Betemit & Freese: Waiver Wire

by
August 15, 2011

Let’s look at a pair of hot cornerers for the fantasy stretch drive…

Wilson Betemit | 3B | Tigers | Owned in 7% of Yahoo! leagues

The Tigers were getting next to nothing from their third basemen prior to the trade for Betemit, just a .187/.251/.255 batting line with two homers in 373 plate appearances. Their pinch-hitters hit more balls out of the park. Anyway, Betemit has helped rectify that problem in a big way, hitting a stout .333/.379/.500 with two homers in 58 PA since the trade, and he’s been even better in August: .393/.433/.588. He’s been hitting a few more grounders and getting some BABIP help in recent weeks, but nothing too insane compared to last year’s .361 BABIP and his .340 career mark. ZiPS calls for a .267/.333/.442 batting line with three homers the rest of the way, good but not great production at a position that is deeper than it may appear.

David Freese | 3B | Cardinals | Owned in 47% of Yahoo! leagues

A broken hand cost Freese close to two months earlier this season, but he returned in late-June and has hit .295/.352/.450 in 142 PA since. If you want to slice and dice the sample even more, he’s hitting .365/.412/.603 in his last 20 games while assuming the sixth spot in the batting order behind the Albert Pujols–Matt Holliday–Lance Berkman triumvirate. ZiPS isn’t the biggest of fans, forecasting a .274/.333/.393 batting line and just two homers for the rest of the season. I think Freese can easily top that, perhaps something more along the lines of .290/.350/.450 with another five or six long balls. One thing is all but certain: Freese will have a plethora of RBI chances with those three guys batting ahead of him, so keep an eye on him if you’re looking for help in that category over the next few weeks.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.




 

Mike writes about the Yankees at River Ave. Blues and baseball in general at CBS Sports.

4 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Samuel
14 years ago

David Freese is a baller. When he finally stops suffering freak injuries everyone will see that.

0