Start spreading the news. Martin Prado has truly woken up in the city that never sleeps. I wrote a few paragraphs about Prado last month, explaining why I’d rather have him than Dustin Pedroia rest-of-season. Now I feel compelled to study him a bit deeper, since he’s continued raking, despite battling a nagging hamstring issue that kept him out for a few games, but sure hasn’t slowed down his production.

Since being traded to the Yankees, Prado has snapped out of a year-and-a-half long slumber to put up some of the best numbers of his career. Since moving to the Bronx, Prado has been the No. 4 fantasy second baseman, hitting for both power and average. Just a quick look at his season stats, split between the two clubs, is jaw-dropping:

• w/ARI (436 PA) – .270/.317/.370, 5 HR, .099 ISO
• w/NYY (133 PA) – .310/.331/.543, 7 HR, .233 ISO

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While Alejandro De Aza did move to Baltimore recently, as far as I know, he did not join the New Day Co-Op. Instead he joined the Baltimore Orioles as their a reserve outfielder. In my imagination he sat down with the rest of the O’s players and held a meeting of sorts, where they collectively decided to handle the gang from New York.
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A guy with a 151 wRC+ is owned in just 17% of Yahoo! leagues as the playoffs in head-to-head formats are taking place and while roto players are fighting for the top spot in their leagues. In my main league I was actually scouring the waiver wire last night and was able to pick Pollock up, and it’s a very competitive league with guys who are very keen on the wire.

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Melky Cabrera’s finger injury has ended his 2014 season, and Blue Jays manager John Gibbons wants to give youngsters Anthony Gose and Kevin Pillar an extended look in the season’s last month.

“That could be your center and left fielder next year, you don’t know,” Gibbons recently told MLB.com. “You don’t know how things will shake out.”

Sounds like we have two contestants primed for a look in this week’s edition of the deep league wire.
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There are a few exciting names up today. You’ve got your Maikel Franco in Philly, your Joc Pederson in Los Angeles and your Daniel Norris in Toronto. They’ve been called up to the bigs! But, due to innings limits on young arms, and roster crunches on teams now as much as 50% larger, it’s fair to ask. Will any of these youngsters play regularly?

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Labor Day is officially behind us, and that means the fantasy season is beginning to wind down. This week, we’ll take a look at two Mets — one a defensive standout who’s been contributing with the bat lately, the other a newcomer to The Show — who could offer assistance to owners in NL-only leagues.
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Earlier this week, Jeff Zimmerman presented Early 2015 Hitter Projections using Steamer and/or ZIPS averaged ROS projections. The main contingency at this time: all values are set to 600 plate appearances. If I had all the time in the world, I would go through the list and manually adjust the PA based on lineup position, career PA/G, etc, but I’m not that much of a Mensch.

The next day, Mike Podhorzer highlighted some of the surprises ranked in the top 30. Again the 600 PA contingency is clear as Rajai Davis, Jarrod Dyson and Corey Dickerson make the list although if Dickerson doesn’t get platooned, I (and Mike) think he’ll surpass expectations. His splits page tells us there is no good reason to platoon him.

In Mike’s intro, he also referenced that there is no adjustment for position in Jeff’s SGP rankings. That’s where this post comes in.

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Joc Pederson has had one heck of a 2014. The center fielder has blown away the already-high expectations placed before him this year, leading all of Triple-A in home runs, on-base percentage, on-base plus slugging, walks and runs scored. To be fair, his spot atop the list in some of those categories is partially thanks to the simple fact that he’s been in Triple-A all season — and playing half his games in the bandbox at Albuquerque —  but it’s still pretty astounding stuff.

All told, Pederson owns a .304/.434/.590 slash, with 33 homers and 30 steals, making him the first player with a 30/30 season in the Pacific Coast League since Frank Demaree accomplished the feat way back in 1934. He is also the first player this author knows of who has given away his car as a ballpark promotion.

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After being traded, changing leagues and posting his worst major league season of his career, a reasonable person may ask why on earth I’d be buying Allen Craig. His current .237/.291/.348 equates to a brutal 81 wRC+ and he’s still on the disabled list to boot. We can address the DL issue first, as the Boston Red Sox may activate him as soon as Friday. With that out of the way, on to the (potentially over the top) optimism!

The 30-year-old first baseman/outfielder’s rate stats are clearly way off, however many of his peripherals appear to be in line with his career averages.

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This is the “who????” edition of the deep league waiver wire as I dig deep to uncover hidden gems that could contribute in your mono leagues. If you need speed, you have come to the right place.

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