In my main league, I picked up rookie Colorado infielder Josh Rutledge about six weeks ago off the waiver wire. This is hardly because I had any sort of prescient idea that Rutledge would suddenly become a red-hot hitter who would help propel me into the playoffs; mainly, it was because previous flavor-of-the-week Trevor Plouffe was hurting, and the guy who was at least likely to get a shot at shortstop playing time with Troy Tulowitzki injured and Marco Scutaro traded seemed like a better option than the Nick Puntos and Brandon Crawfords of the world. 46 games later, Rutledge’s teammates are calling him “Baby Giambi” and his .399 wOBA (headed into play on Thursday) would be good for fifth-best in baseball if he could keep that rate up over enough plate appearances to qualify.

Bright red “small sample size” alarms are justifiably ringing there, and it’s of course far from realistic to expect that kind of production from Rutledge over a full season. Still, even having this kind of conversation regarding offensive output from a middle infielder is impressive, and it’s worth looking into the 23-year-old Alabama product as fantasy playoffs loom this season and 2013 keeper decisions start to get made. While Rutledge has been exclusively a shortstop in his time in the bigs, he moved across the bag to make his first start at second base on Thursday, which is where he’ll remain now that Tulowitzki is nearly healthy. Read the rest of this entry »

Ah, September: that bizarre time of year where rosters expand, the disabled list disappears, benches swell, and all of a sudden managers have access to 16-man pitching staffs.

For the purposes of this article, we’ll only be looking at players who either have already been called up or who we can confirmed will be shortly, so if you’re wondering why Billy Hamilton & Oscar Taveras aren’t listed, that’s why.

Shelby Miller, RHP Cardinals

To merely glance at Miller’s 2012 stat line, you might think that the 2009 first-round draft pick had suffered through a disappointing year, one which would surely knock him off the top prospect lists. Sure, 160 strikeouts in 136 2/3 innings is impressive, but a 4.74 ERA (4.48 FIP) that was in large part due to a disturbingly high 1.58/9 home run rate – amid reports of maturity questions and declining velocity – can easily make you wonder, “well, what happened?”

It’s a little more complex than we have room to get into here, but the Miller of September 2012 bears little resemblance to the one who started the season, and that’s to be taken literally. A renewed commitment to conditioning and improved mechanics – Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has more on that here – allowed Miller to regain velocity and effectiveness, and the results were eye-catching. In 17 starts before the All-Star Break, Miller had a 6.17 ERA; in 10 starts after, it was just 2.88 along with a stellar 70/7 K/BB.

Miller is probably up only to soak in the atmosphere and perhaps get some time in out of the bullpen than he is to join the rotation, though it’s worth nothing that current #5 starter Joe Kelly pitched out of the bullpen last week and was hit hard in his most recent start. In keeper leagues, Miller is an obvious add.

Andrew Cashner, RHP Padres

Cashner started the season in the San Diego bullpen and made 27 appearances before being shifted into the rotation in June. He made just three starts before injured his lat and landing on the disabled list, and that’s the crux of the problem right there: when he left his third start after just two innings because of that lat, the main reaction was joy that he hadn’t blown out his arm. No one doubts Cashner’s talent, just his ability to stay healthy.

Cashner will get another shot when he starts on Friday against Arizona, and if he can stay upright he could get as many as four starts this month. The San Diego rotation is so tattered right now that when Andrew Werner started on Monday, the undrafted free agent who was in the independent leagues just two years ago was the 14^th different starter to suit up for the Padres in 2012, so Cashner will get as long a look as possible with an eye towards 2013. The opportunity plus the talent – even if his fastball, which averaged 98.6 MPH this year, dips a little bit out of the bullpen – makes Cashner a worthwhile pickup in NL-only leagues and still intriguing in deeper mixed ones.

Tony Cingrani, LHP Reds

If you haven’t heard of Cingrani before, don’t feel too bad, because the 2011 draftee was a college senior, which is rarely where you’ll find the most touted prospects. Then you look at what he’s done so far in the minors this year – 172 strikeouts in 146 innings, even though his first ten starts came in the hitter-friendly California League – and suddenly you start to wonder why exactly you haven’t heard more about him. Cingrani’s future role is still up in the air, because despite being a starter in the pros, he was mainly a reliever in college for Rice, and isn’t likely to be considered for a start in September when he gets called up.

That might be for the best, since Cingrani brings a plus fastball while still working on his secondary pitches, and it’s not hard for Reds fans to drool at the thought of a Cincinnati bullpen that could add another power lefty to go with Aroldis Chapman & Sean Marshall. I consider him one of the more intriguing new names this September, though the lack of a clear role makes him interesting to NL-only leagues for now.

Xavier Nady, OF Giants

Who says a September callup has to be a highly-touted rookie? It’s been nearly 12 years since the 33-year-old Nady made his big-league debut, but it was only on September 1 that he made his first appearances with his hometown Giants after being cut by the Nationals in June. Of course, the last part of that sentence is a huge red flag, because Nady hasn’t really had a good season since 2008. Still, the Giants have a big, Melky-sized hole in the outfield to fill, and Gregor Blanco isn’t getting the job done. For opportunity alone, Nady has to be considered in NL-only leagues, but despite doubles in each of his first two games… he’s still Xavier Nady. I hope you’re not that desperate.

A.J. Ramos, RHP Marlins

Ramos, a 21^st round pick out of Texas Tech in 2009, has been the closer for each of his three full seasons in the minor leagues, moving up a level at a time. While we should know by now that you can’t scout a minor league stat line, the numbers remain impressive, with 288 strikeouts in 211.1 career innings and only eight homers allowed. Better, his control appears to be improving, as a walk rate which was 4.9/9 in 2010 and 3.4 in 2011 is down to just 2.8 this year. Ramos will be 26 this month, which makes him old for his level and may explain some of the impressive stats. Still, the Miami bullpen seems to be constantly in a state of flux, and it’s not hard to see him getting a chance to show his stuff as a lost season slips further away for the Marlins.

As the Dodgers head into the stretch run, 3.5 games back of the Giants, they’re a team with their fair share of problems, even after the shocking month of acquisitions that netted them Adrian Gonzalez, Hanley Ramirez, Shane Victorino, Nick Punto, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett, Joe Blanton, Brandon League, & Randy Choate. In the rotation, Chad Billingsley & Ted Lilly have each been battling arm injuries which may put them out for the season. In the outfield, team MVP Matt Kemp banged up his knee and jaw running into the wall in Colorado, and even if he returns in the next few days, it’s not likely to be at full strength. And perhaps scariest of all, the status of fireballing closer Kenley Jansen is uncertain thanks to another recurrence of the irregular heartbeat that has already sidelined him twice over the last calendar year.

Read the rest of this entry »

As the Dodgers suffered through their incredibly painful first half of 2011, besieged mostly by injuries and the ongoing saga of “will Frank McCourt make payroll this week?”, one of the fun diversions for Dodger fans was watching the progress of flamethrowing young righty Rubby de la Rosa. At 22, the organization’s 2010 Minor League Pitcher of the Year had added an improving slider to his overpowering fastball in eight starts for Double-A Chattanooga, striking out 52 in just 40 innings.

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It’s really, really difficult to overstate just how bad the first base situation is in Los Angeles right now. Of the possibly dozens of different ways to describe how awful James Loney & Juan Rivera are, my favorite might be “Juan Uribe still exists, and even despite that third base isn’t the biggest problem on this club.” Loney (.252/.300/.328 & .265 wOBA entering Thursday) and Rivera (.243/.280/.355 & .271 wOBA) have combined to start 112 of the first 118 games at first base this year, and all the Dodgers have received for that time investment is a combined .268 wOBA, just a tick above Seattle for the worst in baseball. (If we go by WAR, which factors in Rivera’s below-average defense, they are dead last.) I’m not sure what’s more surprising – that Loney has just three homers this year, or that he hasn’t had an unintentional walk since June 23.

This couldn’t have come as any shock to the Dodgers, of course. Loney has been struggling (and mostly failing) to live up to his prospect reputation for years, and re-signing Rivera because of a few good weeks in Los Angeles after being DFA’d by Toronto last year never really made sense in the first place. As the Dodgers upgraded elsewhere with Shane Victorino & Hanley Ramirez this July, they attempted to find a solution at first as well – they were reportedly going after Adrian Gonzalez, and did agree to acquire Carlos Lee from Houston before Lee refused to waive his no-trade clause – but were unable to find a good fit.

Barring a surprising August waiver deal for someone like Justin Morneau, the first-place Dodgers are stuck making their playoff push with this atrocious duo. But does it need to be that way? Down at Triple-A Albuquerque, Jerry Sands is crushing the ball all around the PCL, and with every disappointing day from Rivera & Loney, it gets harder and harder for the Dodgers to justify keeping him there. Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday afternoon, the Brewers and Reds played a matinee in Milwaukee. Thanks to run-scoring eighth-inning hits by Carlos Gomez & Ryan Braun, the Brewers entered the bottom of the ninth with a narrow 3-2 lead. Yet when they trotted out to finish off their victory, it wasn’t behind regular closer John Axford, who’d finished ninth in the Cy Young Award voting in 2011, or even backup closer Francisco Rodriguez, still the record-holder for most saves in a season. It was 29-year-old Jim Henderson, a veteran of ten minor-league seasons (and former Expos draftee!) who’d been called up to make his major league debut less than two weeks earlier, on July 26.

Henderson retired three of the four hitters he saw with two strikeouts, his second save in as many games, and all of a sudden the struggling Milwaukee bullpen has an interesting new contender for saves, an idea almost unthinkable at the beginning of the season. Of course, no one would have expected a bullpen led by Axford & Rodriguez to be quite this bad, but the numbers don’t lie:

Milwaukee bullpen (stats entering Wednesday)
ERA: 4.90, worst in MLB
BB/9: 4.25, 29^th in MLB
AVG: .271, 29^th in MLB
WHIP: 1.55, worst in MLB
LOB%: 68.1, 29^th in MLB
LD%: 23.8, worst in MLB
HR/FB%: 13.1, 27^th in MLB
BS: 21, 29^th in MLB

Some of those statistics are admittedly imperfect and there are others that show the Brewer relief corps in a better light, but it’s hard to look at that list and not think this is one of the worst-performing groups in the game. It’s a team effort that’s not entirely on Axford (4.23 FIP/5.21 ERA) and Rodriguez (4.48 FIP/5.48 ERA), but they’re clearly the worst offenders among those with any real playing time. Rodriguez in particular has been brutal since July 1 (9.23 ERA), and each has been shuffled in and out of high-leverage roles this year as Ron Roenicke struggles to find some sort of success at the back end of his staff.

Now, when Henderson received his first save opportunity on Monday, it could be chalked up to a simple matter of availability, since Axford & Rodriguez had each thrown 24 or more pitches on Sunday. What made yesterday’s save chance so interesting is that Rodriguez was never used and that Axford came in with the Brewers down 2-1 in the eighth, not exactly the usage one would expect for a closer. Though Roenicke has declined to make anything official, the struggles of his two incumbents and the way in which he used Henderson on Wednesday may indicate a willingness to play the hot hand.

So who is Jim Henderson, anyway? Like Axford, he’s a Canadian finally making his debut in his late 20s after years toiling in the minors; also like Axford, he’s always had a powerful arm but struggled with both control and harnessing secondary pitches. In 48 Triple-A innings this year, he struck out 10.5 per 9 while also walking 4.1 per nine, though he’s managed to get off to a sparkling 10/1 K/BB start in the bigs, averaging over 95 miles per hour on his fastball.

As we say often, closers are made, not born, and simply getting the opportunity to be on the mound in the ninth can transform an uninspiring fantasy option into a valuable one, simply because of that one stat. It’s premature to expect that Henderson has suddenly leaped over Axford to become the primary Milwaukee closer, yet with Axford struggling and Rodriguez all but unusable right now, it’s easy to see Henderson becoming a cheap short-term source of saves if you’re in need. The Brewers have Thursday off before heading into Houston to start a series with the atrociously bad Astros, a set in which they’re all but guaranteed to have a lead heading into the late innings at least once. If and when that happens, it’ll be tremendously interesting to see who Roenicke sends out in the ninth.

Mike Olt! (I add the exclamation point not only out of exuberance at seeing his promotion to the majors, but mostly because I simply cannot hear his name without saying it like, well, this.) After an entire season of destroying Texas League pitching with a .427 wOBA, the soon-to-be 24-year-old top prospect made his debut for the Rangers on Thursday night, hitting eighth and playing first base.

There’s no shortage of excitement surrounding Olt, the 49^th overall pick in 2010. Regarded as a fine defensive third baseman, his 28 homers were second in the minors behind only Royals prospect Wil Myers, and so it’s no surprise that when teams were offering pitchers like Zack Greinke and Josh Johnson to the Rangers at the deadline, Olt was the name they all were after, along with Jurickson Profar. Given what rough shape third base is in around the bigs these days, it’s not hard to see why a power bat who can actually field the position was in such high demand, and Texas understandably refused to part with him.

Unfortunately for Olt, Texas happens to have one of the few third basemen playing at a high level on both sides of the ball, and Adrian Beltre isn’t going anywhere for a while. That’s why Olt began to see time at first base and right field as his time in the minors began to wear down, though it’s being reported that Olt would play the outfield “only in an emergency situation” for the Rangers at this point. Other than the occasional day off for Beltre, Olt’s role is expected to be limited to first base and designated hitter, mainly against lefty pitching. Read the rest of this entry »

Monday afternoon saw a flurry of deals as trading season kicked into high gear, but perhaps none was more surprising than seeing the Seattle Mariners send longtime star Ichiro Suzuki to the New York Yankees. In terms of sheer star power – Ichiro, a Yankee! – it’s delicious, but the actual on-field effects may be a bit muted.

The Yankees aren’t acquiring the legendary 2004 Ichiro, who hit .372/.414/.455 with 262 hits, and they’re not even getting quality late-career 2010 Ichiro, who hit .315/.359/.394 with 42 steals. The version of Ichiro that will be coming to the Bronx is the one who has hit only .268/.302/.342 over the last two seasons, with 2012’s .281 wOBA tying him with Jeff Francoeur & Cameron Maybin for the lowest mark by an outfielder in all of baseball.

It’s not too difficult to see why Ichiro has been struggling, because while he’s not really striking out more than he had previously, his walk rate – never great in the first place – is down to a career-low 4.0%. Then as his 38-year-old legs slow, he’s no longer beating out the infield hits he was once famous for. (He has just 13 so far, with more than half the season gone; only twice in his career has he had a season with fewer than 35, and never less than 31.) It’s no surprise that as the infield hits have fallen off since 2010 that his BABIP numbers over the last two seasons are not only under .300, they’re the first time he’s ever been under .316.  Not even Ichiro, it seems, can outrun Father Time. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2009, 25-year-old Adam Lind looked like a breakout star for Toronto. Splitting time between left field and designated hitter, Lind put up a massive .305/.370/.562 line for the Blue Jays, which along with 35 homers earned him some down-ballot MVP support and a Silver Slugger award. That performance earned him a new contract prior to 2010, one which guarantees him $18 million through 2013 and includes team options for up to $38.5 million between 2014-16.

Lind was unable to repeat that line in 2010, as his strikeout rate shot from 16.8% to 23.5% and his OBP sunk nearly 100 points to .287, though he still managed 23 homers. 2011 – now as Toronto’s primary first baseman – saw more of the same, as 26 homers weren’t enough to offset a .251/.295/.439 line. When he struggled even more, hitting just .186/.273/.314 with three homers in May of this year, the Jays removed him from the roster and placed him on waivers, inviting any other team to pick him up for nothing but the cost of his contract.

No one did. Read the rest of this entry »

When Joey Votto underwent surgery on Tuesday to repair meniscus damage in his left knee, it wasn’t just Reds fans who felt the pain; it was any NL-only fantasy player who had hoped for production out of what was long the most reliable source of power in the game.

A year ago at this time, first base in the National League was the place to be. Prince Fielder & Albert Pujols were mashing as usual in Milwaukee & St. Louis. Ryan Howard & Carlos Pena for all their flaws, were still showing power in Philadelphia & Chicago, while Michael Morse was having a breakout year with the Nationals. Topping them all, as far as WAR is concerned, was Votto in Cincinnati. In 2012, with Fielder, Pujols, & Pena off to the American League, and Morse, Howard and now Votto fighting injuries, the position has been decimated. With Votto on the shelf, the most valuable active first baseman in the NL  – believe it or not – is Paul Goldschmidt of Arizona, which just does not feel right.

If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that Todd Frazier is likely to see the bulk of the time at first base for the Reds until Votto is able to return in approximately three to four weeks. The 2007 first-rounder has been excellent in limited time for Cincinnati this year, particularly so in July, with twelve hits (six for extra bases) in eleven games, including eight starts. Frazier isn’t likely to keep up a .382 wOBA for the rest of the year – if he did, and had enough plate appearances to qualify, that would put him just above Jose Bautista & Carlos Beltran – yet even if he manages his rest-of-season ZIPS projection of .251/.315/.456 and nine homers, that gives him value, especially once he gains first base eligibility. Personally, I think he’ll be able to outdo that OBP mark, since he’s shown he can take a walk (9.9% BB rate) and has flashed decent OBP skills (.353) in parts of six minor league seasons. Read the rest of this entry »