While Buster Posey’s .424 average after the All Star break is unbelievably impressive and Joe Mauer’s return from injury oblivion will certainly warrant consideration for AL Comeback Player of the Year, the biggest story coming from behind the dish this season has to be A.J. Pierzynski’s career year.  At the ripe old age of 35, the 15-year veteran is enjoying his finest season as a major leaguer and is boosting fantasy teams everywhere with some very unexpected numbers.  And given his preseason ADP, there’s no question that he is providing one of the biggest return values at the catcher position. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a whole new twist on ottoneu Hot Right Now! In the past, we’ve looked at the most-auctioned players out there, but right now, you have all decided to take it easy for a few days and the auctions are few and far between. Instead, using the sortable fantasy leader boards, we’ll look at two of the hottest players in the last 30 days.

Since July 20, Jake Westbrook has been the 20th most valuable pitcher in ottoneu points leagues, piling up 196 points in 41.1 IP. Over the same time frame, Ryan Ludwick has been even better, slotting in second among batters, with 260 points. And yet neither is owned in more than 2/3rds of ottoneu leagues.

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It took me two hours to write today’s Roto Riteup, but that’s because I kept getting sidetracked by pictures of cute kittens. True story.

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•  Rafael Soriano pitched a scoreless inning in last night’s game against the Red Sox for his 31st save of the year. Soriano’s xFIP is a solid but unspectacular 3.63 due to his minuscule HR/FB ratio (2.0%),  but his 2.36 FIP illustrates that he’s still been having a solid season thus far and should continue to rack up saves pitching for the Yankees even though his ERA will creep up from its current 1.64.

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Last night, Jeremy Guthrie flirted with a no-hitter for 7 innings until he gave up a infield single to “speedy” Paul Korerko. Besides flirting with a no-hitter, he had gone 22 straight innings without giving up a run which ended a few batters later. This performance was from a pitcher who was traded away basically as a salary dump. Are there any signs that can lead a fantasy owner to believe that Guthrie has changed in his approach over the last month and the improvement can continue?

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Let’s say that despite some evidence that Yu Darvish is being squeezed at the plate, you don’t have much hope for him to improve his control over the last six weeks of the season. That’s okay — at this point, we’re in the crucible. If you still have some time left before your deadline, it might be time to check the schedule closely. It might just change your mind about him.

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Monday is the first day of the work week, and while we all have our jobs to take care of, more importantly, we have fantasy baseball to discuss! It’s what the player has done for the entirety of the season, his past recent performance and then what I personally think each player will do (or is most likely to do) for the remainder of the season.

Bullish:
Adrian Gonzalez – I don’t much care for first and second half splits, but this season has been pretty wild for him. After hitting just two home runs each in April, May and June, many owners began to panic and trade A-Gon. If you were smart enough to hang on to him, you’ve been handsomely rewarded in the second half of the season. He picked up his power stroke a bit by hitting four dingers in July and already had four halfway through August. His month-by-month fantasy numbers have seen a massive uptick as well. The table below spells it out much clearer than my words ever could.

*August is of course still not finished yet. The rate stats will float and the counting stats should increase.
Other than stolen bases (which no one drafted him for anyways), Gonzalez has been doing it all for the past month and a half. Kudos to those of you who either didn’t sell low or managed to trade for him on the cheap. This is the Gonzalez that a lot of imagined when envisioning him in Fenway.

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The fantasy season is starting to reach crunch time, so let’s begin the week with two players who have recently taken on more prominent roles…

David Murphy | OF | Rangers | Owned: 12% Yahoo! and 13.3% ESPN

From 2008-2011, his first four full seasons as a big leaguer, the 30-year-old Murphy posted a 115 wRC+ against right-handed pitchers with a 62 mark against southpaws. His split this year is 129/145 thanks to some serious BABIP (.529) love in a very small sample (53 PA) against left-handers. It’s not the most sustainable performance, as you can tell.

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The surging Oakland Athletics are about to receive a big boost. Brett Anderson’s rehab assignment comes to an end on Monday, and he’s expected to rejoin the team. Anderson has shown a lot of promise throughout his career, and was a popular fantasy sleeper when he was healthy. With Anderson coming back just in time for the fantasy playoffs, he’s probably going to be a popular free-agent pickup in many leagues. But it’s unclear how much of an impact he’ll make immediately.

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With a little over a month left of the season, BABIP marks shouldn’t change too significantly through the remainder. The five hitters with the highest BABIPs could potentially be overvalued in fantasy leagues next year as a decline could trigger a drop in batting average. Let’s see if that may be the case.

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