Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Todd Lokken’s Weekly Fantasy Baseball Hot Picks and Fraud Lists

Todd Lokken’s Weekly Fantasy Baseball Hot Picks and Fraud Lists

Pitchers are suddenly a hot commodity for fantasy teams, as owners try to find the best rotations.

This week’s Lokken’s Hot Picks list is dominated by pitchers, as the following are among the most popular roster pick-ups this week:

1) Kyle Lohse—Oakland A’s SP (2-0 with a 1.48 ERA)
2) Nelson Figueroa—New York Mets SP (1-0, 14 K’s, 3 straight solid starts)
3) Bobby Crosby—Oakland A’s SS (.313 average, 15 RBI’s)

Similarly, Lokken’s Fraud List is pitcher-heavy:

1) Justin Germano—San Diego Padres SP (0-2, 5.01 ERA)
2) Edwin Jackson—Tampa Bay Rays SP (2-2, 4.63 ERA)
3) Corey Patterson—Cincinnati Reds OF (.183 average, 9 RBI’s)

“Pitchers are so hard to judge from year to year”, says Lokken. “Someone who was a disaster last year may turn around and go from fraud to hot pick very quickly”. At the same time, we see players who had decent years doing the opposite. One player of note on the fraud list is Corey Patterson, who has been fantasy bust year after year after year. “It’s amazing that anyone even tries using this guy”, remarks Lokken.

Next week, don’t be surprised to see Frank Thomas on the fraud list, as he has yet to join a team after his release from the Blue Jays. Also, some players (namely Ted Lilly) have suddenly had some success, so we may see some surprising player moves.

Todd Lokken publishes articles and reports and provides news, views and information about fantasy sports and at http://www.toddlokken.com or http://toddlokkenblog.blogspot.com/.