Looking for some cheap steals and saves down the stretch? Here are two players for that late-season/playoff push…

Eduardo Nunez | 2B, SS, 3B | Yankees | Owned: 1% Yahoo!

I touted the 25-year-old Nunez as a steals sleeper way back in February, but he quickly played his way off New York’s big league roster not with his bat, but with his defense. He struggled with the routine play and was demoted to Triple-A in mid-May despite a solid (for a utility infielder) .294/.356/.373 batting line, then resurfaced when rosters expanded in September.

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While most people spend a lot of their time scouting and researching a lot of these September call-ups, looking for even the slightest bit of fantasy contribution, players that are returning from extended stays on the DL are often overlooked by most owners.  And as often the case may be, plenty of them can still be of valuable service to you in your quest for a championship.  If players were dropped a while ago, chances are, some of these guys have slipped through the cracks and are available to you via the waiver wire.  Here are two who have been recently activated and have fairly low ownership percentages. Read the rest of this entry »

Martin Prado has been one of the most versatile and underrated players in baseball over the past few seasons. He’s kind of like the National League version of Ben Zobrist, except with a better batting average. He’s played all over the field, helping the Braves when they’ve needed to fill a hole. Take a look at his games played break down:

1B: 4G, 4GS
2B: 9G, 7GS
3B: 23G, 18GS
SS: 9G, 7GS
OF: 107G, 100GS

He’s eligible at four positions and with one more start at first will have the five pack. While that’s all fine and dandy, I’m most interested in his shortstop eligibility. Before this season he hadn’t played there since 2008, and that was only for 15 innings. He’s been thrust into action with Andrleton Simmons out since July with a hand injury, sharing duties with Paul Janish. With Simmons due back Prado will go back to his normal spot in left field, but that added eligibility will have an impact on his fantasy value for next season.

The crop of elite shortstops is usually thin, and might get thinner if Derek Jeter ever slows down. Adding Prado to the mix beefs things up considerably. According to Yahoo! he’d currently be the sixth ranked shortstop and fifth ranked second basemen. Entering the season Prado was only left field and third base eligible. Picking up two, and possibly three, positions is a huge jump. His bat wouldn’t play as well at first base but his stock rises considerably if placed at one of the up the middle infield positions. One of the more versatile real life players has finally brought that over to the fantasy realm.

When Jed Lowrie went down with a leg injury in July Houston’s shortstop duties were taken over by Marwin Gonzalez. That experiment failed as he’s hit .234/.280/.328 this season and tore a ligament in his left ankle in a freak injury two weeks ago. Before the injury he had been spending more time at third base anyway thanks to the Astros trading for Tyler Greene on August 9th. Since the trade Greene has started nearly every game at short. His average and on base percentage (.229/.274) are actually worse than those of Gonzalez, but he’s slugging an even .400 on the season, and .458 in his time with the Astros.

In other words, he’s not making much contact (the 29.5% K rate shows that) but he’s doing damage when he does. Over the past 30 days he has six home runs and five doubles in 29 games. In 33 games spanning June and July he totaled exactly one extra base hit. He’s always shown decent power in the minor leagues (~15 HR) but that hadn’t come to light at the major league level until this season. His career Isolated Slugging coming into the season was under .100 in 359 plate appearances.

He’s owned in less than five percent of leagues. If you’re looking for a cheap source of power from an unlikely source and position in the stretch run, especially in very deep mixed or NL only leagues, Greene may be your man.

On Saturday, I checked in on some surprising HR/FB ratio surgers and attempted to determine what we can expect from these hitters next season. Today I’ll look at the opposite end, those hitters whose HR/FB ratio have experienced a large decline. Will they be bargains in next year’s drafts or money traps?

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Every season there are a handful of hitters who experience power breakouts. As much as a fantasy owner would love to take credit for predicting such a surge, it seems more like a crapshoot to me. Sure, you could use 20/20 hindsight to find clues for some of these hitters, but those same clues likely failed to lead to home run increases for many others. Let’s see if we could figure out what to expect in 2013 from three surprises from this year.

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With just three and a half weeks to go in the season, you should be targeting specific categories in which you can move most easily. Even if it’s just a couple of points, if you can take them, take them now.  In looking at the standings of my roto leagues, stolen bases still looks like the easiest category in which a move can be made in a short period of time, so here are readily available two guys who you might consider picking up to get a quick speed boost. Read the rest of this entry »

When scouting we get a snapshot of a player. The hope is, the player we see today evolves into the player we envision him to be. Ideally, we can watch this progression and alter our perspectives as time passes. That brings me to today’s prospect, Oakland’s Addison Russell. Twice this year I’ve had the chance to see Russell with the Vermont Lake Monsters of the New York – Penn League. But, a year before I was able to see him live, my Bullpen Banter colleague Steve Fiorindo scouted Russell at the Perfect Game Showcase in San Diego. After several weeks and a promotion, Stephen Kuperman was able to see him against more advanced pitching in the Midwest League. It is my hope that these three individual looks at Russell demonstrates that prospects evolve over time and while we can learn a lot in a single look at a player, scouting in small sample sizes can be problematic if we aren’t open to new information and making adjustments. Of course, I’ll also talk about his fantasy outlook, but you’ll have to humor me for just a moment.

Before I begin, take a brief look at Steve’s video of Russell at the Perfect Game Showcase. Read the rest of this entry »

September is right around the corner, which means it’s time to really start preparing for the fantasy playoffs. Here are a pair of AL East youngsters who can boost your roster for the stretch drive…

Pedro Ciriaco | 2B, SS, 3B | Red Sox | Owned: 21% Yahoo! and 29.9% ESPN

Ciriaco, 26, got his shot with the Red Sox early last month due to various injuries and has quickly established himself as a pesky, “this guy shouldn’t be killing us” type of player for whoever happens to be playing Boston on a given day. The infielder is hitting .360/.374/.500 (145 wRC+) with two homers and nine steals (in nine chances) in 141 plate appearances for the Red Sox, and now he’s playing third base pretty much everyday with Will Middlebrooks on the shelf. He managed to pick up both second base and shortstop eligibility along the way.

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The Reds’ Billy Hamilton has been one of the biggest stories of the minor league season this year. You are probably well aware by now that the 21-year old broke Vince Coleman’s minor league stolen base record of 145 set in 1983. The Reds front office has obviously been paying attention and are considering calling him up when rosters expand on Saturday. Talking about Hamilton, GM Walt Jocketty said:

“We obviously are having very serious discussions about it. “I don’t think he’s ready to play at this level but he certainly could run the bases.”

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The trade, as it stands now, is Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto to the Dodgers for Jerry Sands, James Loney, Ivan DeJesus, Allen Webster and Rubby De La Rosa. We’ll have plenty of in-depth analysis over the coming days, but fantasy is often about speed, so let’s try to break down the “blink” style fantasy implications.

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