When fantasy players think of the top first basemen in the game, Adrian Gonzalez is not the first name that comes to mind. But the first overall pick in the 2000 draft put up his third straight solid season, posting .279-36-119 line with 103 runs scored. Gonzalez established career highs in HR, RBI and R despite playing in a home park that killed his numbers.

In Petco Park, Gonzalez had a .788 OPS while on the road his OPS checked in at .946 for the year. He hit as many home runs on the road (22) as Ryan Howard, although the NL home run leader enjoyed a 26-14 edge in their respective home parks.

Home park aside, there is a lot to like about Gonzalez. He upped his BB% to 10.7 percent last year and his ISO to .231 – both career highs. His BABIP was a reasonable .311 and it was supported by a 20.4 percent line drive rate.

Gonzalez achieved his career high 36 homers thanks to a 20.7 percent HR/FB rate, which ranked ninth in the majors. However, just 36.6 percent of his batted balls were fly balls, which ranked 74th last season and one which he should be able to improve in 2009.

When projecting Gonzalez the two keys are to figure how well he will do in Petco and if he can rebound versus southpaws. Last year, lefties limited him to a .213/.287/.387 line in 261 plate appearances. His OPS was 59 points lower against lefties in 2008 than for his career, including an AVG 35 points beneath his lifetime marks against lefties.

Regression cuts both ways. Any drops in power and/or production should be matched or exceeded by an increase in batting average. Gonzalez is entering the prime of his career and a $25 season is well within his reach. While up to four first baseman may go in the first round of your draft, Gonzalez makes an excellent consolation prize in round four and allows you to concentrate on scarcer positions in the first few rounds.

Jorge Campillo made his Atlanta Braves debut in 2008- a mere 12 seasons after the team originally signed him out of Mexico.

The Tijuana native has weathered one of the more circuitous routes of any pitcher in professional baseball. The Braves signed Campillo all the way back in February of 1996 and loaned him to the Mexican League later that year. Unimpressed with Campillo’s finesse style, Atlanta released the 6-1, 225 pounder that following January.

Campillo would spend all of the 1997-2004 seasons in the Mexican League, hoping to latch on with another major league club. The Seattle Mariners finally came calling prior to the 2005 season, inking Campillo to a minor league deal. He held his own at AAA Tacoma and got a cup of coffee with the M’s toward the end of the season. However, it wouldn’t be long before Campillo’s perseverance was tested yet again, as he had to go under the knife for Tommy John Surgery shortly thereafter, missing the majority of the 2006 season.

Control is considered to be the last aspect of a pitcher’s game to resurface following Tommy John, but Campillo continued to paint the corners upon returning to Tacoma in 2007. In 149.1 innings pitched, the embattled right-hander posted a 3.72 Fielding Independent ERA, issuing a tidy 2.35 BB/9 and striking out a mild 5.97 batters per nine innings. Despite his solid work and the dearth of quality starting options in Seattle (this was, after all, a team that gave a combined 47 starts to Jeff Weaver and Horacio Ramirez), Campillo tossed just 13.1 frames for the M’s.

Campillo’s adventurous career came full-circle before the 2008 season, as he latched on with the Braves once again. The 29 year-old was certainly not in the team’s immediate plans to start the year, but a rash of injuries in the starting rotation afforded Campillo the opportunity to get his first extended trial in the majors. In 158.2 innings (including 25 starts), Campillo compiled a 3.91 ERA, with 6.07 K/9 and a sharp 2.16 BB/9.

Befitting of a pitcher who has managed to keep his head above water in professional baseball for 12 seasons, Campillo throws a cornucopia of different offerings. He utilized his fastball just 37.1% of the time, not surprising considering that its velocity (85.6 MPH) would only make Jamie Moyer and Greg Maddux envious. Campillo also dished out an 81.1 MPH slider (25%), a slow 70.3 MPH curve (11.1%) and a seldom-used 81.6 MPH cutter (1.6%). His bread-and-butter pitch, however, was a 74.4 MPH changeup with screwball-like action (used 25.1% of the time). Campillo’s change looks like something that Bugs Bunny would whip out against the Gas House Gorillas, with nearly nine and a half inches of horizontal movement away from lefthanders. With that pitch in his back pocket, the very experienced rookie showed a reverse platoon split. Campillo gave up plenty of extra base hits to right-handers (.274/.300/.480), but he subdued southpaws to the tune of .249/.310/.368.

Throwing just about everything but a knuckleball, Campillo was surprisingly adept at generating swings on pitches outside of the strike zone. His 31 O-Swing% ranked ninth among pitchers tossing at least 150 innings, sandwiched between Dan Haren and Cole Hamels. Campillo also got ahead of hitters as often as anyone, with a 64.3 First Pitch Strike % (F-Strike%) that ranked ninth among hurlers throwing 150+ innings. With so many batters falling behind 0-and-1 or putting the ball in play on the first pitch, Campillo threw just 3.8 pitches per plate appearance.

While he enjoyed a solid rookie season and is currently slated to open the year as Atlanta’s second starter behind Jair Jurrjens, there are some reasons to view Campillo in a skeptical light. A flyball-oriented pitcher (38.1 GB%), Campillo surrendered slightly over one home run per nine innings this past season despite a low 9.4 HR/FB%. HR/FB% tends to stick around 11-12% for starters, so Campillo will likely see a few more of his pitches end up as souvenirs in 2009. Using Expected Fielding Independent ERA (XFIP) from the Hardball Times, which predicts a pitcher’s ERA based on strikeouts, walks and a normalized HR/FB rate, we find that Campillo’s 3.91 ERA was kind of lucky: his XFIP was 4.40. That’s still useful, but the half-run increase takes some of the shine off of Campillo’s season, as his XFIP is just ever slightly above the 4.43 NL average for starters.

While there are statistical reasons as to why Campillo is unlikely to sustain his 2008 level of performance, there are also more speculative, scouting-type assertions that could be made. Prior to 2008, Campillo had scarcely seen the majors, and it seems reasonable to suggest that teams didn’t have the most comprehensive scouting reports on what he threw and when he threw it. Add in Campillo’s sharp command and bushel of pitches, and that puts opposing batters in quite a bind. In his last 11 starts spanning from August to early October, however, Campillo surrendered 39 runs in 57.2 innings, with a 37/17 K/BB ratio. Did teams “figure him out” as his repertoire and tendencies became more apparent? It’s hard to say, but that is a possibility.

Jorge Campillo, with as deep a pitching arsenal as any starter, is extremely fun to watch. However, his finesse, flyball-centric style is enough to give fantasy owners second thoughts. Those tendencies, coupled with his late-season drubbing, cast some doubt upon the repeatability of his performance. Campillo could remain a mildly useful, 4.50 ERA-type pitcher, but expecting another sub-four ERA season would be a mistake.

Prior to 2008, Pirates catcher Ryan Doumit had endured something of a snake-bitten career. A well-regarded prep prospect coming out of the state of Washington, Doumit was snatched up by the Bucs in the 2nd round of the 1999 amateur entry draft. The 6-1, 210 pounder displayed his potent bat throughout his minor league career (.296/.368/.459), but he had his fair share of detractors as well. In addition to a rough defensive reputation that earned him the ignoble nickname “Ryan No-Mitt”, Doumit had a difficult time staying on the field. As the 2004 Baseball America Prospect Handbook noted, “injuries to his back, knee and hand have dogged Doumit since he turned pro.” Despite the raw receiving skills and the history of bumps and bruises, BA still asserted that Doumit had “the stuff to be a No. 1 catcher in the majors.”

The switch-hitter made his big league debut in 2005, batting .255/.324/.398 in 257 PA. He appeared in 50 games as a catcher, while also seeing a little time in right field. While Doumit appeared positioned to spend a good deal of the 2006 season in the majors, injuries once again felled him, as he hit the DL with a strained hamstring in both April and June. Doumit only got 178 PA during the injury-marred season, batting a tame .208/.322/.389. Between the hamstring injury, a lack of confidence by management in his defensive skills and Ronny Paulino’s batting average-filled rookie campaign, Doumit spent the majority of his time at first base. In his first two seasons in the majors, Doumit drew walks at a 6.8% clip and struck out a lofty 23.7% of the time.

In 2007, Doumit finally showed the offensive promise that his minor league dossier suggested, batting .274/.341/.472 in 279 PA. His control of the strike zone remained about the same (8 BB%, 23.4 K%), but his .198 Isolated Power was mighty impressive for a guy capable of playing behind the plate. Of course, the Pittsburgh regime didn’t seem to recognize that last point, as Doumit spent more time in right field than he did at catcher. Injuries once again kept Doumit from taking the field on a regular basis, as he missed time with a sprained wrist in August and a high ankle sprain in September.

Following a front-office purge last offseason, Doumit was given a clean slate. He and Nate McLouth were both afforded the opportunity to shed old organizational labels (Craig Wilson redux for Doumit, 4th outfielder for McLouth). Realizing that Doumit’s bat could make him a premium backstop (as opposed to an offensively average, defensively-challenged corner outfielder), GM Neal Huntington, manager John Russell and the rest of the new guys allowed the 27 year-old to prove himself as a capable receiver.

While he’ll never earn great marks behind the plate, Doumit was adequate afield and mashed his way into everyday playing time. He did serve yet another DL stint with a fractured thumb in May, but his .318/.357/.501 line in 465 PA surely caught the attention of fantasy owners everywhere. In addition to showing plenty of sock (.183 ISO), Doumit improved his strikeout rate significantly. While he struck out well over 20% of the time during his first few seasons in the majors, Doumit whiffed just 12.8% in 2008. Doumit didn’t draw many walks (5.1 BB%) and his Outside Swing Percentage (O-Swing%) jumped from 25% in ’07 to 30.6% in ’08. Ordinarily, one would be worried about those hacking tendencies. However, in Doumit’s case, there appears to be a method to his aggressive approach. Each season in the majors, Doumit has improved his Contact% and O-Contact% markedly:

2005: 72.7 Contact%, 39.1 O-Contact%
2006: 74.3 Contact%, 48.8 O-Contact%
2007: 77.6 Contact%, 54.2 O-Contact%
2008: 81.9 Contact%, 66.0 O-Contact%

Doumit is chasing more pitches out of the zone, but he is also putting the bat on the ball far more frequently. With well-above average power for the position, a lower whiff rate and a line-drive bat (23.4 LD%), Doumit has the makings of an elite fantasy catcher. However, if you draft him, have a solid backup plan in mind. Those who wear the tools of ignorance take a beating, and Doumit’s injury history is too lengthy to ignore. Doumit has all the offensive skills to be an asset, but there’s just no telling if how often he’ll be able to take the field.