Time to re-visit those monthly rankings, again.  As always, the criteria used for these is as follows:

1.  Current performance level
2.  Expected performance for rest of season
3.  Value based on standard 5×5 categories (avg over OBP)

One note, despite the fact that it is late in the season, we are not accounting for keeper value right now.  We are staying within the parameters of this season alone.  Injured players remain on the list at the bottom so we can just see who was up there from start to finish.  That being said, here’s how the catching position looks right now…. Read the rest of this entry »

Unless Keanu Reeves has been working on calling signs, you won’t be able to replace Brian McCann with a player off the wire with his upside. Now that the 27-year-old Brave has had his career year derailed by an oblique injury in the middle of a marathon game, fantasy owners will be looking for replacements. Let’s take a look at some possible pickups. In tiers!

Shallow Leagues
Jonathan Lucroy (38% owned in Yahoo)
Perhaps it was a dropping BABIP that has had Lucroy hitting closer to .250 over the last two months, but if batting average is important to you, he’s one of the better options available in more than half of Yahoo’s leagues. The good news is that the Milwaukee catcher has some upside left — this year. He’s showing a 21.5% strikeout rate, but also a 6.5% swinging strike rate. Last year, those numbers were 18% and 7.0% respectively. It’s possible that since his BABIP (.338) is so close to his xBABIP (.329), his batting average could even rise as his strikeout rate begins to look more like last year’s strikeout rate. His minor league strikeout rates were all much closer to 15%, so this outcome comes close to probable even. The question is his power. A .119 ISO is not going bring you McCann-like rewards. Not many batters have a ground-ball-to-fly-ball ratio above 1.41 and a home-run-rate-per-fly-ball around ten percent. Chipper Jones, Dustin Pedroia, Martin Prado and Melky Cabrera do, though. The nice thing is that all of them have ISOs above average. Lucroy might run into a few more home runs in the second half.

Mixed Leagues
Ramon Hernandez (23% owned in Yahoo)
Sure, you can go with the high-power, low-batting average guys like Miguel Olivo and and John Buck. Or maybe even Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who has resurrected his career and is mostly playable despite a bad contact rate. Instead it’s Ramon Hernandez that gets the call here. It’s taken the 35-year-old a long time to finally put up a .300 batting average, but with a .328 xBABIP and a .303 BABIP, it might just be sustainable. The way he did it was by sacrificing his fly balls. A career low in fly ball rate along with a career high in ground-ball rate makes him a different player these days, but don’t expect that 20.4% HR/FB rate to continue. He has a 11.7% career number and his power, as measured by ISO, has been dwindling for a while. Still, even if he won’t play as much as McCann or have the same power, he won’t kill your batting average.

Deep Leagues
David Ross (1% owned in Yahoo)
Well, now you’re just screwed. Just hope he won’t be out long. Ryan Doumit’s rehab has been moved to Triple-A, but he’s probably not back until the beginning of August. Josh Thole might be out there for you as long as you’re not in an NL-only with two catchers — don’t laugh, I am in the AL version — but the Mets catcher is all batting average because of his choked-up approach at the plate. And that approach is even limited in batting average upside. Instead, consider taking the same approach that the Braves might take and pick up Brian McCann’s replacement. If he’s out there, it’s because it’s obvious the lifetime .236/.325/.449 hitter is above his head at .293/.361/.507 so far this year. You don’t need xBABIP to know his .367 BABIP in 84 PAs is not sustainable. Ross has looked great in Atlanta mostly because he’s been limited to facing lefties, too. Interestingly enough, though, the 34-year-old righty has a .331 career wOBA against righties (.334 vs lefties). Everything but his BABIP is looks the same! Take advantage of perceived flaws and pick up the catcher with the .213 career ISO that has been hitting over .270 for the past three years.

There are certain catchers out there — Joe Mauer, Victor Martinez, Brian McCann, Miguel Montero, just to name a few — that are automatic starts for you.  They get left in your lineup, through good starts and bad, because you know, for the most part, the level of overall production you’re going to get.  But for those that don’t own a top-rated backstop, sometimes you have to play the waiver wire and go with the hot hand.  With that, we’ll leave the top guys out and talk about some risers and fallers at the catcher position that you may want to put in, or take out, from your lineup. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s really time to start looking deeper into your free agent pool these days.  Of course, it looks better when a player is owned in 40% of ESPN leagues, but does that really mean he’s outperforming a guy that may only be owned in 15%?  Not always the case.  It may just mean that fewer people are paying attention and don’t know as much about him to realize that he is the superior fantasy option at this point in time.  Here’s a pair of guys that just might fit that description. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re now sitting here in mid-July and four times the Catcher Rankings have been adjusted to reflect both the current season’s performance and expected rest of season projections.  For the most part, the criticisms have been mild as we all seem to be, reasonably, on the same page.  However, there’s one thing that continuously sticks out at me and today, I feel it’s time to address it.  The title obviously says it all, but still, I feel it necessary to ask the question:  What’s up with all the Chris Iannetta love? Read the rest of this entry »

Matt Wieters was supposed to be a switch-hitting Joe Mauer with power. He ranked as the top prospect in the game prior to the 2009 season, and he inspired a Matt Wieters Facts page with gems like, “Scott Boras Hired Matt Wieters As His Agent” and “Matt Wieters Took Batting Practice This Morning. There Were No Survivors.” Given that backdrop, anything less than MVP-caliber performances from Wieters wouldn’t satiate the masses. And that’s a shame, because Wieters has quietly become one of the better catchers in the game while attention has been fixed on finding the next Next Big Thing.

Take a look at Wieters’ offensive performance over the period of 2009-2011:

2009: .288/.340/.412, .330 Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA)
2010: .249/.319/.377, .303 wOBA
2011: .265/.324/.417, .326 wOBA

Some people might look at those lines and say that Wieters had a promising rookie year, tanked in 2010 and is hitting slightly worse in 2011 at 25 years of age than he did as a 23-year-old. Viewed through that prism, Wieters looks like a disappointment. But that thought process is flawed because it doesn’t frame those numbers within the context of changing run-scoring levels across baseball.

In 2009, major league teams scored an average of 4.6 runs per game. That total fell to 4.4 runs per game in 2010 and is down to 4.2 runs per game in 2011. Look at the effect that drop has had on the collective MLB line for hitters over the years:

2009: .262/.333/.418, .329 wOBA
2010: .257/.325/.403, .321 wOBA
2011: .253/.319/.391, .315 wOBA

The line for catchers over that time frame has nosedived from .254/.320/.395 in 2009 to .249/.319/.381 last season and .242/.314/.379 this year. With teams scoring fewer runs, comparing a hitter’s line in 2011 to years past is an apples-to-oranges exercise.

Put in proper context, Wieters’ 2011 season is indicative of a young player making solid offensive progress. At a time when hitters are faring worse as a whole, Wieters is showing more power, hitting fewer ground balls and striking out less. His park-and-league-adjusted line this year is two percent better than average (102 wRC+), while his rookie season was five percent below average (95 wRC+). But it might not feel that way to some fantasy players, given Wieters’ gargantuan expectations and the difficulty in mentally adjusting to the lower run-scoring levels in the game over the past several seasons.

Wieters has the sixth-highest wOBA among catchers qualified for the batting title, and his rest-of-season ZiPS projection ranks in the top 10 among backstops who figure to get frequent playing time. Yet, he’s still on the waiver wire in 13 percent of Yahoo! leagues. Some owners waiting on Superman are missing out on a quality, mid-twenties catcher with upside remaining.

Not long after the final out of the All-Star Game was recorded, work broke that the Mets had traded closer Francisco Rodriguez to the Brewers for two players to be named later. Obviously this deal has major fantasy impact, so let’s break it down.

The Brewers

“Francisco has been one of the best relievers in the game for many years,” said Brewers GM Doug Melvin in the press release. “He is a high-quality arm who will be a tremendous asset to our bullpen as we prepare for the final months of the regular season and playoffs.”

That language (“best relievers,” not “best closers”) leads me to believe that the Brewers will continue to use John Axford in save situations. He’s outperformed K-Rod this year (2.26 FIP vs. 2.98 FIP) but doesn’t have the same kind of track record, however there’s the issue of Rodriguez’s vesting option. If he finishes 21 more games this year, it’ll lock in a $17.5M salary for next season. There’s a better chance of Trevor Hoffman coming out of retirement to be the seventh inning guy than there is of Milwaukee letting that sucker kick in.

Axford owners, you’re safe. His role doesn’t figure to change. Yeah, K-Rod might steal a save here or there (they have the wiggle room to let him finish 10-15 games), but nothing crazy. Rodriguez owners are pretty much out of luck, you’ve got a great option for holds but just took a big hit in the saves department.

The Mets

There are two obvious candidates to inherit the ninth inning in Flushing. Jason Isringhausen has been doing a bang-up job as K-Rod’s primary setup man this season, though his 4.67 FIP and 4.81 xFIP do a better job of telling the real story than his 3.14 ERA. Izzy isn’t missing many bats (6.4% whiffs) and is giving up a ton of fly balls (just 30.5% grounders), so CitiField is saving him some headache. He has the Proven Closer tag and is seven saves away from 300, things that could impact his role even if they really shouldn’t.

The other option is hard-throwing Bobby Parnell, who has seen quite a bit of high-leverage work of late. He’s pitched to 1.56 ERA with 19 strikeouts and just four walks in 17.1 IP since coming off the disabled list at the end of May, and his stuff is clearly superior to Izzy’s. Parnell has just one career save (back in 2009), so if he does get the job, he might be on a very short leash. The team would probably be better off letting him handle the sticky situations in the seventh/eighth while Isringhausen starts the ninth fresh with no one on base anyway.

The dark horse is rookie Pedro Beato, but he seems like an extreme long shot. His 3.38 ERA matches his 3.38 FIP, but he’s seen more sixth and seventh inning work than anything else this year. Perhaps down the road, but Beato’s time is not now. I suspect that Isringhausen will get the call for the time being, but keep in mind that he’s on the trade block as well and could have a new address in three weeks. He’s the short-term option, but Parnell is the clear long-term solution here.

Aside: Heath Bell just got that more valuable on the real life trade market, so if you’re concerned that he’ll get moved to a club with an established closer, I’d look to sell him in fantasy now.

As the MLB non-waiver trade deadline approaches, fantasy owners should be paying close attention to which teams may be buyers, which teams may be sellers, and which relevant fantasy players could be on the move.  A look at which players whose contracts expire at season’s end and are headed into free agency is as good a place to start as any. Read the rest of this entry »

Using the same model described in my looks at surprise players, here are the biggest busts thus far in ottoneu lwts leagues at catcher and first base.  Almost by definition, these guys are all expected to regress in a positive direction going forward.  But for each position I’ll give you “my pick,” the player that I think is most likely to turn it around in the second half and produce at their price tag.

Catcher

My Pick: Joe Mauer

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You’ve heard about Howard Bender’s draft. And you’ll hear about Jason Catania’s draft and Jeff Zimmerman’s draft. Because we all got together and decided to pick six, deep league style. Our CI, MI, OF, C, SP and RP all had to come from a pool of players that was owned in less than 10% of Yahoo leagues. Here are my picks and why. In the order I drafted. I had the third pick of four.

Chris Heisey
A disclaimer about deep leagues and waiver wires: One thing you want are live bodies with some upside. It’s the usual caveat. So Heisey has flaws — he’s now struck out in 18.2% of his at-bats in his first 396 plate appearances, so he might have that flaw. Then again, his minor league rates were closer to 20% most years. He could improve in that category. His BABIP is fine (.308) and though his current ISO (.209) would rank high in his minor-league work, it would still fit. And he’s got a .192 ISO so far in the majors. He stole 27 bases against two caught-stealings in High-A, and had very good success rates all along. So he has good speed. And power. And could improve his strikeout rate. And is battling for playing time with a guy with a .245 career batting average and a strikeout rate over 33%. Yes please.

Read the rest of this entry »