In truth, I am not in favor of a lot of roster movement this early in the game. Unless you totally botched a series of draft picks or have gotten hit early and hard by the injury bug, I’m more of a “trust your draft instincts and let the team marinate for a little while before you start the overhaul” type guy. But between the possible bad luck and all the jumpers out there, there is an early call for waiver wire suggestions. Since I won’t encourage the jumpers, this week’s waiver piece from me will focus on replacing the injured Ryan Ludwick who dislocated his shoulder and will now be out for three months. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the deep league waiver wire. Join me every Wednesday morning decked out in your scuba gear ready to dive into the free agent pool searching for hidden treasure. I have limited the pool of players to those owned in 10% or less in CBS leagues, which should be deep enough for most. Unfortunately, Only leaguers sometimes have to choose between any Major Leaguer with a roster spot or going empty, so it’s a much easier decision!

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The glut of Spring Training injuries is, by definition, behind us, which means in-season injuries are the order of the day. Opening Night came and went without anything notable happening, as did the first slate of games on Monday, but by dinner time 2013’s first serious injury had occurred.

The exact extent of Ryan Ludwick’s dislocated shoulder is still unknown and will be until the results of an MRI are read, which won’t happen until the swelling goes down. Whether Ludwick will miss 2-3 weeks the way Jason Michaels did in 2011 or 3-4 months the way Jacoby Ellsbury did last season depends largely on how much damage was done to the labrum and surrounding connective tissue when the ball moved away from the socket as well as whether surgery is required to fix it. It is too early to say for certain, but if I had to guess, I wouldn’t expect Ludwick back this month. Given Ludwick’s position, the likelihood of an extended absence, and the position of the team’s top prospect – one Billy Hamilton – everyone should make a major free agent bid for Hamilton, right? Read the rest of this entry »

Spring Training stats don’t mean much of anything, but the Red Sox couldn’t ignore the .419/.507/.613 batting line Jackie Bradley Jr. put up in camp. With a spare bench spot thanks to David Ortiz’s continued injury problems, Boston took their 22-year-old wunderkind north and installed him as their everyday left fielder. Manager John Farrell wasn’t joking about the “everyday” part either, he started the left-handed hitting Bradley against CC Sabathia on Opening Day. He was rewarded with three walks in five plate appearances.

Before we go any further, let’s take a second to look back at what our own Marc Hulet said about Bradley this past winter when he ranked him as the Red Sox’s third-best prospect:
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We here at RotoGraphs preach patience. There is nothing worse than making a reactionary transaction based on a small performance sample and then a month later looking back and realizing your mistake. Unfortunately, every league has at least a couple of owners who simply cannot stop themselves from dropping the slow starter after a week and adding the flavor of the day. This means that your patient approach is going to almost guarantee you will miss out on the breakouts who went undrafted. So with that in mind, let’s look at the ultra tiny sample of one game to analyze some of the lesser owned hitters who launched a home run on opening day.

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Gotta pick him up. Chris Coghlan won a rookie of the year, y’all. And he’s got a job. Sort of — a platoon with Justin Ruggiano — but he’s got a job in center field in Florida and he’s a former ROY winner and he hit .321 once.

If you take Coghlan’s rookie of the year season and extrapolate it out to 700 plate appearances, he had a .321/11/10 season. And that was when he was pre-peak. He’s now 27 and likely to be the fastest and strongest he’ll ever be.

And now his career is on the line. Justin Ruggiano strikes out too much to be an impediment. Expect Coghlan to take this job and run with it, hitting .300 with 15 home runs and 15 steals. That would make him one of the better values of the season, considering he’s owned in zero percent of leagues. Zero percent, guys, what’s going on here. He was the rookie of the year!

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As fantasy drafts are being planned, or are already wrapped up, the time is now to consider who to grab or who to trade for. The outfield position has long been a place to go to for all things fantasy relevant, as there is no shortage of both counting stats and rate stats to be found there. Here you will find rankings for the American League outfield, so no Ryan Braun here. The tiers and the rankings within each tier are my own opinion on what will take place for the 2013 season. The rankings are meant to reflect that in a vacuum, I would not trade the first player in a tier straight up for the second player in the tier, and so on.
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The Yankees’ outfield has undergone quite a transformation not just since last season, but since the start of Spring Training. Since Grapefruit League games started in late-February, the Yankees have lost Curtis Granderson to injury (fractured forearm), released Matt Diaz, traded for Vernon Wells (still unofficial, but it will happen), and signed two players off the scrap heap after they were released by other clubs. Here’s the outfield alignment the team is looking at come Opening Day…

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If last year was any indication of what we can expect form the Orioles outfield, then fantasy owners are going to want to get in on the action again this season. The breakout season of Adam Jones was huge, the shortened but pleasant return to form of Nick Markakis was a nice surprise, and although injuries and match-up playing cluttered up left field most of the time, the O’s still managed to get decent production out of the spot on the whole. Jones and Markakis return again in 2013 and while left field is still being settled, should all go according to plan, the outfield should remain a quality source of fantasy production this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Outfield. The position with a ton of required starters that gives us much room for disagreement. In fact, I try my hardest to avoid drafting them early in a snake draft because I know there will be a whole bunch in the middle rounds I think are being drastically undervalued. If only I was in a fantasy league with 10 OF slots. One can only dream. In the outfield, I will only look at those I ranked in the top 64 as bullish picks, while the bearish group will include those in the consensus top 64.

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