Wednesday is known hump day, so to help get you over the hump is a weekly update on the goings on of the American League outfield. Every Wednesday some attention will be brought to players with rising or falling stock in the American League outfield, with the exception of the first Wednesday of each month where a full tiered rankings update will take place.
Bullish:
Chris Davis
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As usual, the primary waiver focus leans towards pitching with calamitous bullpens and hot young arms taking center stage. But what if your pitching isn’t the problem? Let’s say you’re flush with quality starters and secure closers and you don’t want to spend the bulk of your FAAB budget on Tony Cingrani or Edward Mujica. What about adding a little offense to secure your future? Leagues with short benches make it tough to stock a few good bats as most people tend to use their bench for starting streamers, but deeper leagues with more abundant bench spots allow you to do both. So here are a couple of guys who might be helpful adds as part-time injury fill-ins who could blossom into full-time fantasy stars. Read the rest of this entry »
One of my favorite things to do during the first couple months of the season is to scour other rosters and/or the wire for guys that are performing poorly fantasy-wise but have more projectable underlying peripherals. This happens with hitters (see Jason Heyward and his 0.091 BABIP this year) but I feel pitchers are a better target. It’s tougher to “see” a pitcher’s luck. You can watch a guy smash liner after liner to the left fielder, but even when a starter gives up five bloops over short, he gets tagged as “hit around.” So, while very early on, here are the top three big league starters sorted by ERA-FIP (as of last night). These guys have ugly, ugly raw lines after three starts but, hey, there’s reason for hope.
It’s hard to remember Trevor Cahill is only 25 years old. After starting 32 games as a 21-year-old, Cahill established himself as a useful major-league starter. Like most 21-year-olds, he was hardly a finished product. Over the last four seasons, Cahill has steadily improved his game, the way most prospects his age might improve in the minors. But because Cahill has done it at the major-league level, he almost seems like a disappointment. That’s not the case, as Cahill has blossomed into an above-average starter. One of the biggest reasons for Cahill’s emergence has been his increasing strikeout rate. Last season, the development of a cutter helped Cahill strike out more hitters, leading to a career-high 3.0 WAR season. If his first three starts this year are any indication, Cahill’s cutter is going to be even more of a weapon this season.
It’s true, it’s true. Wednesdays aren’t usually filled with excitement. But wait! It’s deep league waiver wire day and I am positive you have been waiting for this week’s edition since the second you finished reading last week’s. Today I look at two National Leaguers who may be able to help you in a deep mixed or NL-Only league, though they are both likely already owned in your standard NL-Only.
Roto Riteup is a full sponsor of hump day and its related activities.
On today’s agenda, a bevy of injury related transactions:
1. Brett Lawrie back to the bigs
2. Aaron Hill hurts himself
3. Michael Bourn lands on DL
• Suffering through a hamstring injury, the Red Sox placed closer Joel Hanrahan on the Disabled List today. As we have said, expect Andrew Bailey to continue to replace Hanrahan in the closer’s role. While there is no timetable on Hanrahan’s return, it doesn’t figure to be too bad of an injury. However, considering how poor Hanrahan was pitching this season, he won’t be given such a long leash upon his return. Andrew Bailey should be owned in all leagues and while Hanrahan is out, teams desperate for saves or interested in helping their ratios can take a flier on Koji Uehara.
Justin Maxwell (ESPN: 37 percent owned; Yahoo!: 14 percent owned)
If Justin Maxwell were a pitcher instead of an outfielder, his career may have ended before it even really started. While rehabbing in the minors after undergoing Tommy John surgery after the 2010 season, the former 4th round pick torn his labrum diving for a ball in the outfield. It’s a tough enough pair of injuries for a position player to work though, but for a young pitcher, it would have been a far more difficult road back to the majors. Read the rest of this entry »
Sorry for the one day delay. I had some html issues which caused the injury status links to be broken. I have gone to new format which will hopefully solve the issue, but I took me a while to find a solution.
Also, I will be changing the format a bit. I am wanting to do more in-depth looks at players returning and players possibly headed to the disabled list. More on the changes in the next report.
Recent injury data
• Zack Greinke broke his collarbone in a fight and reports have him returning in a couple of months. I looked through my injury database going back to 2002 and I could only find one instance of a broken collarbone for a reference and it was Clint Barnes in 2005. Clint broke it while carrying a deer up his stairs. Broken collarbone = good story.
Being that we’ve only completed about two weeks of the regular season, I like to preach patience above everything else when it comes to your fantasy team. Obviously there are some cases where waiver moves are a necessity, but when it comes to your struggling stars, patience is the key. Small sample sizes, law of averages, however you want to put it; so little time has passed with so much more to go and sometimes you just have to endure a couple of bad weeks to reap the quality benefits down the road. But not everyone subscribes to that theory and there are owners out there who are pained at the sight of their team near the bottom of the standings right now and have very itchy trigger fingers. If you are in need of help at the hot corner and you have one of those panicky owners sitting on Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas, now might be the time to pounce.