I’m just as guilty as anyone of feeling fed up with players, despite their pedigree. Today, I’ve got a little quick-hitter to try and provide some perspective on two well known players who are really scuffling right now. Both players could be nice little buy-low candidates, although players with name recognition always cost a little more it seems. But sometimes you have to roll the dice when you need lightning in a bottle in order to get back into contention, and that’s what these two have the potential to provide.

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There aren’t many reasons to watch the Seattle Mariners. For several years now there was a singular reason to do so and it had something to do with a guy who goes by “King.” But in 2013, there’s an encore for every Felix Hernandez gem and his name is Hisashi Iwakuma.

Seattle is the kind of media market that ensures players fly under the radar (see Martinez, Edgar). So there are probably plenty of you that look up from your spreadsheets and see a 7-1 record with a 1.79 ERA and 0.82 WHIP and wonder how you could have completely forgotten about this guy.

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Imagine the panic if Madison Bumgarner started the season with results from his last six starts. Bumgarner has twelve games started under his belt and over the last half of them, he has put up a 5.54 ERA, resulting in four losses. But these last six starts are kind of a case study in why people got sick of standard 5×5 leagues, because his results and how well he pitched aren’t really inextricable.

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Chances are many of you drafted Jonathan Lucroy to be your regular backstop this season. Chances are most of you don’t use him as your regular backstop anymore — and if you do, you probably don’t want to. The question, of course, is whether anyone should rely on him to contribute to their fantasy team from here on out because Lucroy kind of dangles in the purgatory as a guy people are loath to cut but nobody probably wants to trade for.

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Before the season started, the catcher consensus rankings put Victor Martinez sixth overall and one ranker had him as high as fourth. Now that we’re two months in, Victor Martinez ranks dead last if you’re looking at wins above replacement and if you throw away defensive adjustments, he’s probably second to last, thanks to Miguel Montero.

Martinez owns a career .300/.367/.463 line and as recently as 2011, he hit .330/.380/.470 with a dozen home runs and 103 RBI. As catchers go, this is pretty darn valuable. Coming off of knee surgery that caused him to miss all of 2012, he was looking like a relative bargain, even if he took a little time to re-adjust after all the time off. Well, the time to re-adjust has passed and after 180 plate appearances, we have a catcher-eligible bat who resembles nothing like the old Victor Martinez, with a .221/.278/.307 slash line and a pair of home runs. Is it time to cut bait for owners? Is it time to buy low for the vultures?

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Travis Wood has a 2.03 ERA and a 0.90 WHIP. He’s now thrown 53.1 innings and given up only 31 hits, striking out 36 opposing batters. Travis Wood will destroy all comers.

That’s probably what owners are telling you anyway.

You don’t have to dig too deep to notice that Wood’s FIP is 3.65 and xFIP is 4.46 (his career xFIP is 4.44). His strikeout rate and walk rates are lined up neatly with his career averages (and neither are very good), and he’s really living off that .186 BABIP and 83% strand rate. If you’re busy, there’s the end of the story, move on to another award winner by Jeff Sullivan.

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Cole Hamels has been among the finest starting pitchers going on six seasons now. In fantasy baseball terms, during that time span, Hamels has been a beast in most formats. He’s 7th overall in wins with 82, second in WHIP with a stingy 1.13, and 6th in strikeouts with well over 1100. And in the last two seasons, he’s seemingly taken his game to a new level, compiling 9 wins over replacement between 2011-2012. But so far this year, his results haven’t been what owners have been looking for. A 4.40 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, and a 7.49 K/9 rate are all well behind his career averages.

Is he hurt? Is he on the path to mediocrity? Did he fake his birth certificate?

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In an effort to help you sniff out third base options should you still be waiting for David Freese to find his contacts, Jeff Keppinger to draw a walk, or Placido Polanco to do… anything — I’ve got a few ideas for you. They may not be good ideas, but they are ideas nonetheless, and third base has kind of necessitated the use of hairbrained thinking.

You might have already noticed this because it happened weeks ago, but Jose Bautista has three appearances at third base. Eligibility rules vary, but in Yahoo and Ottoneu formats, he only needs three more starts to qualify at third. In ESPN, he will need seven additional appearances.

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“May Day” is actually an appropriate call for third base because, holy hell, it has been one trial after the last tribulation. Third base has been so tough to staff on some of you, the consideration of just going without has been more attractive than what’s available on the waiver wire. As far as putting this cast of misfits into tiers, I ought to just have Tier One and then “The Rest” as punishment to everyone outside of Detroit. There have been some pleasant surprises of course, so let’s get to it.

A quick note about this particular batch of tiers. In the past, I’ve always liked to temper the rapid movement up or down rankings in May, suggesting that the tiers should represent something akin to a “if the draft were held today…” line of thinking. But given the dearth of production from some players and the rampant injuries, I’d like to think these tiers are a happy median between on-field performance and what we should expect going forward. The stats after each player are the Steamer rest-of-season projections.

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In a response to my post on Jeff Keppinger on Wednesday, reader “binqasim” said, “I am considering playing without a 3B given my options.” While extreme, and perhaps not advisable, this just made me rather sad. This is, after all, supposed to be fun. This is fantasy baseball. When the third basemen of your universe have become so completely useless that you would rather just punt the position than see them drag your batting average down without contributing anything in the remaining counting stats, the fantasy gods weep for you. I weep for you. And so, if you’ve found yourself in a similar position of desperation, maybe one of the following players can pitch in.

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