While the obvious strategy is to have everyday players in your lineup to achieve maximum offensive production, sometimes, it makes sense to go with a platoon player. Maybe the at bats aren’t as regular — maybe he gets only three or four starts per week. But if his numbers are solid and he’s outproducing some of your regulars, then why not give him a try. Here’s a pair of platooners worth a look right now… Read the rest of this entry »
Today’s Deep League Waiver provides fantasy owners with a potential third base replacement for Ian Stewart and my first dive into the pitching free agent pool.
Last week, we examined the fantasy fallout of Manny Ramirez’s abrupt retirement and what it meant for his current-turned-former Rays teammates. This time, let’s look at how another erstwhile big-time AL stud might impact his fellow outfield mates’ fantasy production. Except in this case, it’s a return.
We RotoGraphs positional correspondents will be updating our rankings in the following weeks. The purpose of this excercise is to show movement – despite the small sample size so far, players have showed us something to digest. Either they’ve shown they can be an every-day starter so far, or they’ve lost their grip on a job. Some movement is natural.
But we’re also probably going to change our rankings a little less than the average media outlet. We know that the last three weeks shouldn’t have changed too much about what we think about these players on a fundamental level. So if you see a slumping star ranked highly, take pause before emoting. He may still show he’s worth that ranking. The arrows are for players that have jumped tiers, since they are the most interesting anyway.
Top of the Line
Ryan Braun
Carlos Gonzalez
Matt Holliday
Matt Kemp
With every lowball trade offer that comes my way for Jay Bruce, I am often reminded of the words of Winston Churchill who once said, “Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking our potential.” I am also reminded of the words of the recently departed Chuck Tanner — “There are three secrets to managing. The first secret is have patience. The second is be patient. And the third most important secret is patience.” These words couldn’t ring more true. Read the rest of this entry »
Time to take a look and see who might be available in your leagues and could be worth adding to your squad. It’s still real early, but there might be a few choice names out there that can help, whether it’s short term or long term. Here’s a few to think about… Read the rest of this entry »
Surprise, surprise, Josh Hamilton is hurt again. Yesterday, Eno Sarris outlined what the Rangers are likely to do in terms of divvying up playing time in Hamilton’s absence. David Murphy is a potential replacement for your fantasy team, but he is likely to already be owned in deep leagues. As a result, I have decided to ignore him and provide some other outfield options for those owners struggling to replace Hamilton’s production.
Earlier today, we learned that Josh Hamilton would miss six-to-eight weeks with a non-displaced fracture of his humorous bone. Check that, humerus – it’s not very funny for Rangers fans and Hamilton owners, after all. Badumching. What does this mean for the Rangers? We’ll be right along with plenty of waiver wire replacements, but the Rangers will obviously need to move things around.
As you’ve all seen/read/heard by now, the big news late last week revolved around one Manuel Aristides Ramírez Onelcida and his abrupt retirement from baseball. Expected to be a big part of the Rays’ offense when he signed in the offseason, Ramirez said goodbye after just 17 (mostly hitless) at-bats rather than face whatever “issue” he was alerted of by MLB’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program. Our Jonah Keri chimed in with his immediate reaction in the wake of the news, but let’s break down the fantasy fallout of Manny’s decision.
Let’s take a look at a couple National League outfielders that might be interesting for teams of different depths.
Michael Morse (20% owned in Yahoo, 2.8% owned in ESPN)
Maybe ESPN has fewer five-outfield leagues. Maybe Yahoo has more NL-only leagues. ESPN’s projections aren’t fabulous – a .341 OBP with 15 home runs – but you’d think that would be owned in more than 2.8% of all leagues. Let’s not get too up in arms about this, though, because Morse is making it tough for us to love him. Yes, he’s playing at first base with Adam LaRoche feeling his sore shoulder, but its unlikely he’s going to be worth much more as a corner infielder than a fifth outfielder. The thing that is most concerning about his early-season work is his strikeout rate. So far he’s struck out in a third of his at-bats after putting up a 23.9% percentage over his career. It’s in a small sample size, but given that Morse struck out in 30.1% of his 55 PAs in 2009 and 24.1% of his 293 PAs last year, and that makes up about half of his 717 career major league PAs, we shouldn’t be sure that we know his true-talent-level strikeout rate just yet.
