Archive for Stock Watch

So you’ve probably heard Brett Lawrie has been called up. Of course, if this is the first you’re getting wind of this, I urge you to click on over to your league site, type in “Lawrie” in the Available Players search and add him, even in mixed leagues. Erik Hahmann will have more Lawrie analysis coming shortly, so don’t forget to check back here.

Also debuting later today? Trayvon Robinson, who was arguably the Dodgers top hitting prospect until he was basically given away to Seattle at the deadline for reasons I’m still trying to figure out. Here’s my take from last month on Robinson, who I think is only actionable in AL-only play. As I mentioned previously, his new power-over-speed approach this year won’t necessarily suit him well at his new team’s digs, which play a lot like his old team’s digs.

Until Lawrie and Robinson get their careers underway, though, you can read about three other guys who could be joining them in the bigs pretty soon.

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With lots of ground to cover in the wake of all the call-ups and promotions following the trade deadline, here’s a rapid-fire version of Mining the Minors.

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Ryan Ludwick was traded from the Padres to the Pirates on Sunday. Once you get past the surprise that the Buccos were buyers, there are another three levels of analysis to go, at least. The prognosis for the player is not incredibly predictable.

The easy answer is that Ludwick will enjoy moving out of PetCo. Since moving to the Padres at last year’s deadline, Ludwick has enjoyed the worst ISO of his career. The drop, about fifty points, could be attributable to the home park. ESPN’s park factors have San Diego as suppressing home runs by 11.5% over the past two years. On first blush, this easy analysis makes sense.

But there are more than a few problems with this idea.

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This week, it’s finally time to get to a pair of guys who were becoming impossible to ignore with their recent play. Even if one of them is forever blocked by the unsurpassable Chris Getz.

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Exactly one year ago today, Tigers outfielder Brennan Boesch was hitting .312/.376/.530 — good for a .907 OPS. What happened next is not for the faint of heart.

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There are certain catchers out there — Joe Mauer, Victor Martinez, Brian McCann, Miguel Montero, just to name a few — that are automatic starts for you.  They get left in your lineup, through good starts and bad, because you know, for the most part, the level of overall production you’re going to get.  But for those that don’t own a top-rated backstop, sometimes you have to play the waiver wire and go with the hot hand.  With that, we’ll leave the top guys out and talk about some risers and fallers at the catcher position that you may want to put in, or take out, from your lineup. Read the rest of this entry »

At approximately 4:45 p.m. Thursday, the Twitter handle @TheJK_Kid tweeted the following: “ITS TIME!” This was relevant because that account belongs to Indians prospect Jason Kipnis.

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This may be the only time in history that the 6’2″, 235-pound Brandon Allen shares a space with mighty mite Jose Altuve — all 5’7″, 170 of him.

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This week, we’ll cover two Padres and a Dodger. In other words, those of you in NL West-only leagues are in luck.

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The All-Star break is as good a time as any to update our American League Outfielder Rankings. (Note: That means outfielders who play only in the AL, so please don’t flood the comments with oblivious flabbergastery over the complete and utter disrespect for not including Jay Bruce. For that, go here.) Given the timing, let’s go ahead and call this our second-half ranks. While performances to date do matter, the intent here is to, as Doc Brown might say: “Get a clear perception of humanity (i.e., fantasy performance). Where we’ve been (April, May, June), where we’re going (July, August, September), the pitfalls (Carl Crawford), the possibilities (Curtis Granderson), the perils (Shin-Soo Choo) and the promise (Mike Trout). Perhaps even an answer to that universal question: Where is [insert name here] ranked?”

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