On Tuesday, the White Sox promoted second baseman Micah Johnson from Double-A to Triple-A. In 2013, Johnson split the season between A and High-A, with a brief taste of Double-A, compiling a .312/.373/.451 slash in 601 plate appearances with an eye-popping 84 stolen bases. Our own Nathaniel Stoltz wrote a comprehensive scouting report on Johnson last June, and two of Nathaniel’s statements in that article help place Johnson’s 2014 success into the context of his long-term prospects:

• “Johnson will go as far as his approach and BABIP take him, and a lot will hinge on how well both facets translate to the upper minors.”
• “It will be Double-A Birmingham that will begin to solidify the direction Johnson’s career will take.”

Fortunately for Johnson, and the White Sox, he has responded in a big way, succeeding beyond expectations in the specific areas pointed out by Nathaniel last June. As a result, the perception of Johnson as a prospect needs to be reevaluated and likely elevated.

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-This morning, Terry Collins indicated that the Mets would call on Jenrry Mejia in the ninth-inning tonight in the Bronx against the Yankees should they be in a save situation. Mejia did indeed take the ball in the Yankees’ half of the final frame, but in a non-save situation as the Metropolitans faced a 1-0 deficit. The right-hander yielded a couple of singles, but fanned Brian McCann and induced a double play to escape the top of the ninth unscathed. Despite not earning a save, Collins’ comments shed some light into the mess that is the Mets’ bullpen at the moment. It appears as if the Mets would like Mejia to emerge from the committee to be the full-time closer when he’s ready. There’s no magical date in mind, but once Mejia is fully transitioned back to the bullpen and is able to pitch in two or three consecutive evenings, he may be close.
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• I hate to see Jose Fernandez needing Tommy John surgery (TJS). His owners really should not have been totally surprised the injury happened. While it is impossible to predict exactly which pitchers will get injured when, Fernandez had some injury risk signs coming into the season.

1. He threw hard. When Matt Harvey had TJS last season, I looked at extreme hard throwers to see if they have more injury risk. Among only 15 starters, there was a heightened risk. I would hate to draw too many conclusions from a sample of 15, but the trend continues.

2. He threw a ton of curve balls. Over 30% in 2013 and in 2014. Previously, I found pitchers who throw their curve more than 25% of the time have a 50% chance of going on the DL.

3. He hadn’t yet established himself in the majors. Pitchers who have been able to make in the majors for three complete season are about 10% points less likely to be DL bound.

All three factors put Fernandez at a higher than normal injury risk.

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Plate discipline is an unheralded casualty of this new era of depressed offense. There have been 19 players with a .15-to-1 walk-to-strikeout rate or worse in a qualified season since the end of the dead ball era in 1920, and there are 11 players on that pace so far this season. Increasingly, that leaves fantasy owners stuck with sub-.300 on base players and their correspondingly low batting averages and runs totals in even moderately deep formats.

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Over the last week, a trio of interesting pitchers joined their respective American League teams’ starting rotations. While two of the three were likely already owned in AL-Only leagues and almost have to blindly be slotted onto a fantasy team’s active roster, the bigger question is whether these guys are worth considering in shallower formats. Let’s dive in.

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-Just when we thought we figured this whole Angels bullpen thing out, Mike Scioscia sent Ernesto Frieri to the hill in the eighth-inning with a three run lead, then provided Joe Smith with the opportunity to close out the Phillies and earn the save. Scioscia’s comments following today’s game indicate that he’ll continue to mix-and-match Frieri and Joe Smith in the ninth frame depending on the particulars of the save situation. Two factors — the score, and part of the order due up (among other foreign forms of managerial reasoning) — will be considered when the skipper calls for his choice closer. Although Scioscia’s comments suggest he would eventually like to name one closer for the remainder of the season, this continues to feel like a closer-by-committee situation. If you’re chasing saves, you’re looking to grab shares of both players until one of these guys — presumably Frieri — proves worthy to work closing situations regardless of situation.
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Welcome to the regularly updated Top 50 Impact Rookies for 2014. This ranking tool grades freshman players based on their projected MLB impacts for 2014 only (not future years) so it will vary significantly from typical Top 50 or 100 prospects lists.

*Masahiro Tanaka (and other Japanese hurlers) has been omitted due to his service time in Japan, as well as the level of competition. Cuban and Mexican imports have not been omitted due to the lower level of competition in their respective countries.

Updated: May 12, 2014

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It’s another truly deep dive in this week’s waiver wire adventure. Since I’ve been asked several times, the deep league edition of the weekly waiver wire is typically meant for Mono league owners. Or perhaps if you play in a 20-team mixed league, you could use these recommendations as well.

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It’s very sad. The man that threw the most curveballs in baseball (with the highest whiff rate among curveballs) is now hurt. It’s almost like there’s been work on the subject.

But Jose Fernandez is gone. You can’t have him back, not this year. So it’s time to hit the wire. And let’s use some whiff rates to see what we can find. I’ll just look for surprising league-leading pitches in each category. One standout pitch might be enough for you right now, especially if it comes with some other surprises once we jump in.

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Once a hitter displays a skill, he owns it.

That can be one of the hardest axioms to remember in fantasy baseball, as down seasons or exceptionally cold stretches make us turn our backs on a player for good. Never is that harder than when the matter of skill ownership gets clouded even further by the process of aging – a skill is owned, sure, but it can also erode over time.

Given those factors, I understand the trepidation in buying into 35-year-old Jimmy Rollins coming off of perhaps the worst season of his career, one in which his home run total dropped to just six in 666 plate appearances, his strikeout rate continued inching higher and his isolated slugging all but fell off the face of the earth. But Rollins’ early-2014 resurgence is worth examining for several reasons.
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