The BIGGEST Fantasy Baseball Busts of ‘09

Jan 26, 2009

Time for another word cloud. Although “busts” are not nearly as popular a topic among fantasy baseball prognosticators as picking “sleepers,” we still managed to dig through message boards, blogs, magazines, and twitter to come up with several pages of ballplayers who have been stamped with the dreaded “bust” label.

Below, find the result of the research: a word cloud that symbolically represents how everyone is perceiving the BIGGEST busts heading into the 2009 season. The bigger the font size, the greater number of times this player has been called a potential bust. Bad news for Aubrey Huff, Carlos Delgado, A.J. Burnett, Nate McLouth, Dustin Pedroia, and Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Also, below the word cloud, we have a poll question: When a player is called a potential “bust,” are you more likely to see the wisdom of crowds or unwarranted mob mentality? Will you be more cautious on that player, or if given a discount, more likely to buy/draft that player? (Please give us your answer, and state your opinion below.)

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Previously: BIGGEST fantasy baseball sleepers of 2009

Also: Word Clout T-Shirts

6 Comments

5 Comments

DocNo1 • Jan 26, 2009 @5:15 pm

I voted for ‘wisdom of crowds’, though I generally follow Nietzsche on that one (if the masses believe it’s right, you can bet it isn’t). But in this case I felt cautious last year on some of the guys who are now high on the ‘bust’ list and traded them off in my keeper league: Burnett, Huff and Ludwick. So I became part of ‘the crowd’ retroactively.
John • Jan 26, 2009 @8:40 pm

A lot of these busts are players you’d want to be cautious with anyway (history of injury, getting old, had a year out of whack with career averages), but it seems like the mob mentality kicks in and goes bananas which means often that you can get a better value on at least some of these players. And in some cases it puts a brake on the hype, thus returning players to a more rational value/potential draft position.
bananas • Jan 26, 2009 @9:45 pm

I agree with John, but there are a few names that surprise me though. I’d take Peavy (off year=2.85 era & 1.18 whip) and Berkman (bad 2nd half, but he’s always streaky) if they drop much and it seems Volquez is already being discounted so if there are about 15-20 pitchers taken and he’s not, I think that is good value as his control is likely to get better (of course I’m keeping him for $1 so I’m optimistic). I also think Quentin (injury prone?) and E. Santana are legit, albeit they need to repeat their success again to have my full faith.
Dom • Jan 27, 2009 @5:46 am

A player is only a “bust” if they don’t meet your expectations. Thinking Cliff Lee, Berkman, Huff, etc, etc will put up the amazing numbers they did last year is crazy. Unlike this blog, most articles and blogs are writen for beginer fantasy baseball players who think it’s just like fantasy football. This forces the writers (who hopefully know better) to have to write “bust” articles to manage people’s expectations. I’ll take every player on that list, it just matters where I’d draft them or how much I’d pay for them.
Sean • Jan 27, 2009 @7:48 pm

This chart is genius. If it was the only thing I had on draft day I would probably be better off wiht it than the spreadsheet of projections and other garbage I take with me. Every guy I see on this list has nagged at me during this preseason for several reasons. In my keeper league I have Lincecum, Hamels and Peavy and am agonizing over who to trade.

One will bust, no doubt. I agree with “Dom’s” analysis of what a bust is and further believe that avoiding a bust is ten times more important than nabbing a sleeper. For that reason, in response to the poll question, I try to limit my exposure to “busts” to guys you can get for less than 10 bucks or the relative round. I disagree with the Berk analysis though – this guy has always put up stud numbers when healthy and is the one guy on this list that I am keeping with confidence.