Monday, April 25, 2011

FDH Fantasy Newsletter: Volume IV, Issue XVI

Welcome to our 129th edition of the FDH Fantasy Newsletter, as we continue to bring you weekly fantasy sports updates in addition to our usual content on FantasyDrafthelp.com. Our archive of past editions is available right here on The FantasyDrafthelp.com Blog and specific links to past editions are available at FantasyDrafthelp.com.

This week, we serialize our just-released PRO FOOTBALL DRAFTOLOGY 2011 – the only guide you need for this week’s NFL Draft. We bring you our draft overview, 2011 rookie class fantasy analysis and first look ahead to the 2012 draft.

2011 NFL Draft Overview

A year after the NFL Draft brought a deep bumper crop of talent into the league, the cruel cyclical nature of star availability comes into focus with the 2011 event (April 28-30 at Radio City Music Hall in New York). With only the defensive line providing a truly overwhelming pool of new pros, this draft will be sufficiently bereft of excitement that it seems fitting that it is being held under the storm clouds of the present lockout. However, teams will be fortunate enough in the sense that the draft will be slightly more impactful than exciting.

Alabama DT Marcel Dareus and UNC DE Robert Quinn head up the incredible D-line class. The depth of the crop is such that players with questions that are minor compared to their talent are sliding down the board. Da’Quan Bowers is having to deal with some doubts about the state of his knee and the fact that Nick Fairley only really dominated for one year means that it might take a little longer than originally anticipated for some team to croon to this Biz Markie impersonator “You got what I need.” Also on defense, LSU CB Patrick Peterson and Texas A&M OLB Von Miller are among the best to come out at their respective positions in the last decade, with Nebraska CB Prince Amukamara joining them in Top 10 worthiness.

Offensively, the only can’t-miss skill position players are both SEC wide receivers, AJ Green of Georgia and Julio Jones of Alabama. It’s not certain that another WR will make the first-round cut, just as it is no longer thought for sure that either 2010 Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram of Alabama or any other running back will make the Thursday-night trek to the podium symbolizing the top 32. The top QBs, 2011 Heisman winner Cameron Newton of Auburn and Missouri’s Blaine Gabbert, both have very high upsides and accompanying question marks. At all positions on both sides of the ball except the defensive line, early-round bang for the buck is very necessary.

2011 NFL Draft Fantasy Overview

As noted above, impact players at the skill positions are few and far between in this year’s NFL Draft. As such, you may be able to count on one hand the players who will be able to make a serious fantasy impact in their maiden seasons this fall (although fantasy players in keeper leagues will want to check out our feature below on a huge QB/RB/WR rookie crop in 2012).

The two “can’t miss” fantasy selections in this year’s draft are both at the wide receiver position, AJ Green of Georgia and Julio Jones of Alabama in that order. However, WR is a rare position for the true #1 fantasy production in a rookie season, so our enthusiasm for them is more of a long-term proposition. TE Kyle Rudolph of Notre Dame is the only one worth mentioning.

None of the QBs most likely to contribute (probably Missouri’s Blaine Gabbert, Auburn’s Cam Newton, Washington’s Jake Locker or Arkansas’ Ryan Mallett in that order) will give much this fall.

RBs who can optimistically be at the #3 level this fall? Mikel Leshoure of Illinois may have the best chance to contribute on most downs due to his speed for his size. Alabama’s Mark Ingram, Virginia Tech’s Ryan Williams and scatback Taiwan Jones of Eastern Washington could also be of moderate use to your fantasy team this year.

First Look Ahead to 2012 NFL Draft

Above, we noted the cyclical nature of the talent pool when it comes to the NFL Draft. Given that this year’s collection of skill position players is fairly abysmal, it should therefore come as no surprise that the 2012 crop could indeed be historic, one of the best ever in terms of the combined QB-RB-WR studs.

If the NFL lockout played a part in scaring some players back into school for another year, teams with high picks will be the ones to reap the rewards one year hence, because there will be many super-skilled franchise players available. At QB, Andrew Luck has to hope that his decision to return to school looks better at that time than Jake Locker’s does now — and it is not off to a promising start with former coach Jim Harbaugh playing the role of Lucy yanking the football away to his Charlie Brown. Nevertheless, Luck leads an amazing class that also (potentially) includes USC’s Matt Barkley and Oklahoma’s Landry Jones. The impact RBs are led by Alabama’s Trent Richardson (with a higher ceiling than former teammate and 2010 Heisman winner Mark Ingram), Oregon’s LaMichael James, Clemson’s Andre Ellington, Arkansas’ Knile Davis and Washington’s Chris Polk. And at WR, South Carolina’s Alshon Jeffery leads a group that may one day be regarded with the legendary Class of ‘96 (i.e. Marvin Harrison/Terrell Owens/Keyshawn Johnson/Terry Glenn/Muhsin Muhammad/Joe Horn/Amani Toomer). Those just behind Jeffery include Notre Dame’s Michael Floyd, Oklahoma State’s Justin Blackmon, Oklahoma’s Ryan Broyles and Arkansas’ Greg Childs.

Also on offense, TEs Dwayne Allen and Michael Egnew figure to be picked way ahead of anyone at their position in ‘11 and OTs Matt Kalil and Jonathan Martin will be picked very high based on their skills as defenders for Barkley and Luck, respectively.

Defensively, it’s much harder to project who will be rated very highly in 2012, since some of the most physically gifted players still have more to prove on the gridiron this fall. The ones with the best chances to parlay their skills into the top half of the round include DTs Jered Crick of Nebraska and Jerel Worthy of Michigan State, DEs Quinton Coples of UNC, Courtney Upshaw of Alabama and Andre Branch of Clemson, CBs Dre Kirkpatrick of Alabama, Janoris Jenkins of Florida and Stephon Gilmore of South Carolina, S Janzen Jackson of Tennessee, ILB Vontaze Burflict of Arizona State and OLB Zach Brown of North Carolina.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

FDH Fantasy Newsletter: Volume IV, Issue XV

Welcome to our 128th edition of the FDH Fantasy Newsletter, as we continue to bring you weekly fantasy sports updates in addition to our usual content on FantasyDrafthelp.com. Our archive of past editions is available right here on The FantasyDrafthelp.com Blog and specific links to past editions are available at FantasyDrafthelp.com.

This week, we bring you our first (and early) Buy Low, Sell High of the baseball season.

BUY LOW

^ John Axford

^ Chris Carpenter

^ Shin-Soo Choo

^ Carl Crawford

^ Cole Hamels

^ Ryan Ludwick

^ Carlos Santana

^ Max Scherzer

^ Jayson Werth

^ Matt Wieters

SELL HIGH

^ Lance Berkman

^ Starlin Castro

^ Sam Fuld

^ Paul Maholm

^ Aaron Harang

^ Matt Harrison

^ Derek Lowe

^ Jose Tabata

^ Mitch Talbot

^ Josh Tomlin

Saturday, April 09, 2011

FDH Fantasy Newsletter: Volume IV, Issue XIV

Welcome to our 127th edition of the FDH Fantasy Newsletter, as we continue to bring you weekly fantasy sports updates in addition to our usual content on FantasyDrafthelp.com. Our archive of past editions is available right here on The FantasyDrafthelp.com Blog and specific links to past editions are available at FantasyDrafthelp.com.

This week, we bring you our 2011 Stanley Cup Playoff Draft Board.

2011 Stanley Cup Playoff Draft Board

OVERALL

1 Daniel Sedin

2 Alex Ovechkin

3 Claude Giroux

4 Henrik Sedin

5 Dany Heatley

6 Alexander Semin

7 Nicklas Lidstrom

8 Roberto Luongo

9 Henrik Zetterberg

10 Dan Boyle

11 Ryan Kesler

12 Danny Briere

13 Jeff Carter

14 Steven Stamkos

15 Christian Erhoff

LEFT WING

1 Daniel Sedin

2 Alex Ovechkin

3 Alexander Semin

4 Milan Lucic

5 Alexandre Burrows

6 Ville Leino

7 Scott Hartnell

8 Chris Kunitz

9 Ray Whitney

10 Thomas Vanek

11 Sergei Kostitsyn

12 Michael Cammalleri

13 Tyler Ennis

14 Andrei Kostitsyn

15 Ryan Smyth

CENTER

1 Henrik Sedin

2 Henrik Zetterberg

3 Ryan Kesler

4 Danny Briere

5 Jeff Carter

6 Steven Stamkos

7 Pavel Datsyuk

8 Mike Richards

9 Joe Thornton

10 David Krejci

11 Patrick Marleau

12 Jonathan Toews

13 Nicklas Backstrom

14 Patrice Bergeron

15 Anze Kopitar

RIGHT WING

1 Claude Giroux

2 Dany Heatley

3 Johan Franzen

4 Martin St. Louis

5 Patrick Kane

6 Ryan Clowe

7 Corey Perry

8 Marian Gaborik

9 Teemu Selanne

10 Bobby Ryan

11 Mikael Samuelsson

12 Brad Boyes

13 Shane Doan

14 Nathan Horton

15 Jason Pominville

DEFENSE

1 Nicklas Lidstrom

2 Dan Boyle

3 Christian Erhoff

4 Brian Rafalski

5 Zdeno Chara
6 Lubomir Visnovsky

7 Brent Seabrook

8 Tomas Kaberle

9 Duncan Keith

10 Drew Doughty

11 Keith Yandle

12 Dennis Wideman

13 Shea Weber

14 Kris Letang

15 Ryan Suter

GOALIE

1 Roberto Luongo

2 Tim Thomas

3 Jimmy Howard

4 Antti Niemi

5 Marc-Andre Fleury

6 Ilya Bryzgalov

7 Sergei Bobrovsky

8 Ryan Miller

9 Jonathan Quick

10 Michal Neuvirth

11 Pekka Rinne

12 Corey Crawford

13 Carey Price

14 Henrik Lundqvist

15 Dwayne Roloson

Monday, April 04, 2011

FDH Fantasy Newsletter: Volume IV, Issue XIII

Welcome to our 126th edition of the FDH Fantasy Newsletter, as we continue to bring you weekly fantasy sports updates in addition to our usual content on FantasyDrafthelp.com. Our archive of past editions is available right here on The FantasyDrafthelp.com Blog and specific links to past editions are available at FantasyDrafthelp.com.

For the seventh consecutive year, in 2011, we at FantasyDrafthelp.com are conducting a fantasy golf draft as a means of demonstrating to the readers, viewers and listeners of FDH content how to take their enjoyment of golf to the next level with a pool to be enjoyed among friends. As with any sports that we cover, we furnish suggested league guidelines for your convenience. So we'll start with that, then furnish our draft board.

FDH Fantasy Golf Suggested League Guidelines

^ A standard serpentine-style draft serves as the best place to begin. The ideal distribution of talent would be as follows: 5 teams drafted by 7 owners.

^ Because there are only a handful of tournaments that include a cross-section of the world's best golfers, we urge you to use only these events for your league's scoring system. In so doing, the emphasis is kept on the skill level of the golfers as opposed to rewarding those golfers who thrive in the majority of events with the weaker rosters of competitors. This method uses the four major tournaments and the eight "near major" tournaments. These are the events utilized, in the order that they appear on the schedule, with the major tournaments in bold: The Masters (April 4-10), The Players Championship (May 9-15), The Memorial (May 30-June 5), US Open (June 13-19), British Open (July 11-17), WGC Invitational (August 1-7), PGA Championship (August 8-14), The Tour Championship (September 19-25).

^ Scoring for the 4 "near major" tournaments is as follows: 90 points for 1st place, 76 points for 2nd place, 60 points for 3rd place, 50 points for 4th place, 40 points for 5th place, 30 points for 6th place, 26 points for 7th place, 20 points for 8th place, 16 points for 9th place and 10 points for 10th place. These points should be awarded also to the Top 10 finishers in the final Fed Ex Cup standings.

^ Scoring for the 4 major tournaments is as follows: 135 points for 1st place, 114 points for 2nd place, 90 points for 3rd place, 75 points for 4th place, 60 points for 5th place, 45 points for 6th place, 39 points for 7th place, 30 points for 8th place, 24 points for 9th place and 15 points for 10th place.

2011 FDH Fantasy Golf Draft Board

TOP TIER

1 Martin Kaymer

2 Phil Mickelson

3 Tiger Woods

4 Jim Furyk

SECOND TIER

5 Paul Casey

6 Lee Westwood

7 Matt Kuchar

8 Dustin Johnson

9 Graeme McDowell

10 Rory McIlroy

11 Bubba Watson

12 Luke Donald

13 Steve Stricker

14 Hunter Mahan

15 Nick Watney

16 Martin Laird

17 Zach Johnson

18 Ernie Els

19 Retief Goosen

20 Sean O’Hair

21 Padraig Harrington

22 Anthony Kim

23 Adam Scott

THIRD TIER

24 Rickie Fowler

25 Justin Rose

26 Charley Hoffman

27 Ryan Moore

28 Camilo Villegas

29 Mark Wilson

30 Geoff Ogilvy

FOURTH TIER

31 Alvaro Quiros

32 K.J. Choi

33 Miguel Jimenez

34 Vijay Singh

35 Sergio Garcia

36 Thomas Bjorn

37 Robert Allenby

38 Jhonattan Vegas