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Once again, I am only playing 1 team for Fantasy Baseball this season, in a Yahoo league with my boys John, Evan and more. From what I was told, since I am the 3-time regular season champ and winner of the league 2 years ago, their goal is to work together and bring me down.

Well, here is the current standing after week 12 (we just finished week 13 as of Sunday night, the result of that will be factor in later, but it is not going to change my points here):

For a 12-team, 12-category H2H league, I have a 88-49-7 record with a winning % of .635. Evan is holding down the 2nd place spot, with 7 games behind me. John and his homeboy Colin are sitting in the 3 and 4 spot, and our last season’s winner Josh has a lot of ground to catch up being #10.

The point of this post is actually not to brag about my lead, but look at several players that played great during the first half, and the ones that I believe will do well for the rest of the season.

• Russ Martin (LAD-C): The 24-yr-old catcher showed a glimpse of what he is capable of doing last season batting .282 with 10HR and 10SB. In his second season, he is ready to surpass that stats 3 months into it, with near .300 AVG, 9HR and 15SBs. According the ESPN, Martin was drafted at around the 170th pick during Fantasy Draft, usually the 10th catcher selected, however his performance also earned his the top catcher spot in ESPN’s Player Rater and a spot in the upcoming All-Star Game. In a thin position like catchers, people who recognize Martin’s ability and steal him in the later rounds instead of jumping on a big name catcher should be very happy with his production, plus chances are they were able to grab a big name for some other position because of that. 2nd half prediction: Martin plays hard and runs hard, he should continue to be a leader for the young Dodger team and have a good shot at ending the season with a 20-20.
• A-Rod (NYY-SS) - This is a easy one, with 28HRs and 79RBIs (34 in both April and June), A-Rod is easily the pick for MVP in both MLB and Fantasy. People saw his last year’s stats and figured the depressed A-Rod won’t rebound from his disappointed 35-121 season until he opted out his contract and sign with another team. Well, he came back on fire and show no signs of slowing down. Who would have thought that even his gloves got better, committing only 5 errors thus far, saving himself from more booing. 2nd half prediction: with the way the Yankees are playing, he is the least concern of the fans. The Yankees also face a easy schedule coming out of All-Star break, pretty much play the non-elite teams for about a month, A-Rod should continue to feast on them and pull up monster numbers.
• B.J. Upton (TB-2B,3B,OF) - The young Upton was known for his free swinging and bad defense in the past, but this year he surprised everyone by swinging a whooping .365 in April. Although he cooled down a bit after that, but he still maintain a respectable .295 in May, and .290 in June before he went down with a strained left quadriceps. Aside from his stats, he also played in a couple other positions just enough to be qualified for them in some leagues. The flexibility definitely made him more attractive, but he is still most valuable as a 2B. 2nd half prediction: The B.J. Upton in the first half reminded me a little bit of the Alex Rios (TOR-OF) last year. Rios batted .330 with 15HR and 9SB before All-Star break, but a leg infection had him sideline a month, and he just could not get his bat timing right when he returned. As a result, Rios had a somewhat miserable 2nd half. Upton is experiencing several set backs during his rehab, and still isn’t running up to par. It is possible that he won’t be as productive as his first half self, so owners might want to monitor closely, and sell high if necessary.
• Al Reyes (TB-CL) - The journey man reliever was given a chance to close and he sure took advantage of that. Players like him is exactly why I don’t draft closers early. Reyes went undrafted in pretty much all leagues and currently has just about as many SVs as Billy Wagner, who was average 50th pick. You look at other closer situations, Matt Capps took over the job for the Pirates, the Astros can’t find someone healthy or reliable to close so Dan Wheeler is barely holding on to his job. With a 3.06ERA and 17SVs, Reyes is a FA pick up gem. 2nd half prediction: even though the Rays posted a winning month in June, Reyes only saved 4 games and gave up a couple runs. A closer is only as good as the team, if the team ain’t winning, he can’t help you with saves either. Tampa Bay is showing improvement with young pitching and respectable hitting, so while I don’t expect Reyes to overachieve, he should be locked for 30SVs by the end of the season. For someone undrafted, that’s pretty darn good.
• Dan Haren (OAK-SP) - I will be honest that I was not expecting a Cy Young performance from him. I figured he will be a good #2, #3 SP, but league-leading ERA of 1.91? The departure of Barry Zito turned out to work for the As (and not so much for the Giants, thank GOD the Mets didn’t throw the checkbook at him). A career best 14 winner, Haren notched win #10 on Sunday against the struggling Yankees. The ace came back down to Earth a little bit in June, pitching ONLY 2.55ERA with 3 wins. I think he should be the starting pitcher for this year’s All-Star even if he doesn’t have as many wins as C.C Sabathia or Josh Beckett, but he beats them in ERA by 2 runs, and the game is going to be in SF. It’s Bay area man, gotta give Haren some love. 2nd half prediction: the As traditionally do really really well in the 2nd half so I don’t expect any different, especially when their bullpen is reunited whenever Huston Street and Dukes decide to get off the DL. A career ERA of 3.74, it is hard to imagine Haren to keep it below 2 for the rest of the seaon, but I believe he will keep on winning as the As roll along. This is likely to be Haren’s first 20-win season, with ERA somewhat above 2.5

So many more people I want to talk about, but it is 3am here and my internet is freaking out so I’ll come back tomorrow and wrap it up with 5 more players that I believe will bounce back from a disappointing first half and finish strong. I understand there are definitely other stars that worth mention, Magglio Ordonez of Detroit Tigers for example, my favorite underrated OF and pretty much everyone on the Brewers roster not named Dave Bush. I suppose I will spend more time on them when I have the time, this is only my first Fantasy Baseball post, so patience young Jedi!

-Paul

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