On Monday, I took a look at the hitter BABIP leaders and tried to determine how sustainable those marks were for 2013. Today, I will check in on the bottom dwellers in the metric. This could be your initial list of undervalued hitters in next year’s fantasy drafts.
Let’s face it. Sifting through the waiver wire at this point can be an exercise in futility. I mean, if the guy is just sitting out there waiting to be snatched up by anyone desperate enough to have to employ his services for the final month of the season, how good can he really be? There is no “long term” anymore, so it’s time to turn that roster spot into a revolving door and start playing the hot bat. They’re certainly not the be-all, end-all, but here are two that just might be of service for the home stretch. Read the rest of this entry »
Monday is the first day of the work week, and while we all have our jobs to take care of, more importantly, we have fantasy baseball to discuss! It’s what the player has done for the entirety of the season, his past recent performance and then what I personally think each player will do (or is most likely to do) for the remainder of the season.
Bullish:
Adrian Gonzalez – I don’t much care for first and second half splits, but this season has been pretty wild for him. After hitting just two home runs each in April, May and June, many owners began to panic and trade A-Gon. If you were smart enough to hang on to him, you’ve been handsomely rewarded in the second half of the season. He picked up his power stroke a bit by hitting four dingers in July and already had four halfway through August. His month-by-month fantasy numbers have seen a massive uptick as well. The table below spells it out much clearer than my words ever could.
| Runs | HR | RBI’s | SB | AVG | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April | 12 | 2 | 15 | 0 | .271 |
| May | 15 | 2 | 12 | 0 | .265 |
| June | 11 | 2 | 16 | 0 | .286 |
| July | 14 | 4 | 19 | 0 | .372 |
| August* | 10 | 4 | 22 | 0 | .375 |
*August is of course still not finished yet. The rate stats will float and the counting stats should increase.
Other than stolen bases (which no one drafted him for anyways), Gonzalez has been doing it all for the past month and a half. Kudos to those of you who either didn’t sell low or managed to trade for him on the cheap. This is the Gonzalez that a lot of imagined when envisioning him in Fenway.
The fantasy season is starting to reach crunch time, so let’s begin the week with two players who have recently taken on more prominent roles…
David Murphy | OF | Rangers | Owned: 12% Yahoo! and 13.3% ESPN
From 2008-2011, his first four full seasons as a big leaguer, the 30-year-old Murphy posted a 115 wRC+ against right-handed pitchers with a 62 mark against southpaws. His split this year is 129/145 thanks to some serious BABIP (.529) love in a very small sample (53 PA) against left-handers. It’s not the most sustainable performance, as you can tell.
With a little over a month left of the season, BABIP marks shouldn’t change too significantly through the remainder. The five hitters with the highest BABIPs could potentially be overvalued in fantasy leagues next year as a decline could trigger a drop in batting average. Let’s see if that may be the case.
It’s really, really difficult to overstate just how bad the first base situation is in Los Angeles right now. Of the possibly dozens of different ways to describe how awful James Loney & Juan Rivera are, my favorite might be “Juan Uribe still exists, and even despite that third base isn’t the biggest problem on this club.” Loney (.252/.300/.328 & .265 wOBA entering Thursday) and Rivera (.243/.280/.355 & .271 wOBA) have combined to start 112 of the first 118 games at first base this year, and all the Dodgers have received for that time investment is a combined .268 wOBA, just a tick above Seattle for the worst in baseball. (If we go by WAR, which factors in Rivera’s below-average defense, they are dead last.) I’m not sure what’s more surprising – that Loney has just three homers this year, or that he hasn’t had an unintentional walk since June 23.
This couldn’t have come as any shock to the Dodgers, of course. Loney has been struggling (and mostly failing) to live up to his prospect reputation for years, and re-signing Rivera because of a few good weeks in Los Angeles after being DFA’d by Toronto last year never really made sense in the first place. As the Dodgers upgraded elsewhere with Shane Victorino & Hanley Ramirez this July, they attempted to find a solution at first as well – they were reportedly going after Adrian Gonzalez, and did agree to acquire Carlos Lee from Houston before Lee refused to waive his no-trade clause – but were unable to find a good fit.
Barring a surprising August waiver deal for someone like Justin Morneau, the first-place Dodgers are stuck making their playoff push with this atrocious duo. But does it need to be that way? Down at Triple-A Albuquerque, Jerry Sands is crushing the ball all around the PCL, and with every disappointing day from Rivera & Loney, it gets harder and harder for the Dodgers to justify keeping him there. Read the rest of this entry »
While the goal is usually to find players that are well-rounded and contribute in multiple categories, sometimes you get to a point in the season, where some stats become more of a focus than others. Maybe your batting average is great, but you lack power, so players like Adam Dunn or Dan Uggla become a bit more appealing to you. In numerous cases, stolen bases is that stat. You find yourself in a position to move up and all it would take is just one or two guys who do nothing but steal. It doesn’t matter if they contribute elsewhere and it doesn’t matter if they play every day or not. Just as long as when they are on base, they’ve got a perpetual green light. That’s all you need. Here are two that fit the bill. Read the rest of this entry »
Josh Reddick is having an outstanding first season with the A’s after previously playing for Boston. The 25-year-old left handed hitter has an unexpected 25 HRs this season to go with a .253/.325/.500 triple slash line. Did Reddick change much from his time Boston? Was there some possible signs that Reddick had a chance to break out this season?
The main factor affecting his fantasy value in Boston was his playing time. Over 3 MLB season he had only 403 PA’s and hit .248/.290/.416 with 10 HRs (0.025 HR/PA). Not exactly numbers that will win a fantasy title.
This Chris Carter was one of the first freedom campaigns that ever got my attention. Before Brandon Allen, there was Vernon Christopher, the twice-traded minor league slugger with power and patience that just needed somebody to believe in him. This year, after a couple tweaks, it looks like he’s finally free to free baseballs in the major leagues.
Per usual, here are the Monday American League outfield stock watch updates.
Bullish:
Alex Rios – Since July 30, the 3rd best AL outfielder has been none other than Alex Rios. Commenter db thought that I should have ranked Rios higher in my last AL Tiered OF Rankings Update, and I may be inclined to agree more now than I was then. I still don’t love his projection, but a lot of his ZiPS is being influenced by his less-than-impressive 2009 and 2011 campaigns. To see this resurgency in Rios shouldn’t be taken lightly at this point. He is a five full category producer in standard roto leagues and barring a major collapse, should easily notch his second 20-20 season, but his first with a .300+ average.
Read the rest of this entry »
