Here are two hitters with single-digit ownership rates who deserve more attention…

Gaby Sanchez, Marlins (owned in 5% of Yahoo Leagues)

A 2005 fourth-round pick out of the University of Miami, Sanchez is keeping first base warm for top prospect Logan Morrison. However, Morrison’s ascent has been temporarily slowed by a right shoulder injury, and Sanchez is performing well.

Owning a career .302/.392/.485 line in the minors, the 26-year-old righty batter is hitting .283/.362/.469 in 127 plate appearances, with a .365 wOBA. Known for a discerning eye that allowed him to walk in 12 percent of his PA on the farm, Sanchez has actually swung at a good deal of pitches out of the zone this season (32.8%, compared to the 27.3% MLB average in 2010). He still has a solid 10.2 BB%, though, and he’s showing more power than expected with a .186 ISO.

There’s not a ton of upside here: Sanchez is a mid-twenties prospect with mid-range pop at a position where players are supposed to mash. But he’s not a bad option in NL-only leagues.

Luke Scott, Orioles (7%)

Even after popping home runs against the Mariners on May 12 and May 13, Scott’s .232/.290/.475 triple-slash looks weak. However, the 31-year-old has gotten hosed on balls put in play. His BABIP sits at .246, compared to a career .295 mark.

Granted, Scott is venturing out of the strike zone more than he usually does. His outside swing percentage, 23.4 for his career, is 31.7 percent in 2010. That explains his career-low 7.5 percent walk rate. But in more than 1,900 career plate appearances with the Astros and O’s, Scott has taken a free pass 10.9 percent while batting .262/.346/.493 (.358 wOBA). It seems unlikely that he suddenly caught Francoeur-itis.

Scott’s rest-of-season ZiPS projection is .252/.335/.478, with a .356 wOBA. Given his multi-position eligibility (outfield and first base), he’s worth a roster spot in AL-only formats.

It’s finally Friday. Here’s an afternoon delight, three waiver wire candidates, each at differing levels of ownership.

Jason Kubel | OF | Twins (54% owned)
Maybe last year was Kubel’s career year. Maybe his ISO wont be .200+ again. He’s swinging less often yet he’s swinging more often and stuff outside the zone. The good news is that he’s still hitting line drives so that BABIP should embiggen. He could be a better option available on the wire for those that are running Juan Rivera out there every day, for example. Rivera is reaching more and swinging less in the same way, has also seen a power loss, but isn’t hitting as many line drives. It might be a 50/50 proposition, but if you own someone worse than Rivera, Kubel should be interesting to you.

Felipe Lopez | 2B/SS | Cardinals (19% owned)
Felipe Lopez is a better player than Brendan Ryan. At least offensively. Defensively, Lopez is closing the gap. And the way that Ryan is currently struggling, he may not get to wait around for that BABIP to normalize before the newcomer usurps his job. Lopez has always had more power than Ryan, and now that his defense has improved the last two years, and he’s walking as often as the incumbent, it seems that he will take the job once he returns from his current rehab stint.

John Maine | SP | Mets (12% owned)
Sometimes, when a player is only owned in 12% of leagues, it’s for good reason and it’s hard to recommend the player. Maine, for example, is walking a career-high (for the NL at least), his fastball is the slowest it’s been in his career and none of his featured pitches has been worth positive runs in linear weights. So why is he interesting again? Well, swing rates stabilize first, and Maine has got a career-high reach rate (28.4%) and a career-low contact rate (77.4%). If he was effective at 91 MPH, why not at 89 MPH? As your last pitcher in a deep league, you can leave him on the bench and watch the radar guns. With those reach and contact rates, he’s already doing something right. It may not yet be significant, but Citi Field is suppressing home runs by almost 50% this year (last year it augmented home runs by 5.7%). That could be a bonus.

We’ll try to avoid breaking any unwritten rules by jumping right into the waiver wire post. Be nice to us Dallas Braden – we know little about this nebulous code of conduct.

Edwin Encarnacion | 3B | Blue Jays (5% owned)
There are plenty of flaws in double-E’s game, starting with the most problematic of the bunch (and source of his nickname) – his defense. He owns a -20.7 career UZR/150 at his position, and there’s little doubt he’s limited with the leather. It may end up costing him time with the Jays as they see him boot more soft grounders. Even with the bat, he’s pretty average. His career walk rate (9.1%), strikeout rate (20.6%), reach rate (24%), and contact percentage (80%) are all pretty right on the major league averages in those categories. But the reason you’d pick up double-E is his power, as he’s hit 26 home runs in a season before. You may then be surprised to hear that his career ISO (.188) is not far above average either (.155 most years). Then again, there are plenty of leagues where an average bat at an infield position is very valuable. So there’s that.

Kris Medlen | SP/RP | Braves (3% owned)
It’s not too often that a prospect follows Medlen’s career path. He debuted in pro ball with the Braves as a reliever and immediately blew the doors off the first three levels he encountered with a strikeout rate over twelve and a walk rate below two. Even in only 69 innings, an FIP around two is impressive. I guess the Braves wanted to see if they could get a few more innings out of their nice arm, and they began starting him. He responded with a 9.0 K/9 and a 2.0 BB/9 in double-A. So of course the Braves then called him up as a reliever and the resulting 3.67 xFIP in his first 89.2 innings is major league history. Now the Braves are calling on him to start again with Jair Jurrjens out longer than expected, and if history is to be believed, Medlen can handle the challenge. If he pitches like he has before, he may even hold onto the job when JJj comes back – it’s not like Kenshin Kawakami is using all those K’s on the league. Most deep leagues could use a flier like Medlen, especially since he pitches in the weaker league. Guess that makes me a little more optimistic about his future than Mike Axisa was just yesterday.

Michael Saunders | OF | Mariners (0% owned)
Like with Encarnacion before, Saunders comes with warts despite being named the Mariners’ number one prospect by Marc Hulet this offseason. His 27.8% strikeout percentage in the minor leagues leaps off the page. Also, if you adjust his career minor league line for park and luck using MinorLeagueSplits.com, you get an unispiring .273/.358/.430 line. His .165 ISO in the minors is not very impressive either (the major league average is usually around .155). Last but not least, Saunders showed a platoon split most years in the minor leagues. Excited yet? The good news is that Saunders has shown some incremental improvement in his strikeout rate in 2009 and 2010. He’s also still young-ish (23) and his power is trending upwards. He should play against righties with Milton Bradley out indefinitely and Ken Griffey caught napping in the clubhouse during games, who knows. He will probably get at-bats all year.

When it comes to offensive ineptitude, the Houston Astros reign supreme. Collectively, ‘Stros batters have a MLB-worst .260 wOBA. That’s 29 points below the mark posted by the second-to-last Mariners. Houston ranks dead last in the majors in walk rate as well, at 5.1 percent. It’s not close, either: the Royals and Orioles, tied for 29th-place, look downright patient by comparison, drawing free passes at a 7.2 percent rate. Not surprisingly, the Astros have hacked at plenty of pitches out of the strike zone (29.8 percent, 6th-highest in the majors; the MLB average is 25-27% in recent years).

The biggest hacker, aside from Humberto Quintero, has been right fielder Hunter Pence. Houston’s second round pick in the 2004 draft broke into the big leagues in 2007, hitting .322/.360/.539 with a .384 wOBA. While Pence displayed excellent pop during his rookie year (.217 Isolated Power), his .377 batting average on balls in play was bound to come down. It did in 2008 (.301 BABIP), and his line dropped to .269/.318/.466 (.334 wOBA). Pence again put a charge into the ball, with a .197 ISO, but his free-swinging ways were more of a problem without all of those additional bloops and bleeders avoiding leather.

In 2009, Pence showed more restraint at the plate and turned in a quality offensive season. After swinging at 29.8 percent of pitches out of the zone in ’07 and 31.1 percent in ’08, Pence chased 26.6 percent of outside pitches in ’09. His walk rate, 5.4 percent and 6.2 percent the two previous seasons, climbed to nine percent (right around the MLB average). With more walks, similar power (.190 ISO) and a .308 BABIP, Pence produced a .282/.346/.472 triple-slash (.351 wOBA).

At 27, Pence appeared ready to settle in as a good fantasy option with a passable walk rate, above-average power and a dash of speed (he cracked the double digits in SB each year from 2007-2009). ZiPS predicted a .350 wOBA, while CHONE (.358 wOBA) and the FANS (.363 wOBA) expected slightly more.

Instead, Pence has sputtered to a .231/.252/.343 line so far, with a feeble .254 wOBA. Those plate discipline gains haven’t carried over to 2010, as he has swung at 34.4 of pitches off the dish. Pence has worked opposing pitchers for a walk just three times in 111 plate appearances (2.7 percent). He’s putting the ball in play on the first pitch or getting behind in the count 0-1 at the highest rate of his career, with a 65.8 first pitch strike percentage (57-58% MLB average).

Pence is making contact at the highest rate of his career, but most of that additional contact is coming on those pitcher’s pitches off the plate: his percentage of contact within the zone is 89 percent (85% career average), but his O-Contact is 75.4 percent (57.5% career average). Swinging at and making contact with so many bad pitches has led to plenty of weakly hit balls put in play for Pence.

His groundball rate, 49-53 percent between 2007 and 2009, has spiked to 65.3 percent. Pence’s rate of fly balls hit has dipped to 24.2 percent (32.4% career average) and his line drive rate is 10.5 percent (15.3% career average). Ground balls, obviously, don’t lead to many extra-base hits. Grounders hit in the NL have a .250 slugging percentage in 2010, compared to .615 for fly balls and .988 for line drives. When Pence isn’t pounding the ball into the grass, he’s popping it up. His infield/fly ball percentage is 26.1 percent, compared to a 12.1% career average and the near-eight percent big league average. The University of Texas at Arlington product might have a .239 BABIP, but he’s been awful by any measure.

Pence owners should ride out this rough stretch, as his value is at its lowest point. This could be a good time to grab Pence at a serious discount, though, as he’s owned in just 65% of Yahoo leagues and has surely frustrated some of those owners who have held on to him. Of course, Pence being a buy-low candidate capable of paying dividends is predicated on his taking a plate approach that doesn’t resemble a stoner with the munchies swinging at a pinata. Pence needs to show better patience if he’s going to rebound significantly.

Since outfielders are so bountiful, it makes sense to create some tiers. We’ll start these rankings at 17, which means that the first outfielder may be an OF1 in most leagues, but we’ll still be able to delve a little deeper than we have to date. Once again, to-date wOBA plus ZiPS RoS wOBA is listed.

Worst of the Best?
1. Andrew McCutchen, Pittsburgh (.390 wOBA, .360 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
2. B.J. Upton, Tampa Bay (.328 wOBA, .339 ZiPs Ros wOBA)
3. Manny Ramirez, Los Angeles (.484 wOBA, .414 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
4. Adam Lind, Toronto (.323 wOBA, .356 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
5. Carlos Gonzalez, Colorado (.345 wOBA, .351 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
6. Bobby Abreu, Los Angeles (.343 wOBA, .361 ZiPs RoS wOBA)

Jayson Werth and Andre Ethier moved up into the OF1 rankings with their strong play in the early goings. Adam Lind and Manny Ramirez moved down because of mediocre play and old age, though Lind could still get it going – he just needs to find his power and stop striking out so much. Neither of those things becomes significant in a short sample. That fact should temper our enthusiasm for McCutchen a tiny bit, though, since there is still no guarantee that he will retain all the power gains he’s made in the past year-plus. As an aside, it’s a little silly to hear about how few times Manny Ramirez has gone on the DL. We all know he’s old and injury-prone at this point. 2008 aside, he’s the kind of guy that misses time here and there but has “somehow” avoided the DL.

Still Strong
7. Adam Dunn, Chicago (.387 wOBA, .393 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
8. Alfonso Soriano, Chicago (.435 wOBA, .370 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
9. Torii Hunter, Los Angeles (.358 wOBA, .366 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
10. Michael Bourn, Houston (.363 wOBA, .324 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
11. Denard Span, Minnesota (.354 wOBA, .342 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
12. Carlos Quentin, Chicago (.294 wOBA, .351 ZiPs RoS wOBA)

This is the boring-as-vanilla tier for the most part (but to be fair, it does seem that Haagen-Dazs Vanilla with strawberries is the nectar of the gods). Carlos Quentin is making it harder to believe in him every day, but he’s having some BABIP problems and we can hope that power comes back still. Not too late for him to turn it around and have a decent year. Soriano’s resurgence takes him from afterthought to solid OF2, which is actually sort of an amazing thing with how bad he’s looked in the recent past.

What’s Going On?
14. Jason Heyward, Atlanta (.439 wOBA, .356 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
15. Alex Rios, Chicago (.384 wOBA, .346 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
15. Chase Headley, San Diego (.378 wOBA, .327 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
12. Adam Jones, Baltimore (.255 wOBA, .342 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
13. Carlos Lee, Houston (.230 wOBA, .357 ZiPs RoS wOBA)

Yup, as boring as the tier above was, this tier is full of rock-em-sock-em peaks and valleys. Is Jason Heyward really an OF2 already? Will he be a top tier OF1 by the end of the year? He’s really surpassing even the most precocious of young stars with his performance to date. The best news is that he’s making adjustments on breaking balls. Alex Rios, Chase Headley? Finally? And Adam Jones and Carlos Lee may not be remotely close in terms of career arc, but they are looking in the same closet for their lost games. Hopefully for their owners they will find what they are looking for.

For Reals? Really Reals?
Colby Rasmus, St. Louis (.419 wOBA, .342 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
Austin Jackson, Detroit (.414 wOBA, .307 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
Brett Gardner, New York (.415 wOBA, .330 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
Marlon Byrd, Chicago (.422 wOBA, .363 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
Vernon Wells, Toronto (.440 wOBA, .346 ZiPs RoS wOBA)

Marlon Byrd has to count as the most surprising player in this tier full of surprises. There aren’t enough words for this space to unpack all that’s going on here, but you’ll see analysis on these guys here at FanGraphs and RotoGraphs. I promise.

The Baltimore Orioles are off to a rough start at the plate. The O’s currently have a .308 team wOBA, ranking 11th in the American League. Baltimore batters have hacked at 30 percent of pitches thrown off the plate, a mark topped only by the Blue Jays and Royals. In particular, the outfielders have made outs at a dizzying clip: Orioles’ fly catchers have a collective .300 wOBA, besting only the Athletics among Junior Circuit clubs.

Expect that mark to improve in the weeks and months to come. Matt Klaassen recently discussed the poor luck on balls put in play endured by OF/DH Luke Scott, but Scott isn’t the only O’s hitter whose underlying performance is better than the ugly line that he currently holds. Nolan Reimold sits at the Mendoza Line, but he and his fantasy owners should expect that to soon change.

Reimold, 26, is a 2005 second-round pick out of Bowling Green State who compiled a .286/.383/.521 triple-slash in the minors. Though he showed quality secondary skills (12.5 percent walk rate, .235 Isolated Power), Reimold’s ascent to the majors was slowed by a series of injuries: foot and back problems in 2006 and a strained oblique in 2007.

Reaching Baltimore in May of 2009, Reimold put up a .279/.365/.466 line in 411 plate appearances during his rookie season. He popped 15 home runs with a .187 ISO, walking in 11.4 percent of his PA while posting a .365 wOBA. Injuries again crept into the conversation, as Reimold was shut down in mid-September with a left Achilles ailment that required surgery.

In 2010, the hulking 6-4 hitter was expected to be an offensive asset by ZiPS, CHONE and (especially) the FANS:

ZiPS: .273/.345/.440, .346 wOBA
CHONE: .275/.355/.477, .362 wOBA
FANS: .281/.370/.484, .372 wOBA

However, even after going deep off of David Robertson on Cinco de Mayo, Reimold owns a .200/.305/.357 line in 82 PA (.299 wOBA). The former Falcon’s Yahoo ownership has taken a dive to 26 percent. Look a little deeper, though, and it appears that there’s not much to worry about.

Reimold’s rate of free passes taken is 12.2%, up from last season. His K rate is slightly higher (24.3% in ’10, 21.5% in ’09) and his power is down a bit (.157 ISO). But neither of those changes are drastic, and given the sample size, they’re hardly alarming.

The biggest difference between Reimold’s debut and his 2010 season to date is his BABIP: .316 in 2009, and just .231 this year. Nothing in his batted ball profile has altered dramatically. He’s hitting more fly balls (which do have a lower BABIP than grounders), but those extra flys are in place of infield fly balls, the closest thing to a gimme out on a ball put in play. Point to the line drive rate if you’d like, but one person’s line drive can be another’s fly ball.

ZiPS projects Reimold for a .265/.338/.434 (.341 wOBA) performance for the rest of 2010. Personally, I’d take the over on that line if he has no further injury problems. Reimold’s misfortune provides fantasy owners with the chance to pick up a good hitter at a discount price.

Three outfielders, one for standard leagues and two for the deepest of deep leagues…

Nick Swisher | Yankees | 53% owned

Best known as a three true outcomer, the former Ohio State Buckeye has been slightly more aggressive at the plate in 2010 than in the past (68.9 Z-Swing% in ’10 vs. sub-60% from ’08-’09), which has resulted in fewer strikeouts (18.9 K%), a slightly higher BABIP (.319), and thus a better AVG (.295). More contact for Swisher means more extra base hits (.253 ISO), and with the Yankees’ lineup, more extra base hits means more runs scored and more RBI for your fantasy team. As an added bonus, he also has both 1B and OF eligibility.

Brennan Boesch | Tigers | 1%

Called up once Carlos Guillen hit the disabled list, the lefty swinging Boesch has put up a .412 wOBA while facing nothing but pitchers of the opposite hand. His dominance of righties goes back to the last few years of his minor league career, so this is nothing new. You’re not going to get much help with the OBP category, but he’ll offer a nice amount of pop and good average if managed properly. Detroit faces lefthander David Huff tomorrow night, but after that you’re in the clear until at least the middle of next week.

Marcus Thames | Yankees | 1%

Signed during the offseason to be the team’s designated southpaw masher, Thames is going to see some more plate appearances this month because of Curtis Granderson’s injury. He’s sporting a small sample .503 wOBA, with basically all of the damage coming against lefties. Thames is obviously not going to maintain that pace all year, but he’s been a lefty killer his entire career (.367 wOBA vs. .326 vs. RHP), so 2010 is nothing different. With dates coming up against Jon Lester and Dontrelle Willis, Thames could pay dividends this weekend if you pick your spots with him.

Ownership rates based on Yahoo! leagues

What do Angels third baseman Brandon Wood and Marlins left fielder Chris Coghlan have in common? They share the sordid distinction of posting the worst weighted on base averages in their respective leagues (minimum 50 plate appearances). Wood, 25, trails all AL hitters with a .197 wOBA in 81 trips to the plate. The 24 year-old Coghlan, last year’s NL Rookie of the Year, brings up the rear in the senior circuit with a .206 wOBA in 96 PA. What’s going on here?

Wood scuffled in a small amount of playing time with the Angels from 2007-2009, batting .192/.222/.313. Pitchers carved him up, as Wood walked just three percent of the time and posted a sub-70 percent contact rate (80-81% MLB average). Still, it seemed premature to write off the Angels’ 2003 first-round pick as a bust. With Chone Figgins Seattle-bound, Wood had a good chance to take over third base. ZiPS, the FANS and CHONE all projected a mild performance for Wood in 2010:

ZiPS: .244/.300/.422, .316 wOBA
FANS: .254/.311/.445, .327 wOBA
CHONE: .246/.309/.453, .330 wOBA

At this point, L.A. and fantasy owners alike would be downright giddy if Wood could come close to those numbers. A .245 BABIP hasn’t helped, but he has been bad by any measure. He’s batting .179/.200/.231, and he’s hacking prodigiously. In posting a 2.5 percent walk rate and whiffing 30.8 percent, Wood has chased 41 percent of pitches thrown outside of the strike zone (27% MLB average). The righty batter is down in the count before you can say “Francoeur”: Wood’s 67.9 first pitch strike percentage is slightly more than 10 percentage points above the big league average. Swinging at junk so often, Wood hasn’t made much loud contact. His Isolated Power is .051.

Coghlan, meanwhile, looks at Wood’s ISO with envy. The lefty batter has yet to post an extra base hit this season. That’s right: you have the same ISO as last year’s Rookie of the Year, .000. While he wasn’t a power hitter in ’09, Coghlan posted a .321/.390/.460 triple-slash (.372 wOBA). The projection systems figured that he would regress somewhat this season (his batting average on balls in play was .365), but his bat looked comfortably above average:

ZiPS: .287/.358/.413, .345 wOBA
CHONE: .296/.371/.434, .357 wOBA
FANS: .300/.379/.422, .359 wOBA

Instead, Coghlan is slashing .182/.242/.182. While he isn’t struggling to control the zone as much as Wood, Coghlan’s plate discipline has also been poor.

During his award-winning season, Florida’s ’06 supplemental first-round pick swung at just 20.9 percent of pitches out of the zone, walking 9.4 percent. This season, his O-Swing is up to 34.8 percent and his walk rate is down to 7.3 percent. Coghlan’s K rate has climbed from 15.3% to 27.3%, and his first pitch strike percentage is 62.5% (57.3% in 2009). Considering Coghlan’s showing in 2009 and his history of controlling the zone in the minors (11.8 BB%, 13.1 K%), it’s surprising that he suddenly resembles a raw rookie.

Lunging at pitches that he normally takes, Coghlan has chopped the ball into the ground 52.4 percent this year, up from 47.6 percent in ’09. His BABIP is just .250, but Coghlan has popped the ball up 21.4 percent in 2010, compared to 7.1 percent the previous season (the MLB average is around 11 percent). Those infield flies are near-automatic outs.

Wood has lost just about all of his supporters in fantasy leagues (owned in four percent of Yahoo leagues), while Coghlan has retained some good will from his 2009 campaign (43 percent). For the rest of the season, ZiPS projects a .237/.291/.400 line from Wood (.305 wOBA) and a .275/.345/.391 (.332 wOBA) performance from Coghlan.

It’s hard to recommend Wood at this point, but Coghlan could be a decent buy-low option in deep mixed leagues and NL-only formats. Given his track record, it seems unlikely that he suddenly, permanently forgot how to tell a ball from a strike.

I’ll do one shallow league guy just because he’s heating up and I’ve seen him on some wires, but then it’s back to the deep leagues of course. This triptych of ineptitude may leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, but there’s utility here despite their warts.

Nate McLouth | OF | Braves (50% owned)
It’s a mixed bag with McLouth, who was already behind the eight ball in leagues that count batting average. Since swing rates stabilize first, we’ll take a look there – and find the numbers going in different directions. Overall, he’s swinging a lot less this year (34.7%) than in his career overall (40.1%), but it’s hard to say that’s a negative right off the bat. Swinging less could, for example, lead to more selectivity and more walks. Accordingly, McLouth is reaching less (20.4%) than he has in his career (21.2%), and walking at a career high rate (14.3%). And that’s good. What’s bad is that his contact rate is down (81.3% this year, 85.4% career). In any case, more contextual clues lead to some hope. A week ago, McLouth had been dropped to 8th in the order and wasn’t playing against lefties. Though 478 at-bats against lefties is hardly an opus, his .702 OPS against lefties is close to a disasterpiece. Count it as hope that McLouth has been moved back to leadoff against righties, and you’ll get yourself a lifetime .818 OPS hitter against that hand. As long as you have daily lineups, and can wait for righties, he’s a good pickup.

Delmon Young | OF | Twins (15% owned)
Yes, I know. Hold your nose. Young is not the dynamic star that was once prognosticated for him. He’s very flawed. He doesn’t have much power. But this isn’t to say that he hasn’t improved. In fact, his swing profile includes some improvement in virtually every category. For such a wild swinger, swinging less has to be a positive – and Young is swinging less (54.7% this year, 61.2% career). He’s reaching at a career-low rate (36.8%), and this improvement is particularly informative because it’s part of a trend. He’s improved his reach rate in every season in the bigs. The best news is that his contact rate is up big (79.9% this year, 75.3% career) at the same time. He still swings at bad pitches too often, and his power is just barely above average, but there’s a good chance that he retains the gains he’s made in the early going. Though it’s not yet significant, it’s nice to note that he’s sporting a career high in flyball rate right now, and a .290/20/10 season is not out of reach. The hardest part will be following the lineups to make sure he’s playing.

Steve Pearce | 1B | Pittsburgh (0% owned)
Is another major league team about to give up on Jeff Clement? When is a good time to cut your losses and give up on a player? Did the Pirates already give up on Pearce before Clement? These are all good questions that won’t be answered here. Instead, we’ll just report that Pearce was recalled today and is on the major league roster. Though he’s shown a platoon split in the major leagues (.920 OPS versus lefties, .607 vs righties), those have come in a mere 378 plate appearances total. The same split is not as pronounced in the minors (.929 vs lefties, .871 vs righties) and virtually disappeared in his hot 2010 start (.353/.456/.612 overall). Maybe he’ll get some starts at first base against lefties, or maybe he’ll steal some time from the scuffling Lastings Milledge. It’s worth stowing a guy with a .889 career minor league OPS in about 2000 at-bats, especially when he’s just turned 27 and has a fire under his behind.

Ownership rates courtesy Yahoo Fantasy Sports.

I’m back from Japan and have Basu-Baru pictures for your pleasure. Baseball in Japan has many of the trappings of the American version, but also includes cheerleaders and choreographed songs. Interestingly enough, the game I saw featured two Westerners at cleanup – Tony Blanco for the Chunichi Dragons and Alex Ramirez for the Yomiuri Giants. The pitchers had decent stuff, and the crowd was louder than many (most?) regular season MLB games, but overall the package was something like a AAAA game.

I digress. Time to take ownership of these outfielder rankings and change them up a bit. I will be doing them all season, as a sort of power ranking at the position. We’ll go with the FANS’ projected wOBAs (aka their upside projections) for another week.

The Top Three:
Ryan Braun, Milwaukee (.405 wOBA)
Matt Kemp, Los Angeles NL (.367 wOBA)
Justin Upton, Arizona (.388 wOBA)

Nothing much to say here except it looks like Upton’s ankle isn’t bothering him. These guys are studs and by the end of the year, could easily all be top-five fantasy players despite playing in the outfield.

There’s Nothing Wrong With…
Grady Sizemore, Cleveland (.343 wOBA)
Matt Holliday, St. Louis (.390 wOBA)
Carl Crawford, Tampa Bay (.367 wOBA)
Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston (.354 wOBA)
Curtis Granderson, New York AL (.340 wOBA)
Nelson Cruz, Texas (.368 wOBA)
Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle (.369 wOBA)
Shin-Soo Choo, Cleveland (.389 wOBA)

After the spirited Choo vs Granderson vs Sizemore comments conversation from the last time we updated these rankings, it’s only natural that we find a way to put them all in the same tier where they belong. Nelson Cruz is absolutely on fire, but his BABIP (.357) and K rate (24.1%) together suggest that the batting average should regress to his career norm. Granderson is still having trouble with lefties, but if he continues to bash righties to this extend, he’ll stay out of the next tier.

Not Quite Five-Category Performers
Josh Hamilton, Texas (.321 wOBA)
Jason Bay, New York NL (.397 wOBA)
Adam Lind, Toronto (.394 wOBA)
Nick Markakis, Baltimore (.349 wOBA)
Manny Ramirez, Los Angeles NL (.396 wOBA)

Manny is actually showing that he’s still got something left and with another tater or two could even join the next tier. That said, his missed games will keep the old(er) man back a little. Those same missed games should come into play with Hamilton eventually too. Lind’s power has taken a slight step back, but it’s early going and all it looks like he needs to do is loft the ball a little more (33.3% FB this year, 36.8% last year).

Missing Something?
Jayson Werth, Philadelphia (.382 wOBA)
B.J. Upton, Tampa Bay (.310 wOBA)
Andre Ethier, Los Angeles NL (.370 wOBA)

Werth reminded us that he has some injury issues by missing time with hip soreness, but has otherwise played well. The older Upton is actually playing about as well as can be expected, and in leagues that don’t use batting average, he may yet prove to be an elite option. Ethier will have his supporters, but his fly ball rate already fell, and his power pace should fall with it. The batting average should be strong this year, though, and he’s still a solid option.

Upside to Join the Top
Andrew McCutchen, Pittsburgh (.360 wOBA)
Carlos Quentin (.375 wOBA)
Michael Bourn (.326 wOBA)
Jason Kubel (.370 wOBA)

Outfielders are a tough position to handicap because of the sheer numbers, which also won’t allow me to go too deep. By highlighting some guys that could join the elite with the right years, we can delve a little deeper. So, while Shane Victorino is a fine option in the outfield, McCutchen is stealing bases at a pace (five so far) that would outpace the Flyin’ Hawaiian should it keep up. Bourn has shown the same plus plus speed. Should Quentin stay healthy, and Kubel prove that he can keep his slugging percentage over .500 year-in and year-out, they would join the power elite. So far, so good.