Fantasy Baseball 2010 Preview: Yankees

With fantasy baseball season on the horizon, it's time to preview each individual team.

The New York Yankees. The Bronx Bombers. The 27-time World Champions are more hated and, at the same time, envied than probably any other team in professional sports. Why do people hate them? As far as I can tell, it's just jealousy. They win. They don't choke when others do. They spend money that they have -- it's just that they have more, but why shouldn't they? There aren't rules against it.

Alright, soapbox rants aside, the Yankees house the team with probably the highest number of fantasy relevant players in baseball. It should be a veritable paradise for drafters and auction participants alike. The only problem is that in fantasy baseball, value is everything. The Yankees can afford to pay CC Sabathia about 20 percent more than any other team, but in fantasy baseball, we can't. Make sure that the exposure of the most covered team in baseball doesn't cause the name recognition of a player on the team to be drafted too high. There are no Steinbrenners in fantasy.

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The Breakout

Curtis Granderson has enjoyed his breakout season already (2007), but he qualifies here because of two reasons. First of all, I believe he's going to have a much, much better season than he did last year. Secondly, I believe (and I could be in a minority here even amongst FanHouse writers) that he's not getting enough credit around the internet.

The knocks on Granderson are as follows: he can't hit left-handers and he will kill your batting average.

OK, well, he can't hit lefties. That's true. He was pathetic against left-handed pitching last season. He also managed to hit 30 bombs despite this hole, because he had 511 plate appearances against right-handers. There aren't a ton of left-handed starters around baseball. In fact, there are only six he'll face from the AL East projected rotations -- compared to 14 righties. The entire American League figures to see 15 total left-handers in rotations, compared to 50 right-handers. [Note: both of these figures excluded the Yankees, for obvious reasons]

Next, sure, Granderson hit .249 last year, but his BABIP was insanely low for someone with his speed (.275 compared to a career mark of .321). The counter-argument to this fact is that he has started to hit far too many balls in air, but there will still be some natural regression back to the mean here. Also, the fly balls will benefit him much more now.

Yankee Stadium was the easiest place to hit home runs in baseball last season and right field was the easiest place in Yankee Stadium to hit home runs. Granderson is a pull hitter with tons of pull power. He was playing in a pitcher's park and hit 20 of his 30 home runs on the road last year.

Also, Granderson is going to be hitting in a spot in the lineup where he will find a lot more RBI opportunities than he ever has in his life. His stolen base numbers won't take a hit because he's batting before two very patient hitters.

Alright, alright. You get it. I love Granderson this year. I fully expect him to set a career high in both home runs and RBI while scoring 100 runs, stealing more than 20 bases and upping his average to the .275 range. For me, he's a top 10 outfielder.

The Bust

There's a good amount of Yankees who generally go too high in drafts, because they are the Yankees -- as I mentioned in the intro. Just remember, a bust isn't a bad player. It's a player who doesn't play up to his draft status. I believe Posada and Burnett work here -- and probably Pettitte, too -- but I'm going to pick the import to the starting rotation.

I want no part of Javier Vazquez this season. It's hard to buy into the draft status of a pitcher who just enjoyed a career year at the age of 33 anyway, but now the move to the Yankees seals his fate for me.

Going to the Yankees means better run support for Vazquez. That's good. The rest is bad.

He last pitched in the AL in 2008 and he had a 4.67 ERA and 1.32 WHIP -- and that was in the AL Central as opposed to the heavy hitting AL East. His career strikeout rate in the AL shows that figure will fall this year. Turner Field -- Vazquez's home last season -- was 26th in the majors in runs scored and 26th in home runs allowed. Yankee Stadium -- his new home -- 20th and first. Also, Vazquez didn't really seem to handle the major media market too well last time he was with the Yankees (for a single year).

You can probably count on another 15 wins because he's playing in the pinstripes, but his strikeouts come down to around 200, his ERA gains a full run and his WHIP jumps up to the 1.25 range. I'm not taking him in the top 20 pitchers, but someone else will. He's actually going 12th among starters right now -- three spots ahead of Josh Beckett. No way that works out well.

The Lineup

1. Derek Jeter, SS
2. Nick Johnson, DH
3. Mark Teixeira, 1B
4. Alex Rodriguez, 3B
5. Jorge Posada, C
6. Robinson Cano, 2B
7. Curtis Granderson, CF
8. Nick Swisher, RF
9. Brett Gardner, LF

Randy Winn will also see plenty of time in left field and hitting in the nine-hole.

The Rotation

1. CC Sabathia
2. A.J. Burnett
3. Javier Vazquez
4. Andy Pettitte
5. Joba Chamberlain

I actually think Phil Hughes has a great chance to swap roles with Joba, but, for now, we'll give Joba the benefit of the doubt, as he's the incumbent in the rotation.

The Bullpen

CL - Mariano Rivera
SU - Phil Hughes
SU - David Robertson

Again, Joba and Hughes could flip roles. Robertson is a nice late-round pick in deep AL-only formats because he's a strikeout machine. In 2009, Robertson punched out an awesome 13 batters per nine innings. Expect the 25-year-old's (well, he will be 25 on April 9) ERA and WHIP to improve with more time in the majors, too.

Scout's Honor

Jesus Montero ... Can he catch? Yes. Will he catch? It doesn't matter much. His bat is that potent. Much debate surrounds Montero's ability to stick behind the plate, but the bat is going to be special. He has a potential 40-homer bat with the offensive upside of Miguel Cabrera. We could see the Venezuelan slugger as early as midseason in 2010 if all goes well in Triple-A.

-- Frankie Piliere, FanHouse's National Baseball Analyst

The Skinny

• For all the talk about how it's easy for Yankees to be drafted too early, don't misconstrue that and avoid them. Rivera, Jeter, Teixeira and A-Rod are elite and well worth their price to draft (or bid in an auction).

• On that same note, amazingly, I actually think Cano is underrated in fantasy circles. Why? Because he's a middle infielder who doesn't steal bases. But he's going to get you at least 80 runs and RBI while hitting over .300 (probably well over it) with around 20 home runs. He's still only 27, too, so he's right in the middle of his development prime. Get your steals from shortstop and one of your outfielders and Cano is a fine elite 2B.

• Finally, Swisher's a pretty good value buy in all formats. First of all, he is eligible either at first or in the outfield. Secondly, check out his power anomaly from last season. He played half of his games in the best home run park in the bigs. As I said in my ode to Granderson, right field is the easiest place to hit bombs there, too. Swisher is a switch hitter, but about 2/3 of his at-bats were as a lefty in 2009. And yet -- somehow, some way -- Swisher hit 21 home runs on the road and just eight at home in 2009. Can you explain that? Can anyone? It would have made sense if it was the opposite. It was basically just a coincidence, as there is absolutely nothing out there to explain why this happened. That means if his numbers normalize to where they should be, he's a virtual lock to hit 30, has a chance to hit 35 and an outside shot to bang 40. And, actually, they started to normalize in September, when he hit five home runs in 15 home games. Why not take the flier to see if this pans out for a whole season? You won't get less than 25 homers.