Adeiny Hechavarria has a problem.

He can’t steal bases. He’s been caught nine times in just 20 tries this season, a terrible success rate well below what any team, even an offensively inept team like the Miami Marlins, would consider their “break-even” success rate.

In the minors, Hechavarria stole 42 bases and was caught 23 times, a rate that’s a bit better but still largely unimpressive. If there was hope that 2013 might be an anomaly, his 2011 minor league season likely kills that hope, as he went 20-for-37 across three levels.

Hechavarria can’t steal, and it’s basically kept him from having any fantasy potential.

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When we broke down the Padres’ outfield in this space just two weeks ago, it was in response to a recent callup — Jaff Decker — and yet we found that that the outfield was mostly set in the present and the future. And so Jaff Decker hasn’t played like a regular (31 plate appearances over 11 team games), and hasn’t made much of an impact. There are many reasons to be a little bit more optimistic about this week’s callup.

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This is now two seasons of Kyle Seager we have under our belts and the two seasons look very similar with modest improvements in some key areas, which has pushed Seager from being a slightly above average major league hitter to a very solid fantasy player.
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There’s a difference between a sample and a trend. While we don’t want to tread too deeply into the world of small samples, looking at a team’s recent performance can be another one of those small nudges in one direction (or another) when lining up your daily squad.

FanGraphs has a split filter that you can use to examine how a team has fared in the past seven, 14, or 30 days, and I like to occasionally use this as a judgement on a team’s overall offensive production, especially when choosing an opposing starting pitcher. Then, when examining these splits, I tend to look at things like slugging numbers, or simply wOBA / wRC+ to see if a team has been on a good offensive run or a bad one, especially compared to the team’s overall season numbers.

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As David Wiers mentioned about a week ago, Albert Pujols is done for the year, and his value in 2014 will likely be all over the board. In re-draft leagues, you have the pleasure of writing Pujols off for the next couple months and not thinking about him again until pre-season rankings come out.

However, dynasty leagues such as ottoneu will require a different look at the ailing (and maybe aging?) first basemen. In some leagues, Pujols has been (or will be) cut, while in others owners are trying to decide what to do. The big question is, “Have we seen the last of MVP Albert Pujols, or is there reason to expect a bounce back next season?”

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Yesterday I discussed the five hitters whose isolated slugging percentage (ISO) has declined the most compared with last year. So today, of course, I’ll check in on the hitters who have enjoyed a surge. Unfortunately, it comes without a super clever title. But, I promise you the analysis remains top notch :-). And yes, that may have been the first smiley ever inserted into a FanGraphs article. I try to start trends, what can I say. I limited my comparisons to those hitters who are “qualified” this year and also accumulated 400 plate appearances last year.

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Today’s Roto Riteup is drenched in sweat and erect in anticipation.

On today’s agenda:
1. Matt Harvey’s UCL is torn, may need TJ
2. Aaron Harang DFA’d
3. Bartolo Colon may be back on Thursday

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• Casey Janssen nailed down his 24th save tonight against the Yankees. Sergio Santos was only brought in for one out but he did the job, striking out Alex Rodriguez for his third hold of the year. Janssen’s job isn’t in danger but Santos is pitching pretty well since coming back from injury (3.10 SIERA) and should be first in line if anything were to happen to Janssen. In the meantime, holds or saves+ holds leagues should take note as Santos remains a solid option in that category, particularly in any AL-Only leagues.

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Well, after a couple weeks of talking about having a mid-season PAIN metric, I finally got around to coding one up. Besides mid-season PAIN, I have a quick look at Halladay, Buchholz and a handful of others.

• Clay Buchholz was averaging over 92 mph on his fastball before going on the DL. In his first rehab game, he was in the upper 80’s (source).

Red Sox manager John Farrell said. “His velocity was in the upper 80s. He came out of it physically fine, which is the biggest thing. We’ll have a chance to discuss where and when his next outing will be, probably tomorrow.” 

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With the Phillies in need of a starter in wake of Saturday’s 18 inning affair against the Diamondbacks, the team turned to Roy Halladay. The former Cy Young Award winner was supposed to start in Double-A on Sunday in a more traditional rehab appearance, but the Phillies were desperate and moved up Halladay’s timetable by a week or two.

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