You’re at the point where you need to start filling games played, you need warm bodies in your lineup to keep your head above water while you’re trying to stay in the hunt for whatever prize it is that your league has agreed upon. Third base has seen it’s share of ugliness recently. David Wright is out with injury. Pablo Sandoval is hurting and has a .291 slugging percentage over the last month. Evan Longoria is hitting .185 since July 1. Pedro Alvarez has a .250 on base percentage in his last 25 games. Of course, I’m not saying you should bench Longoria, but there are a variety of reasons why there are many of you out there looking for answers at the hot corner. And there might be a couple.

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Hey, sometimes you have to dig deep, right?

If you’re in a hole in innings pitched and/or you’re scrambling for wins any way you can find them, there are a couple names in Henderson Alvarez and Joe Saunders who are extremely likely to be available in your leagues. And as it happens, they’ve been pitching pretty decent. Should you take the risk?

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News today is that Cody Asche is being promoted from AAA Lehigh Valley and conventional wisdom says it’s not to be a bench bat, which means Michael Young is likely to be dealt before the trading deadline. If Asche does indeed find himself the starting third baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies, all formats take notice.

Asche was selected in the fourth round of the 2011 draft out of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln after hitting .327/.424/.639 with 12 home runs and 27 doubles in 208 at bats. In two and a half years in the minors, he’s amassed a career .287/.343/.438 line with his best year being 2013 at AAA where he hit .295/.352/.485, totaling 15 home runs, 24 doubles, and 11 stolen bases over 404 at bats.

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You remember Kris Medlen, don’t you? He of the 10-1 record last season with the ridiculous 1.57 ERA and 0.91 WHIP, world-beater Kris Medlen? You kind of have to squint, don’t you?

2013 hasn’t been nearly as kind (dare I say fortuitous) thus far. Medlen is still in the arena of respectability with a 3.78 ERA and a 1.38 WHIP, but his strikeout rate has fallen six percent to a ho-hum 17.1%, his walks are up, and in general, he’s been far easier to hit this year. What’s more, his last five starts have been just disastrous. Over his last 27.2 innings pitched, Medlen has posted a 6.51 ERA, 1.73 WHIP, with a strikeout rate of just 14.7%. His recent misfortune has resulted in whispers of moving back to the bullpen if/when Brandon Beachy returns from the disabled list (although this little conundrum might have been just solved by Eric Young). How has his star fallen so rapidly?

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Chase Headley and Lonnie Chisenhall have both failed to meet reasonable expectations this year. As recently as yesterday, they ranked 14th and 31st at third base on this very site. They started the season ranked 5th, and 21st, respectively. In just four short months, the fall has been precipitous.

Third base certainly still boasts its share of superstars, but if you have a few 12-team league teams, there’s no doubt one of them has caused you problems at the hot corner. There number of disappointing black holes have been abundant. But there are a couple players that have been showing signs of life lately that should register on your radar if you’re looking for help.

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I wasn’t a giant fan of Ian Kennedy coming into 2013. Kennedy the pitcher, that is, not the person — after all, he might be as charming as the Dos Equis guy for all I know. But Ian Kennedy kind of registered on my radar as a respectable fourth, maybe fifth starter in a pretty good rotation. He ought to give you a decent ERA, acceptable WHIP, and perhaps a strikeout rate that flirts with about 22%.

The allure of Kennedy’s 2011 season was what likely drove his ADP up into the 10th and 11th rounds, well before the likes of Mike Minor, Matt Harvey, Lance Lynn, and a host of other cherry-picked examples of pitchers who have been far more useful. Indeed, Kennedy’s 21-4 season in 2011 came with nearly 200 strikeouts, 2.88 ERA, and 1.09 WHIP. The predictors didn’t scream fluke, but perhaps the 3.22 FIP was a whisper that he was getting a touch lucky.

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So the arbitrary and altogether not true halfway point is upon us and this allows everyone time to reflect on their squads and your respective successes and failures. As I do so, I’m reminded of what seems like an annual realization: There’s quite a bit of talent that goes under-owned. I’ve often fantasized about being able to amass an all-waiver-wire team at the break to see how they would compete for the remainder of the season. So as we celebrate our All-Stars during this infuriating break, let us also recognize the unsung.

For simplicity, I’m just going to use Yahoo! ownership rates, and I’ll touch on the best available talent that is owned at a 50% or less clip.

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Third base hasn’t necessarily been a complete black hole, what with the arrivals of Manny Machado, Josh Donaldson, and a resurgent Pedro Alvarez. But it’s not a plentiful field from which to choose from either. There have been many managers scrambling for answers at third base since guys like Mike Moustakas, Chase Headley, Brett Lawrie and a cast of others left us out in third base purgatory.

One of those answers seemed to be waiver wire darling Luis Valbuena, who through April and May was hitting .264/.372/.464 with six home runs and 17 RBI. He was a player that seemed to have decent enough success at high levels of the minor leagues that he should be able to produce at the major league level, and it appeared that his potential had finally made the conversion. And then there was June.

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The only thing Jean Segura and Mike Moustakas have in common is that they’re both professional baseball players and they happen to be featured in the title of this post. Other than that, their on-field performances are in different area codes. Different time zones. Galaxies even.

Obviously, Segura has been holy hell awesome and Moustakas has been my God-awful. But we’re getting to a point in the season now where a couple weeks of trending in either direction can be masked pretty well by their current accumulation of at bats. Perhaps for good reason — it keeps the smaller sample monster at bay. Regardless, there are some recent developments with these two that merit attention.

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It’s fairly likely this isn’t your first spin with fantasy baseball, so you are no doubt familiar with the fact that things go wrong. Despite all your preparation, your undivided attention to the prognosticators and the projection sheets, sometimes the bell rings and one or two of your top picks turn into moldy wet blankets. One of your sleeper picks never wakes. A can’t-miss rookie never arrives.

It happens. It’s part of the game.

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