Adam Dunn is one of those players that if you play any kind of fantasy baseball you love to have on your team.  Yes, he strikes out, but he hits a ton of home runs, gets the RBI’s and his defense doesn’t hurt you at all.  If he is on your real team, the one you really root for, well, the defense is painful to watch, and undoes some of the good his does with his bat.

My rotisserie team, the only one I can spend much time on, drafts 35 players.  We have 12 teams, usually.  It can get pretty thin.  We have a ten person bench and 25 active players.  When drafting that bench I always look for that uber utility guy.  Not uber-utility in fantasy world, but uber in the real world.  The guy that is so versatile, and good enough that his manager will find a way to play him every day.  For a few years that guy was Ryan Freel- until injury and attitude got him run out of town in more than one town.  That guy the last couple of years has been Mark DeRosa.  DeRosa is a good enough defender that he can play in a multitude of positions, and he has a good enough bat that he can help the team no matter where he needs to bat.  This Henry Schulman piece, written about DeRosa’s impending deal with the San Francisco Giants points out that DeRosa’s career OBP is .323 which places him second on the Giants 2009 squad.  DeRosa can play all four infield spots and left-field if needed, and with the Giants he should get that opportunity.

While DeRosa’s .250 average is not going to help the average fantasy team, mine is deep enough that it still makes him a option on one of those corner-infielder, or middle-infielder positions, since you know he will be in the line-up 6-7 days in a week.

I am not trying to give any fantasy advice here.  I try, in fact, from staying away from that because honestly I prefer the real game.  What I am trying though to say is that every now and then you find that guy, not the one that you would build your favorite MLB team around, nor your fantasy team around, but the one that makes both much better because he can fill many holes on the field and still help you with a bat.  Most good players are not that flexible.  The ones you build the team around are very good at one position, but you would rarely ask them to play out of position.  Mark DeRosa is the kind of guy that makes that possible.

The Giants just got much better.  But there are many teams that were counting on being able to land DeRosa, including the Yankees, that now have to regroup.

Not many folks say no when the Yankees come calling. It will be interesting to see what plan B is, and how long it takes for us to know what that is for sure.

But this was a good move for DeRosa.  When his name was mentioned in talks between the Cubs and the Padres for Jake Peavey last winter, Jim Hendry got very upset.  He didn’t want DeRosa’s name made public because he believed the utility infielder, who had done an amazing job for the Cubs the year before was super sensitive.  Hendry believed that DeRosa would not want to remain a Cub if the deal didn’t happen once he had heard the team was willing to trade him away.  DeRosa became an Indian before the season started.

If DeRosa is that sensitive, then New York would not be the place for him to play.  The constant scrutiny is not the place for a player who is concerned if his name is rumored to be in a deal.  So, it seems, DeRosa has made the right deal for himself, no matter the money- which no doubt he could have gotten more of in NY.

So while DeRosa’s fit as the jack of all trades fit very well on a fantasy team.  He isn’t made for every real team out there.  There is much more that goes into playing for a real team than a fantasy one.  Defense is one part, but being comfortable with the city and with the pressures of that city is another.  We build our fantasy teams in a void.  General Managers do not have that luxury.