The RotoWire Blog has been retired.

These archives exist as a way for people to continue to view the content that had been posted on the blog over the years.

Articles will no longer be posted here, but you can view new fantasy articles from our writers on the main site.

Foreign Player Cheat Sheets

If you're in a keeper league, RotoWire is scouring the earth to evaluate talent for you to consider.
We've just updated our Non-MLB/Foreign Player Cheat Sheet for 2011.

Yu Darvish remains the No. 1 player not in MLB.
And there were rumblings he could come over to the U.S. this winter. We could see him in 2012. The odds are against it, but it's enough of a possibility that he's worth drafting in larger keeper leagues (if your rules allow it).

Patrick Newman of NPB Tracker, who's become the leading English news source for Japanese players and the Japanese leagues, contributed heavily to the rankings. I've done a lot of research on Cuban players and added them to the list.

In addition Newman writes an article on Japanese players in our RotoWire Fantasy Baseball Guide 2011.
I wrote an article on recent Cuban defectors in the same magazine. [MLB teams have spent more than $75 million on contracts and bonuses for Cuban defectors].

When we started these rankings about 1.5 years ago, it seem far-fetched that Aroldis Chapman would defect. And a player such as Tsuyoshi Nishioka was a name I didn't recognize on the rankings. Both are names to know now for 2011. Hopefully we can help you get familiar with foreign players before they come to the U.S. To that end, don't forget we provide extensive player notes for Foreign Leagues.