Down to the wire in your leagues. Don’t hesitate to drop players, especially pitchers – by the time someone picks them up they’ll get one start at most. Push, push, push, There’s still a little bit of time! Some short-term help below.

Julio Borbon, Rangers (25% owned)
Some of you might have Nyjer Morgan on your H2H team, and his eight-game suspension just went down. You might be going the distance. You might be going for speed. Your team is all alone, all alone in this time of need. Cue the speed racer, Julio Borbon. In September, he’s cut his strikeout rate back down to the 10% level it lived during his minor league career (10.7% career), and his BABIP is rising. Considering his speed, he could definitely own a BABIP higher than the .311 he has now, ZiPs RoS BABIP (.304) to be damned. In any case, September has Borbon starting (11 of the team’s 13 games), hitting (.333/.350/.410 so far), and stealing more bases than he has in a while (two), and that’s all you want from a short-term speed boost in H2H. Michael Brantley is also hot and stealing bases more prolifically, but we bigged him up at the end of August, so even though he’s owned in fewer Yahoo leagues (10%), it might be Borbon you find on your wire if your league is full of RotoGraphs readers.

Carlos Carrasco, Indians (5% owned)
You can still get the other CC for his start today against the Royals in some leagues, and that’s recommended. He’s not showing the best strikeout rate in the majors (6.10 K/9) or minors (7.93 K/9) this year, but he has supplemented that with an improving groundball rate in the majors (66.7%) and minors (46.1%). He’s also bettered his control this year in the majors (2.61 BB/9) and minors (2.66 BB/9), so he has his uses. Perhaps the mix isn’t mixed-league worthy every start – he’s much riskier for his next start against Minnesota, his second matchup against the Twins this year – but in deeper leagues, he makes a great spot start when he’s playing teams like the Royals. His minor league story is a little strange – he’s had strikeout rates north of nine per nine and south of six and a half per nine, and his groundball rates have oscillated from about 40% to 48% – but the overall package looks like it might play, if only on the back of his strong control. Streaming is inherently risky, but made more so with Carrasco.

In place of a post ranking the outfielders, I thought it might be fun to update the news about a rank outfielder or two. Badumching. Joe Pawlikowski did a nice piece on the front of the site talking about Nate McLouth and his strikeouts, but that was almost a month ago, and much has changed since then. In the meantime, the Braves traded for another center fielder, watched him play for a few days, and then went right back to the well with McLouth. Small sample sizes!

Of course, it’s not too hard to beat out Rick Ankiel these days. He still takes a walk right around league average (9.7% this year, 7.9% carer) while whiffing along with the league leaders (35.3% this year, 27.2% career). The silly thing is that while the whiffs have come with the usual corresponding poor batting average (.234 this year, .248 career), they have not come with boost in power that often comes with the all-or-nothing swing. In fact, Ankiel has now been at league average with the power stroke for two straight years (.156 last year, .152 this year, .194 career). Add in the fact that UZR/150 doesn’t like his center field defense (-11.7 career), and you have an unworthy player. Or, to be more precise, a player worth just about nothing (0.2 WAR on the year).

Then again, saying something like “Nate McLouth walks more, strikes out less, and has similar power, more speed and better outfield defense than Rick Ankiel’ is akin to saying that the Yankees have been run better than the Mets in recent history. Badumching yet again, I’ll be here all the week. Is there anything going on here that can help us believe in McLouth’s recent tear (.333/.367/.704) in September)?

Well, one of the things that McLouth had been struggling with was the K, as Joe P noted. He featured a sub-20% strikeout rate for his two best years and then got to Atlanta with the swiss cheese bat (23.5% this year). At least with Triple-A Gwinnett, McLouth worked on that and produced a better strikeout rate (13.9%), as well he should. Of course, the rest of his line was underwhelming during his minor league stint (.234/.338/.383), but at least he worked on the strikeout rate.

McLouth’s power also waned once arriving in Atlanta. His .131 ISO this year would be a career-low, but we do know that ISO takes the longest to become reliable, that McLouth has only accrued 253 plate appearances this year, and that his ISO also took a step forward in the minor leagues. Chalk that up as two things that got better once he went down to work on his game. Not surprising, given the state of his competition, but we’d be much more worried if he didn’t show these steps forward, right?

Nate McLouth will never be one to own for batting average, and we are working with small sample sizes when we look at his September numbers, but he’s also shown that he’s done work on his power and patience, and that he can at least be the McLouth of old. Especially in OBP leagues, or in deeper leagues, he can be a late-season asset. As for his keeper prospects, the way that the Braves have treated him seems to suggest they may look for a free agent center fielder this offseason, which would make him a very risky keeper.

The summer is winding down, but your fantasy team still needs furious updating for the final push, so don’t neglect it. Here is a duo of players, one for shallower leagues, and one for deeper leagues.

David Murphy, Rangers (17% owned)
Murphy has started 34 of the Rangers last 37 games, so the idea that he’s primarily a bench player seems outdated. Of course, he’s been getting more time with Josh Hamilton on the schneid with rib issues, but as this Rangers juggernaut rolls into the final couple weeks of the season, they’ll only have more incentive to rest their studs and get Murphy into the lineup. Murphy took a nice step forward this year, as he held on to the gains he made at the plate last year (9.9% walk rate last year, 9.7% this year, 8.7% career) while reducing the strikeouts from a career-worst level last year (18.3% this year, 24.5% last year, 19.9% career). Unfortunately, his ISO took a hit once he stopped swinging so hard (.144 ISO this year, .175 career) – and it’s a little surprising to see ZiPs RoS predict that the ISO will drop even further (.118 ZiPs RoS ISO). Here’s a bet that he can keep his ISO around league average going forward, which will make him playable with the better batting average that goes with the reduced strikeout rate. Murphy is also working on a career high in stolen bases (12) and since he’s only been caught once, it seems that the opportunistic thievery can continue. If you need a little bit of everything right now, Murphy could be your man.

Brayan Pena, Royals (2% owned)
Back on August thirteenth, I mentioned in a post about Ned Yost that the Royals manager was going to play his backup catcher more often. More often at first meant that Pena would start a couple games and rest a couple games, but then Jason Kendall got hurt and he’s been playing almost every day since. He’s under team control for a couple of years still, so it behooves the team to give him the at-bats to see what he can do. His wRC+ values over the last two years (96 and 92) don’t seem to suggest he’s a great sleeper for fantasy leagues, but it’s a tough position and players like Chris Snyder (owner of a similar wRC+ this year) have been owned periodically in many leagues. He’s worth a look. His walk rate right now (8.7%) is a little high given his minor league number (6.9%), but so is his strikeout rate (16.2% this year, 13.2% career, 10.1% minors). He could make a little more contact and keep a similar line. He won’t have much power (.100 minor league ISO), but his current line is sustainable – and he’s hot, hitting .421 over his past two weeks. He’s a borderline guy in the deepest of leagues, but he could help the right team.

Just last week, R.J. Anderson took a look at Bobby Abreu from a real-life standpoint. He asked for a reason why the Angels outfielder had a low BABIP to right field this year, suggesting perhaps a drop in speed, a change in the defense, issues at the plate or normal variance for Abreu as possible reasons for this aberration. We’ll get into these a little bit, while trying to focus primarily on the meaning for Abreu’s fantasy keeper and 2011 draft value.

First, Anderson basically discounted a change in defenses, so let’s leave that off the table. Second, a random variance is certainly possible, as BABIP doesn’t even normalize over one season and can be unpredictable from year to year, but is less interesting for our purposes, so let’s see if we can find something to sink our teeth into. That leaves us with power and speed as possible culprits for Abreu’s meh season – and it’s about as meh as a 20/20 season can be.

At first blush, Abreu is enjoying a power resurgence. He has his best ISO in five years and should hit 20 home runs for the second time in those five years. But not all power spikes are built equally. This one seems to be attributable to the second-best flyball rate of his career (36.4% this year, 31.9% career). It’s not built on his line drive rate (17.% this year, 22.3% career), and in fact you can see from his line drive rate that he’s not centering the ball like he used to. While it’s possible that the stringers in the Angels park are more cynical than his former venues, Abreu has seen his line drive rate drop below 20% the last two years after consistently living above that threshold for most of his career (and over 24% for most of his peak). Two below-average line drive rates in row would be less worrisome if he didn’t have a bit of a bad body and wasn’t 36 years old.

The second component of his decline is also in a non-obvious slide. A back of the baseball card glance might produce Abreu’s 19 steals and an affirmation that he’s the same old big man with passable wheels. But then you might notice that he’s been caught ten times this year, that his 65.5% success rate is the worst of his career, and that the second-worst success rate of his career was in 2008 (66%). His 2010 Bill James’ four-component speed score is also the second-worst of his career. Add in some subjective reports of slowing foot-speed and the fact that he’s been poor in the field, and it’s reasonable to wonder if the end is nigh for the outfielder-slash-DH.

If the speed is waning, and the power (as represented by his line-drive percentage) is also iffy – and hasn’t been plus since his peak – Abreu’s fantasy stock is on the decline. We can say this even if some parts of this decline may be random variation, and we could probably use his age as an ersatz single stat anyway. A big-bellied 36 year old who derives much of his fantasy value from steals is an iffy proposition – you can probably pencil him in for fewer than 20 stolen bases next year, even if it would be the first time in twelve years that he didn’t hit that benchmark in the category. Give Abreu a slight tick down on your 2011 cheat sheets and think hard before keeping him this offseason.

It’s a situation if you call it one, but it could also be a quagmire or a black hole too. The Mets are having open tryouts for second base next year, and the contestants are… shall we say, underwhelming. Still, it’s interesting just because these guys are all similarly challenged, what with the limp noodlery at the plate and all. Someone has to win and that someone might just be relevant in a really deep league, right?

The manager won’t help much, it seems:

“Hernandez is playing pretty good,” Manuel said. “I kind of like what I’m seeing with him. I think Tejada could use a breather here and there. So I’d like to see what we get from that combination. And we still have Louie [Castillo]. We still have [Joaquin] Arias. So we’ll see how it fits going down the stretch.”

Luis Castillo
The old man is suddenly the dark horse in this scenario, but he might provide the team’s best chance to actually get a 100 wRC+ offensive line from their second base spot. On the other hand, it’s probably not happening as the power as completely left him (.033 ISO, .061 career) and he’s had line drive rates around 15% three of the last four years, so the BABIP has started to come down (.257 this year, .329 career, .267 in 2008). His defense looks scratch by the numbers this year, but after two years of declining UZR/150s, it’s probably best that Castillo see his playing time reduced.

Joaquin Arias
Spiderman doesn’t walk, like at all. But he’s quick (like a spider?), and could someday put together a BABIP-influenced league-average second baseman line with perhaps a little less on-base percentage at his peak. It wouldn’t be impossible for him to do something like .275/.315/.390 with a bunch of steals. He’s had 47 of those suckers over the last two years in Triple-A. But with his approach at the plate, a lot of luck would have to factor into him even putting up anything close to the league average. He’s probably a backup too.

Ruben Tejada
Since his first season in rookie ball, Tejada has also eschewed the walk. He didn’t hit average walk rates in Single-, Double- or Triple-A. He also had a career ISO of .075 in the minor leagues (and flyball rate that fell as he advanced, which seems to predict little future power), so he kind of looks like a younger Castillo without the walks and a little better defense. The defense is the reason management thinks he is best candidate for this year, but the offense will limit him to a backup most likely. If only he walked more, or even had the exciting speed of Arias, he would have a secondary skill beyond defense and upside for more value.

Daniel Murphy
Murph has done everything the team has asked of him, with moves from left field to first base on his resume already. Might he move to second base? He had two games at the position of his eight total games at Triple-A this year, and the team could definitely use his bat at the position if the glove can fit. A career .275/.331/.437 line would play much better at second base and that above-average isolated power (.161) probably represents the most power they could get from the candidates. The question his glove represents is a tough one to answer. Total Zone numbers had him as a scratch defender at third base in the minor leagues, and small samples in the major leagues have shown him to be a good first baseman and a poor outfielder. Even if it seems unlikely that he would be a good defender at second base, it’s worth remembering back to his days as a third baseman before counting him out completely. He’ll have the AFL to show he can be a decent second baseman, and if answers that in the affirmative, he might actually be the front runner in the spring.

Luis Hernandez
Hernandez is a 26 year old with almost 900 career minor league games and a career .250/.302/.331 line that does not even hold water in this light-hitting group. He has played his high-contact game into some decent batting averages the last two years, if light on the power and OBP. He’s a little like Arias without the speed, but he does have one thing over the spidery one: he can play shortstop. At least, Total Zone thinks he can. if the backup second baseman is supposed to be the backup shortstop, which makes sense from a roster flexibility standpoint, then Hernandez might actually win a spot on the team next year.

Reese Havens
Havens is by all accounts the future at the position for the Mets. He’s done some nice things, but it’s important to keep down expectations considering he hasn’t yet compiled more than 360 at-bats in a single year. Injuries have been a problem. Though his biggest sample – High A St. Lucie – doesn’t seem great at first blush (.252/.363/.431), the Florida State League is a notoriously tough league and he showed a nice eye at the plate (55 walks against 73 strikeouts in 353 at-bats). This year he really upped the flyball rate and the power before succumbing to injury yet again. The lack of at-bats make it hard to know exactly how special Havens is, but what he’s shown so far (12% career MiLB walk rate, .206 ISO) is enough to prove that he has the highest upside of this group. Most likely, the Mets start the season with something like Murphy and one of the better defenders (Arias, Tejada or Hernandez) splitting time while Havens proves his mettle and comes up later in the season, although this analysis assumes that the Mets can treat Castillo as a sunk cost and let him go, which is no sure thing given the Mets history. Act accordingly.

The closer battle in Florida might seem like just another notch in the ‘relievers are just failed starters’ way of thinking. Both the incumbent, Leo Nunez, and the challenger, Clay Hensley, have started games at different points in their careers. Given the fact that manager Edwin Rodriguez has already said that Nunez will probably get his job back, it’s not a great idea to drop Nunez wholesale. How much of a threat does Hensley actually represent, though?

His present rates look nice – he has a 9.47 K/9 and 3.25 BB/9 that are both above-average even for relievers – and his luck stats don’t seem to suggest a major regression coming (.286 BABIP, 77.7% LOB, 2.88 FIP). Counting on them to continue in the face of his career rates (6.34 K/9, 4.02 BB/9), however, seems dicey at best. The nice groundball rate (51.9% this year, 52.7% career) looks steady and repeatable, and should always give him a stable level of effectiveness to fall back on.

But it’s the major jump in strikeout rate that has made him a closer option. This is the first year he’s spent the entire year in the bullpen, so a jump could be expected. Jeremy Greenhouse found that moving to the bullpen can give you about 0.7 MPH of fastball velocity, and cited research from Tom Tango that you’d expect a reliever to gain about 17% K/PA in the switch. We haven’t seen the velocity jump for Hensley – he has been showing an 88.7 MPH fastball this year, 88.7 MPH career. Hensley has also seen his strikeout rate jump almost 50% over his career rate, so he’s obviously changed something other than his throwing schedule.

Looking at his pitching mix, one thing jumps out immediately. Hensley has gone from featuring his slider as his best second pitch (8.8% this year, 19.8% career) to focusing more on his curveball (22.4% this year, 9.9% career). In general, he’s throwing his secondary pitches more often, as he’s also upped his changeup usage (21.2% this year, 12.5% career). While the changeup and slider are close enough in velocity that the two pitch f/x systems on our site see them differently, the reduced use of the fastball looks legitimate. Given the linear weights on his slider (+16.7 runs career) and curveball (+10.1 runs career) compared to his fastball (+5.3 runs career, -10.7 runs 2008-2009), this seems like a legitimate change in pitching approach – to his benefit.

Still, as strong as his work has been this year, Hensley has only put together 63 innings at this level of play. It’s the first time since his rookie year in 2005 – another year in which he primarily relieved at the major league level – that he’s put up an FIP under four. To compare, Nunez has put up sub-four FIPs in two of the last three years, and he’s had almost a strikeout per inning over his last 120 innings. Still, given the fact that Nunez has a career strikeout rate (7.04 K/9) that is comparable to Hensley’s (especially once you take out this year’s 9.64 K/9, a career high for Nunez), and owns a similar history of moving from the rotation to the pen, it’s possible that Hensley is next year’s Leo Nunez.

This year, though, you have to give some credence to what the manager says. It also makes sense to take the reliever with the larger sample size of success if you are looking for saves in Florida.

It’s getaway day for a long weekend, but I refuse to admit the summer is nearing an end. I’m holding on for dear life. Oh, and here are a couple players that should be on your waiver wire and might be interesting to you.

Yuniesky Betancourt, Royals (18% owned)
Long a laughing stock of baseball, Betancourt is getting some love recently. Longtime critic Joe Posnanki even tweeted the other day that his OPS+ was higher than Derek Jeter’s this year. How’s that for a drink-snarfing moment? Hopefully your league does not count OBP, because he still is walking only 3% of the time this year (3.2% career) and featuring a terrible .289 OBP. Then again, hopefully your league doesn’t count slugging percentage either (.432)… but hey, look at that, the average slugging percentage for shortstops in the American League this year is a paltry .362. So that’s what Betancourt is – a semi-slugger at a position full of limp noodles. In any case, he’s hitting .313 with eight home runs over the past month, so he’s hot. Who knows how long it will continue, but but his BABIP (.273) is still below his career norms (.287), and his line drive percentage, though not great, is decent (18.1%). Betancourt could run into a few home runs while your regular shortstop is hurt, and as much as it pains this skeptic to say it, he has some use in fantasy leagues. Maybe if Jeff Francouer was a shorstop, he would have use in fantasy leagues, too!

Nolan Reimold, Orioles (15% owned)
This is one of those writeups that may inspire a ‘why should we pick this guy up again’ comment. But it’s worth taking a look at a player that will get some playing time this September, whether because of Adam Jones and his wonky shoulder or because the team would like to know if they have the flexibility to trade Luke Scott this offseason. Playing time alone is fantasy gasoline, but the talent has to be the spark to really get the flame going. Earlier this season, Reimold was walking (10.7%) and striking out (24.7%) about the same as career rates (11.35% and 22.1% respectively), but his power had fallen off a cliff (.124 ISO, .174 career, .215 in the minor leagues). Then the team sent him down, and he put up a nasty .249/.364/.374 line that doesn’t inspire any confidence that he found what he was looking for. His .125 ISO down there looked like a middle infielders’ output. There was certainly some poor luck at play – his MinorLeagueSplits.com luck- and park-adjusted line reads a little better (.288/.397/.433) – but the power is still on the lam. Looking at his batted ball profile, his poor line drive percentage in the major leagues stands out (14.1%), but at least he puts the ball in the air and had many .200+ ISO minor league seasons before this year. At 27, he’s no longer as young as you might think, and his time to grab a regular role may be running out. He seems a best fit for a fantasy manager that is out of the running in a deeper keeper league and is looking for a final keeper. Maybe he turns it on in the final month, the team trades Scott in the off-season, and things all fall into place for a cheap outfielder with a little pop. The rest of us can pass, as those are a lot of hurdles for a big firstbaseman to jump before he’s a great option.

Perhaps to my detriment, I read the comments on my posts. I feel it keeps me on my toes and makes me a better analyst, but you might just call it some sort of sadomasochism (especially with some comments). In any case, a comment on a shortstop rankings post engendered this Jimmy Rollins post, so it can’t all be bad. Now some comments on my latest second base rankings post have me wanting to revisit a second baseman and his place in the rankings so far this season.

Some of the sentiment seems that Martin Prado should be in the first tier of second basemen. At first blush, this doesn’t pass the sniff test for me. For example, Brandon Phillips beats Prado in every traditional fantasy category but RBI (by about ten) and batting average (by about 25 points). Even going forward, you’d expect Phillips to have more power and speed, so this is no fluke thing.

Another second baseman mentioned was Ben Zobrist. The difference between Prado (top of fourth tier) and Zobrist at the bottom of the second tier is actually much closer than it might appear. The tier in between (with Brian Roberts, Chase Utley, and Chone Figgins) was titled “Will They Ever Get it Together” for a reason. Obviously, those guys – at their peak – offer more upside than Prado in fantasy baseball. They are also performing at levels that are far from their peaks this year, but that upside is still remains. Prado will never hit 30 home runs, nor will he steal more than 30. Those are fantasy numbers worth pursuing.

But I digress. Back to Zobrist. It doesn’t look like Zobrist’s power is on its way back, and Prado doubles him in the home run category, but Zobrist still gets on base at almost exactly the same rate if OBP is a fantasy category for you, and he steals many more bags than Prado. Unfortunately for me, the batting average is just not there for Zobrist, as his .251 average is not even projected to improve by much (.291 BABIP currently, .253 ZiPs RoS batting average projection). Thusly, Prado also beats Zobrist in runs by a hefty margin. Prado should probably be above Zobrist in the rankings it seems.

It is strange that a man with a .094 ISO in the minor leagues has put up an ever-improving ISO in the major leagues (.155 overall, .171 this yer), but we have to go with what he’s currently doing, especially since that improved ISO has now come in 1416 plate appearances. Perhaps the added juice on the pitches coming in is aiding the power of a line-drive hitter, or perhaps it’s just been a superlative development process. Prado is, at least, hitting the ball in the air a little more in the major leagues. His last two stops in the minors produced 27.3% and 23.8% flyball rates respectively, compared to 34.1% overall in the major leagues. In either case, his slightly-above-average power plays very well at second base, a tough position.

While Prado probably won’t hit 20 home runs, or steal ten bases, or be in the top three at his position in any category but batting average, he provides value in all five fantasy categories and is, in all likelihood, a top second-tier fantasy option at second base. Given all the qualifiers in that last sentence, perhaps I can be forgiven for not putting him in the top tier among players that do show great power and speed. But he should have been in the second.

It’s the final final day that teams can trade players, so there will be some post-deadline analysis coming. Here are a couple guys that are more sure things, as they are already on their teams and we have some historical data to analyze. Then again, there’s plenty of historical data that suggests that Jeff Francoeur and Manny Delcarmen are not good pickups no matter what team they are on.

Marcus Thames, Yankees (7% owned)
The book on Thames is that he mashes left-handers, and his platoon splits back that up. In 781 plate appearances against lefties, he has an .860 OPS that is eminently useful. Tom Tango’s the book says that we should regress his performance against lefties against 2200 plate appearances for right-handed batters, and his minor league stats going back to 2005 don’t show this same split, so we are justified in being skeptical. On the other hand, Thames is getting most of his at-bats against lefties and his team obviously believes he can hit southpaws best. This might sound like bad news – Thames is on a crowded team, and there are fewer lefties in baseball than righties – but it’s not. Predictable playing time is useful, since most fantasy teams have benches. Put Thames on your bench, and he’ll play once Lance Berkman comes back anyway. You see, Curtis Granderson has a split in the other direction, which makes moving Brett Gardner over to center and playing Thames in the outfield the probable course of action for the Yankees against southpaws. Finding an .800+ OPS batter that you can slot in against lefties is nice. Finding one that has hit six home runs in the past six games is just the cherry on top.

Mike Morse, Nationals (2% owned)
Morse is battling Willie Harris, Roger Bernadina and Justin Maxwell for playing time in the Nationals’ corners right now, but there are reasons to like this former shortstop’s chances of carving out some time for himself. For one, he’s hot, with ten hits in his last 15 atbats. Another thing that Morse has in his favor is power. He’s suddenly found his power stroke since moving to the weaker league, with a .231 ISO last year and a .243 ISO this year. Of course, those numbers have only come in 240 plate appearances and are not yet statistically significant, but a quick check of his minor league ISOs shows that a definite trend is in place. Last year, he had a .219 ISO in the minor leagues, and this year at Triple-A Syracuse, he turned in a .216 ISO. He’s a little over his head right now, and he usually hits too many balls on the ground (career 34.1% flyballs) to show this kind of power, but he’s worth a shot in the deepest of leagues. Harris is a career utility player or backup type, and while Bernadina is exciting and young, Maxwell is neither as young as he used to be (going on 27 now), nor as good as we though he might be. Right now he’s just not making any contact with a 20% walk rate and a 40% strikeout rate. Morse has a chance to carve out some time for himself as the regular right fielder.

So it looks like Dustin Pedroia might be out for the year now that his foot has remained sore. His owners are left crying into their caps, and looking for replacements. Since it’s normally time for a middle infield update anyway, this works out well. We’ll look at possible replacements based on the size of your league. The benchmarks come from Jeff Zimmerman’s article here.

Shallow Leagues (58% owned or less)
If you are lucky, Omar Infante (60% owned) will be out there for you. He is one of the better possibilities for replacing the little-bit-of-power, little-bit-of-speed thing that Pedroia had going, and he is also atop one of the better lineups in the National League. But Infante doesn’t quite hit our benchmark, so Alberto Callaspo (46% owned) has a little more pop than Asdrubal Cabrera (44% owned) and might therefore be a better replacement for the balding Boston ballplayer. Though neither has shown much power or speed this year, it’s Callaspo that has had the best power year (.156 ISO in 2009) between the two and Cabrera that has had the best speed year (5.9 speed score in 2009). Depending on your priorities, they make decent stop-gaps.

12-Team Leagues (26% owned or less)
The options on this level are Orlando Hudson and Ryan Raburn, and both have a little more power than the guys above. Raburn’s currently showing a .176 ISO and has a .186 career number in that category, so he’s the guy to pick up for power. With his strikeout rate (26.2% this year, 25.9% career), he probably won’t put up a Pedroia-an batting average, and his speed has declined from about average (5.1 in 2008, 5.0 is average) to below average (3.8 in 2010) in three years. Hudson will give you a decent batting average as he has been within spitting distance of his .282 career batting average in most years. Unfortunately, he’s in the midst of a four-year decline in his power and now owns a poor ISO (.118). While his speed score is still above average (5.6), he hasn’t cracked double-digit in steals since 2007. Either way, Hudson is the closer comp to the Boston second baseman.

20-Team Leagues (1% owned or less)
Yes, Blake DeWitt is playing every day and is atop a lineup, but he’s also owned in 3% of Yahoo leagues, doesn’t have much pop or speed, and that Cubs lineup isn’t anywhere close to the Red Sox lineup. Well, none of your options in leagues of this size will come close to Pedroia’s excellence, so let’s just get that out of the way. No, of the second basemen owned in 1% of leagues (or less), it’s Chris Getz that is the most interesting. He’s mostly wrested the second base job away from Mike Aviles, but he’s just about as flawed as the man he replaces (or worse). He has no power to speak of (.040 ISO this year, .069 career, .150 ISO is average), and now that he’s 641 plate appearances into his career and showing the same walk rate every year (7.8% this year, 7.3% career), we can say he doesn’t really get on base at an average rate (8.5% walk rate is average this year). Well, he does do one thing. His speed score has stayed above average every year and is decent this year (5.5). He has some wheels. His 13 stolen bases (87% success rate) even means that he could equal a fictionally healthy Pedroia the rest of the way in one category. Unfortunately for deep league owners, it’s just one category.