Play in a linear weights league in ottoneu (or Pick Six), and walks become that little sliver of an edge that you might be able to get over your competitors. But play in any league that values OBP and you might find yourself wondering which players take the most free passes – and most importantly, which players might be taking more free passes in the future based on their past numbers.

At the same time, a star that walks is still a star. How about some players that might be under the radar in a 12-team mixer that still add value with their walk rate? Let’s get them up in this piece. Did you know Jack Cust, who is currently batting fifth for the Seattle Mariners, is second in qualified batters in walk rate? He’s walking in nearly one-fifth of his at-bats. That’s right in line with his 17.4% career walk rate, and he’s well-known as a three-true-outcome guy.

Unfortunately, Cust’s .360+ OBP comes with a sub-.100 ISO. If you’d like a little power with your walks, maybe you could take a look at a more surprising heavy walker, Chase Headley. He’s walking about 16% of the time and has a sub-10% career walk rate. There are reasons to believe his step forward in the category, however. Headley is swinging at fewer pitches outside the zone than ever. He’s even swinging less than ever overall. Both of these numbers are probably reliable given his number of plate appearances so far this year, too. A little bit of power, a little bit of speed, and a lot of walks – at a tough position no less.

If the other side of the corner infield is more your bag, Adam LaRoche is putting forth similar plate discipline statistics and a career-high walk rate of his own. What’s particularly nice about LaRoches’ work, despite looking so mediocre overall, is that he’s swinging less than ever and making more contact than ever (measured by both contact % and swinging strike rate). His contact is even about as ‘good’ as ever if line drive rate can be believed. It seems to suggest that he’s getting choosier in his old age. We know that power stabilizes last, so if he can get his ISO back over .200 again, he might be able to pair it with one of his best OBPs. He’ll have to hit a few more fly balls to do that.

A few newcomers deserve some love. Jonathan Herrera doesn’t have a ton skills but can take a walk. Jonny Gomes is pushing his three-true-outcome work to a new level. Ben Francisco is one of those guys that is mediocre all-around, but he’s got a double-digit walk rate. Jack Hannahan is a flawed player, but he’s had those double-digit walk rates his whole career. Luke Scott comes to mind.

One last note about some players that might be walking more in the future. Chipper Jones has a decent OBP, and is walking about 10% of the time, but he’s walked much more than that in his career, and his plate discipline stats tell us that he’s playing just about the same. Expect a few more free passes in the future as he shows an OBP more like the .409 OBP he’s had since 2008. Nick Markakis may not have Jason Catania’s vote when it comes to standard leagues, but he will be useful in OBP leagues shortly. He has a career walk rate right at 10% but hasn’t managed an average walk rate this year. This despite a reach rate under his career number and a first-strike and zone percentage under his career rates as well. Once you add a double-digit walk rate to his overall strong play, he makes a good acquisition in linear weights and OBP leagues alike.

Happy hunting.

On Monday, the Milton Bradley era in Seattleland ended, as the board game man received the dreaded DFA. Oh, and Ryan Langerhans got the boot too, but he is probably used to it by now. With a team going nowhere and an offense struggling yet again to score runs, might as well see if they have anyone younger who might provide a jolt to the lineup. A pair of outfielders received the call, let’s see if they have any fantasy potential in deeper leagues.

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In remembrance of the formerly-talented, forever-volatile Milton Bradley, who was designated for assignment yesterday by the Mariners following two ejections and a one-game suspension last week, here are three other American League outfielders rostered in about three-quarters of leagues that owners shouldn’t feel bad about giving the Bradley treatment at this point in the season.

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Maybe it’s just because I’ve been keeping such close watch on my AL outfielders beat, but it seems that no position in fantasy baseball has seen more fluctuation in the first month of the season than this one. There are former studs still hitting sub-.200 (here’s to you, Carl Crawford, Alex Rios and Vernon Wells) while lesser-thought of has-beens are piling up RBIs (hello, Jeff Francoeur, Alex Gordon and Johnny Damon). And that’s to say nothing of a fella named Sam Fuld who’s gone from complete after-thought to straight up legen — wait for it — dary.

How do we make sense of such who-could’ve-seen-this-coming-ness? Why, by updating the RotoGraphs AL outfielders rankings, of course!

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A couple weeks ago, we updated the National League outfielder rankings. This week, we update a couple players that weren’t even on those rankings.

Jason Bourgeois, Houston (1% owned in Yahoo, 0.8% in ESPN)
Jason Bourgeois has no power, like none at all. His career ISO (.065) would put him at 19th-worst in the category among qualified players this year and his minor league power rates don’t suggest that he has much upside beyond. He also dodesn’t walk a ton. His 7.4% career rate is below average, he hasn’t walked in 36 plate appearances so far this year, and his best minor league walk rate in a season with more than 200 plate appearances was almost exactly average – 8.0% in Double-A with the Mariners in 2006. There also isn’t much to get excited about in terms of pedigree or prospectitude. He’s 29 years old and has been shuttling between Triple-A and the majors for four years now. He’s your typical fourth or fifth outfielder – not really a center fielder according to defensive metrics, but without the power you’d expect from a corner outfielder. Here’s the thing though. He has speed (30 stolen bases between Triple-A and the majors for the Astros last year) and doesn’t really strike out much (13.6% career, 11.1% this year). Oh, and Carlos Lee has a rib contusion, so he may have a bougie last name, but he also has some playing time coming. Deep leaguers that need steals, take note.

Xavier Paul, Pittsburgh (0% owned in Yahoo, 0.1% in ESPN)
Another flawed player stuck without the profile of either a traditional center fielder or corner outfielder, Xavier Paul has turned up where all failed prospects eventually tread: Pittsburgh. Now that Jose Tabata may need some time to rest his hamstring, Paul is in line for more playing time. Paul has shown a little more power away from Los Angeles, but is also striking out about two-fifths of the time. Most likely, he strikes out less and his .500 BABIP returns to earth, and the two effects cancel each other out to an extent. Expect an okay batting average with a handful of steals in the next couple weeks, but it’s unlikely that Paul unseats anyone. Garrett Jones and Matt Diaz fit together like a glove because of their platoon splits, and Andrew McCutchen is not going anywhere. Paul is more of a deep league injury replacement than a speculative pick because his lack of power and centerfield glove are flaws he may not overcome.

The mantra of FanGraphs is “Do not put too much faith into small sample sizes.” We all have it tattood on our chests, just below a picture of the site’s founder, Dave Appleman.

In the world of fantasy baseball that mantra can be twisted a bit, as we will gladly ride a player on a hot streak as far as he will take us. That doesn’t mean we believe in the statistics the player is putting up – more often than not he’s dumped when the hot hitting ends. A lot of fluky things can happen over the course of ~100PA. It’s up to you to decide what is legitimate and what isn’t. Take Chris Coghlan for example.

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In all honesty, virtually all of the legitimate talent has likely already been plucked from your league’s waiver wire by now.  Everyone gets so transaction crazy early on, that it’s hard to believe there are still some stones left unturned.  And yet, there always seems to be a player or two that slips through the cracks for a variety of reasons.  Here’s a look at two that might interest you… Read the rest of this entry »

When searching each week for those under-owned gems for deep league use, it reminds me how bad I feel for those Only-leaguers dealing with an injury. Your replacement options are throw up inducing and you’re basically flipping a coin between two hitters that get five at-bats a week. That is no fun! Though the first player discussed below is most certainly owned in all NL-Only leagues, he should be available in deeper mixed leagues and would therefore be worth a look.

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Nearly a month into the season, the time is nigh to update the RotoGraphs preseason ranks at each position. Some have already been done, in fact. We’ll be getting to AL Outfielder Ranks Version 2.0 next week, but to tide you over in the meantime, here are a pair of Alexes — one Riser and one Faller. Consider your appetite whetted.

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This week in the national league outfield we’ve got two interesting players – one for shallow leagues and one for deeper leagues. Happy hunting.

Dexter Fowler (39% owned in Yahoo, 63.6% owned in ESPN)
Call this an appeal to the Yahoo owners who are on the fence about Fowler, because something about the ESPN game has made him more appealing already. ESPN projected Fowler to hit .275 with seven home runs and 27 steals, while Yahoo thought his 2011 would look more like .266 with five home runs and 25 steals. That might explain a little bit of the variance, and perhaps ESPN has more five-outfield rosters. In any case, Fowler is definitely ownable.

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