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| Gerrit Ritt Fantasy Baseball Chat | (09/23/2009) |
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| 2:59 |
FOX Fantasy: Good afternoon, everyone! Welcome to Gerrit Ritt's fantasy baseball chat. Gerrit will arrive shortly, so get your questions in early! |
| 3:01 | Gerrit Ritt: Shortly has just gotten here. What's up gang?! What are there......1 or 2 of you in here?! All right, let me see what you got! |
| 3:02 | FOX Fantasy: Chad from Jacksonville leads off: Hey, Gerrit. Tell me about Clayton Kershaw's fantasy value for next year. Is he a potential ace? |
| 3:03 | Gerrit Ritt: He's absolutely an ace. This little issue he's dealing with is no biggie. He'll be the unquestioned No. 1 in L.A., he's a strikeout machine and he's barely 21 years old. He'll be an ace for the next 13-15 years. - I say, a third round pick at worst. |
| 3:04 | FOX Fantasy: Tom from NY asks: Mark Reynonds - when in the world will he stop K'ing? My league penalizes for those and it's killing me. |
| 3:06 |
Gerrit Ritt: He won't ever stop. You hear his statements after breaking his own record for Ks last night?! It was classic ....... "Mark, what about the strikeout record?" ......... "So what?" ........... "Do you think it's too much every year? .......... "So what?" |
| 3:08 | Gerrit Ritt: The guy's a long ball specialist. If you go for 45-50 home runs and 100-120 ribbies a year, you have to take the good with the bad. Ryan Howard strikes out a ton too, but he's a beast. Sorry about the Ks, but it's like Shaquille O'Neal's FT percentage. It's part of the game. |
| 3:09 | FOX Fantasy: An anonymous reader asks: Have we seen the last of Todd Helton? |
| 3:13 | Gerrit Ritt: I hope not. He was great for my team most of the season. The 14 HR and 79 RBI aren't great as far as first basemen go, but the .318 is sexy, he rarely ever strikes out and his on base percentage is approaching .400 thanks to the 81 walks. I think he'll be a starting 1B somewhere next season, and I have to think it'll still be in Colorado. They love him there, and he leads that team. However, I know his .226 average in September is crushing a lot of you, so I'll apologize on his behalf right now! |
| 3:14 |
FOX Fantasy: Matt from Santa Monica: Just curious...how did you do in your money leagues this year? |
| 3:14 |
Gerrit Ritt: First round playoff loss, thanks mostly to Todd Helton. That rat bastard!! |
| 3:17 |
Gerrit Ritt: Seriously, though, it was a rough go for my pitching staff at the end of the year. The bats were great, but a ton of bold pitching trades didn't pan out. Francisco Liriano turned out to be a bum, as we all know, Brandon Webb never returned, as I was hoping he would, and neither did Scott Richmond. Then Derek Holland and Brian Anderson went cold at the wrong, as did Brian Bannister. My team ERA the last two weeks was nearing 9.00. Almost unheard of. Very disappointing. |
| 3:19 | FOX Fantasy: James from Redondo: Does Roy Halladay stay with the Jays next year? If not, where might he end up? Hopefully not on an NL team since my keeper league is AL-only. |
| 3:21 | Gerrit Ritt: I think he stays right there, James. He owns that town. It's just a shame he'll never win there again. There's no chance of the Jays doing anything to overtake the Yankees, Sox and Rays. Maybe you can go on a run and get to third and maybe second place in the A.L. East, but they're never gonna win it. The competition and the money are too much............ |
| 3:23 | Gerrit Ritt: And it was a shame that the pressure got to him with all the trade talks around the All-Star break. He was 11-3 at the time with a 2.62 ERA. He's now 15-10 with an ERA over 3.00. The Jays have collapsed right along with him. He's terrific. There's no debating that. But if he wins more than 17-18 games in Toronto again, I'll be shocked. He's no better than a fourth round pick next year, at best, I'd say. |
| 3:24 |
FOX Fantasy: Mike from Las Vegas: How much will the Cubs miss Milton Bradley for the rest of the year? Seemed like he was kind of coming around right before his suspension. |
| 3:27 | Gerrit Ritt: He had a nice little run over the past month or so, but they won't miss him at all. I've been one of his few proponents all season long. He battled injuries and a little slump, but I still thought he could help the Cubs when it mattered. Well, as soon as you start ripping on the greatest fan base in sports (a group of people who still cheer and sell out stadiums despite no titles in 101 years is officially the greatest fan base in sports, by the way), then you're done in my book. He's officially outlasted his stay already, which is no big shocker. Any team that takes him on is making a huge mistake. |
| 3:28 | FOX Fantasy: Wade from Norman: G, who are your top rookies from this past year? As in, guys who should be drafted much higher in 2010. |
| 3:31 | Gerrit Ritt: Gordon Beckham of the White Sox is going to attract a lot of attention, obviously. He started out terribly, but now has 13 HR and 56 RBI in just 350 at-bats. That's on pace for about 22-23 HR and 90 RBI over the course of a full season. He also has seven steals and has scored 56 times. For a third baseman, there aren't too many around baseball who can give you that. |
| 3:32 |  |
| 3:34 |
Gerrit Ritt: Andrew McCutchen's gonna be drafted high as well. The Pirates CF has all the tools to be a future All-Star and the leader of this franchise for years - or until the team decides they have to pay him to much money and trade him, of course! He can hit for power, average and has the speed to steal 30+ bases too. He'll be drafted as high as any second-year player next season, somewhere as high as the fifth round perhaps. |
| 3:35 | Gerrit Ritt: Matt Wieters will be drafted high too, simply because of the position he plays (catcher). His power potential is huge for that spot. He has 35 home run pop and could do some great things in the middle of a lineup packed with Nick Markakis, Brian Roberts, Aubrey Huff and an improving Felix Pie. |
| 3:36 | FOX Fantasy: Dan from Boston: My friends and I had a running argument - who is the better starting fantasy pitcher from the movies? Nook Laloosh or Eddie Harris? And who would steal more bases in a season - Willie Mays Hayes or Jose Reyes? |
| 3:39 | Gerrit Ritt: I love it! Laloosh is just like an early days Randy Johnson, or maybe even a Clayton Kershaw from early this season. He'll strike out a TON of batters, but he'll also walk a ton, and he'll get lit up like a Christmas tree once every 3-4 starts, not to mention topping out at 5-6 innings because his pitch count will get too high................ |
| 3:40 | Gerrit Ritt: However, he's still better than Harris, who's kind of like a Jamie Moyer or Tim Wakefield. He's an innings eater and will have a good WHIP, but anymore than 3-4 strikeouts a game will be tough to come by, and the ERA will neverbe better than about 3.50 at best. Overall, it's a risk, but I like Laloosh as the better upside............ |
| 3:44 | Gerrit Ritt: And Jose Reyes is the obvious answer here over Willie Mays Hayes. Willie was speed all the way. Jose has pop, hitting 19 home runs in '06 and 16 last season, to go with his 81 and 68 RBI from the leadoff spot. Hayes could never do that, even in the American League, and with a bum knee from filming his offseason movie with Jessie "The Body" Ventura! Easy call. |
| 3:45 | FOX Fantasy: David: from Ft. Lauderdale: Hey Gerrit. Give me your fantasy MVPs and Cy Youngs from both the AL and NL. |
| 3:48 | Gerrit Ritt: Pujols and Mauer - don't think there's any question about that. However, Mark Teixeira makes for an interesting case too. If there weren't so many tremendous first basemen around, he may be the A.L.'s top guy. He'll likely end up with over 40 HR, 125 RBI, 105 runs and a .290 average. That's huge! But Mauer's gonna go over 30 HR, 100 RBI, 90 runs and is hitting .372!! And that's with missing almost the first entire month of the season! And for a catcher to do that is just ridiculous............ |
| 3:52 | Gerrit Ritt: The Cy Youngs are Tim Lincecum and Chris Carpenter in the N.L. (Yes, I'm cheating and going with two.), and Sabathia and Greinke in the A.L. They all give you big-time ERAs, strikeouts and wins. When Greinke is capable of winning 15 games in Kansas City, that's worthy of some serious applause. In fact, Felix Hernandez desreves some recognition here too. Over 200 strikeouts, a 16-5 record and 2.40 ERA are what third round fantasy picks are made of. |
| 3:53 | FOX Fantasy: And finally, Joe from Amarillo: The Upton brothers were kind of disappointing this year. Is 2010 a big rebound year or more of the same? |
| 3:58 | Gerrit Ritt: Well, Justin had some great moments, let's be honest. He started out well, but then had a month-long stretch in the middle of the year where he fell apart, had to sit out for a while, and had owners - like myself - get rid of him for bigger and better things. However, this was still the year where he surpassed his brother B.J. on the fantasy landscape. B.J. was injured for much of this season, but was still healthy enough to steal 38 bases, so there's no reason why he should be hitting .235 with only 10 HR and 45 RBI. That's unacceptable, barring having to play with a stake through your head or something. Justin's the higher pick next season, probably as high as the early fourth round. Whereas, B.J. will also be a relatively high pick, but certainly not the first or second rounder he was in '09. Look for him being chosen around the fifth through seventh rounds, based on potential alone. |
| 3:58 | FOX Fantasy: Thanks for coming in today, everyone! Drop back in tomorrow at the same time, same place for fantasy football chat with Roger Rotter. See you then! |
| 3:59 | Gerrit Ritt: Have a good one gang. See you again soon! |
| 3:59 |
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