Fantasy Baseball Scout honors

First, an apology.
I had hoped that we’d be able to provide as much information this spring as we have in years past while rebuilding the web site and operating as a free site.
We have given you some pretty good information, but not with the volume or consistency we would have liked. In the absence of revenue from fantasybaseballscout.com, I have had to seek other sources of income. Those other jobs, family and other day-to-day concerns have taken a lot of time away from Emailing and blogging.
This Email will inform you briefly about some of the annual awards and other information we give you concerning sleepers, minor league pitchers and such.
We have had a number of requests from people trying to subscribe to our site. We have had to decline politely their requests to pay us, thanking them for their continued interest.
With the season coming up, we can offer a couple of services to former subscribers and other interested people – for modest fees.
We would offer those based on the amount of interest expressed. You should be able to understand that if we offer a service for $20 or $25 for the season, it would make a lot more sense if a thousand or even a hundred people signed up than if he had 5 or 10 subscribers.
Possible services would be
1) In-season Emails, five or more times a week. These would be the same as we have offered in the past: pitching charts on Saturdays, Weekend Update/Hot and Not on Mondays, minor league updates Tuesdays, injury updates Wednesdays and News and Notes Thursdays.
2) An Email or text service to answer questions specific to your fantasy teams. We would offer renewable packages of – for example, 5, 10 or 20 questions – with the rate per question lower at the higher volumes.
3) You could also request a specific service. We could weigh the demand and the feasibility and add offer such a service.
If you’d be interested in any kind of in-season package, please Email me at lary@fantasybaseballscout. Or Email me anyway with any comments or suggestions.
In the meantime, we’ll be giving you regular Emails through the regular season’s first week.
Fantasy Baseball Scout award winners
Since the time we selected Derrek Lee as the breakout batter of 2003, our first year in operation, we have selected such a player for the (named after his big success, following an interview in Jupiter, Fla., with Lee himself) preseason Derrek Lee Award.
The 2010 winner is Astros RF Hunter Pence, who should be able to help you in five offensive categories if enough of his teammates get on base or drive him in. We’re also very high on Indians OF Shin-soo Choo, who probably would be considered an emerging superstar if he played in New York or Boston instead of Cleveland.
Our 2010 Jarrod Washburn Award winner (for the inexpensive pitcher who will rack up the wins, as our privately recommended Washburn had in 2002) is a familiar name – Twins RHP Kevin Slowey. He was a 2009 winner as well. Slowey still meets our criteria because he hasn’t won more than 13 games in a season. He would have exceeded that level easily if he hadn’t been injured last season, and the same elements are there to predict success for Slowey in ’10.
Other honorees
Best Arm from the Farm: Rays RHP Jeremy Hellickson. Tampa Bay has been very patient to date with Hellickson, who has done nothing but win at every level of the minor leagues. He’s not likely to begin this season in the Rays’ rotation, but expect to see him there by midseason. Don’t expect him to walk many batters. Control has been the major secret of his success.
Most Improved Lineup: There haven’t been major changes, but the Twins should have overall improvement. The only wild card is their new stadium, which is expected to be offensively neutral, with no more doubles off the baggie.
Look at these elements. Two of the best offensive performers in baseball, C Joe Mauer and 1B Justin Morneau. Each missed nearly a month last season, and still were among the Americn League leaders. They still are young enough to improve their performance. So are OFs Jason Kubel and Michael Cuddyer, each capable of driving in 100 runs. Jim Thome has been added as the DH. He’s no longer a 40-home run threat, but he’ll walk enough to be on base when a teammate homers. Speaking of scoring runs, CF Denard Span is another budding star at the top of the lineup. Orlando Hudson and J.J. Hardy, added as the middle-infield starters, will be much better than the automatic outs they’re replacing. The piece that really could put the Twins’ offense over the top is LF Delmon Young. Minnesota has so many potent left-handed bats – Mauer, Morneau, Kubel, Thome, Span – that pitchers will save southpaws to pitch against the Twinkies. More lefties mean more opportunities for the right-handed-batting Young.