As we’ve spent the past few weeks picking the bones of injury replacements here in the waiver wire dumpster, let’s turn to our other pastime in this business: placing bets on penny stock prospects in the hopes they’ll yield some value. In the cases of the Diamondbacks and the Mets, however, we’re talking about two sub-.500 teams, which presents the possibility that these young guns could stick around in the majors with some regular playing time — presuming, of course, that they produce.
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We all know the story with Juan Francisco. He hits for an insane amount of power, strikes out a ton, and generally does not play great enough defense to warrant regular play. The latter is actually my biggest concern with Francisco. As Brett Lawrie nears full health, the Blue Jays will be looking to find creative ways to get Francisco in the lineup, whether that means Lawrie becoming the regular second baseman or the Blue Jays pulling a Dodger Outfield move on the 1B/DH spot with Adam Lind, Edwin Encarnacion, and Francisco is yet to be seen.
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Third base continues to be a source of frustration for many owners featuring injury (Ryan Zimmerman), ineffectiveness (Pablo Sandoval, Mike Moustakas) and sometimes injury and ineffectiveness (Chase Headley, David Freese), among others. Third base has also featured a bit of a coming out party from a few players which has been a magical salve for those of us hurting at the hot corner. But then again, it is just May, so I’m not particularly motivated to move the needle too quickly on shaking up the regular royalty when it comes to the tiers.

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Marcus Semien and Jonathan Schoop have similar strikeout rates. They did *not* get there the same way. Which is good, because otherwise I would have had to link these two just by saying that they sometimes play second base and are young, which is not a great intro. Not saying this intro is A+, but a little bit better than that intro at least. I hope.

Navel gazing aside, it’s sort of fascinating how different players can find their way to a strikeout. The patient one that doesn’t swing much can find his way into bad counts while still making good contact. The free-swinger can hack his way into a strikeout. The slugger that never chokes up can whiff at pitches that scrappier guys would take the other way.

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Contract year. He got skinny. He’s 27 years old. This will be the Panda’s year. This will be the year Pablo Sandoval puts it all together.

So far, so not good. Sandoval’s power is down, his strikeout rate is up, his swing metrics are all messed up, and his owners are considering dropping him in mixed leagues. What’s up with this skinny sad Panda?

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There is something to be said for guys who seem rather bland and become undervalued because of their seemingly averageness when it comes to fantasy baseball. To me, Todd Frazier is one of those guys. In whiffing on Chase Headley, I was able to grab Frazier on the waiver wire a few weeks back and have enjoyed the performance he has given me thus far. From looking a bit more in depth at his numbers, it seems like he should sustain a better-than-expect level of performance.
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When I think of Trevor Plouffe, I think of two things: His otherworldly June in 2012 and the Brasserie D’Achouffe. Only one is really relevant to our conversation here today, although I’ll tell you that I’ve got a hankering for a Belgian ale now. I digress.

Trevor Plouffe has been doing something interesting over the last month, and it’s making me raise a curious eyebrow as to whether he might just be worth not only picking up, but hanging on to. Truth be told, I’ve been riding him in a couple leagues ever since I had injuries strike guys like Ryan Zimmerman and Will Middlebrooks, although I never planned on keeping him around. But Plouffe has had a fine little start so far — fine like a Fiat 500t, not say, a Subaru Justy. In his first 26 games, Plouffe has managed a .277/.383/.436 slash line with a home run, 20 runs scored, 19 RBI and 11 doubles to boot. Now that’s not the kind of power that Plouffe has previously put on display, but that’s pretty usable in most formats. And the power should come.

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You’ll hear us talk about statistical stabilization here, and link to pieces like Russell Carleton’s or Derek Carty’s. The basic idea is that there are thresholds at which a stat moves into a decent sample and becomes more meaningful.

Maybe you’ll come away thinking that we’ve said that ‘x stat is stable so that’s what you’ll get the rest of the way,’ and if so, that’s on us. That’s not what stabilization means in this context.

What it means is that the r-squared number that correlates a player’s past stats with his future stats in that category has passed .50. That’s a mouthful, here’s another try: if you were to try and predict future work in a category, you’d regress their current work against the league average. At the stabilization point, you can use half their own number plus half the league average in your calculations.

One more try, in the most colloquial language possible: Stabilization is the point at which a number in a category tells us more about their future work than the league average.

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I should just stop there. On the one hand everyone will rightly scream sample size horrors as I attempt to type any further and on the other hand I have the lifelong goal of using “What in the Sam Hill” in a post title accomplished. The bucket list needs updating.

But set aside the sample for a moment, and just gaze in wonder at Miguel Cabrera’s line to start the season in 2014: .236/.295/.403. Cabrera has 17 hits over almost 80 plate appearances. More than half of them are singles, only two have left the park, and he has ten runs batted in. At this point in 2013, Cabrera was hitting .370/.438/.511 with five doubles, a triple, two home runs and 23 RBI. And as ridiculous as that looks, he really only got better from there.

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Today’s edition of the deep league waiver wire is for those with a truly barren free agent pool scrambling for an injury replacement. Even better, both have dual position eligibility, which is extremely helpful when you’re faced with so few pickup options.

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