Today’s Roto Riteup is the perfect way to wake up this morning. Go ahead and eat that cereal while I dish out some baseball insight for you to digest.

• The 2012 Red Sox have experienced a catastrophic amount of injuries to their outfield. Everyone that was supposed to roam the Fenway outfield from big fantasy names to the waiver wire pickups seems to be on the disabled list. The silver lining to this situation for certain fantasy owners is that the (usually) slugging first baseman Adrian Gonzalez has started four games in right field, including two straight days. The significance in Yahoo! leagues should be clear: Gonzalez is now one more start away from gaining RF and OF eligibility. Manager Bobby Valentine doesn’t think that Gonzalez will start hardly at all at home in the outfield, just on the road in smaller right fields. Keep a close on eye where Gonzo appears on road trips. Position flexibility with a talent like Gonzalez’s is much sought after.

• The Cardinals are another injury ridden team and Matt Carpenter is the latest name to add to their disabled list. Yesterday Carpenter was placed on the 15-day DL with a back strain. A bit of a surprise this year, Carpenter was fantasy relevant for his 15 extra-base hits and a batting average of almost .290. Given that Carpenter is now on the DL and that even if he was healthy he may not get all of the starts at first base, I would go ahead and drop him. Read the rest of this entry »

Today marks latest batch of trends in the American League outfield.

Bullish:
Mike Trout – I know that it is hard to be bullish on a kid who is as highly touted as Trout, but so far he has shown that he is as much production as we projected. His strikeout rate is a touch high, 22.7%, but he makes up for it with excellent power and speed. In just 88 plate appearances, he has four homers and 10 walks. To put that another way: he has as many walks as Albert Pujols does and Pujols has 176 PA’s this year. Trout is an absolute superstar in the making, if he isn’t already one. He is still available in 31% of Yahoo! formats somehow although ESPN leagues have been quicker to reel him in (that will be only Trout pun from me all season, I promise), as his ownership rating there is a healthy 94%. For anyone in any format in need of offense, Trout is a fantastic pickup.

Raul Ibanez – I’m surprised to say his name too. After his disaster of a 2011 season where he “hit” .245/.289/.419, he has shown that he isn’t finished just yet. Compare to last year, he has cut his strikeout rate in half to an unbelievably low 9.8% while upping his walk rate to 7.4%. I don’t expect that low strikeout rate to continue, but perhaps it is a sign of a major adjustment on his part? Just yesterday he hit his ninth home run of the year and a 25 home run season wouldn’t be shocking at this point. Given his surrounding lineup and his batting position of fifth against right handed pitching, his RBI totals should be nice shot in the arm as well. Once again we see that ESPN is quicker on the draw; his ownership rating there is 83% and it went up over 50% in the past week. Yahoo! lags behind considerably despite his LF and RF eligibility, he is only owned in 41% of leagues. Anyone in need of a solid OF bat that will play 4-5 times a week should pick up Ibanez. I know I am. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s Roto Riteup is going to be the key that leads you to the top of the saves standings. At least for a brief period.

• Casey Janssen has proved himself to be a very solid closer so far. Last night he threw a perfect ninth inning to nail down his third save in as many chances. With Sergio Santos still on the disabled list for probably another week, pick up Janssen if you’re looking for some saves on the cheap. He is averaging better than a strikeout per inning and is walking almost no one. He is prone to the gopher ball a bit, but if you’ve got a hankerin’ some cheap saves then you’re in luck; he is still available in 69% of Yahoo! and 66% of ESPN leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

Here are the past weeks risers and fallers in the American League outfield.

Bullish:
Josh Hamilton – Although he is only jumping one spot, I just can’t keep him at number two any longer, not the way he is currently mashing. Not much needs to be said about his numbers, but this is my favorite statistic of his so far: Hamilton’s .866 SLG alone would rank in top 10 of AL OF OPS, just below Josh Reddick and above Ben Zobrist. Absurd.

Ryan Sweeney – After a bit of controversy of leaving him completely off my May tiered rankings, I have backed off on my doubt of Sweeney. Obviously I don’t think his current .416 BABIP is his true talent level, but he is enjoying his best offensive season of his career and you should enjoy that too. He has always been an opposite field hitter and he is currently taking full advantage of the Green Monster. His 13 doubles lead the AL OF. He won’t offer much power or any speed, but his average (or OBP) and his runs scored, particularly if he continues to lead off, are making him a must own for now. He is only owned in 12 % of Yahoo! and 16% of ESPN leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s Roto Riteup will touch on a very temporary closer situation in Pittsburgh as well as several tips on hot hitters.

• Yesterday news broke that Joel Hanrahan has been placed on the bereavement list due to the death of his grandmother. We send our best thoughts and regards to Hanrahan and his family during this difficult time. However, with a full slate of three games this weekend against the visiting Houston Astros, baseball must go on. One can expect Juan Cruz or Jason Grilli to be the two main choices to enter any potential save situation. Although Pirates manager Clint Hurdle did not officially say who it would be, Cruz does already have a pair of saves on the year from when Hanrahan missed a few games with hamstring tightness. Cruz currently sports a 9% ownership rating in Yahoo! and a mere 3% in ESPN leagues. On the other hand, Grilli is the current setup man, leads the team in holds and boasts an impressive 16.5 K/9. Grilli is owned in 3% of Yahoo! and 0.0% of ESPN leagues. If forced, I would say pick up Cruz if you are desperate for saves. Based on gmLI alone (a dangerous thing to do, as each situation is different, but I digress), Hurdle seems to go with Cruz more, so I’ll say pick up Cruz if you are desperate for saves. Read the rest of this entry »

As the first Monday in May (and every concurrent month afterwards), I bring you the updated American League outfield tiered rankings. The fluctuations here reflect the past weeks AL OF stock watches as well as what I envision as the player’s fantasy value going forward. As one may expect, previous players who I rated as being bullish have moved up, and vice versa with bearish players dropping down.

Tier One:
Curtis Granderson
Josh Hamilton

Granderson contributes significantly to every standard fantasy category. The only downside to Granderson is his mediocre average. The lack of steals so far in 2012 is more curious than worrisome at this early juncture. His ability to remain healthy and productive is the reason he is number one. Since 2006 he has only had less than 600 plate appearances in a season once, and in that year he still accrued 528 PA. The argument for Hamilton is that he has tied or superseded in Granderson in every statistic so far, including a .75 point batting average advantage. So why is Hamilton ranked #2? You should already know the answer to this: health. He has yet to go on the DL this year, but did miss a 3 game spell with back tightness. To say it another way: From 2008-2011, Hamilton has a total of 2,178 PA, or 544 PA per season while Granderson has garndered 2,558 PA for an average of 639 PA per season. Injuries are impossible to predict, but given the history of Granderson averaging ~100 more trips to the plate each season over the past four years tips the scales in his favor.

Tier Two:
Jose Bautista
Adam Jones
Desmond Jennings Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s Roto Riteup consists of nothing but closer news.

• If you haven’t yet heard the news or read Dave Cameron’s post from last night, Mariano Rivera tore the ACL in his right knee while shagging fly balls in batting practice. Dave notes several candidates to continue to close, so I refer you over there for his insight. My two cents is that Rafael Soriano and then Dave Robertson get the first cracks at any save opportunities. Given the nature of the injury, it is safe to drop Rivera and replace him with either one of those guys, but I’d recommend going with Soriano first.

• Heath Bell was unavailable for last night’s game. Assuming that this unavailability was due to Bell pitching for three straight days and not a sign of a major change, then this isn’t a big deal. However, given Bell’s poor season to date (three blown saves, an ERA that almost touches 12.00 and almost twice as many walks as strike outs) it is prudent to take notice of any bullpen news in Miami. Rather than go with Steve Cishek as I predicted, Ozzie Guillen chose to go with Edward Mujica instead. Mujica managed to pitch around the lone base runner he allowed in his sole frame and got the save. With Guillen apparently trusting Mujica more than he trusts Cishek, I would pick up Mujicia in any league that he is available in.

• Filed under “Things That Probably Shouldn’t Surprise You At All”, Chicago Cubs manager Sale Sveum is rightfully upset over Carlos Marmol’s struggles thus far. Of course Marmol has never been shy to surrender a walk, but his current BB/9 of 9.35 shames his poor career BB/9 of 5.94. To put his current control issues in perspective: if you took away every hit that Marmol has allowed this year, his WHIP would still above 1.00. Now, there was an Ian Stewart error in the 9th inning of last night’s game, but Marmol still failed to get a single batter out of the five that he faced. Despite the desire to rearrange his bullpen, Sveum doesn’t have very many tools to do so. The Cub that currently has the most holds this year is Rafael Dolis, he of the 2.35 career K/9 and 5.1% SwStr% career numbers. Small sample size aside, Dolis does not possess the stereotypical closer “stuff.” The most reasonable solution to me is to go with Shawn Camp in the short term and hope that Marmol can get his walks back down from the stratosphere. Read the rest of this entry »

Next Monday I will roll out the new AL OF tiers, but until then, the following are some of biggest climbers and decliners of the season to date:

Bullish:
Adam Jones – The simple truth here is that Jones just keeps making hard contact. Potential stringer issues aside, Jones currently sports his highest LD% of any qualified season. He currently has six home runs, five doubles and a triple to boot. His .338 BABIP is certainly high, but he has posted seasons of .328 and .329 in the recent past, so I’m not prepared to write off his BABIP and claim it as so called “luck.” His counting numbers for speed have been solid, but his four stolen bases don’t look quite as shiny when compared to his two caught stealing. I don’t expect him to slug .600+ for the season, but .500 certainly seems attainable. Jones has improved his strikeout rate, but his paltry walk rate drags him down a bit in OBP leagues. Eventually those lack of walks will hurt his SB and Runs chances, but that hasn’t happened yet. He’ll be up to tier 3 unless he falls off a cliff this week. Read the rest of this entry »

In order to one-up Zach, I bring you 5, yes five bullet points today for the Roto Riteup today:

• Now to add to Zach’s Roto Riteup yesterday, after Carl Crawford visited Dr. James Andrews it was discovered that Crawford has a sprained ulnar collateral ligament. His recovery is supposed to be played out in phases, and phase one is a suspension of all baseball related activities. A possible 3 month downtime was discussed, but Crawford maintains that he’ll be back sooner than that. Boston fans and fantasy owners are most assuredly upset and frustrated at Crawford for his struggles last year and injury this year. I was optimistic of his ability to bounce-back, but a quality 2012 bounce-back is looking less and less likely. Expect his ranking to plummet on Monday.

• Ryan Zimmerman missed yesterday’s start. It has now been six days (probably seven today) since he saw any game action. He’s been held out of the lineup due to shoulder inflammation, specifically in his throwing AC joint. The most likely scenario at this point is a cortisone shot and a DL stint retroactive to April 20th. After missing most of April and all of May of last season with an abdomen injury, Zimmerman still can’t quite shake the injury bug. If you can find the (potentially) disgruntled Zimmerman owner in your league, I would e-mail them an offer. When healthy, Zimmerman is a top three third basemen. Read the rest of this entry »

Here we will continue to monitor the risers and decliners of the American League outfield rankings:

Bullish:
Marlon Byrd – I’ve already waxed poetic on Byrd in a previous article, so I won’t ramble too much today. I like Byrd as someone who is CF eligible and starts for the team that has scored the 5th most runs in the AL. Byrd’s ownership rate is still just 2% in Yahoo! leagues so there is a good chance that he is available in yours. If the match up is favorable, I like Byrd for FanGraphs: The Game at home on days where you want to save a few dollars. He’s a useful ballplayer.

Yeonis Cespedes – Cespedes already has 4 dingers and is 4-4 in stolen base attempts. The 30% K-rate is something to be wary of, but he is still producing in spite of it. Per Pitch f/x, not even 45% of the pitches that Cespedes has seen has been a 4-seamer or a 2-seamer. That means that he has seen an awful lot of curves, sliders and change-ups. Cespedes does have a .357 OBP, but that includes his 3 HBP. Cespedes has only earned 7 walks for himself so far. With a swinging strike rate of 16.4%, I am tentatively pushing Cespedes up one tier. If those strikeouts get out of hand, then expect him to drop back down.

Denard Span – Although I don’t expect Span’s average to remain at .324 all season long, I do feel that he has a good chance to end with a .300+ average. He’ll never hit too many homers for you, but his runs, SB and AVG should all be above average at the end of the year. If you play in an OBP league, then Span is one of those deeply satisfying late round types. His sneaky good OBP (career .361) is great to have penciled in for 650 plate appearances. Read the rest of this entry »