He's thirty - the upsode is probably already been passed.

at some point they will move him to DH. He still has some good years left

I really like Joyce (this issue notwithstanding) and would have to consider keeping him, probably over Jacobs.

EDIT: Just realized you have keepers left, so scratch that about Jacobs.

My dad ran into Nixon at a Ryan's a couple of weeks ago. Said he very nice & graciously signed an autograph for my old man. Kind of sad though, Dad said he seemed to be the only person in the place that recognized him.

Seriously 17 keepers? That's nuts. Your draft must suck hard every year and you could easily have built a dynasty if you got good (and lucky) in the first draft.

Is there a penalty to protecting the full 17? Like- do you lose draft picks if you protect more than a certain number? And is there any system like "you can only hold a player for X years"?

Adam Jones really stands out to me- you have to protect him. Considering how young and how much potential he has, I don't see why you wouldn't. Same with Joyce, too. Those two are must keep if you have that many keepers. I'd probably rate them above Choo and Headley, personally, who you have as set in stone keepers.

I don't see why you wouldn't keep Ryan as he fills a need for this year, unless you don't need 2 closers. He should be a solid guy for at least a couple more years.

And, I guess if I had to pick a 4th, it'd be beteween Francouer for possible upside or Martinez or Cabrera as they fill a need for this year, leaning towards Martinez as I think he'll have a better year relative to the position this year.

Also, I wouldn't necessarily hang on hard to Jacobs- he has power and hurts you everywhere else. If you need another spot to keep another player, this would be it. You already have a much better version of him in Adrian Gonzalez with a high power, low average guy who is a lot better at it.

SI

Yeah I wouldn't probably do that same switch if I didn't have some keepers left, Jacbos is a Rob Deer type player with just a bit more average... I really like Joyce and I'm very intrigued to see what he does in Tampa after what I saw from him last year.

No there aren't any special rules on the keepers, just a straight 17. My bubble guys are pretty much all the ones you mentioned (Jones, Joyce, Jacobs, Martinez, Ryan). Since we play 1B, 3B, CI, I don't really need Jacobs except for fill in (depending on if I carry another catcher and my OF depth).

If it were my keeper list, it'd look like this:
bold- set in stone (14)
italics- consider

Adrian Gonzalez SD 1B
Victor Martinez Cle C,1B
Orlando Cabrera CWS SS
Jeff Francoeur Atl OF
Dustin Pedroia Bos 2B
Ryan Zimmerman Was 3B
Brad Hawpe Col OF
Mike Jacobs KC 1B
Andre Ethier LAD OF
Adam Jones Bal OF
Shin-Soo Choo Cle OF
Marco Scutaro Tor 2B,3B,SS,OF
Aaron Cunningham Oak OF
Chase Headley SD 3B,OF
Matt Joyce Det OF

Brandon Webb Ari SP
Brad Lidge Phi RP
B.J. Ryan Tor RP
Adam Wainwright StL SP
Derek Lowe LAD SP
Armando Galarraga Det SP
Scott Lewis Cle SP
Kyle Lohse StL SP
Jorge Campillo Atl SP,RP
Zach Miner Det SP,RP
Dallas Braden Oak SP,RP - don't know much about
Glen Perkins Min SP,RP

SI

Don't make the keeper league mistake of dropping good production for potential production that might be as good or slightly better. You can always work the waiver wire and, who knows, you might actually have some good seasons from guys you don't expect and actually be in contention if you don't go full "youth movement". Sure, the league may have existed for a few years, but you never know when it's going to disappear.

SI

Definitely keep Shin-Soo Choo, Victor Martinez, Adam Jones.

I'd keep Matt Joyce, Frenchy and even Orlando Cabrera, even thought he's probably on his downturn. Odds are you won't be able to find a better SS out there, they will all be kept.

dola - case in point, Cabrera was just picked in the 14th round of our hardcore league.

That's great but who do you drop instead? Joyce is a part timer, Frenchy sucks and Cabrera isn't particularly good at anything besides fielding.

Well we don't know exactly what they are going to do with Joyce. Carbrera does steal 15+ though... which if you look at my team I basically just throw the steal category away.

Joyce can't hit lefties, so thats a max of 450 PAs. Burrell is the DH so he can't go there, so you're looking at something like 300-350 PAs unless someone like Crawford gets hurt or Joyce completely and totally hits the snot out of the ball the first month.

I'm fairly convinced his performance last year in DET is at/near his peak.

How can you be convinced of that? He had an OPS+ of 116 as a 23 year old rookie. I'm curious how you can be sure that's his ceiling and that he couldn't go higher.

Yeah, it seems Joyce has a great future ahead of him. Saying he's hit is ceiling goes against what most scouts have said.

Too many strikeouts.

'Cause that's killed Adam Dunn's career ;).

As he gets older, he'll be able to develop more patience.

Dunn and Howard were awesome in the minors. Dunn also walks a lot.

Joyce wasn't and doesn't.

why does he have to drop anybody, he bolded 13 guys and he can keep 17.

Take his 13
+ Martinez
+ Jones
+ Cabrera
+ Joyce

I was going to say toss up between Frenchy and Cabrera, but you already would have 5 OFs. When Adam Jones goes 20-20 this year, you won't care about Frenchy.

Last year in AAA, Joyce was plenty good, especially in lowering his K totals.

He's only got 1 full season in the minors, and was good enough last year to get brought up only 56 games into his second season... Must have done something right.

he had more than that

hxxp://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/J/Matt-Joyce.shtml

Hah, that's what I get for looking at Rotowire, when while I was typing that I was thinking I should verify my numbers with Baseball Cube.

Don't know that I can speak too much for the keeper list, but I highly recommend finding more pitching. You don't seem to have much quality there.

Chipper Jones signed a contract extension that will keep the future Hall of Famer in Atlanta through the end of the 2012 season. Seeing him walk a year after Smoltz left would have been rough.

I'll be surprised if he's still able to walk by 2012.

Sheffield released by Tigers.

Tigers release Sheffield - MLB - Yahoo! Sports

Here comes the universal optimism of spring training.

The Royals are 1st in homeruns and second in runs scored thus far in spring training. I have no idea if it will last, but it's looking good early on.

Jacobs and Teahan on the right side of the infield have both been outstanding in spring training. Teahan is batting .500 thus far with 5 homeruns in only 42 at-bats, which would provide a substantial offensive boost at 2nd base. Jacobs has several homeruns and is ***gasp*** drawing walks! Both of them credit new hitting coach Kevin Seitzer with their improved offense.

If the pitching can perform even at an average level, Royals fans might have something to look forward to.

Royals looking good in preseason.

/first

Never were truer words spoken.

I wonder who he'll hit his 500th HR (he's at 499) with. He was terrible last year and might be finished as an effective player.

They still owe a bunch on his contract, don't they? Like $15M?

(EDIT: I guess the article says $14M)

How badly must he have fallen that he was worth eating that money? And anyone who has seen him this spring, is he worth picking up for any team?

SI

He hit .178 and just looked a step slow. With that vicious swing of his timing is everything and it's just not there. I've always loved Sheff but this was the right move. I can see him maybe heading to Texas to play some DH but I can't see any NL team taking a shot at him.

Yeah, the team with 5 OFers and Andruw Jones needs to add Sheffield to that mix!

Heh touche. That was the first team that came to mind. Honestly, I have no idea who'd take a chance on him.

Yeah, I'm going to believe it when they can do it against something other than AA and AAA pitchers in a real pressure situation.

To, wit, here's a conversation via text a couple of days ago:

me: Royals on mlb network- who would have guessed
me: And as I turn it on, tony pena jr 2 run homer to make it 11-10
him: You don't have to lie to make friends, you and your fancy MLB network
(he doesn't have mlbnetwork so I taunt him about it from time to time)
me: Well, you can see it here in July
(he's visiting here in July for our east coast baseball trip)
him: MLB network, maybe. But TJ hitting a go-ahead homer? Not again in my lifetime

SI

Player over 36 w/o roids = overpaid at any amount in this market.

So the White Sox have handed CF and lead-off to freakin' Dewayne Wise and the Reds did the same with Willy Tavarez. How is that I'm sitting here in my office and not running an MLB team, while the fucktards making decisions for these two teams are allowed to keep theirs? I thought Walt Jocketty had a brain...?

I guess a year of Dusty Baker's "clogging the bases" speeches finally wore him down. And Dewayne Wise...sheesh. DEWAYNE WISE!!

Sheff wants to go to the Rays, which isn't shocking since he lives in Tampa. Not sure how that'd work.

Yes!

That's for my fantasy team with Taveras- no real fan could be happy with that decision. Then again the Royals are going to make Coco Crisp the leadoff hitter when I think DDJ is much better suited. Rany makes a great argument for DDJ hitting 3rd in his latest RanyontheRoyals but DDJ approaches at bats differently when he's hitting 3rd than 1st- he doesn't work the count nearly as much and tries to swing for more power.

SI

I wish Curtis Granderson could bat 3rd for the Tigs. He has 25 - 30 HR pop and would be a 100 RBI guy but we are not afforded that luxury, but when you have no speed outside Grandy, options are limited.

The Reds spent much of last year with Corey Patterson in center field. Patterson hit under .200 most of the year.

This is a step up.

This is just sad. I went to the Nats site and they still have tickets available for Opening Day

SI

At least they just sent Jaque Jones to the minors. Late last week I really thought the Reds would start the season with Tavarez batting 1st and Jones batting second. With Phillips batting fourth there would be no possibility of clogging the bases.

Was Jones the guy I saw was 4-for-45 this spring? Ouch.

The Nats have only had 2 sellouts: The very first home opener and the new stadium home opener. They may sellout for the Red Sox games this year as well. I don't think people should be very surprised -- they're a team that was stripped of all talent a, management, money, and support by MLB and then plopped into the city hampered by Peter Angelos. The buzz they get on even their own network is laughable.

Rick Porcello may've just pitched his way into the Tigers rotation with a solid 5 innings (so far). He is in the mix and with Bonderman and Robertson hurt, and Dontrelle already on the DL there are two open spots. Kid is gonna be a good one but he's only 20. I hope he gets a few starts and when Bondo and Nate are healthy he is able to go back to the Minors for a while.

maybe i'll head down for those...

Yeah. Dusty was telling reporters it was unfair to compare him to Patterson. I don't think he realized it was unfair to Patterson.

The Reds will likely be a very bad offensive team this year. Look at CHONE predictions for obp and slg for the top eight:

Joey Votto .365 .494
Edwin Encarnacion .360 .485
Jay Bruce .334 .509
Ramon Hernandez .332 .435
Brandon Phillips .325 .455
Chris Dickerson .330 .419
Alex Gonzalez .312 .410
Willy Taveras .328 .341
2008 League avg .344 .434

That's bad enough, but now look at how Dusty will use them:

Willy Taveras .328 .341
Alex Gonzalez .312 .410
Joey Votto .365 .494
Brandon Phillips .325 .455
Jay Bruce .334 .509
Edwin Encarnacion .360 .485
Chris Dickerson .330 .419
Ramon Hernandez .332 .435

The three lowest obps will bat in the top four. :(