At this time of year, it’s easy to find a number of September call ups to write about. The trick is to find those who might actually garner enough playing time to earn some actual fantasy value. Here are two of those fine gentlemen.
I have always been a bit fond of Luis Valbuena, mainly because I love guys with high walk rates and some pop. This year he is finally producing enough to be usable in fantasy, specifically recently as he has hit four home runs in his past 12 games and has hit 16 for the season. If you are struggling at second base or third base and need some power down the stretch, you could do worse than Valbuena.
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Normally, I produce tiered second-base rankings for my first piece of each month. Now that it’s September and trade deadlines have passed in 99.9% of fantasy leagues, it’s not very useful for me to fill this space with my thoughts on players that owners cannot acquire. Therefore, I scoured waiver wires to find three lightly owned middle infielders who could help fantasy owners over the season’s crucial final weeks.
Joe Panik (15% Yahoo, 20.8% ESPN, 26% CBS)
194 PA – .318/.366/.397, 23 R, 1 HR, 15 RBI, 0 SB
Despite providing consistent production that has him at No. 7 among fantasy 2B over the last month, Panik’s ownership rates are far from widespread. Eno Sarris wrote a great piece yesterday in which he interviewed Panik about his approach at the plate, so I’m not going to get too long-winded here, but we should definitely still take a moment to discuss his fantasy value.
Monday wasn’t just Labor Day, it was an exciting time for fantasy leaguers and baseball fans alike. It was roster expansion day! Yesterday, Eno discussed a whole bunch of names that were recalled, but concluded that none of them were very intriguing for this year given playing time concerns. However, two players called up before Monday are of interest.
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?
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.
The White Sox finally saw enough of second basemen Gordon Beckham and traded him away last Thursday. That opened up a gaping hole at the position, which is the theme of this week’s wire.
It’s the last week before September call-ups, that frustrating nook of the fantasy season when playing time for DLWW candidates is subject to change. But in cases of our two veterans this week, one has just received what could be an extended opportunity to make an impact in NL-only leagues, while the other’s hot bat could make him an option in the junior circuit.
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All year, both Dustin Pedroia and Martin Prado have been falling down my monthly tiered second-base rankings, to the point where I couldn’t recommend either in anything but AL/NL-only leagues or very deep mixers. Over the last few weeks, both Pedroia and Prado have put themselves back into mixed-league consideration — in the last 30 days, Pedroia was the No. 10 fantasy second baseman, with Prado at No. 15.
So who would you rather own rest-of-season? Both are aging second-sackers with steadily fading production, but both are coming off pretty good months: