Injuries at this time of year, especially to your star players, can be absolutely brutal.  Head to head league owners are playing in championship games and every little bit of production helps as your roto season winds down.  With the likelihood that your waiver wire has been picked cleaner than a Thanksgiving turkey at Fatty McButterpants’ house, grabbing a last minute injury replacement just might be enough to carry you to the end.  For you NL-only leaguers and deep mixed league owners, here are two you might consider.

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We continue our look-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, First Base, Second Base, Third Base

Let’s hit on the shortstops.

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Only two weeks left in the regular season, this is nearly your last chance to go diving into the free agent pool and attempt to uncover some treasures.

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It’s been about a month and a half since the Cardinals dealt Colby Rasmus to the Blue Jays, so why not check in on that whole situation?

– Since the move, Jon Jay has responded by hitting around .300 with a few homers in just over 30 starts for St. Louis. Unfortunately, he’s not really stealing bases, so it looks like he’ll simply be a batting average guy next year. It shouldn’t be too hard to snag him late in drafts, just don’t expect more than .290/10/5.

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Matt Moore (Yahoo: 6 percent owned, ESPN: 2 percent owned)

The Rays called up Matt Moore earlier this week, means the team’s top four prospects according to Baseball America have all been called up this season. While Rookie of the Year candidate Jeremy Hellickson was ranked more highly than Moore going into the season, BA chose Moore’s fastball and curveball as the best in the system. It’s obvious that Moore is a hugely talented prospect, and he’ll almost surely be fantasy relevant next season, but is he fantasy relevant now?

The majors will be Moore’s third level of the season, and he has already thrown a career high 155 innings. The good news is that while it is more innings than he’s ever thrown before, it’s neither an objectively huge amount of innings nor a large increase from his previous high of 144.2 IP. His minuscule WHIP (0.95) and tremendous K-rate (12.2 K/9) between Double- and Triple-A make him an appealing option, but his viability will depend largely on how much the Rays actually let him see the field.

Joe Maddon tweeted a window into how they were going to use Moore, saying they hoped to use him in the same way they used David Price in 2008. Unfortunately for owners looking to capitalize on Moore’s call up, Price’s 2008 usage can best be described as “at-will”: He made one start, then pitched in long relief once and three times in short relief for a total of 17 innings. If Moore follows a similar plan, he’s likely to give you strikeouts when he pitches, but how often that happens is going to be a factor of his effectiveness as well as whether the Rays keep in contact with the Red Sox in the wild card race.

If you’re streaming starters in AL-Only, he’s likely to get a start next week during the Rays’ doubleheader against the Yankees, but that’s obviously an unfavorable matchup. Ultimately, I’m really excited to see him pitch, but because of uncertain usage, I just don’t see him being a worthwhile risk in the fantasy playoffs.

Ryan Doumit (Yahoo: 11 percent owned, ESPN: 2 percent owned)

124. If it’s a career best RBI total, that’s a great year. Unfortunately for Doumit, that’s his career high in games played, which is…ungood. When he’s healthy, Doumit provides solid production as far as catchers are concerned with a career line of .271/.334/.442 for a .776 OPS. Unfortunately, health has been hard to come by for Doumit, which makes it hard for owners to draft or apparently even roster him. While he’s had at least one DL stint every season since 2006, Doumit has only been placed on the DL more than once in the same season twice and never since 2007.

Since returning from his most recent extended stay on the disabled list — 65 days lost due to a broken ankle — on August 3, Doumit has hit .330/.369/.515 with 4 HR. His .884 OPS since the All-Star Break is fifth best among catchers with at least 50 PAs, but he’s still rostered in fewer leagues than Jorge Posada or John Buck.

Doumit is getting the vast majority of the starts for the Pirates as the year draws to a close, and is likely to continue to do so as the team tries to evaluate whether or not to pick up his options for 2012 and 2013. With his yearly major injury behind him, Doumit is a safe pickup going forward and, unless you’re riding Alex Avila, Mike Napoli, or another of the top catchers, there’s a good chance Doumit will be an upgrade for you.

Players who are able to field multiple positions, and field them well, are extremely valuable commodities both inside and outside the fantasy landscape. This week, in two separate posts, I’m going to take a look at some players who have gained or lost a position this year and how they look for next season.

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I introduced Luck last week and expanded the work to change hitter’s Luck to a rate stat. Today I am going to look at pitcher’s Luck as a rate stat. Pitcher Luck is mainly linked to a pitcher’s ERA, but it can also be related to their WHIP (extra hits) and Wins (less runs allowed).

When I first looked at pitcher Luck, I added up the entire amount of luck a pitcher had over a season. This method created too much emphasis on playing time. If two pitchers had the same LOB%, HR/FB% and BABIP, they should have the same luck no matter how many innings they pitched. I took the old Luck value and divided it by the total batted balls in play (TBF – K – BB – HBP). After doing the division, I adjusted the values to a -10 to +10 scale (link to spreadsheet with 2010 and 2011 data).

Initially, LOB% and BABIP got the same weightings and HR/FB% was weighted twice as much as the other two. I am keeping the HR/FB% weighting, but only giving a weighting of 1/2 for both of BABIP and LOB%. The reason for this change is that LOB% is directly related to having a higher BABIP. Luck on balls in play will be taken into account, but not as much as before.

With these new adjustments, here is a look at leaders and laggards for both the new and old Luck values (> 100 IP this season):

Luck can be seen as the differences between the pitcher’s ERA and their FIP and xFIP. With each lucky pitcher, their ERA is less than their FIP and xFIP. The unlucky pitchers are the other way with their ERA being more than both their FIP and xFIP.

Additionally, I went back and looked at how Luck stood up last season. I took all the pitchers with the bottom and top 10 Luck values from 2010 and saw what their ERA did in 2011 (min 40 IP in 2011). Here is how 2010’s top 10 luckiest pitchers have fared so far in 2011:

Seven of the pitcher’s ERAs have increased with an average overall increase of 0.88.

Here are the ten unluckiest pitchers in 2010 and how their ERA changed in 2011:

This group on average saw their ERA drop by 0.82

The effects of luck can also be seen with Wins and WHIP. Here is a comparison of the chances of a win per start and WHIP for 2010’s luckiest pitchers and how they performed in 2011:

Per 32 starts, the pitchers averaged 3 less wins in 2011. Also, their WHIP was 0.06 higher even though their BB/9 went from 3.3 to 2.9.

For now, I like the results of pitcher’s Luck. It easily finds pitchers that may have their stats inflated by being unlucky on balls in play, home runs and sequence of hits (LOB%). It is a little late in the season to track pitchers for this season, but I will have of a final 2011 list and will be using it during the off season to help find under valued players. Again, let me know what you think.

– Unofficial crowdsourcing question: Will Dan Uggla be overvalued next season because of his hitting streak, or will he be undervalued because of his extremely slow start? You may not say he will be valued appropriately, because we all know that never happens.

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With pitchers being shut down to prevent injuries, there are a few pitchers (< 50% ownership rate) looking to coming back this season. Last week, I looked at 2 of the pitchers, Scott Baker (20% owned) and Johan Santana (8% owned). They would have the same opportunity of contributing as the two pitchers listed today, but with a better chance of being available in a league

All owned numbers are from ESPN.

Clay Buchholz (back- 43% owned) – Clay is making progress for a return back to Boston. With the current disrepair of the Red Sox pitching staff, I could see them making a larger than normal push to get Clay back into the rotation.

He is just beginning to throw from the mound, so a return is still up in the air. I see him getting one or two starts to see if he is ready for the post season. He may be a source of a win or two with the help of Boston’s offense.

His talent level will be tough to predict for just a couple of games. He put up around 6.4 K/9 and 3.4 BB/9 during the time he has thrown this season. I would not be surprised to see his K’s down a bit because of being rushed back into pitching and his back, which don’t heal easily, was the spot of injury. Depending on the risk an owner is willing to take, he may be an option over the last week or so.

Francisco Liriano (shoulder – 41% owned) – Francisco is trying to come back to pitch a bit this season. No exact return time has been reported, so when or if he returns is still unknown. Like Buchholz, his ability to help much over the last few games is limited. His best usage may be for a team in the finals of a H2H league that has lost some starting pitching recently.

Before going on the DL, he average 7.4 K/9 and 5.0 BB/9. These numbers are off from 2010 when he had 9.4 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9. It seems his ERA/FIP/xFIP follow his fastball speed:

2005 (94.8 MPH): 5.70/3.32/1.99
2006 (94.7 MPH): 2.16/2.55/2.38
2008 (90.9 MPH): 3.91/3.87/4.25
2009 (91.7 MPH): 5.80/4.87/4.48
2010 (93.7 MPH): 3.62/2.66/2.95
2011 (91.8 MPH): 4.84/4.55/4.47

If he makes one start, an owner may look to see where his fastball stands. If it is averaging less than 92 MPH, you make look at other options. If there is any report from the minors of his speed, I would subtract 2 MPH from it. Usually only the top speed is reported, so the average will be less.

Liriano may or may not be heading back to the Twins. I would not consider him a top SP candidate, but he could be one of the few options left this late in the season.

At this point in the season, your needs are sharply defined. There’s no time to grab a well-rounded player off the wire — if those were ever on the wire in your league in the first place. Now it’s time for all of those one-dimensional dudes to come to the fore and play their roles. In an effort to best help you find these role players, we’ll group today’s discussion about National League outfielders by stats.

Speed Stats
Stolen bases are not highly correlated with winning unless the player steals them with a high success rate. But stolen bases are highly correlated with runs on a player-by-player level. In other words, fast guys play at the top of the lineup and therefore steal bases and score runs.

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