BluGrass Baseball top fantasy players

Joey Votto; Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Tristan H. Cockcroft ESPN.com has released his preliminary rankings for the 2010 top 200 fantasy players. Clearly this list will change based on offseason movement and injuries before March, but it’s never too early to start preparing your fantasy draft. Here are the players with Kentucky ties on the list:

41) 1B Joey Votto — Louisville Bats — Cincinnati Reds
44) 3B Mark Reynolds — Pikevilly, Ky. — Arizona Diamondbacks
58) OF Adam Dunn — Louisville Bats — Washington Nationals
90) INF/OF Ben Zobrist — Lexington Legends — Tampa Bay Rays
100) OF Hunter Pence — Lexington Legends — Houston Astros
114) OF Jay Bruce — Louisville Bats — Cincinnati Reds
136) SP Wandy Rodriguez — Lexington Legends — Houston Astros
145) SP Brandon Webb — Ashland, Ky., UK — Arizona Diamondbacks
146) 2B Dan Uggla — Louisville, Ky. — Florida Marlins
177) 2B Felipe Lopez — Louisville Bats — FA

You can see Cockcroft’s full list here.

BluGrass Baseball Free Agents

Major League Baseball

Todd Wellemeyer; Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Now that the regular season is over, pending tonight’s Twins/Tigers game, I thought we’d looks at the list of MLB free agents to see what players with Kentucky connections might be changing teams this winter. For the full list check out MLBTradeRumors, who does an excellent job of monitoring such things year round. I’ve also indicated if the player classifies as a Type A or B player, which entitles his old team to draft compensation if it offers him arbitration and he still signs with another team.

Starting Pitchers

Brandon Webb (B)– Diamondbacks — UK — Club Option
Todd Wellemeyer — Cardinals — Bellarmine

Outfielders

Austin Kearns — Nationals — Lexington, Ky., — Club Option

Third Basemen

Aaron Boone — Astros — Louisville Bats

Second Basemen

Felipe Lopez — Brewers — Louisville Bats

BluGrass Baseball on MLB leaderboard

Major League Baseball

Joey Votto; Photo from Wikimedia Commons

When the minor league season ended we checked where BluGrass Baseball player ranked on the minor-league leaderboard, so now we’ll do the same for major league players. I’ve broken down the leaderboards by league and added the player’s total MLB rank in parentheses afterward.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

Batting Average

5) Joey Votto (9) — Reds — 2007 Bats — .322
10) Felipe Lopez (18) — Brewers — 2004 Bats — .310

Home Runs

4) Mark Reynolds (4) — D’Backs — Pikeville — 44

Hits

5) Felipe Lopez (13) — Brewers — 2004 Bats — 187

On-Base Percentage

4) Joey Votto (5) — Reds — 2007 Bats — .414

AMERICAN LEAGUE

On-Base Percentage

4) Ben Zobrist (11) — Rays — 2005 Legends — .405