It seems to be fair to say that most fantasy baseball gamers didn’t have high expectations for Travis d’Arnaud this season. The New York Mets’ backstop went undrafted in nearly all rotisserie and head-to-head leagues at Yahoo! and ESPN. His CBS ownership rate in the first week of the season was 63%. I surmise that the numbers basically placed him near the fringe of indifference in two-catcher mixed leagues, where he still resides, for the most part.

I thought that it was a tad surprising. Granted, d’Arnaud slashed .202/.286/.263 in the 112 plate appearances that made up his MLB debut in 2013, but peripheral numbers suggested that his control of the strike zone was good. His bat speed is considered top-notch. Plus, he was still a top prospect. Most who do the fantasy thing like prospects, don’t they? I don’t have and didn’t want any shares then, but I figured that someone did.

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In need of another catcher? Rummaging through the discount bin in the hopes of finding an undervalued arm? That’s funny — we’re looking at the same things this week in another edition of the deep league waiver wire.
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Last year, I polled you wonderful readers asking which group of pitchers you expected to perform better during the post-All Star Break period. The two groups were composed of the pitchers whose ERAs were most disparate from their respective SIERA marks. While a one year sample wasn’t going to prove anything, I was curious what you all thought and what would actually happen. Do I put too much faith in SIERA? If the SIERA beaters from the first half still significantly outperformed the underperformers, then perhaps I either have to rethink the way I evaluate pitchers or those specific pitchers were doing something not being captured by the metric.

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It’s been one hell of a strange season for Kolten Wong. He’s hit a couple of very high peaks and a couple of equally low valleys; as such, it’s quite difficult to judge his body of work on the season thus far, as his .242/.299/.392 slash line isn’t really representative of how he’s played at any point this year.

I was high on Wong coming into this season, but he scuffled badly in April. He hit just .221/.264/.265 in 76 plate appearances, and found himself back in Triple-A before the month’s end. The 23-year-old got his game back on track in Memphis, hitting a robust .360/.400/.533 with three homers and six steals in 18 games. While he was gone, Mark Ellis fought a losing battle with the Mendoza line, hitting .190 as the Cards’ starting second baseman.

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I have been a fairly regular advocate of targeting injured players in keeper and dynasty leagues. To a team competing, they are no better than a prospect, but to a team building for the future, they are far more likely to pan out.

A few weeks ago, Prince Fielder was cut in the original ottoneu league and re-signed for $24. He is a free agent in the FanGraphs ottoneu Experts League. And I am in the midst of trade talks around him in a non-ottoneu dynasty league. And I am really not sure what to make of the Ranger 1B.
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I asked twitter what I should write about, and the requests were too many to get to. So I thought I’d get to as many as I could, and the only grouping I could find was starting pitching. So let’s take a look at these guys without spending three thousand words on them! I’ll try to be succinct.

(Okay, I lied, I picked the pitchers because I love pitchers.)

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Episode 141

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is now live! As they slide into the All-Star break, Jason Collette and Nicholas Minnix talk fantasy All-Stars, MVPs, and ROYs by league. Do not be afraid to share your dissenting opinions!

We also discuss a little ROS fantasy team evaluation, a few players coming back from injury, a few – especially Masahiro Tanaka and what to do with him – going out with injury, Shane Greene, the Minnesota Twins’ evolving rotation, and the Tampa Bay Rays’ infield.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions so that we may answer them on our next episode.

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Some quick notes from today’s bullpen action:

-The Reds ran Aroldis Chapman to the mound on each of the four previous days, leaving Jonathan Broxton to man the ninth-inning in a save situation with a one-run lead. Broxton surrendered a leadoff longball to All-World Andrew McCutchen, his second of the game, resulting in the right-hander’s fourth blown save on the season. He is now 6-of-10 in save chances and his ERA sits at 1.19, which is still far off from what his xFIP (4.30) suggests he should be posting. More rough outings could be on the horizon for the Reds’ set-up man. Broxton remains to be an emergency only reliever to own, with the exception of hold leagues, deep standard leagues and daily leagues when streaming.
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Like the San Francisco Giants and Tampa Bay Rays, my fantasy baseball team is endlessly waiting for Buster Posey and Evan Longoria to be Buster Posey and Evan Longoria again. We’re past the half-way point in the season, so perhaps we’ll all have to wait until next year, at which point I’ll fire myself as the general manager of my fantasy baseball team.

I can’t separate fantasy baseball from, like, who I would want on a real baseball team I was in charge of, and I don’t really care about speed. However, in fantasy baseball, things like stolen bases matter. I have nothing against the stolen base or speed in general (full disclosure: I’m fast), but I just wouldn’t really want a guy like Ben Revere playing center field for my favorite team. He’s fast, but he doesn’t walk, hit for power, or get on base at an above-average clip. It’s fun to try to get a time on a fast guy down the line or on a stolen base attempt on your stop watch. One of the joys of watching the Giants over the past few seasons has been the speed of Angel Pagan when he’s in the lineup, which is becoming increasingly less of a common occurrence these days. Unlike Revere, Pagan has some slug to his game in addition to plus-plus speed.

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If you look at his numbers, Kris Bryant looks ready for the majors. He hit 22 homers in just 68 games in Double-A before earning a promotion to Triple-A, where he hasn’t slowed down a bit, smashing eight more homers in 22 games. Between the two levels, he now owns an absurd .348/.443/.700 slash, with 30 home runs and 11 steals…in just 90 games.

If you simply look at him on a baseball field, Kris Bryant looks ready for the majors. At 6’5″, 215 pounds, the 22-year-old stands out from his peers on the diamond. He’s faster than it seems like he should be. He’s remarkably agile. Everything he does looks smooth. He’s one of those guys who would probably excel at any sport. He makes it all look easy.

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