Jayson Werth stayed healthy and blossomed into one of the game’s best players in Philadelphia, topping five Wins Above Replacement each season from 2008-2010 while providing patience, power and speed. But no free agent signing generated more debate this past offseason than Washington’s seven-year, $126 million pact with the 32-year-old outfielder.

The controversy surrounding Werth’s deal had to do with its length — few doubted that he would rake at the beginning of his contract, but would he be worth over $20 million per year by the time Stephen Strasburg resumed racking up Ks and Bryce Harper began droppin’ bombs and blowin’ kisses in the majors?

We’re still years away from finding out the answer to that question. But there’s a more immediate concern for owners who dropped an early pick on Werth: he’s not hitting right now. Werth has a .224/.329/.391 line in 2011. Granted, Nationals Park isn’t especially friendly to right-handed hitters, decreasing offense by about three percent compared to a neutral stadium. But Werth’s production falls well short of his pre-season .263/.360/.475 ZiPS projection. Why is Werth stumbling in D.C.? Let’s take a look.

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This stretch of the season is often the toughest for owners. Most of the big breakouts have already happened (hello, Michael Pineda, Alex Avila and Matt Joyce), plenty of the bounceback candidates have proved they can still play (right, Lance Berkman, David Ortiz and Josh Beckett?) and many of the elite prospects have been called up (thanks, Eric Hosmer, Jordan Lyles and Dustin Ackley). That leaves owners who missed out on those players to seek help either via trade or by identifying — and adding — players who have underperformed so far. This late in the game, it’s a trickier decision-making process because all the options come with some ugly pock marks (hence, the underperforming and all), but there are always a few possibilities for second-half surges. Like these three American League outfielders.

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Let’s check in on two outfield situations that might produce a waiver wire prize.

Roger Bernadina, Washington (16% owned in Yahoo)
My preseason favorite for a starting job has meandered his way back into a role for now, but how long will it last? Rick Ankiel could return and push the Shark out of his territory, as improbable as that sounds considering the former pitcher’s sub-.550 OPS. Still, when he returns in early July he should at least have above-average power and a rocket arm in center field, two things that Bernadina probably won’t manage. With the team making its way to respectability, and the fact that Bernadina is under team control for longer, the most likely plan has the Shark retaining his playing time somewhere on the diamond. Laynce Nix won’t keep his batting average looking this useful, or so says his career .247 batting average. Then again, he has a .322 BABIP and a .316 xBABIP based on his mix of batted balls. And he’s always had good power. And while we’re here, we might as well mention that Bernadina’s .256 career batting average and ZiPs RoS is just as pessimistic about his chances to keep producing at this level. And yet, Bernadina’s .344 BABIP is two points lower than his xBABIP. He’s got wheels and is hitting the ball on the ground (2.13 GB/FB ratio). Both outfielders might continue to show better batting averages than they have in their careers. If only one of Nix, Ankiel and Bernadina were right-handed, there might be a platoon to be had. In the end, though, as exciting as this run of competence from the Nationals has been, the team must look to the future. That means more of Shark roaming the outfield.

Lucas Duda, New York NL (0% owned)
Really, this blurb might as well start with Jason Bay and get it over with. Carlos Beltran will miss the occasional game, but if Duda wants to get enough plate appearances to be even deep-league relevant, he’ll need to steal some time from Bay. Lately, there’s been a few days where Terry Collins has given Bay ‘mental health’ days off, but if the expensive Omar Minaya acquisition returns to even 80% Jason Bay levels, Duda may find himself back in the minors shortly. Unfortunately, counting last year, we now have over 600 plate appearances of Bay sporting an HR/FB rate just around five. Hitting a career low in fly balls is not helping matters this year, either. Other than his expensive contract, there’s little reason to believe that he deserves time on a major league corner outfield right now. Which is not to say that Duda necessarily does either. He hasn’t found his power stroke just like Bay. But he’s only put up 65 plate appearances. Given time, he could hit .250+ with above-average power — his ISO has been .295 the last two years in Triple-A — and that’s more than you can say for Bay right now. Duda’s an okay flier in the deepest of leagues.

It wasn’t as if Shin-Soo Choo was really tearing it up for fantasy owners this season anyway, was he?  After back to back 20-20 seasons with a .300 average, the 28 year old Korean-born outfielder ran into a little trouble this year.  He struggled out of the gate in April and was then arrested on DUI charges at the beginning of May.  The apparent shame perpetuated the sub par play and now here in June, after being hit on the hand  by Giants’ starter Jonathan Sanchez, is on the DL with a broken thumb that will require surgery and will be sidelined for a minimum of six weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

For once, the Pittsburgh Pirates aren’t a punch line or a prelude to Steelers training camp. At 38-37, the Bucs are just three games back in the NL Central. That’s no thanks to the offense, however, which ranks 14th in the NL in runs scored.

Pittsburgh will turn to a pair of prospects in an effort to plate more runs: infielder Chase D’Arnaud got the call prior to Friday night’s game versus the Red Sox, and outfielder Alex Presley is expected to be added to the roster before an interleague series in Toronto on Tuesday. Here’s a quick look at what these two will bring to the table in fantasy leagues.

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This week’s edition was supposed to look at a pair of NL outfielders, but then I realized too late that my second recommendation (Chris Denorfia) had already been profiled just a month ago. So instead, you get a super dosage of…

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This is part of an ongoing pro/con series on RotoGraphs. Today we’ll look at the positive side of Matt Joyce. You can see the opposite side here.

Late last week, colleague Erik Hahmann was game enough to poo-poo a well-liked player on his favorite team — this is not an easy series. But today, we’re lucky. There are plenty of reasons to enjoy the Tampa-born 26-year-old outfielder, even if some regression is on the way.

Matt Joyce now has a .349 BABIP and we know that’s a little elevated in the context of the league as a whole. But, as some astute commenters pointed out, a batter’s unique mix of batted balls has as much to say about his BABIP as the fact that the number trends towards .300 across baseball. Using our trusty xBABIP calculator, we can see that his amount of line drives, fly balls, ground balls, infield and bunt hits should be showing about a .316 BABIP. That’s still strong and could still support a decent batting average.

Then again, batting average is not his game. His best average in a full minor league season was .273 at Double-A in 2009. He hits fly balls and has struck out in almost a quarter of his big-league at-bats. Now that he’s striking out less, his batting average might be decent, but it won’t ever be his best attribute when all is said and done.

No, his best attribute is his power. His overall minor league ISO wasn’t super impressive (.191), but a look at his career arc on the farm shows that he was adding punch as he advanced. The opposite might have been worrisome. His batted ball mix looks sustainable, too, so this is no fluke. He’s hitting more than 40% of his balls in the air as he always has, and more than average are going over the fence (12.8% HR/FB this year, 13.7% career, around nine is average). This year, he’s traded a few fly balls for line drives, but we can’t complain with the results. He’s now over 800 plate appearances into his major league career and has consistently shown us an ISO over .220. That’s regularly top-25 territory in a time when the league-wide ISO has dropped (.138 this year, .145 last year).

Of course, these pieces are all about degrees. If Joyce plays to his ZiPs rest-of-season numbers (.255/.340/.454 with another 10 home runs), both Mr. Hahmann and I could be correct. His batting average will have gone down and his fantasy production will have been a disappointment to many owners. But he also will have shown his trademarked power and have been a great pickup in many leagues. Is there any reason to be more bullish than ZiPs?

The key seems to be his strikeout rate. He’s showing a 21.3% number now, and has a 24.5% career rate. He struck out as much as 27% of the time in full seasons in the minor leagues, and ZiPs must be looking in that direction. Also, he whiffs on 9.5% of pitches, which is above average (8.4%). His current strikeout rate is a little worse than average (20.4%), so maybe he’ll strike out a little more. But does it really seem like a player with 800 PAs will suddenly strike out more than he ever has before? Perhaps we can believe his major league totals to date and pencil him in for a strikeout rate closer to his 24.5% career number.

If he strikes out less than ZiPs projects, and continues to exhibit the same power he’s always shown, he’ll be more likely to hit around .275 with another 12-15 home runs. That would fit with his entire major league resume, and give even skeptical owners a reason to feel bullish about Matt Joyce.

Following a mildly disappointing 2010 campaign, Justin Upton is enjoying his best offensive season to date in 2011. Upton has a .299/.384/.522 triple-slash for the first-place Arizona Diamondbacks. Perhaps no longer bothered by the left shoulder injury that hampered him last season, Upton’s power has bounced back (.224 ISO in 2011, .170 in 2010). But there’s another reason why the 23-year-old is having a career year at the plate: he has cut his strikeout rate by nearly a third compared to 2010.

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This is part of an ongoing pro/con series on RotoGraphs over the next couple of weeks. Today we’ll look at the positive/negative side of Matt Joyce. Expect the opposite side shortly.

As a Rays fan I’m obviously going to have a predisposed affinity for Matt Joyce. He was born and raised in Tampa. He was the return in the trade that sent Edwin Jackson packing to Detroit. Jackson was loved by fans, but not necessarily sabermetricians, so any success for Joyce tastes that much sweeter.

He’s had a great first half — transforming from sleeper to .399 wOBA hitter — but there’s reason to believe that trend will not continue.

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This is part of an ongoing pro/con series on RotoGraphs over the next couple of weeks. Today we’ll look at the positive side of Nick Markakis. You could read the negative side here.

I bravely volunteered to take on the bullish side of Nick Markakis. How difficult could it be to find some positives in a hitter who has never hit below .291 in a season and hits second in his respective team’s lineup? However, after reading David G’s (no, I am not typing out his last name) fantastic bearish post yesterday, I was tempted to raise the white flag. The commenters even felt sorry for the poor soul responsible for the other side of the coin, as one wished:

Good luck to the guy assigned the Sisyphean task of writing the “Bullish on Markakis” article…

That certainly does nothing to help my confidence. However, while Dave’s article is full of strong points that paint a pessimistic picture of Markakis going forward, things should not remain this bad.

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