains the same all throughout: see the ball, hit the ball. Miller was decidedly brilliant for most of the series, but after his fourth appearance of ~2 innings each, the Cubs were able to get a bead on him, and he gave up a couple of crucial runs in Game 7. I know hindsight is 20/20 and I've heard that Miller's usage could very well revolutionize how relief pitchers are evaluated and used. But over-reliance on one arm is never the answer: just ask how Aroldis Chapman felt after giving up that game-tying home run to Rajai Davis.

I was vocally in favor of the Cubs winning this World Series - not because of the racially insensitive nature of Cleveland's team name (although I do think it was a bit of a dirty trick for Commissioner Rob Manfred to call out the Indians on this point WHILE THEY'RE PLAYING IN THE WORLD SERIES), but rather because I was ready for this Cubs World Series drought narrative to end. A friend of mine took the opposite stance: if the Cubs don't have their "lovable losers" identity, what do they have going for them? But the problem is that ever since Theo Epstein's rebuilding effort started to bear fruit, the Cubs aren't "losers" anymore: they've won 200 games over the past two seasons. And winners aren't lovable unless they win it all. And now that they have won, they can start adopting a new franchise identity, albeit one that casual Cubs fans won't necessarily like that much. To paraphrase Harvey Dent from The Dark Knight: You either die a lovable loser, or you live long enough to see yourself become a hated dynasty.

I have friends who are Indians fans, and I felt bad about actively rooting for their sadness just for the sake of a silly baseball superstition. But think of what kind of narrative we would have had if Cleveland held on to win the championship. Sure, it would have been an inspiring story about overcoming injuries and using relief pitchers creatively and platooning outfielders as though a lefty hitter has never gotten a hit off a lefty pitcher. But at bottom, the Indians would have become just another spoiler in the Cubs' much longer and more storied history of futility. And I wouldn't wish the ire of the north side of Chicago on any baseball fan...

SWP by World Series Team 2016

I had resolved not to start earnest work on my SWP by Team project, my longest standing post-baseball-season tradition, until after the World Series. But, like the overeager kid on Christmas Eve, I've decided to open one present, which in this case is completing the entries for the two World Series participants, the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians. I'll present these below, but first a few guidelines. These lists do not represent a given team's most current roster, nor even necessarily its most efficient lineup construction; they represent a team's best fantasy baseball performers over the course of the whole season, as judged by the now-defunct Small World Points (SWP) system. In the case of these two clubs, the lists mostly resemble each team's current World Series roster... MOSTLY. It'll be the differences I'll focus on here, starting with the team that has home field advantage.

I arrange the offensive part of these lists based on where each player spent the most time in his team's batting order. The first 75+% of Cleveland's lineup at left is just about identical to the batting order that manager Terry Francona trots out against left-handed pitching. Against righties, power hitting DH Carlos Santana shifts to the leadoff spot, while Rajai Davis loses his lineup spot to midseason acquisition Coco Crisp, who doesn't show up on this list because he didn't accrue the requisite 200 plate appearances after coming to the Indians. Davis, who led the American League in stolen bases despite being heavily platooned throughout the season, has two positions associated with his line for the following reason: if you look at his personal tally of games played in 2016, he has more games in CF than in LF, but if you look at Cleveland's positional game log, Davis has more starts in LF than any other Indians player. Rookie Tyler Naquin got the majority of Indians starts in CF, but he too has been platooned during the postseason, ceding playing time against lefties to another midseason acquisition, Brandon Guyer. Yan Gomes was one of three Indians catchers to log 50 games at the position, but he's been replaced by Roberto Perez as the playoff starter.

Followers of the playoffs will note that the Indians have been using a three-man rotation of Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer, and Josh Tomlin throughout the postseason, with one exception: a Ryan Merritt start in Game 5 of the ALCS. The rotation above is organized by innings pitched, which means that Cleveland's three-man rotation is made up of their top three busiest pitchers in 2016, but not necessarily their top fantasy scorers. If you go by points per game, the Indians are using starters ranked one, four, and five. It's even more impressive considering that the Tribe has made it as far as they have with just starters one, four, and five (when going by points per game), since Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar both went down with injuries late in the year and have been deemed unable to start in the playoffs (although Salazar has come out of the bullpen for one inning so far in the World Series). All five relief pitchers listed (minimum 40 innings pitched or 40 appearances) appear on Francona's World Series roster, and curiously enough, all five are slated to go through the arbitration process prior to next season. However, you have to look all the way down at the bottom to see Cleveland's most valuable reliever Andrew Miller, whose line is different than all the others, for reasons I will explain later.

Now onto the Cubs roster, the offensive side of which is very nearly true to Joe Maddon's typical World Series lineup. One thing you'll notice right off the bat is the presence of a DH, despite this being Chicago's National League team. I've given NL teams access to a DH spot since I started doing this project (after the 2000 season) because it made it slightly more fair to compare offensive totals of teams across leagues if each team has nine offensive positions in the lineup. For NL teams, the "DH" is really shorthand for "most-used pinch hitter," or "small half of a platoon," or "someone who lost/gained regular playing time at some point during the year." Javier Baez is listed as Chicago's DH, despite having played all over the infield in 2016, pushing Ben Zobrist and Kris Bryant to the outfield when Baez needed playing time. During the playoffs, it's been Baez at 2B and Zobrist in LF, which would normally push Jorge Soler out of his lineup spot, except that he's been taking some starts away from Jason Heyward in RF due to the latter's total offensive futility this year.

They say pitching wins in the playoffs, and this Cubs team has one of the most impressive starting rotations, one through five, in recent memory, so it's not hard to see why pundits predicted this team making a deep run. Going back to the Indians and their injury woes for a bit, imagine how the Cubs would fare if their rotation options were limited to Jon Lester, John Lackey, and Jason Hammel (although all three did outscore CLE's three-man rotation). The bullpen is not nearly as impressive on paper, but remember that Hector Rondon's fantasy point totals were capped when he was replaced as primary save-earner with the acquisition of Aroldis Chapman (again, more on the italicized lines later on). Interestingly enough, Chicago's top middle reliever in terms of points per game (Trevor Cahill) was left off the playoff roster, even given that his past experience as a starter allows him to comfortably pitch multiple innings, which is definitely a trendy attribute for relievers this postseason. Filling the role of Cubs "long man" is another midseason acquisition, lefty Mike Montgomery.

And now a word about the two italicized relief pitchers at the bottom of each team's list. The "^" symbol in front of each one's name denotes that they were acquired during the season, which in these two players' cases kept them from reaching the requisite 40 IP / 40 G relevance-threshold necessary to appear in these lists. However, there are extenuating circumstances that merits the inclusion of each. As I mentioned above, when the Cubs acquired Aroldis Chapman, they immediately placed him in the closer role, resulting in him pitching in 18 of his new team's 53 total save opportunities (or 34%). Compare that to Hector Rondon's 23 SvOpps (43%), so this looks like a co-closer situation that needs to be reflected on the list. In Andrew Miller's case, he shows up in Baseball-Reference's list of top 12 Indians players by WAR, earning almost as many Wins Above Replacement in 29 innings pitched (1.6) as Josh Tomlin in 174 IP (1.7), so how could I NOT include a performance of that magnitude? Plus, the fact that both of these pitchers served as closers for the New York Yankees in 2016 links these two World Series participants in an intriguing way.

World Series Predictions by Astrology 2016

For all ten teams in the MLB playoffs, I Tweeted out an active roster analysis of their rosters as of their first round appearance. For the four that advanced to the Championship Serieses, I Tweeted a graph of each team's top fantasy performers against each other to see which team might have the statistical advantage. But now I thought I would check for connections between players who are contending for a real life championship, and the players on the fantasy astrological teams that had success (or lack thereof) this year. Keep in mind that each fantasy "starting lineup" has space for one offensive player at each of the eight defensive positions, plus a DH, five starting pitchers, and two relief pitchers. The only player on either World Series roster who contributed to the league champion Libra Scales is Indians SP2 Josh Tomlin, who actually outpitched big time acquisition Zack Greinke to be Libra's overall SP4. (Cleveland's Rajai Davis and Lonnie Chisenhall are also Libras, but they were buried on a famously strong depth chart.) However, looking at this year's runner up Capricorn Goats (coincidence?) tells a different story.

Overall World Series fantasy point leader (and NL MVP candidate) Kris Bryant is the only relevant player in this collage, which is made from images taken from two preseason preview magazines (Lindy's and The Sporting News, if you're curious). Not pictured in this collage (due to my lack of picture options, not his lack of excellence) is Bryant's real life teammate Jon Lester, the NLCS co-MVP (with Javier Baez, a Sagittarius) and the highest fantasy point scorer of any pitcher in the World Series. On the other side of the competition, the Indians have a couple of controversial Capricorn starting pitchers. Trevor Bauer (who competed for CAP's fifth starter spot with Kevin Gausman, pictured) suffered a lacerated pinkie in a drone-building accident that caused him to exit early from his last ALCS start, but he'll supposedly be ready to go for Game 2 on Wednesday. And Danny Salazar, who has been out since early September with a forearm injury, could be activated to start Game 4 or pitch out of the bullpen. Also catcher Roberto Perez and middle reliever Jeff Manship were eligible for the Goats' roster, but neither of them made the starting fantasy lineup.

Looking back to last year's champions, we see that the Cubs have some pretty dominant Pisces players on their roster. The most prominent of these is reigning NL Cy Young winner Jake Arrieta (who is also the only Cubs player of whom I had a collage-worthy picture), who has been relegated to CHC's SP3 this postseason due to the presence of Lester and Kyle Hendricks (also a Sagittarius, and their ace pitcher, no less). The Cubs also have some key Pisceses at the back end of their bullpen in ninth-inning force Aroldis Chapman and the man he replaced as closer upon his acquisition, Hector Rondon. (Rondon and Fernando Rodney were neck and neck for the RP2 spot, each of whom were much better first half fantasy relievers as they lost their respective closer jobs due to trades.) Bench bat Jorge Soler and backup-backup catcher David Ross also represent the Fish for the Cubs, as does injured slugger Kyle Schwarber (previously mis-identified as an Aries elsewhere on this site), who could potentially be used as a DH after missing all but two (2) games of the 2016 season. Pisces doesn't have a really meaningful presence on Cleveland's roster, with rookie starter Ryan Merritt and reliever Dan Otero as the only two members.

The two astrology signs most strongly represented on the Indians are Aries and Scorpio. Starting with the Rams, the collage at left shows two-fifths of CLE's rotation for most of the year: not only unquestioned ace Corey Kluber, but also the team's SP2 until mid-September Carlos Carrasco, whose season ended prematurely after suffering a fractured hand about a week after Salazar went down. On the offensive side, Aries also lays claim to the top two players in the Indians batting order (but only against righties), Carlos Santana and Jason Kipnis. Interestingly enough, due to the scary strength of the Aries roster, neither player earned a spot on their starting lineup: Kipnis was stuck behind near-batting-champ Daniel Murphy on the 2B depth chart, while Santana had to contend with Miguel Cabrera (pictured) and Adrian Beltre (who himself was behind Nolan Arenado, also pictured) for the 1B/DH spots. The Cubs also have a trio of Aries players with varying relevancy: CF Dexter Fowler was a starter for the fantasy astrology team, while rookies Albert Almora Jr. (OF) and Rob Zastryzny (LHP) bear mentioning as well.

Scorpio has been a very strong offensive astrology team for many years, and although they'll take a clear hit with the retirement of David Ortiz, the presence of Francisco Lindor in the middle of their infield and the middle of their lineup for the foreseeable future will give them a definite boost. He joins fellow Indians lineup members Mike Napoli and Coco Crisp, although the latter of which also only starts against righties, despite his status as a switch hitter. Cleveland's relief corps is also well represented, with closer/setup combo Cody Allen and Brian Shaw both representing the Scorpions. The Cubs only had one Scorpio on their playoff roster, but he's perhaps the one player who most outwardly exemplifies the typical Scorpio personality: SP4 John Lackey.

Those are the most relevant players of the best-represented astrological signs, with only a handful of players left who had contributing roles on other fantasy astrology teams. The recently un-slumping Anthony Rizzo served as Leo's starting first baseman, breakout multi-position star Jose Ramirez started at third base for Virgo, while the also-heating-up Addison Russell served as an unconventional shortstop/DH pair with Brandon Crawford on a characteristically weak Aquarius team. Meanwhile, super utility powerhouse Ben Zobrist and ALCS MVP Andrew Miller both held down major roles for a Gemini team that was nowhere close to contention.

For those of you keeping track at home, this brings the total of fantasy astrology "starters" on the Cubs to eleven (11), while the Indians lag behind with eight (8). I don't want to presume that this particular bit of trivia has any bearing on which team has the "star-crossed" advantage heading into the Fall Classic, but it'll nevertheless be interesting to see which fantasy astrology stars will be able to step up in the real life playoffs. Obviously, every player on these rosters (indeed, every player in baseball) has an astrology affiliation, and it's possible that the biggest difference maker in the upcoming World Series is not one of the above-mentioned players. Tune into your local FOX station starting Tuesday 10/25 at 8pm ET to find out!

Fantasy Astrology 2016 Playoff Teams

This weekend, I completed work on my preliminary Baseball Database: a huge sortable color-coded spreadsheet that includes a row full of stats and information for all 1,353 players who recorded a game in the major leagues this year. (The full version of the database will eventually add info for all players who appeared on a team's 40-man roster, all non-roster invitees heading into 2016, and any minor leaguer who was traded for a player with MLB experience over the course of the season.) This is a three-step process, involving confirming each player's name, handedness, and roster status as of the last day of the season using each team's official site; then noting each player's position eligibility and teams played for, using Baseball-Reference.com's fielding stats page; and finally entering in each player's fantasy point totals, calculated by a custom ESPN fantasy league. It's tedious and time consuming, but it's absolutely a labor of love, and it allows me to generate lineup after lineup, such as these ones of the top four Fantasy Astrology teams from 2016.

As I've mentioned via Twitter, the Libra Scales just won the Fantasy Astrology championship for the fourth time in five years! The lone outlier was 2015 when Clayton Kershaw and Jake Arrieta led Pisces to a wild pitching-fueled upset, but Capricorn could not keep the trend going in 2016. And it's no wonder, considering the incredible wealth of talent that graces Libra's roster every year. Keep in mind, these aren't the lineups each team used in the playoffs, or even throughout the majority of the regular season, but rather an optimized configuration using the aggregate 2016 season stats and positional eligibility. I'll go over some major ways each roster evolved from their opening day versions in the commentary after each graphic.

You might notice that Libra has a spot for an additional position player at the bottom. This is not because the Fantasy Astrology league has two DH spots, but because I wanted you to marvel at this team's outfield depth. The five outfielders listed would likely line up as Betts, Cespedes, and Harper in left, center, and right, with a Gonzalez/Kemp DH platoon. But when you consider that this year's top offensive performer overall Mookie Betts had holdover CF eligibility from 2015, that would eliminate the need to feature either Yoenis Cespedes (and his injury-shortened, albeit brilliant campaign) or Andrew McCutchen (and his admittedly disappointing performance). And that list doesn't even include such luminaries as Jose Bautista, Starling Marte, and Kole Calhoun, who would make a pretty good starting outfield trio on most fantasy teams.

But the outfield isn't the only strength of this team, as the infield is also brimming with depth. Around the horn, Robinson Cano, Evan Longoria, and Xander Bogaerts are backed up by Jonathan Schoop, Jake Lamb, and Troy Tulowitzki, respectively. Looking at the SS depth chart, Brad Miller actually outscored Tulo in 2016, but when the breakout offensive star Miller took over as the Rays' first baseman in August, he was able to unseat the decidedly mediocre Ryan Zimmerman at 1B. Considering that first base and catcher were two of the only weak spots in Libra's lineup (the latter of which should be adequately filled by Cameron Rupp for the foreseeable future), it's a little scary what this offense could look like down the line.

The picture isn't quite as clear for the starting staff, which turned in a good overall performance, despite some major disappointments. These disappointments mostly involved Diamondbacks players: consider that both Shelby Miller and Robbie Ray joined Zack Greinke in this team's opening day starting five. Greinke's 2016 performance kept him in that group, but I'm sure no one expected him to regress from the league leader in ERA to mid-rotation starter status. Another former ace, Chris Archer, also had similar regression, leaving it to Cy Young contender J.A. Happ and versatile Tanner Roark to headline the staff. (Roark's performance as a starter always made me question Washington's decision to move him to the bullpen upon their signing of Max Scherzer... unless it was a clever ruse to limit the second-year-man's innings.) Throw in two of the three top scoring relief pitchers, and you have the makings of a perennial champion.

Libra's opponent this year was the Capricorn Goats, a strong team on both sides of the ball that got a big boost from the positional eligibility rules. Going into 2016, CAP's top two players holding only 1B or DH eligibility were Edwin Encarnacion (22) and Albert Pujols (124), with Victor Martinez waiting in the wings (234). But after the season, that list expanded to include Hanley Ramirez, the team's opening day left fielder thanks to Boston's ill-advised decision to put him in front of the Green Monster in 2015. Losing his OF eligibility effectively forced Hanley to DH and Pujols to the bench, but at least the team had a competent corner outfield replacement in Stephen Piscotty. And of course they still had offensive superpowers in MVP candidate Kris Bryant and MLB home run leader Mark Trumbo anchoring the lineup. But the presence of mediocre performers up the middle like Tucker Barnhart and Jose Iglesias (unseating long time regulars A.J. Pierzynski and Erick Aybar, respectively) ensure that they just can't compare to Libra's star power.

On the starting pitching front, however, Capricorn has several more impressive hurlers than Libra could muster, starting with a pair of Cy Young candidates, one for each league, in Rick Porcello and Jon Lester. Interestingly enough, Porcello wasn't even in the opening day rotation for this team, his spot going to 2015 AL Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel, whose struggles this year have been well-documented. And speaking of Cy Young candidates, their closer Zach Britton could garner some votes for the top honor for a pitcher, regardless of his non-use in the American League Wild Card Game. (Other relief pitching options include veteran Francisco Rodriguez and newly minted closer Alex Colome, both of whom averaged more than 30 points per game last year). The starting rotation behind Lester and the incredibly consistent Cole Hamels did have a fair bit of turnover though: Danny Salazar had his season cut short due to injuries and Michael Pineda couldn't perform consistently despite good health. They were replaced by two from the trio of Danny Duffy, Kevin Gausman, or Trevor Bauer.

My home-sign team, the Cancer Crabs, always seems to be on the edge of contention, but this year they lost out to this year's champions in the season's penultimate matchup. Let's start with the players we knew would be great: Manny Machado continued to dazzle at the plate while also gaining eligibility at shortstop, Nelson Cruz once again hit 40 home runs, Ian Kinsler put up another quietly impressive season, and Charlie Blackmon took advantage of Coors Field to boost his offensive numbers. Now the surprises: DJ LeMahieu ended up winning the National League batting title, Angel Pagan had a bit of a career resurgence, and most importantly, Trea Turner burst on the scene with an electrifying rookie season. Turner played center field and second base this year, but if he takes over at shortstop for the Nationals any time soon, he'll go a long way towards filling the hole left in Cancer's shortstop depth chart by Derek Jeter's retirement.

But perhaps the biggest reason for this team's success was a complete revamping of the pitching staff. Here's how the rotation looked on opening day based on preseason rankings: Stephen Strasburg, Michael Wacha, Wei-Yin Chen, Patrick Corbin, and Edinson Volquez. The only pitcher in that group who stuck around for the whole season was Strasburg, and he ended the season on the disabled list. (Of note: Marco Estrada would have earned a place in the opening day rotation based on his rank, but his own injury issues kept him from the fantasy lineup for the first matchups of the year.) Of course, no one could have expected that the Blue Jays would go back on their promise to move ace Aaron Sanchez to the bullpen, or that CC Sabathia's new sober lifestyle would give new life to his career. Likewise the bullpen, which featured only middle relievers at the start of the season (Kevin Siegrist and Brett Cecil) ended with three bona fide closers - although Seung Hwan Oh, Jim Johnson, and Tony Cingrani had to climb significantly up their teams' respective depth charts to earn their saves.

No Fantasy Astrology team was touched with more tragedy than Leo, who lost a key member of their pitching staff and one of the most captivating personalities in Major League Baseball when Jose Fernandez was killed in a boating accident. Obviously a tragedy like this takes the focus away from such trivialities as Astrology Baseball, and my thoughts and prayers go out to Fernandez's friends and family and teammates on his real life organization, the Miami Marlins. He was a bright spot in this game and he will be sorely missed.

In 2016, Jose Fernandez helped pitch the Leo Lions into the playoffs along with overall 2016 fantasy points leader Max Scherzer, slugging pitcher extraordinaire Madison Bumgarner, and (when healthy) Japanese ace Yu Darvish. Their relief pitcher situation was a bit more tenuous as both Santiago Casilla and Jake McGee lost their grips on their respective closer positions, and Huston Street was a nonentity pretty much all season; although the team did get a boost from the emergence of ground ball specialist Brandon Kintzler as Minnesota's stopper late in the season.

There's no question about who this team's leader was on offense, as Mike Trout finished second only to Mookie Betts among all batters in 2016 fantasy points (third overall behind astrology teammate Scherzer). Anthony Rizzo finished a fairly close second in offensive points, with the only other 100-RBI season on the team, while Dustin Pedroia had another typically excellent season, topping the 2,000 point mark for the fifth time in his career. Injuries did hit this team fairly hard: breakout catcher Wilson Ramos was lost for the season right at the height of the Fantasy playoffs, third baseman Wilmer Flores likewise saw his season end early after taking over from an immensely disappointing Pablo Sandoval, shortstops Zack Cozart and Aledmys Diaz each missed significant time, as did slugging outfielder J.D. Martinez. In the end, the consistency of Adam Jones and Melky Cabrera couldn't win the day.


Check out my twitter feed for graphical analysis of the rosters of the current playoff teams, and stay tuned to this blog for more 2016 season wrap-up-type posts and for analysis of rosters in the upcoming World Baseball Classic!

Fantasy Astrology Waiver Wire - September 2016

With news starting to break about the 2017 World Baseball Classic, that got me thinking about the possibility of an Astrology Baseball Classic. Because when you think about it, the general principle behind constructing WBC rosters is to make a list of all available players, then organize that list by the "Country of Birth" (or rather, "Country of Heritage") column. Using the same principle, couldn't we just arrange the list by the "Astrological Sign" column, and play some exhibition games? I've been doing the first part of this equation every year since 2012, but instead of exhibition games, in my case I play a hypothetical fantasy season. 

If we're talking about astrology, I must first say a few words about Kyle Schwarber, CHC C/OF on the DL for the year. Not about his nonexistant 2016 season, but about a piece of human error (mine) that had mistakenly attributed his hypothetical service to the Aries Rams. This is not so: I goofed and he is a Pisces. Wouldn't have mattered this year of course...  And wouldn't have mattered last year, in fact, as the Fish won the championship even without the Warbird's powerful bat in the lineup down the stretch. 

Speaking of down the stretch, the baseball season is in it right now, in a big way. Which means teams are scouring for help anywhere they can, real teams and fantasy teams both. That extends to human owned and pregenerated teams like my astrology teams, which I don't update often or regularly throughout the year. Which means there are some real gems on the waiver wire who either just now started to get hot, or who aren't needed due to a stacked roster in front of them, or who I just plain missed. Here are some such players, sorted by ESPN's player rater, but with fantasy points as of the All-Star Break. 

In case you skipped right to the chart and didn't read my spiel at the top, there's a row with Kyle Schwarber's full 2016 contribution, with the proper name in the Astrology column. Speaking of columns, a 2016 Team that's not in bold font represents a player who made his Major League debut this season. The three players with that distinction are all varying degrees of Rookie: Jameson Taillon has an empty P2 column, because he also appeared in my 2015 40-Man Rosters document. Willson Contreras has a green shaded P2 column, because he was added during the off season, while Edwin Diaz's is shaded cyan because he was added during the current season, when he took over as the Mariners' closer. David Dahl has nothing in that column, because he did not make his big league debut until after the Midsummer Classic, but trust me, this kid is for real - he's averaged 15.3 points in his first 30 games in the majors.

Contreras has fallen off a bit since the break, but he did just add LF eligibility (with 20 games), which might be important for a team that also has breakout candidate Sandy Leon behind the plate. Dahl will play on the other side of speedster Rajai Davis, even though he also can also fill the CF slot in standard ESPN leagues, despite just 5 games there in the majors. This outfield alignment allows for a corner infield made up of Brandon Moss and Hernan Perez, who can also roam the grass in a pinch. The best defensive alignment likely has the red hot Jedd Gyorko at DH, with Danny Espinosa shifting to his old position of 2B, and iron-gloved Marcus Semien nonetheless at SS.

On the pitching side, we all know about Jameson Taillon's prospect pedigree, while both Danny Duffy and David Phelps are rather recent additions to their teams' starting rotations, as they had each spent the early parts of their seasons in the bullpen. (Duffy is currently pitching like an ace and is currently providing a boost to my own personal fantasy team in the playoffs.) Straily and Fiers are two mid-rotation arms who were relied on out of necessity, and who happened to get hot at the right time. Of the two relievers we haven't talked about, Tyler Thornburg is the more steady bet for saves, after the departure of Jeremy Jeffress and Will Smith out of Milwaukee, as Jim Johnson will lose a significant amount of GF's to Arodys Vizcaino.

From an astrological standpoint, most of these players are available for one of three reasons. The first and most interesting reason is that their team has a surplus at that player's position. For example, it would be very hard for Rajai Davis to break into a Libra outfield mix that also includes Mookie Betts, Bryce Harper, Carlos Gonzalez, Yoenis Cespedes, Jose Bautista, Andrew McCutchen, and Starling Marte. (Hey, I never said these astrology teams were fair...) Brandon Moss places a distant fourth on the Virgo 1B depth chart behind Paul Goldschmidt, Joey Votto, and Freddie Freeman; and don't expect him to be taking too many outfield at bats away from George Springer, Gregory Polanco, or Ian Desmond. As electric as Edwin Diaz is right now, I don't think he's a more dependable saves option for Aries than Mark Melancon, Dellin Betances, or David Robertson (all three developed by the New York Yankees, btw).

The second and most boring reason is that their team is simply too far out of the running for me to care about making changes. Willson Contreras might be a better bet than the aging Jayson Werth, but at 6-13, Taurus is not going to make the playoffs. I'm sure Scorpio, Sagittarius, and Gemini could use an extra quality starter, but why should I bother making the changes if it's not going to affect the league champions.

Which brings us to the third and most embarrassing reason: I just wasn't paying attention. Capricorn would love another breakout arm to replace the injured Junior Guerra, and Danny Duffy fits the bill exactly. Jedd Gyorko is blocked at his natural position by 2B Robinson Cano, but the way he's playing, he might have earned a shot to unseat Libra 1B Ryan Zimmerman. Hernan Perez is swinging the bat so well that he would likely be an improvement over the slumping Aries outfielders Jay Bruce or Dexter Fowler. But who has time to keep up to date on that kind of stuff? It's just a game, after all!

By the way, I was serious about an Astrology Baseball Classic, and I think with some serious lobbying from the New Age crowd, we could maybe make it happen. At the very least, I could crunch the numbers through a video game to see what it might look like. But I probably won't do that because I can't help it if I'm still obsessed with Batman video games...