As long as you don’t own the player heading to the disable list, injuries could be a good thing. They open up opportunities for others and provide the chance for increased playing time. That is the theme of today’s deep league waiver wire. Even better, both these men have dual eligibility at both first base and outfield. Jackpot!
Only one other first baseman has as many homers as Chris Davis over the past 14 days. Since you are reading this post you can surmise that it is Eric Hosmer, and the hot streak over the past few weeks has pushed his wRC+ up to 109. Prior to that streak, his year was looking much more 2012 like than 2011, and although Hosmer generated some value in his legs last year, it is great to see him finally starting to hit for a bit of power.
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If you’ve ever had to go through a rebuilding phase with a dynasty league roster, you may have run against the difficulty of finding a minor league first baseman who projects as a bigtime MLB force. A couple of years ago, I discussed the extreme paucity of first base prospects here, and I feel that many of the points I raised in that piece still largely hold water. First base prospects are held to such a high standard of offense and are constantly competing with not only other first base prospects, but also defensively-challenged third base and corner outfield prospects, for the few open MLB spots at the position. Most of the first base prospects that do ascend to considerable MLB playing time–let alone success–at the spot are the players who are pegged as bigtime prospects from the moment they sign a professional contract–witness Prince Fielder, Mark Teixeira, Eric Hosmer, Adrian Gonzalez…even guys traditionally at the lesser end of the quality spectrum like Justin Smoak, Ike Davis, and James Loney.
If you’re in a dynasty league with any depth, chances are that most of the “obvious” first base prospects have been swept up (if you’re looking for a first baseman of the future and the big prospects aren’t swept up, stop reading this article and grab Jonathan Singleton). Who might you be able to turn to that’s a bit lower-profile (and thus available) but still could end up as a solid producer at the first base position? Today, I’m going to look at five players who might fill that void.
After last season, people were understandably expecting a lot out of Adam LaRoche. He set a career high in home runs and tied his career high in RBI, and with the Nationals expected to have one of the better offenses in baseball he was supposed to be in a good situation in terms of runs and RBI as well.
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“Dude’s not even 24 and he’s already hit 20+ homers twice. He’s on a trajectory that’ll take him to the top of the first basemen, with good plate discipline and power.”
or
“Have you seen him hit? Freddie Freeman’s power numbers in the minors were not exciting. Disagree.”
There’s good points on both sides of the battle. But Freddie Freeman owners in dynasty leagues are probably wondering if they have a long-term, top-of-the-table asset, or if he’s a better plug-in piece for a contender.
Justin Morneau has 26 home runs in his past 270 games played, which over 162 games would be a measly 16 long balls. For a first baseman, that just does not cut it. Yet still, Morneau is owned in 58% of Yahoo leagues.
While his RBI totals have not been bad and he still nets a 100 wRC+, the guy just does not have the skills he once had and is a drag on your first base slot if you throw him out there every week. He currently ranks 24 in wRC+ so even though he has been league average, everyone knows and understands the quality of first basemen around the league and that the fantasy worthwhile first basemen hit well above Morneau’s current levels.
Nick Swisher has been pretty much perpetually underrated in fantasy formats for the past number of years. He has been dual eligible at 1B and OF and has been a strong contributor in OBP leagues, which are the only types of leagues I personally play in. He has pretty consistently hit for mid 20’s power with equal RBI and R contributions that start at the low 80’s and reach to the mid 90’s.
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Sometimes it’s a good thing to leave a draft with holes because then there is no need to think about who to drop when an attractive player appears on free agency. Of course, this is a situation I have never encountered, since all my fantasy teams are always perfect 🙂 But seriously, I literally dropped my starting middle infielder this week in my 12-team mixed league, with no healthy replacement to take his spot, because I simply had to add Hector Santiago for his start against the Astros this week.
Has there been a more frustrating player over the last few years than Adam Lind? He had a breakout 2009, hitting 36 homers with a nice .396 wOBA, giving Toronto hope that they’d found a pillar of their offense for years to come. The next year he collapsed under a pile of strikeouts and poor BABIP, and while he managed to retain some of his power, three years of nearly identical — and lousy — wOBA marks of .309, .316, and .316 ended with a demotion to Triple-A in 2012. Lind’s Toronto career seemed over; his fantasy relevance almost certainly was. Read the rest of this entry »
I can’t remember which of my fellow RotoGraphers it was who recommended the movie The Girl Next Door while we were baking in the Arizona sun back in February, but it was on the other night and I decided to give it a shot. What I realized first, after the obviously increasing level of hotness of Elisha Cuthbert, was that Hollywood would be dangerous if they ever had an original idea. But as I sat and watched this blatant knock-off of the 1983 coming-of-age classic Risky Business, the line in the title of this post was spoken and I found it quite apropos for the fantasy baseball world. Often times, we tend to overpay for certain players based on personal preferences or just basic preseason hype and it’s always important to take a step back later on down the road and ask yourself if it was worth it. Today we’ll do that with Cardinals first baseman Allen Craig. Read the rest of this entry »
