Jack Hannahan (Yahoo: 3 percent owned, ESPN: 2 percent owned)

The months where Joe Mauer isn’t the most productive graduate of Cretin-Derham Hall High School are few and far between, but Hannahan ended the month so hot, the Indians are scrambling to order him flame-retardant pants. For the month, Hannahan hit .420/.491/.660 with three home runs, all of which came after the 29th. Apparently, having a newborn at home is the new market inefficiency.

Assuming that Hannahan hasn’t entered into some Faustian Bargain, there’s virtually no way he’ll continue to have this kind of success. If this were August 1 instead of September 1, I doubt Hannahan even registers on most fantasy players’ radar, but we’re in that part of the season where grabbing the hot hand can seem like a winning idea, and thus, here we are.

He bears all the hallmarks of one ripe for regression — call me a monster if you must, I just don’t think his .514 August BABIP is going to stick around — but it should be noted that his blistering month only pushed his 2011 BABIP up to .305, so he was in line for a stroke of better luck. If you accept that Hannahan had bad luck early in the season, then regressed to the mean rather all at once, then his September production should be something resembling his true talent level. For Hannahan, this makes him a non-factor: his power is spotty at best and his average isn’t much better. If you need a Hail Mary to make it into the playoffs this week, I’d rather wish on Hannahan than Alex Rios, but expecting him to continuing hitting multiple home runs a week is a bridge too far.

Dayan Viciedo (Yahoo: 12 percent owned, ESPN: 12 percent owned)

If, or when, the White Sox miss the playoffs, you won’t have to listen to AM radio in Chicago long before you hear someone say that Adam Dunn is a waste of money and that if the team had just played Viciedo all year, they would have made the playoffs. I’m not ready to go quite that far, but Vicideo’s translated line of .256/.309/.412 is a bit better than Dunn’s .163/.290/.289, so maybe there is some truth in the madness.

ZiPS has Viciedo hitting .266/.299/.453 with 3 HR for the rest of the season, which strikes me as a little low. It would not surprise me to see him hit an extra home run or two and hit closer to .280. At the moment, he holds only 3B eligibility, though I expect that he’ll have qualified as an OF by the end of next week, as he started in right field twice this week.

In the minors this year, Viciedo hit 16 of his 20 home runs off of right-handers as part of his .305/.357/.501 line against them. He wasn’t bad against lefties, hitting. 270/.386/.459 against them, but if you’re desperately looking for the second half of a platoon, you can justify using Viciedo part time to try and capitalize on his power. If you don’t need to platoon him, I wouldn’t bother with finding a partner for him; he’s playable all by his lonesome. With Carlos Quentin’s return still a few days away and with Dunn’s struggles, I see no playing time issues for Viciedo. He may have been called up before September, but as Viciedo is just 22, the Sox almost surely will use the next month to see if they have their starting third baseman for 2012 and beyond.

One last set of first base rankings as we head down the stretch and into the season’s final month. You can find last month’s rankings right here, which link back through all the previous months.

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Usually Thursday’s are reserved for Kicking Rocks, but with such limited complaints and too few games remaining to do much about it anyway, it’s time again to play some Keeper League ‘Would You Rather…?’  Moving around the diamond this week brings us to second base and a pair of young, potentially studly long term options.

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We continue looking ahead to the 2012 fantasy baseball season by highlighting the potential impact rookies at each position. Why? Because it’s never too early to begin thinking about next year, even if you’re still trying to win your league right now. And for those of you in keeper leagues, particularly deeper ones, these primers will be especially helpful, because you’ll find out which young players may be worth snatching up now — before other owners get a clue — so you can hang onto them next season, when their value kicks in. Think of it like an investment requiring only a little up-front cost that could pay off big in the near future.

Much like my Mining the Minors columns on this site, which focus on current-season impact more than long-term upside, these 2012 rookie primers are meant for players who will fulfill or are expected to fulfill their rookiedom next year. Also much like my MTM work, the point here is to find the right mix of opportunity and talent, so that you’re picking up a player who can contribute, either in a starting role or as a reserve, from Day 1 or soon thereafter. Chances are, I’ll hit on many of these same players in depth at some point in future Mining the Minors columns, but for now, it’s good to get ahead of the curve with a snapshot of the talent at each position.

To give you a brief idea of just how this sort of thing can be worthwhile, I’m in two deep keeper leagues, one AL-only and one NL-only, and around this time last year, I picked up Mark Trumbo, Jordan Walden and Brandon Beachy. Worked out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

Click on the position to see previous primers: Catcher

Next up? First basemen.

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– It’s a shame that Justin Morneau is still dealing with concussion symptoms a year later, isn’t it? Injuries have effectively derailed a career that looked to be so promising after a monster first half of 2010, but them the breaks. At this point, I’m not so sure I’d take a chance on Morneau next season outside of the last round or two of a barely deeper than normal draft. In large leagues (i.e. 20 teams), he’s worth a shot in latter half of the middle of your draft, but he shouldn’t be counted on to start for you week in and week out. Morneau is one of the few players I actually feel sorry for, and I sincerely hope he has a chance to get himself right this offseason.

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