The San Francisco Giants aren’t picking up any good vibrations from Brian Wilson. Wilson complained of elbow pain this weekend, and will likely miss the remainder of the season. Between 2008 and 2011, Wilson saved 163 games for the Giants, emerging as one of the best closers in the game. With him now out, the Giants will need to find an acceptable replacement. Given that the Giants have a strong pitching staff that should keep them in a lot of games, that replacement could have considerable value in fantasy leagues.

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Last year, I explained how you may actually be able to buy low and sell high. As you no doubt have learned when trying to make these types of deals, it is much easier said than done. In the coming weeks, we are going to be inundated with articles naming all the same players with the assumption that just a snap of the finger will allow an owner to swoop in and buy low. Rotoworld has already suggested we sell Omar Infante high. Really? What fantasy owner in his right mind is trading for Omar Infante after a week and a half of surprising power? There are ways to buy low and sell high though. You just need a story. Today I’ll just focus on the buy low side.

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• Heath Bell is in a big pile of doo-doo after pitching poorly for his third straight outing. Due to his pedigree and new fancy contract, Bell is going to have to do a little more than that to lose his job finishing games in Miami. The Marlins have Steve Cishek and Edward Mujica waiting in the wings if they should choose to make a change.

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As you are likely well aware by now, Jacoby Ellsbury suffered a subluxation (partial dislocation) of his right shoulder when Reid Brignac landed on top of him at second base during yesterday’s game. There has been no timetable set yet for his return, but he will likely be out for at least six weeks. This is obviously a huge blow for his fantasy owners and the Red Sox, especially with Carl Crawford still on the shelf, who could have replaced Ellsbury in the leadoff slot. Instead, Mike Aviles and his .317 career OBP has now moved on up. So what’s an Ellsbury owner to do?

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Aroldis Chapman’s start to the season has been very impressive, and the big performance is a follow up to a big spring. He struck out 18 batters while walking just two in spring as a starter, and as a set up man so far this year he has 10 strikeouts and no walks in five innings pitched.

There is certainly value in speculating on Chapman, even though he is unlikely to get saves due to Sean Marshall’s presence. Marshall is a stellar pitcher, so it is doubtful that he struggles enough to lose his closing job to Chapman. Even as a set up man, Chapman could provide very good value throughout this season, especially in holds leagues like ottoneu.
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The baby’s due any minute, but let’s sneak in a chat. I’ll be here at 12:30… or at the hospital!

In Tuesday night’s After Dark chat, several people wanted to know if Austin Jackson is having a breakout season. A triple slash line of 0.500/0.583/0.850 definitely looks impressive, but those numbers are just not sustainable. With such a small sample, I will look to see if he is showing any signs of real improvement.

The most important note to remember is that Austin has only had 24 PAs this season. That number is just too few a number of at bats to draw any definite conclusions. In past seasons, he has reached similar numbers in other 6 game spans:

Apr 28th to May 3rd 2010: 0.571/0586/0.750
Jul 20th to Jul 25th 2010: 0.500/0.500/0.692
Jun 3rd to Jun 8th 2011: 0.400/0.438/0.533
Aug 30th to Sep 4th 2011: 0.552/0.567/1.069

Almost all players will get on an extreme hot hitting streak at some time. Jackson just seems to be the player starting the season on one.

The main cause of Austin’s improved performance is his unsustainable 0.643 BABIP. His career BABIP (0.374) has always been high, but not in the 0.643 range. Last season, Adrian Gonzalez led the league with a 0.380 BABIP. Using my xBABIP Spreadsheet, which uses batted ball data, his xBABIP projects a BABIP of just 0.428. A main contributor for the difference between his expected and actual BAPIP values is a 25% infield hit percentage (IFH%). Normally, a player’s IFH% maxes out around 14% in a season. For example, here are the 2011 and 2009 to 2011 IFH% leaders:

IFH%
2011: Cameron Maybin: 14.2%
2009-2011: Ichiro Suzuki: 13.8%

While Jackson has always had a decent BABIP, his 2012 value will eventually come down. People should expect Austin to max out with a BABIP south of 0.400.

The other factor for the increase in production is a drop in his strikeout rate from his previous average of 26% to 20% this season. The drop in K% is supported by his Swing % dropping from 46% to 42% and his contact % going from 63% to 75%. In his few PAs, he seems to be a little more selective with his swings and when he does swing, he is making more contact.

Of the higher BABIP or lower K%, I would track the K% to see if it stabilizes at a new level. With a lower K%, he will see a nice bump in AVG. Here is a what his AVG will look like with a 20% and 25% K% assuming a 0.380 BABIP:

25% K%: 0.285 AVG
20% K%: 0.304 AVG

It is way too early to draw any real conclusions from Austin Jackson’s start to the season. Most of his production has come from a completely unsustainable BABIP. Besides the high BABIP, he is also showing improved plate discipline. While the sample size is way too small right now, I would continue to track his K% and see if he has better control over the strike zone as the season goes on. Any chance for a breakout will be tied to lowering his strikeout numbers.

What did you know about Alejandro De Aza in the middle of July last year? My guess is, “not a whole lot”, if you’d even ever heard of him at all. For my part, I have a vague recollection of him jumping right from Double-A to claim the Opening Day center fielder job with Florida in 2007, which lasted for all of about a week before he broke his right ankle. He returned late in the year, failed to hit, and then missed all of 2008 after needing surgery on his left ankle during the spring. For most of the last three seasons, he’s been bouncing between Triple-A & the bigs for the Marlins & White Sox, putting up superficially nice minor-league stats (.309/.372/.479), but never getting much of a chance to play at the major-league level and largely settling into a career as a barely-thought-of Quad-A player. (Which is still nice work if you can get it, I suppose.)

That all changed last July 27 when the White Sox got involved in the Colby Rasmus/Edwin Jackson three-team deal, opening up a spot on the Chicago offensive roster with the departure of Mark Teahen to Toronto. At the time, GM Kenny Williams claimed that De Aza was getting called up to do more than just fill out the bench, noting that the ineffective incumbent in center, Alex Rios, was going to have to “take a backseat”. De Aza provided the margin of victory with a homer in a 2-1 win over Detroit in his first game and never looked back, hitting .329/.400/.520 with 12 steals over 171 plate appearances, good for a .401 wOBA and 2.8 WAR in barely a third of a seasons’ worth of play. It was a stunning performance from a guy who had entered his age-27 season with a career .242/.286/.325 line in parts of three big league seasons, though no doubt fueled in part by an absurd .404 BABIP.

For all that, no one was quite sure what to make of De Aza heading into 2012. Was he a flash in the pan, taking advantage of small sample sizes and September pitching, completely unsustainable over time? Or could be he the next Mike Morse, a late bloomer slowed in part by injuries who showed his skill at the end of one season before completely breaking out the following year? The White Sox made room to find out by moving Rios to right field, trading Carlos Quentin to San Diego, and mercifully dumping Juan Pierre.

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It’s the mildly vaunted Friday the 13th today! Instead of bad luck and misfortune, I bring you a wide array of fantasy baseball relevant news from the world. Well, at least the world of baseball.

• The Cleveland Indians have apparently talked to and potentially signed Johnny Damon. Although it is not yet official (note the time stamps on the Heyman tweet and the Bastian article). Assuming Damon and Shelley Duncan for a platoon in left field, that figures to give the lefty batting Damon the majority of playing time. In more or less 650 PA (647 actually) in last year, Damon managed a 108 wRC+ for the season. His ZiPS line of .256/.328/.406 seems about in line with what we could reasonably expect the now 39 year old to be able to do. If you need a bench bat, Damon wouldn’t be a terrible pick. He won’t dazzle you with power or steals, but he’ll be playing against right-handed starters and figures to score some runs. He’s worth a flier if you need an OF.

• Stephen Drew is progressing nicely in extended spring training. Yesterday marked only his second look at a game atmosphere since breaking his ankle over nine months ago. He only played one inning in the field, but tallied four at bats in the game. Though there is no timetable for his return, Drew is certainly someone to keep an eye on. Drew had himself a 5 WAR season in 2010 before the injury cut his season short last year. Assuming he comes back healthy, he is certain to be a mid-to-late season boost to any fantasy team.

• Lorenzo Cain hit the DL yesterday after first hitting the outfield wall. If you decided to gamble and ride his hot spring training into the season, you’ll be needing a replacement outfielder. I would suggest taking a flier on Rajai Davis. Though he won’t get many starts, he will rack up the steals for you, 34 last year despite only 338 PA, and he will come around and score a few runs for you as well. If nothing else, Davis is a worthwhile replacement for the two week spell that Cain is expected to miss.

FanGraphs: The Game is a free and daily fantasy baseball system. If you haven’t yet created a player, I urge you to do so. It’s absurdly fun and highly competitive.

A Pitcher for Today: Jeremy Guthrie (COL) at SD
Normally I wouldn’t recommend Guthrie to anyone, but pitching in Petco is simply different than anywhere else.

A Pitcher for Tomorrow: Tom Milone (OAK) at SEA
I wouldn’t expect Milone to keep dancing between the raindrops and having a WHIP of just 0.75, but his strikeouts should get a nice bump against the inept Mariners offense.

A Hitter for Today: Melky Cabrera (SF) vs PIT
Melky has started this year on a tear, and is facing likely starer James McDonald. Melky tends to hit righties slightly better; by a difference of .15 wOBA. He should come cheaply so if you need to save your budget in the outfield, Melky is a potentially great value.

One of the most interesting things about playing across multiple fantasy sites is just how different ownership rates can be. As a postscript to yesterday’s piece, I noted that Chad Billingsley — who pitched well again last night, not walking a single Pirate over six innings — was available in 22 percent more Yahoo! leagues than he was ESPN leagues. In 2010, Jeff Zimmerman took a look at ownership rates across the two sites and concluded that ownership rates are slightly higher for Yahoo! leagues on average. Slightly larger leagues combined with difference in how the staff preranks players can lead to gulfs in ownership rates in the neighborhood of 50 percent. Read the rest of this entry »