You should all know the Spin Doctors rules by now: Two members of the Yahoo! fantasy team debate the merits of two similarly ranked fantasy assets, then readers get to tell us both how horribly wrong we are in comments. And then everyone gives a thumbs-down to Fitzy. Today, we're discussing Toronto's Brett Lawrie (Yahoo! ADP 54.4) and New York's Alex Rodriguez (45.9), which would have seemed ridiculous just 12 months ago. But times change, and so we spin...
Behrens begins: If you want to accuse me of drinking the Lawrie Kool-Aid, fine. I'll accept your abuse. If you think I'm naively paying a hopeful price on a guy who might be great in the big leagues, but hasn't done it yet, well ... yeah, OK. Fair enough.
The fact is, I don't make a habit of drafting very young players (he's 22) with very early picks (he's No. 29 in my ranks) unless I think I'm getting an absolute star, a player with the potential to deliver first-round value. Lawrie, to me, looks like a five-category beast. He was basically unstoppable at Triple-A last season, hitting .353/.415/.661 at Las Vegas with 18 home runs over 69 games, plus he was 13-for-15 on stolen base attempts. When he made the jump to the majors, he continued to produce: .293/.373/.580, nine homers, seven steals in eight attempts. If you're worried about the risk associated with this kid, then by all means leave him for me. I'll take him.
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