Author Archive

Updated Third Base Rankings for July

There’s a new development at third base as we head into the All-Star Break: optimism. Third base surely isn’t considered a deep position but there have been some recent performances that make third base not such a hold-your-nose proposition as it used to be. We have had several third basemen come off the disabled list recently as well as a number of guys sustaining performance that smelled a little fishy just a month ago. On to the rankings!

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Waiver Wire: Ben Revere and Chris Johnson

As our own Zach Sanders astutely pointed out recently, the current state of the waiver wire, relative to quality hitting, is pretty grievous. Indeed, I find myself playing far more platoons with my offense and frequently scouring the rough in desperate search of that proverbial diamond. With this in mind, I wanted to highlight a couple players readily available in most standard formats that might be able to help your squad out: Ben Revere and Chris Johnson.

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Risers at Third Base: Michael Cuddyer, Mark Reynolds, Scott Sizemore

There are a few hot hands at the hot corner worth mentioning, and for anyone without a dead team, you know that third base hasn’t exactly been the deepest position in 2011. I’m not going to take a stab at what these gentlemen may produce from here on out, leaving that to the rest-of-the-season-machines, but I wanted to shed light on a few emerging developments over at the five.

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Bullish on Aramis Ramirez

As part of our current pro/con series, Chris gave you an assessment of Aramis Ramirez that would probably have grandma Ramirez shaking her cane at the computer. Indeed, Ramirez hasn’t wowed the Chicago faithful with a bevvy of beer-splashing bleacher blasts and in general his triple-slash line of .278/.329/.401 inspires more yawning than CSPAN. However, I believe there are better days ahead for Ramirez, and not only should owners sit tight in anticipation of better production, but you just might attempt to wriggle him from an unsuspecting owner who perhaps still believes that batting average rules.

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Bullish on Carlos Santana

Just moments ago, Howard put on his eviscerating goggles and made his best stab at informing us why we should all be disappointed in Carlos Santana this season. I understand this perspective, I really do. A cursory glance at his counting stats doesn’t conjure up images of Mike Piazza nor do they inspire much confidence in Santana going forward. But I think the genesis of the grousing about Santana is wrapped up in expectations of what kind of player people thought he would be rather than the one that he ought to be.

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Recent Developments at Third Base: Moustakas, Prado, Freese, Figgins

With prospect call-ups and guys going on and coming off the disabled list, things are moving a little faster than usual with respect to third base. Considering the relative dearth of quality options at third thus far into the season (I still believe in a town called Hope, as slick Willy used to say), I thought I’d condense some of the news and also take a quick peek at opportunities in position eligibility.

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Juggling at Third: Chase Headley, Ty Wigginton, Greg Dobbs

Third Base has been a scramble for most owners this season. The position has been riddled with injury and ineffectiveness all season long and it has sent many owners to their respective waiver wires for help. Below I’d like to quickly highlight some guys who have returned from fantasy irrelevancy in part because of their recent production and in part because of just how God-awful the position has been thus far. In deeper leagues, they’re probably already on a roster, but their ownership rates right now suggest that there are plenty of teams that might need their services.

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2011 Third Base Rankings: June

There has been a lot of shared pain at third base this season. We’re to a point where manning third base is like trying to find a reliable bat for the extra middle infielder slot: there are only a handful available and those who have, hold tight. There were several players many owners were relying on to emerge as useful fantasy regulars, and while the majority of those names haven’t lived up to expectations, there have been a couple guys contributing in surprising ways to help fill injury or ineptitude gaps.

When updating rankings back in May, my general feeling was that we ought not be too quick to throw players under the proverbial bus or to crown new kings after 100 at bats. But today, the gloves come off so to speak as there are some major moves up and down the third base tiers a third of the way through the season.

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What To Do With Shin-Soo Choo?

On the morning of May 2nd, a fairly toasted Shin-Soo Choo flagged down a police cruiser and asked for directions home. As you know, the rest of his night went downhill from there, and for fantasy owners, the rest of his production has been pretty much downhill from there too.

While Choo isn’t the flashiest of players and he won’t single handedly carry you in a particular category, I wouldn’t blame owners if they figured they could pencil in a .300 batting average, 20 home runs, 20 steals, and 90 RBI on draft day and move on. But since the beginning of May, Choo has batted .236/.325/.361 with one home run and has struck out 29.2% of the time. Whether or not that incident has been the catalyst for such a slide, I don’t know, but Choo either presents a quandary for owners or a potential opportunity for trade mavens, so let’s dig in and see if we can’t unearth the cause.

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Dan Haren Likes American League Hitters

When Dan Haren was traded to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, many referenced the handy research from the Hardball Times which presented us with some data on the statistical effect of switching leagues if you’re a pitcher. In general, the move from the NL to the AL for a pitcher was expected to have a slight negative effect almost across the board including a deleterious effect on strikeouts, ERA, walks, and HR rate. What happened after the trade as you surely recall, was that his ERA dipped to 2.87 and his HR rate dropped almost by half, but his strikeouts fell pretty dramatically. This year, Haren is apparently out to prove he deserves “Mr. Outlier” as a nickname as he’s bucking the evidence that switching from the NL to the AL is universally a bad thing.

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