•After blowing his first save of  the year on Sunday, Rafael Soriano would have been available to pitch on Monday if it weren’t for a blister that developed on his pitching hand. Putting any blister issues to rest tonight, Soriano finished the game retiring the Braves in order while striking out two batters for his 10th save of the year. Boone Logan recorded the final two outs yesterday and although Soriano’s performance tonight likely means Logan will have little chance of seeing the ninth inning, it’s worth noting that he has quietly put together an excellent season with a 2.53 xFIP and an outstanding strikeout rate (13.29 K/9). Logan is still better used as a situational reliever as he has a minuscule .268 wOBA against left-handed hitters and a less than spectacular .347 wOBA against right-handed hitters, but should still be a solid contributor to holds and strikeouts for those in need of any relief help.

David Robertson meanwhile pitched another scoreless inning today in triple-A on his rehab stint and could join the Yankees over the weekend. The Yankees have previously said that Soriano will remain the closer even when Robertson returns and I see no reason why that won’t still be the plan based off of Soriano’s work tonight.

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Even though the positional rankings aren;t being updated monthly, the tiers are, so let’s take a look at some of the movement amongst the catchers.  We saw a few things happen with the May tiers but I held back any extreme movement because of sample sizes and questions surrounding performance sustainability.  This month, guys are moving… Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Wilhelmsen (ESPN: 41 percent owned; Yahoo!: 29 percent owned)

Matt Capps. Chris Perez. Jim Johnson. Brett Myers. Santiago Casilla. If you had these guys as five of the top 10 closers — determined purely by saves, peripherals are another matter entirely — I recommend playing the lottery a little more often, or at least finding a little-known website based out of the Caribbean where you can gamble on sports legally. The prevailing logic in fantasy drafts is not to pay for saves and while this year will go down as one of the easiest examples of unexpected players grabbing saves by the bunch, that draft logic is no longer the best advice anymore. Read the rest of this entry »

A lot has happened since the May consensus shortstop rankings were published. Those will be updated around the All-Star break, but until then here are my tiered rankings for June.

Tier 1

Starlin Castro
Troy Tulowitzki
Rafael Furcal
Jed Lowrie
Hanley Ramirez

Castro was a pretty valuable player last year when he hit 10 home runs, stole 22 bases and hit .307. We’re through 60 games this season and he already has five homers and 16 steals and is hitting .308. Our ZiPS updated season projections have him swiping 32 bags with 11 homers. He’s being far more aggressive than last season, swinging at 41.6 percent of balls outside the zone, but it’s possible he goes 15/30/.300 with 80 RBI and 80 runs. Not many players, let alone shortstops, are going to have those totals. The biggest surprise in this group is Jed Lowrie. We’ve all been teased by his potential before. He’s getting regular playing time now, and has avoided injury thus far, and the results are speaking for themselves. His 12 homers lead the position, though he’s driven in himself nearly half the time. He’s become more selective this season, swinging less and walking more. I’ve always been a Lowrie believer and it’s paying off right now.

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Maybe fans should retort “NoMo LoMo” next time Logan Morrison quips “no homo” on twitter — especially if they’ve been laboring along with the Marlin outfielder on their roster. He’s still owned on 48% of Yahoo rosters, but that number might drop in the coming weeks if we can’t find hope in his statistical line. Let’s give it a shot — even though my Bold Prediction, that Lucas Duda would outshine him in every roto-relevant way, looks like it’ll come true no matter what.

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It may surprise some, considering this high ERA and low strikeout rate compared to his career average, but Josh Johnson actually has the seventh highest WAR of any pitcher in baseball. Despite having a similar FIP and xFIP as he has over the past number of years, his ERA has ballooned to 4.27, which makes me see a great buy low opportunity in Johnson.

As mentioned, his strikeouts are down compared to his career average. His 20.1% strikeout rate is certainly low for a pitcher with the kind of stuff and history that Johnson has, as he has struck out 22.1% of batters for his career and 25% in his last season of 180 or more innings, but he has complimented his lower strikeout rate with a lower walk rate as well. With his fastball velocity down to 93 miles per hour from the 94.9 its as in 2009, he has had to alter the way he pitches. In his two previous 180+ inning seasons, his walk rate was lower than it is now, but his current 7% walk rate is lower than the 8% mark he has for his career. This has allowed him to net a 2.87 K/BB rate, slightly better than his career 2.76 ratio.

Where Johnson is getting killed is in his BABIP, which currently sits at .360. Although there must always be a disclaimer of potential scoring bias when looking at line drive rate, his line drive rate of 25.4% does correlate with a higher BABIP, but the substantial increase seems unwarranted.

Owners will notice that he has a 3.16 ERA over his past four starts, but that does not mean that he cannot be acquired for a discounted price. If a team is pitching deep and owns Johnson, they could be willing to move him for something else at this point, as his overall performance has not quite lived up to expectations — though he did get drafted at a discount due to his injury history.

The injury history is certainly always a worry with Johnson, but it is good to see him go through the first third of the season unscathed. He is on pace for 207 innings, which would mark only his second season above the 200 inning threshold. The opportunity for injury is always there, which could also be played into the equation when attempting to acquire him. Is he the most attractive target ever due to his recent success and his injury history? No, but he still has been a similarly productive pitcher as when he posted a 2.64 ERA in 453 innings between 2009 and 2011. The fact that he has more-or-less pitched just as effectively but seen poor results should help any pitching starved team looking to acquire a potential ace-type reliever at a lower cost than usual.

In the original ottoneu league, the weeks following the amateur draft tend to be among the most active. As contracts are signed, draftees become roster-eligible and teams – particularly those that are out of the running for this year – begin the process of stocking their farm system with newly minted millionaires.

This year, Carlos Correa was already auctioned in that league, going for an impressive $6. Not only that, but half the league bid on him and four of the bids were for $5 or $6. All for a 17-year-old. The kid has a ton of potential, and may very well be the second coming of Alex Rodriguez. But I didn’t enter a bid.

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•Texas Rangers reliever Robbie Ross doesn’t pitch in too many high leverage innings and isn’t close to being in line for any save opportunities, but after pitching four innings yesterday for win he is now 6-0 in 34.2 innings pitched this season with a shiny 1.30 ERA.  Ross’ 3.34 xFIP and 5.71 k/9 aren’t quite as jaw dropping but they aren’t particularly terrible either.  Roster space can be a very valuable thing and I wouldn’t recommend using a spot on a reliever who isn’t close to saving games and doesn’t have strikeout potential but if your league gives points for innings pitched, Ross could be a compelling add. He’s pitched the second most innings in the majors out of the bullpen this year and figures to continue that trend as we approach the Texas heat with a Rangers rotation battling with some injuries at the moment.

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It seems that the newest “Moneyball” craze in the majors this season is the defensive shift. Usually used only against left handed hitters, it is being implemented by more and more teams against more and more players. Today, I am going to look at the fantasy implications of the shift.

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Right along the fringe of most leagues, there’s a class of mostly-replaceable, mostly-interchangeable, mostly-lefty, definitely-still-useful platoon outfielders. If you only play them when they have the handedness advantage, and act cutthroat about them when you face a roster crunch, you can get the most out of them while reducing your risk. It’s a tried-and-true strategy in most head-to-head leagues on the pitching side, where streaming is ubiquitous. Maybe it makes sense to have a semi-streaming spot on your offense in your tighter, more active leagues — and if that’s the case, it probably makes sense for that player to be a first basemen or outfielder.

Here are some guys in the National League that fit the description of a fantasy-platoon outfielder. Either their complete offensive upside is only above replacement when they have the platoon advantage, or they legitimately seem to have a platoon situation going on. If there are so many of this type in one half of the league, maybe they truly are replaceable in your standard mixed league.

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