All 2009 Fantasy Articles | 2009 Position Rankings

The great thing about addressing your outfielder positions on draft day is that there are so many to choose from that chances are if you don’t like one facet about a certain player (i.e. age, inexperience, he plays for the Red Sox and you’re a Yankees fan, etc.), you can move on to one of the many other choices available.

Conversely, with so many players to choose from, you’re liable to stick your head in an oven in order to avoid having to decide between which outfielders will explode and which will wind up on your league’s wavier wire after making you suffer for the first couple months of the season.

The nice thing about having so many choices for outfielders is that you can draft certain players to fill certain needs. As your roster starts to take shape on draft day, if you desire more power, then there are plenty of outfielders that can address that specific need. If your team is lacking speed, there are outfielders that you can target to rack up stolen bases. And if you were able to draft for both speed and power in previous rounds, then adding a couple outfielders that can hit for average will only help you in the long run.

That said, if you’re smart, you’ll pinpoint the outfielders that can do it all. Sure, they might not excel in any one area, but over the course of the season if you can land a guy that can spread out his production in home runs, RBIs, runs and average, it will do wonders for your team in the end. After all, balance is key in fantasy baseball and after you land your studs early on, you’re going to need to complete your roster with players that can produce in all areas.

While every year has its own host of surprises, there are always those stories that simply fit the trend. Sure, it can get repetitive, but if we don’t look back at history aren’t we only doomed to repeat it? Every year has its fair share of stories that fell into this category, and 2008 was no different.

Our list of things we already knew this year includes the BCS’ continued suckiness (Texas-Oklahoma), how teamwork wins championships (KG, Pierce and Ray-Ray), and the #1 rule for carrying a handgun into a nightclub – don’t use your sweatpants as a holster. (Come on, Plax. Really? Sweatpants?)

Don’t miss the other two parts of our 2008 Year-End Sports Review: “What We Learnedâ€� and “What We Think Might Happen.â€�

Brett Favre can’t make up his mind.

The biggest story of the summer was all the drama surrounding Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers. This saga has been covered to death, but there’s one detail that never seemed to get that much play. At the start, it looked like the Packers were making a bad decision by moving on so quickly even when Favre decided he wanted to return. But when the news broke about Favre’s near-unretirement in March, the Packers stance became much more clear. They were ready to take him back after the owners’ meetings, but he called it off at the last minute. At that point, the Packer brass was understandably finished with Brett Favre, much to the chagrin of a good portion of the Packer faithful. – John Paulsen

The Chicago Cubs’ title drought is not a fans-only phenomenon.

The 2008 Cubs were easily the best team the franchise has assembled in decades, but they still couldn’t win a single game in the playoffs, and the reason is simple: the pressure finally got to them. Sure, they said the right things to the press about how they didn’t care about what had happened in the past, but don’t believe a word of it; there wasn’t a single person in that dugout that wasn’t fantasizing about being part of the team that finally, mercifully, ended the longest title drought in sports history. Once ESPN picked them to win it all, however, they were doomed. Ryan Dempster walked seven batters in Game 1, which matched his total for the month of September. The entire infield, including the sure-handed Derrek Lee, committed errors in Game 2. Alfonso Soriano went 1-14 with four strikeouts in the leadoff spot, while the team as a whole drew six walks and struck out 24 times. The team with so much balance in the regular season suddenly became the most one-dimensional team in baseball; take Game 1 from them, then sit back and watch them choke. And now that this group has lost six straight playoff games (the team has lost nine straight dating back to 2003), it isn’t about to get any easier. Get a helmet, Cubs fans. – David Medsker

If you’re going to wear sweatpants to a nightclub, leave the gun at home.

If winning a Super Bowl is the pinnacle of an NFL player’s career, than shooting yourself with your own gun in a nightclub has to be rock bottom. Case in point: Plaxico Antonio Burress. Just 10 months after helping the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, Burress accidentally shot himself in the leg while at a nightclub. Apparently the (unregistered) gun was slipping down his leg and when he tried to grab it to keep it from falling, the lucky bastard wound up pulling the trigger and shooting himself. And that wasn’t the worst of it because as Plaxico found out, New York has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation. He was arrested, but posted bail of $100,000 and is scheduled to return to court on March 31, 2009. If convicted of carrying a weapon without a license, he faces up to three and a half years in jail. He shouldn’t expect special treatment, either. The mayor of New York wants to be sure that Burress is prosecuted just like any other resident of NYC. The Giants, meanwhile, placed him on their reserve/non-football injury list and effectively ended his season. While “Plax� definitely deserves “Boner of the Week� consideration for his stupidity, what’s sad is that in the wake of Washington Redskins’ safety Sean Taylor’s death, most NFL players feel the need to arm themselves when they go out. Maybe players can learn from not only Taylor’s death, but also Burress’s accident so further incidents can be avoided. – Anthony Stalter

The unique combination of speed and power in Alfonso Soriano’s offensive game has only been rivaled in baseball by a youthful Barry Bonds. His critics have compared him to Juan Samuel, a free-swinging line drive hitter with power, but who also lacks patience at the plate.

Growing up in the Dominican Republic, Soriano lived by the island’s adage “You cannot walk off the island.� And he developed into a free swinger as a hitter, with speed to stretch doubles into triples. Most major league scouts have noted that Soriano needs to cut down on his strikeouts to be effective in the post-season. Pitchers will expand the strike zone on him come October, as Soriano rarely takes a walk.

Soriano slipped by all of Major League Baseball, to sign with the Hiroshima Carp in the Japanese League at the age of 18. His first professional season was not a success, as he batted only .191 on the year and technically “retired� from Japanese baseball.

Whatever he accomplished overseas caught an eye in the New York Yankee organization, as they signed him to a minor-league deal before the start of the 1998 season. And Soriano did not disappoint, as he hit .305 with 15 HRs, 68 RBIs, and 24 SBs for the Yankees’ double-A affiliate. Next season, his advancement through the organization included Soriano’s MLB debut on September 14, 1999.

He became a serious option to stay in the big leagues during spring training prior to the 2001 season. Being a SS by trade and Derek Jeter anchoring the position for the club, the Yankee front office decided Soriano should begin by taking fly balls in the outfield. However, 2B Chuck Knoblauch was still having difficulty throwing over to first base, and manager Joe Torre made the move to switch their positions. Suddenly, Soriano became the starting second basemen for the New York Yankees.

And once again he did not disappoint, as Soriano finished third in the American League Rookie-of-the-Year voting. His post-season was memorable, as Soriano hit a dramatic ninth inning home run to win Game Four of the 2001 ALCS against the Seattle Mariners. Do not forget his home run off of Curt Schilling in the top of the ninth that gave the Yankees a brief lead in Game Seven of the 2001 World Series. Only to be overshadowed by Luis Gonzalez’s bloop single to leftfield that gave the Arizona Diamondbacks a World Series championship.

His breakout season came the following year, as Soriano led the American League with 209 hits; he batted .300 with 39 HRs, 102 RBIs, scored 128 runs, stole 41 bases and was named to his first All-Star team. The following season, his inadequacies were exposed during the 2003 post-season, as Soriano batted .132 during the ALCS and World Series. Torre benched him in Game Five against the Florida Marlins due to his struggles at the plate.

After the season, the Yankees traded him to Texas in the deal that brought A-Rod to New York. Following two seasons in Texas, Soriano was shuffled off to Washington and subsequently moved to the outfield. His errors in the infield prompted his move to LF (under protest). It was one season in our Nation’s Capital, but what a season, as Soriano had the fourth 40-40 (HR-SB) season in baseball history. And he cashed in, as the Chicago Cubs signed him to an eight-year, 136 million dollar contract in the following off-season.