CBS SportsLine's Fantasy Guide for 2007

[645]

CBS SportsLine hosted its annual NL-only Analysts League on Jan. 25. You can come back to review the picks later this spring and throughout the 2007 season.

This league is a standard 5x5 Rotisserie league with 23-man active rosters and seven reserves. This is meant to be a guide of how your league might draft in March, but things are sure to change between late January and then.

Link

[645]

Depth Charts

[645]

This spring will be a first time in a long time situation for the Braves. After their 14-year division-title run was snapped last season, they won't have the canned phrase at their disposal:

"We're the favorite until someone beats us."

Now, it's more of a rebuilding franchise, but without all the hot prospects ready to compete for Rookie of the Year honors. Years have taken a toll on the organization, but burgeoning superstars Brian McCann and Jeff Francoeur are preparing to take over as the faces of the franchise.

Link

[645]

Last season, the Orioles hoped to battle the Red Sox and Yankees for AL East supremacy, with the hiring of Leo Mazzone as Sam Perlozzo's pitching coach. The man that helped turn Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and John Smoltz into Hall-of-Fame hopefuls now would turn his attention to Erik Bedard, Kris Benson, Daniel Cabrera and Rodrigo Lopez.

Unfortunately, the Orioles pitching staff was the second-worst in the majors, ahead of only Kansas City, with a 5.35 ERA. Lopez is in Colorado and the Orioles added Jaret Wright (or is that subtraction by addition?). They'll also allow young Adam Loewen and Hayden Penn to work in the rotation. Loewen is definitely the player with bigger upside -- especially from a Fantasy persepective.

Link

[645]

It didn't take long for the Marlins' rebuilding plan to look genius.

Hanley Ramirez, Dan Uggla, Josh Willingham, Josh Johnson and Scott Olsen all look like future Fantasy stars already. And that group leaves out a studly young right-hander who pitched a no-hitter, Anibal Sanchez, and a prospect who was regarded as one of the most intriguing in baseball going into last year, Jeremy Hermida.

Hermida will be fine and develop nicely, though -- as should Mike Jacobs.

The continued development of all this young talent should leave you no hesitation with drafting Miguel Cabrera as your MVP-caliber first-round bat or Dontrelle Willis as a potential ace for your staff.

Link

[645]

For all intents and purposes, the Red Sox '06 season ended around the beginning of September last year. Several players were allowed to start healing early from in-season wounds and the team began to give some younger players, like Dustin Pedroia, some at-bats.

Boston turned most of their attention toward their pitching staff in the offseason and were able to sign the biggest foreign import in right-hander Daisuke Matsuzaka. Some would argue that he's in for a rude awakening once he faces stiff major-league competition, but let's not forget that he was the MVP in last spring's World Baseball Classic with Japan. He is receiving an awful lot of hype, however, so he's being drafted in the fifth round of most early mixed-league drafts, but that might be a tad too high.

Link

[645]

Sometimes Fantasy leagues can predict the future. A draft last season saw a number of Mets go in the early rounds, perhaps the most top heavy team in drafts -- outside of the Yankees, perhaps. Those two teams finished tied for the best record in baseball.

This season it's no contest.

The kings of Queens will see as many as three of their first five hitters go in the first 12 picks in a standard mixed league: Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran and David Wright. No one team in baseball is sure to have more than one -- unless Manny Ramirez still gets snapped up quickly after David Ortiz in a Head-to-Head points league weighted heavily toward power.

Link

[645]

The Yankees, once again, were the iron statue built on clay feet last season. Their lineup was insane with Johnny Damon coming through with one of his best efforts to date. Even the disappointing year from Alex Rodriguez couldn't stop the Bronx Bombers from scoring 44 more runs than they did in 2005.

That lineup returns essentially intact, with Bobby Abreu roaming right field now that Gary Sheffield has moved on to Motown. And Hideki Matsui has healed from his broken wrist. Obviously, Doug Mientkiewicz can't replace Sheffield's production at the plate, but Sheff played only 39 games last year anyway.

While this team has a reputation for power hitting, don't forget that the Angels were the only AL squad to steal more bases last year than New York's 139.

Link

[645]

For a team not known for its farm system, the Phillies sure have produced some future stars the past four years -- Brett Myers, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Cole Hamels.

While the minor league talent influx ends there at this point, this burgeoning contender is just getting started.

A re-made starting rotation might not look like much, but it compares favorably to any team in the NL Least -- even the Marlins'. And the Phillies certainly have the edge in experience and depth.

The bullpen will be a sore spot, but that lineup should produce some easy wins. Jimmy Rollins (.277 AVG, 25 HR, 83 RBI, 127 R, 36 SB) is coming off a career year at 27, while Howard and Utley look like perennial MVP candidates and sure-fire first-round Fantasy picks.

Protecting Howard is a concern, but you have to imagine you could bat anyone in baseball behind the burly 27-year-old slugger and he would still get pitched around. The winningest player in CBS SportsLine's Head-to-Head leagues last year -- our Fantasy MVP selection -- is too good to slip past the top five in any format on Draft Day.

Link

[645]

Looking at last season's stats, there's not a whole lot for Fantasy owners to get excited about with this Devil Rays squad. Their pitching staff was atrocious and their offense never fully played up to its potential with both '05 rookies Jorge Cantu and Jonny Gomes suffering sophomore slumps.

Only three other major league teams had higher ERAs over the season than the Devil Rays. But that's OK because Tampa Bay's hitters underwhelmed everyone with a majors-low 689 runs scored.

Even some of their stars had problems. Rocco Baldelli missed the start of the season with a hamstring problem and Scott Kazmir was shut down when concerns grew over the health of his left shoulder. B.J. Upton couldn't get a grip defensively and Delmon Young was suspended 50 games for throwing a bat at an umpire.

But 2006 wasn't a lost season for Tampa Bay or smart Fantasy owners. Carl Crawford continues to see his numbers climb across the board and Ty Wigginton broke through with a career season, hitting 24 homers and knocking in a team-leading 79 runs. Wigginton even missed a month, but was still able to lead the team in homers.

Link

[645]

If you ain't got pitching, you ain't got nothing. And, in this event, you would be the 2007 Washington Nationals.

Not only will this be the worst team in baseball -- yes, worse than the Royals -- it will also be the most difficult to watch. Behind a decent staff ace John Patterson is a pile of garbage bigger than that archaic bucket of bolts they play in.

Despite the best pitcher's park in baseball -- with that rotation -- expect a lot of 10-4 ballgames.

This could mean huge numbers for Ryan Zimmerman. Even Austin Kearns might finally break through as a Fantasy horse.

What?

Well, Zimmerman is an emerging star and Kearns is 27. And when those 10-run games get out of hand, they will get some phat fastballs to hit as charity for having to play for a franchise that is sad-sacked in the big leagues right down through the minors.

Link

[645]

The Blue Jays made a hard push in the free-agent market two winters ago and they didn't do too bad this past offseason, acquiring heavy-hitting Frank Thomas to serve as their designated hitter. Unfortunately, their pitchers still have to deal with two insane lineups in the AL East in Boston and the Yankees. That means the Jays will have to try to outscore teams for wins -- could that be a stranger sentence? In other words, they aren't going to get into many 2-1 pitching duels.

Don't be too concerned for this pitching staff -- they still led the AL East in staff ERA (4.37) and their bullpen is anchored by a top 10 closer in B.J. Ryan.

This team does not run much (65 steals were only one more than Jose Reyes), so don't look here for a lot of speed help.

Outside of the powerful bat of Adam Lind, there's not much help offensively in the minor league system.

Link

[645]

The Cubs haven't won the pennant in almost a century and they've only won their division once in the past 17 seasons. Last year, they finished with the worst record in the NL. But Cubs management did something very un-Cubs management-like -- they spent a ton of money. They dropped $300 million to help improve this team from a cellar dweller to one that could possibly contend for a wild card.

Alfonso Soriano and manager Lou Piniella are the biggest reasons why Wrigleyville is smiling again. Soriano is coming off a career season in pitcher-friendly Washington and he'll now have the hitter-friendly wind to help him hit homers over the ivy-covered wallls. Can he expound -- or even duplicate -- his numbers from a year ago? Statistics say it's highly unlikely, but even a step back to just 90 percent of what he did last season would give him this batting line: 277-41-85-108-37.

Piniella loves to steal bases also, so Rotisserie owners should be happy with a number of Cubs. Players like Soriano, Derrek Lee, Ryan Theriot and Jacque Jones should benefit from green lights on the basepaths.

Link

[645]

The White Sox couldn't repeat their World Series performance from 2005 and there are some questions as to whether or not they can get back there again this season. They still compete in an AL Central division that has the upstart AL champion Tigers and the pesky Twins. Even the Indians are considered an improved team. I'll pass on talking about the Royals though, since I have to write about them in a few days anyway.

As last season came to a close, the White Sox knew they had to trade away one of their starters in the offseason to open a rotation spot for Brandon McCarthy, who was stuck in the bullpen. So they traded Freddy Garcia and McCarthy in different moves this winter. Now they're dealing with a battle for the fifth spot between young studs Gavin Floyd, John Danks and knuckleballer Charlie Haeger.

General manager Ken Williams bolstered his bullpen with these offseason moves as well. They will join a solid group of relievers led by Bobby Jenks, Mike MacDougal, Matt Thornton, David Aardsma, Andrew Sisco and Nick Masset.

Link

[645]

Knowing the versatile players can come in handy on Draft Day. Here we chart all the players in a standard league who can be drafted at multiple positions.

The requirements for our purposes are:

At least 20 games at a position in 2006
At least five starts in '06 for a starting pitcher
At least 10 appearances in '06 as a relief pitcher

Link