Sitting just 4.5 games out of first place in the NL West (6.5 out of the wild card), it was just a matter of time before the Arizona Diamondbacks did something to fill that gaping hole they’ve had a third base all season. They came into the year with high hopes that Ryan Roberts would be able to duplicate his breakout 2011 numbers. When he failed, they turned to the underwhelming Cody Ransom. When that didn’t work, they tried bringing up Josh Bell. Another bust. They ultimately went back to Roberts, but for just a short time as he was soon demoted and traded and the D-Backs went with minor leaguer Ryan Wheeler while they regrouped and plotted their next move. That moved showed up on Sunday when Arizona announced they had traded minor leaguers Bobby Borchering and Marc Krauss to the Astros for third baseman Chris Johnson. While the move gives the Diamondbacks and improved situation at the hot corner, it may not be so great for fantasy owners. Read the rest of this entry »

As you are no doubt aware, Francisco Liriano was shipped off to Chicago to don White Sox on Saturday. Yesterday, we looked at the trade from a real baseball perspective and today I analyze the fantasy version. Calling Liriano’s season a roller coaster ride might even understate how up and down he has been. On Saturday, I analyzed Zack Greinke’s move to Los Angeles and took various factors into account to try projecting his RoS ERA. Unfortunately, I’m not even going to bother with that for Liriano because I certainly don’t have a clue what kind of peripheral skills he will post. However, I will try to determine how the team switch will affect his value.

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Today’s Roto Riteup should help you figure out exactly what the hell happened over the weekend. You know, with trades and whatnot.

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• Ugly, ugly, ugly in Milwaukee. The combination of Francisco Rodriguez and John Axford gave up six runs between the eighth and ninth innings today (four hits, two walks, two wild pitches) to help Milwaukee blow a 5-2 lead against the Nationals. With K-Rod starting the eighth inning, signs pointed to Axford getting back into the saves mix after throwing five consecutive scoreless outings (5/2 K/BB over 5.1 innings) and he was called upon to attempt to bail out the visibly wild Rodriguez before allowing two of his inherited runners to score in addition to the three he let cross the plate in the ninth. Axford’s 3.14 xFIP paints the picture of a guy unlucky enough to have an unfathomably high 20.0 HR/FB%; although Brewers fans probably take little solace in those results. That said, his FIP (which doesn’t normalize the home run rate, so he’s penalized for all seven dingers he’s given up this season) is still 4.14, a full run lower than his 5.11 ERA. In fact, even with today’s outing, Axford still owns the lowest xFIP on the Brew Crew. Even with that knowledge, Ron Roenicke was pushing a committee as recently as a few days ago, so given today’s events, Kameron Loe (3.60 xFIP, 3.10 over the last thirty days) might be in the running to pitch the ninth while Axford and Rodriguez lick their wounds.

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So the A’s are only 3.5 games behind the Rangers as of this morning. I don’t really know what else to say here. You know, other than the fact that my mind is blown. Here is some less mind blowing baseball news for today’s Roto Riteup.

• Yesterday’s game was Jemile Weeks‘ first three hit game since last September. He even stole the his 14 bag of the year. He has a double digit walk rate but his .252 BABIP is still in the toilet. His 88.6% contact rate is well above the 79.9% average and his 4.3 SwStr% is half of the 8.9% average. His GB% is up from last year, but one would imagine that his type of speed, more grounders would be a good thing. To my highly unprofessional eye, despite making contact at an excellent rate, it is generally weak contact. Soft grounders turn into ground ball outs and although it is a combination of things, he has already grounded into more double plays this year than last year, in fewer plate appearances too. Given his pedigree and minor league history, he seems like too good of a hitter to make this weak of contact for much longer. I don’t know if I would add him in shallow leagues just yet, but I would keep a close eye on him. He is owned in 32% of Yahoo! and not even 30% of ESPN leagues. For what its worth, I’d take the over on his rest-of-season ZiPS line.
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So Zack Greinke has returned to the American League and that is typically a bad move from a fantasy perspective. Obviously, if you’re in an AL-Only league, you’ll be bidding on him no matter what, but still must decide exactly how much of your FAAB to use. Mixed league owners are now no doubt wondering how this affects his value. Let us examine the various factors at play here, between the league switch, team switch and park switch.

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I’m torn. Today is Saturday, and thus the weekend, but it is also the last weekend in July. Where did the summer go? Seasons come and go, but don’t worry, the Roto Riteup isn’t going anywhere!

• The Zack Greinke trade has been covered by our own Marc Hulet and Matt Klaassen already, and will be followed up from a fantasy perspective a little bit later today. The deal itself sent Greinke to the Los Angeles Angels in exchange for Jean Segura, Ariel Pena and John Hellweg. Both Pena and Hellweg can strike batters out, but issues with control seem to be seriously hampering their route to the majors. Segura is really the class of this trade, and is the only one with fantasy implications.
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• Whoa. Did Jim Johnson have a major meltdown or what? Tasked with closing out a 9-8 win at home versus the Athletics, he was rocked for six runs on five hits and a walk. Over his last eight appearences, he’s thrown 6.1 innings with a 2/2 K/BB — good for an 18.47 ERA (pushing his season mark up to 3.71 after it was as low as 0.78 last month). Johnson’s smoke and mirrors act has been mentioned in this column before, but it bears repeating that his K% is only 14.0% and his SwStr% is 6.1%, both well below league-average for late-inning relievers. Johnson’s regression has brought his ERA back in line with his xFIP (3.80) and he figures to pitch to that number going forward (not as good as he was early in the season and not as bad as the last couple weeks). He’s unlikely to be in any imminent danger of losing his job, but Pedro Strop racked up a couple saves earlier this season (and he sports the 1.40 ERA, even though his 3.80 xFIP is identical to Johnson’s) so he’s no stranger to the ninth inning at Camden. Hopefully owners were able to sell him as a top-10 closer when he was way up fantasy leaderboards in May and June.

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This week’s two-start availables include an upstart rookie, a grizzled lefty, and a winless righty with considerable potential. Read the rest of this entry »