Alfonso Soriano (ESPN: 32 percent owned; Yahoo!: 29 percent owned)

Let’s make one thing clear: Alfonso Soriano isn’t a very good baseball player anymore. However, the things that make him ungood don’t so much translate to fantasy; he’s the perfect example of a player who gets undervalued in fantasy because he’s so disliked in real life. He does strike out a lot, that is true, his defense is bad and his contract is even worse, but he hasn’t hit fewer than 20 home runs since 2001. Read the rest of this entry »

Adam Wainwright

The Cardinals’ success without Adam Wainwright last season was a minor miracle. Chris Carpenter had a fantastic season at the top of the rotation and Jaime Garcia and Kyle Lohse did enough in the middle to make up for the fact that they struggled to find a capable back end of the rotation until the trade deadline acquisition of Edwin Jackson.

So far this season, Jackson is gone, Carpenter has yet to make his debut, and Wainwright isn’t exactly leading the team into the fields of glory. Lance Lynn has been a pleasant surprise and Jake Westbrook has already nearly equaled his 2011 WAR total, but it’s hard to blame Cardinal fans — to say nothing of fantasy owners — for wondering just when the pre-surgery Wainwright will show up. Read the rest of this entry »

Catcher started out as a deeper position this year than it has been in years past, but the injuries seem to be mounting up behind the plate more quickly than at almost any other position — pitchers notwithstanding since there are about as many of them as there are position players even before articulation is taken into account. This month alone Miguel Olivo, Josh Thole, Chris Iannetta, Wilson Ramos, and most recently Sandy Leon have all been placed on the disabled list, leaving owners looking for a replacement.

To that end, here is a pair of catchers who are getting enough playing time to be considered plug-and-play and producing enough to be worth rostering. Read the rest of this entry »

If the vast majority of the baseball world lost track of Chris Capuano somewhere around 2009, I can’t really blame them. Capuano had one really good season in 2006 that was flanked by two middling seasons in 2005 and 2007, and then succumbed to such a rash of arm injuries that I have to wonder if they considered amputating it to save him the trouble. Undeterred — and with his arm still attached to his person — Capuano made his triumphant return in 2010 with the Brewers, but only made nine starts and didn’t look particularly compelling doing it.

His change of scenery to New York in 2011 saw him make 30 or more starts for the first time since 2006, and while his numbers weren’t fantastic, they did portend some of the success he has had this year with the Dodgers. He posted a K% over 20 percent for the first time since 2004 and the first time ever in a season where he made more than 20 starts, something that has carried over into this season, as Capuano is striking out nearly a batter an inning so far this year. Read the rest of this entry »

30-odd games into the season, one of the biggest positive surprises has been the play of the Houston Astros. Baseball’s absolute doormat last year rebuilt their front office, adding a slew of really smart people, but expectations were low, since as smart as their director of decision sciences is, he isn’t hitting cleaning.

Two of the Astros’ best producers right now are widely available in most circumstances, and while the fantasy world has gotten wise to Jose Altuve, there is still some value to be had in Houston. Read the rest of this entry »

For the vast majority of fantasy leagues, outs are outs no matter how they come. For the leagues that do count strikeouts as a hitting category, the follow pair of players probably isn’t a good option as both of them see a third strike with great frequency.

Jason Kubel (ESPN: 89 percent owned; Yahoo!: 48 percent owned)

The first week or so of the season was unkind to Kubel as he was breaking in his new home in Arizona. He struck out in almost a third of his plate appearances over the first eight games of the season, which would be fine if he also walked in a third and hit home runs in the remaining third, but alas, he did not. Instead, he generally made a mess of things en route to a .200/.310/.240 start. During the 10 game hitting streak that follow his slow start, Kubel hit .421/.476/.737 with three home runs, and now has his overall line up to a far more respectable .338/.400/.532. Read the rest of this entry »

Most pitchers have four or five starts under their belt now that we’re a month into the season, and while that’s enough to start seeing some trends, it’s also few enough that there is still some…fuzziness. I don’t expect Madison Bumgarner and Roy Halladay to finish the season with strikeout rates below 7, for example, and on the other end of the spectrum, I’m not quite buying R.A. Dickey has generating the strikeouts at the same rate as Clayton Kershaw over the course of a full season. That all said, not all is smoke and mirrors, and finding those players now instead of a month from now could be the difference between surviving a midseason swoon and languishing at the bottom of the league. Read the rest of this entry »

Allen Craig (ESPN: 17 percent owned; Yahoo!: 26 percent owned)

After undergoing offseason knee surgery, Craig, who hit .263/.417/.737 in the World Series, is finally ready to return to the Cardinals’ lineup. He’s expected to be activated off the disabled list sometime Tuesday, provided he felt no pain following his 3-for-4 performance that included a pair of home runs on Monday night for Triple-A Memphis. Craig was a waiver wire wonder last year, that is, when he was on the field. He started more than 10 games in a month just once in 2011, that coming when he started 17 games in May. His knee is responsible for most of his missed time, so in theory that should be cleared up now that he has had surgery to repair the damage.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bryan LaHair (ESPN: 32 percent owned; Yahoo!: 41 percent owned)

In many ways, LaHair’s start is what I expected from him. He’s not leading the league in home runs — hat tip to you, Matt Kemp, and your home run every 8 PAs — but he’s in the pack tied for sixth in the NL after jacks in back-to-back games against St. Louis. He’s also striking out a fair amount, which should come as no surprise for a young player whose ability to stay in the majors is directly related to his power. His 33 percent strikeout rate ranks him fifth in the NL, which isn’t great, but in most leagues it’s really neither here nor there, since outs are outs when strikeouts aren’t a hitting category. Read the rest of this entry »

Edwin Jackson

It’s way too early for “I told you so” except, of course, in situations that have already come to their conclusion. Three starts aren’t enough to make concrete judgments from, but after talking him up this offseason, I do like what I’ve seen of Edwin Jackson so far. Last Thursday’s outing against the Astros was abnormally rocky — I somehow doubt that giving up multiple triples in one inning is going to become a habit for Jackson — but even amidst a tough outing, there were some good signs. Read the rest of this entry »