Today’s Waiver Wire features one player trying to reestablish his fantasy worth and one hoping to take hold of some of his own.

Luke Scott: 7% Yahoo!, 3.2% ESPN

Before injuring his shoulder last season, Scott was one of the more consistent players in fantasy. After being traded to Baltimore in the Miguel Tejada deal he averaged 25 home runs and 71 runs batted in from 2008-2010. In fact, his home runs, average, and on base percentage increased in each of those years. Unfortunately he couldn’t do it for a fourth year as a torn labrum in his shoulder ended his season in late July. Always willing to bounce on a buy low candidate, the Rays signed Scott over this offseason. A minor hamstring issue has kept him out of a few games but that seems to be behind him now. In the seven games (out of 10) he’s played he’s hit quite well, with two home runs, two doubles and eight runs knocked in to go with a .368 average. Will he be able to maintain a .421 ISO? No. A .333 BABIP? Likely not. However, if his shoulder is healthy, and it’s certainly looked like it is, there’s no reason he shouldn’t come close to replicating his ’08-’10 numbers.

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It seems every team I’m running this year has a glaring issue. I have some with issues at catcher, others with some pitching issues, but there’s one in particular where I have just no solution at third base. We’re just a handful of games deep into the season, but there might already be fertile ground for trying to cherry pick brutal starts to the season by few old dogs. Yes, the small sample size applies throughout, but I like these guys as fantasy targets early on since there were enough question marks about age, health, and/or production before the season began which likely gave their current managers pause when they ultimately selected them. Now that the stats count, you might find a second-guesser willing to listen.

Aramis Ramirez

Ramirez has been a slow starter for the last few seasons, but he’s taken it to new levels so far. His .114/.179/.182 line is so bad it makes it hard to see beyond the fact that it’s just 39 plate appearances. He’s hit no home runs, two doubles, and he’s struck out eight times and generally been useless on the real and the fake field. He’s had little fortune from the bouncing ball with a paltry .143 BABIP, his swinging strike rate isn’t completely out of control at 11%, his contact rate is down a tick, but not overwhelmingly so. Aside from having a detached retina or something, I’d fully expect the proverbial pendulum to swing the other direction and he’s either going to start getting a little luckier, he’s going to start driving the ball, or both. It has typically taken him until June to really put things together — and that has been exacerbated in the last couple of seasons — but another week of falling on his face and you might have a real opportunity on your hands.

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With just about 10 games into the season and no one amassing more than 40 plate appearances, the Small Sample Size Police are in full force right now.  Hot starts, cold starts, nothing matters to these brazen fantasy owners who dismiss such meaningless statistics at this time of year.  But that doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t have a little fun and appreciate the good fortune bestowed upon us by the fantasy gods as our catchers come flying out of the gate, white-hot, and throw us some always helpful power stats.  I mean, would you rather be sitting there lamenting Russell Martin’s ice cold start and wonder if his batting average will actually be worse than 2011’s .237 mark or give in to your child-like giddiness over the fact that Alex Avila has picked right up where he left off last season?  Yeah, that’s what I thought… Read the rest of this entry »

Every time I log into ottoneu, I check out that little scroll on the home page. You know the one – right at the top, above your teams, below the player search. This banner shows a constant update on the latest players added across all ottoneu leagues and is one of my favorite ottoneu features. It’s like an instant update on who’s hot right now. Or, I guess, who was hot 48 hours ago when these auctions were started.

Well, we are always telling you who is un-owned in most leagues, but today I am going to look at the most recent additions in ottoneu and see who is being added, why, and who you should be targeting. Some of these guys may still be up for auction in your leagues as we speak.

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• Dee Gordon’s current strikeout rate is very alarming, if you ask me. Gordon has already struck out in more than 20% of his plate appearances. Yes, it’s early, but his contact rate has also suffered, and it’s really going to kill him if it continues. Gordon can’t steal second if he doesn’t get on first, and even during last year’s stint, he only did that 33% of the time.

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Before the season started, fellow writer Chad Young examined a few starter eligible relievers. He had some great recommendations like Alexi Ogando and Alfredo Aceves. Today, I am going to examine a few more SP qualified relievers that Chad did not look at in his article.

(Owned rates are ESPN and Yahoo)

Brett Myers (91%, 53%) – Myers looks to be the Cadillac of relievers that are starter qualified because he is the only one currently picking up saves. On a starter’s off day, Myers can just be plugged into the starter’s roster spot thereby giving a team an extra slot picking up saves. While Myers is not playing for a team that will rack up a ton of wins for him to save, they are still saves. If he is able to close for the entire season, his number of saves should be around 30.

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Like Sergio Santos recently, Eno Sarris has been placed on the paternity leave list. In his honor, let’s take a look at three babies on their way to the big leagues – a few prospects who are on the verge of big-league playing time not only due to their own performance, but because of the situation on the big club ahead of them. Everyone knows that Mike Trout & Bryce Harper are coming, so instead we’ll check in on…

Nolan Arenado, 3B Colorado Rockies

In 2011, the Rockies sent out nine different players to man the hot corner, from Ty Wigginton’s 62 starts all the way down to the one sole inning catcher Chris Iannetta received at the end of a blowout loss against Kansas City. Six of the nine – including the top four, who combined for 119 starts – are no longer with the club, a hole the Rockies attempted to patch over by signing 38-year-old former Dodger Casey Blake this winter. Blake was injured & ineffective in camp this spring and was cut before Opening Day, so the Rockies are limping along with utility infielder Chris Nelson & former catcher Jordan Pacheco at the position for now. Neither is hitting (two extra-base hits and three walks between them in 39 PA thus far) and neither has much of a minor-league track record to suggest that’s likely to change any time soon.

Nelson & Pacheco are just placeholders, however, and short-time ones at that, since the team is just marking time until consensus top prospect Nolan Arenado is ready to claim the spot. Arenado tore up the California League last year as a 20-year-old (.361 wOBA, 20 homers, just 53 strikeouts in 583 PA) and then impressed in the Arizona Fall League. If not for the fact that he’d never played above High-A prior to this season, he might have broken camp with the big club – a promotion many were clamoring for anyway – and so far he’s crushing Double-A, hitting .395/.477/.632 in ten games for Tulsa. While there’s obvious small-sample-size caveats in 44 Double-A plate appearances, the scouting reports and complete history have all been glowing.

Arenado turns 21 today, April 16. He may not get a call to the big leagues for his birthday, but you can bet he’ll be spending most of this year in Colorado, not Oklahoma.

Anthony Rizzo, 1B Chicago Cubs

All spring, we heard that the Cubs were really going to give 29-year-old minor-league vet Bryan LaHair a chance to be the regular first baseman, despite having shipped off flamethrower Andrew Cashner to San Diego to reunite Rizzo with Theo Epstein & company. LaHair suffered through a homer-free spring training while Rizzo impressed, but the Cubs insisted that Rizzo would be starting the year at Triple-A Iowa. He did, but then the Cubs went out and started utilty guy Jeff Baker at first base in the first two games of the season and in four of the first nine, as LaHair dealt with back tightness and sat against lefty pitching.

To his credit, LaHair has produced when he’s played, hitting .348/.423/.696 with two homers in the early going. On the farm, though, Rizzo has been the Matt Kemp of the PCL, already hitting five homers to go with a .520 wOBA so far. (Again, small-sample-size and PCL offense to be taken into account here.) If LaHair keeps hitting, he’ll keep his job, but the Cubs clearly hold Rizzo in high regard and didn’t trade Cashner for him to have him waste away in the minors all season long. It remains to be seen how they would make that work – LaHair does have some outfield experience in the minors, and David DeJesus could potentially shift to center if they trade or dump Marlon Byrd, though an outfield defense with both LaHair & Alfonso Soriano sounds hilariously awful – but with a Cubs offense struggling to get anything going, they’ll find a way to get Rizzo in the lineup if he keeps showing that he has nothing left to prove in Iowa.

Trevor Bauer, SP Arizona Diamondbacks

I’m not sure if there was a bigger regression candidate heading into 2012 than Diamondback starter Josh Collmenter, who was surprisingly effective in 24 starts as a rookie last year but who gave little indication based on his history and performance that this was something he’d be able to keep up over the long term. He was basically the Chris Johnson of the new season, in terms of “there is just no way that guy is going to be as good next year.”

While it’s been only two starts, Collmenter has indeed been atrocious, allowing 14 baserunners, 10 earned runs, and 3 homers in 7 innings so far. It’s been bad enough that Kirk Gibson announcing that Collmenter will get another start this week against Atlanta actually qualifies as news, because it was in no way assured. For a team picked by many to win the division this year and possibly go deep into the playoffs, those results are unacceptable.

Even worse for Collmenter, the Diamondbacks have a ready-made replacement in their own top prospect, 2011 #3 overall pick Trevor Bauer. Bauer reportedly came close to making his big-league debut last year and is now one of several hot pitching prospects in the Arizona system, along with Tyler Skaggs, Pat Corbin, and Archie Bradley. With Jarrod Parker off to Oakland in the Trevor Cahill deal, Bauer is the closest to the bigs, having stuck out 46 in 32.1 Double-A innings between his debut last year and his first outings this year. While he needs to work on his walk rate – 5.6/9 in Double-A is far from ideal – he’s the kind of high-upside strikeout arm that the Diamondbacks currently don’t have in the back of a rotation that features Collmenter and Joe Saunders. Collmenter may have just one more start to prove that he’s actually a starting pitcher worth hanging onto, and the odds aren’t good that he’s going to be able to do it.

Bauer may not be the first choice if Collmenter loses his job – Arizona could try to patch things over for a few weeks with similar placeholders Barry Enright, Zach Kroenke, or Wade Miley – though none of them are going to stand in the way of Bauer once Arizona decides he’s ready. By the looks of things, that may be sooner rather than later.

This is the first week where we’ll be highlighting and examining American League outfielders. We’ll look at a few early risers and fallers today.

Bullish:
Josh Willingham – So far “Compliant Pig” (kudos to Leopold Bloom of AthleticsNation for that one) has managed to stay healthy and produce healthily. Willingham’s 12 hits rank him in the top 5 of the AL and on top of that, he is currently tied for the AL lead in home runs. I wouldn’t expect this kind of production all year, but given that he set a career high in homers last year despite playing in another pitchers park, Willingham clearly hasn’t lost any power to age. He is looking quite good thus far. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve got two early-season waiver wire adds for you, one to help your outfield and one to help your bullpen…

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With 3 home runs and a .371 average, J.D. Martinez is one of the big pickups in roto over the past week. The question around Martinez is sustainability. Obviously he won’t hit .371 all season, but can he sustain a solid average in combination with respectable power numbers throughout the year?

I think so. I do not quite think we are going to witness a Jose Bautista coming out party in regards to Martinez, but I do think he can surprise and be a valuable player throughout the year. His walk rate throughout the minors was never too great, but he did post high averages and solid home run totals at most levels.

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