Adam Wainwright’s last start was a match up with an historically bad offense and it was such a no brainer that he was my starting pitcher pick in “The Game” here on Fangraphs. Seven runs and 11 hits over five innings pitched versus the Pittsburgh Pirates later, I felt rather duped. And yet, I’m still bullish on Adam Wainwright.

Here’s what I know. Between 2007 and 2008, Adam Wainwright was a very good starting pitcher. Between 2009 and 2010, he was great. You wanted Adam Wainwright on your fantasy team, and you wanted him badly. I just know it.

And then we know about elbow surgery.

But despite it being a particularly damning diagnosis in the short term, Tommy John surgery isn’t quite as terrifying as it used to be since we’ve seen so many pitchers return to have successful post-surgery careers. Often times, we see pitchers simply scraping off the rust after spending the better part of a year recovering and rehabbing and not throwing baseballs. But their skills often return.

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Ben Zobrist had perhaps one of the more bizarre starts to the 2012 season. He staggered out of the gate carrying a .205 batting average in April, but walked at almost a 20% rate, giving him a .364 on base percentage. It was easy enough to chalk the batting average up to rotten luck and small sample size.

Then he spent May hitting .202/.321/.372. Concerns about the 2010 laid egg started to abound, and for good reason.

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The Washington Nationals have been on a roll, and at 38-27, they stand atop the National League East by three games. They’ve done it largely on the backs of their starting rotation, who own the best ERA and FIP in baseball at 2.97 and 3.16, respectively. Because of their success, a certain star third baseman has been able to rather quietly attempt to work through his struggles.

But at some point in the season, the Washington Nationals are going to very much need Ryan Zimmerman to start resembling any close approximation to his former self if they’re going to be serious about winning their division. And right now, Zimmerman looks absolutely lost at the plate.

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So he’s a third baseman who doesn’t wear a cup, he can deliver unmatched death stares to teammates, he’ll freak out if you touch his head, he likes to appeal his own check swings to the first base umpire, and he frequently drops to one knee when crushing a pitch. For these and for many other reasons, Adrian Beltre is just a lot of fun to root for.

On top of it all, he’s been a terrific third baseman in fantasy baseball circles as a player you can rely on for a plus batting average, great power, and tons of RBI. But there’s been an interesting trend in 2012 that might be a short-term quirk, or perhaps a sign of a problem going forward.

Beltre owns a current slash line of .296/.325/.483 with ten home runs, 30 runs scored, and 37 RBI, so he’s performed as most would have expected on the season. But his last couple of weeks haven’t been at all useful to fantasy owners. Since May 28th, Beltre his hitting .233/.292/.283 with no home runs and just three doubles over 65 plate appearances, and he’s struck out 16 times. His BABIP during that period is fully .318, so he’s actually getting lucky bounces right now. This is, of course, a small sample and it’s likely to register on the spectrum of what goes up must come down. Still, there are a couple of other interesting tidbits to be aware of.

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Third base has been a real test to the adage that baseball is a marathon, not a sprint. Sticking with players through their slow starts or long stretches of vacant counting stats has no doubt tested many of you, not to mention having to plug holes when injuries arise. Keeping a pulse on third base trends, there’s a decent waiver wire pickup, an annual early June buy low candidate.

Trevor Plouffe

In fanatasy baseball circles, it’s likely that Trevor Plouffe has more value as a shortstop (among the multitude of positions he’s eligible at) but up until a few weeks ago, he hardly had any value whatsoever. From April 6th to May 18th, Plouffe was “hitting” .135/.264/.284 with three home runs and a pair of doubles and if not for his positional versatility, he probably would have been sent back down to the minors.

Since May 19th, however, he’s caught fire — batting .327/.351/.727 with six home runs, four doubles, 11 RBI in 57 plate appearances  His overall line stands at a not-so-awe-inspiring .217/.299/.473 but it’s worth pointing out that his BABIP is only .207 on the season. During the stretch from May 19th, it was a little more league-average at .308 and he consequently posted terrific numbers. Based on his hit trajectory, his expected BABIP is about .270 on the season in large part due to an elevated fly ball rate, but while that’s perhaps not ideal, it’s certainly not .207 bad.

Note: After Tuesday night, Plouffe’s line since May 19th is now .350/.371/.783.

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We’re about a third of the way through the season, and while the proverbial gloves aren’t going to come off, I think I’ll stop coddling some and for others, I’ll be giving credit where credit is due. I wouldn’t say this is a “if the draft were held today” kind of list, but perhaps some amalgam of ranking based on current performance and anticipated performance for the rest of the season. I’ll do my best to tease out a rationale for the higher tiers.

The top tier of third basemen has historically been quite small, in large part due to the dearth of real superstars at the position. But since Jose Bautista has been acting like he might actually be mortal, it’s left room for some others to join him at the top.

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We all know there’s the absurdly tall Chris Young, the talented pitcher who refuses to stay healthy and then there’s also the absurdly athletic Chris Young who patrols center field in Arizona and has a penchant for the swing-and-miss.

But this post isn’t some kind of wacky odd-couple attempt at finding commonalities between the respective ballplayers, it’s about the outfielder Chris Young and the unexpected and rather peculiar trends in looking at his results so far in 2012.

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The Colorado Rockies’ record stands at 21-29. They are 11 games back of the division leading Los Angeles Dodgers. They’ve just put their star Troy Tulowitzki on the disabled list and recently designated for assignment the warm-the-cockles-of-your-heart story, Jamie Moyer. The latter move is ostensibly to to keep space available for Christian Friedrich or Drew Pomeranz when Jorge de la Rosa ultimately returns.

The Rockies would need to go 69-43 for the remainder of the season, a .620 winning percentage, in order to get to 90 wins. 65-47 for 86 wins, if you think that would do the trick for the second wild card, which would mean a .580 win percentage from here on out. Neither are particularly likely.

So the move towards youth might be on (or on the close horizon) and the next logical place to look for the Rockies has to be third base.

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Third base has been challenging enough this season with injuries and ineffectiveness, so I find it extra-super-duper important to try and keep my thumb on the pulse of trends at the position. And despite the fact that we’re finally starting to pull out of that terrifying black abyss of the small sample size chasm, I frequently check the last couple weeks for trends in production. And trends there are (stats current as of Thursday evening).

After starting the season going .329/.387/.576 with six home runs and 24 RBI, David Freese has felt the cold snap of BABIP-reality. His BABIP during that stretch was darn near .400 and while we may all want to hug and cuddle the 2011 World Series darling, it just couldn’t last. Well, the lights flashed about two weeks ago and the bar is about closed. Since May 4th, Freese has hit .155/.219/.310 with a BABIP of .171. That has brought his overall BABIP down to a tidy .300, and we suddenly have something that looks a little more like what we expected from Freese at .265/.323/.490. His power numbers still look pretty good of course, but his strikeouts are up and his 24.3% HR/FB rate isn’t likely to stick. So if you own him it’s time to decide whether you might want to shop him while he’s still got that new car smell or if you’re comfortable with the David Freese that we saw last year for the rest of the season. He’s still likely going to have a career year in terms of overall counting stats, but then again he’s never played in more than 97 games in a season.

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Although it feels like every other week we lose another established arm to testy ligaments (or well trained ligament surgeons), it has the alternative effect of making you dig a little deeper for starters who are not only worthy of a roster spot, but ones that ought to be actual contributors. It’s the proverbial silver lining – you may experience a catastrophe, but you might discover a hidden gem in the process.

Lose a Cory Luebke? A Neftali Feliz? There are solutions.

Justin Masterson was bombed by the Seattle Mariners in his third start of the year and he almost immediately started hitting waiver wires across the contiguous fantasy landscape. Being blasted by a team that has set historic marks for offensive ineptitude is just difficult to stomach after all.

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