Ahem, no. Let’s just get that out of the way.
The fact is, Alvarez is hitting .196/.260/.380 off left handed pitchers and his strikeout rate is 37%. For a bigger sample size, in nearly 300 plate appearances in his career, he’s hitting .205/.279/.348 versus lefties with a 37.5% strikeout rate. That’s Lucas Duda territory, and we know where he is right now. You don’t want him in your lineup versus a left handed pitcher if you can avoid it.
Mike Olt! (I add the exclamation point not only out of exuberance at seeing his promotion to the majors, but mostly because I simply cannot hear his name without saying it like, well, this.) After an entire season of destroying Texas League pitching with a .427 wOBA, the soon-to-be 24-year-old top prospect made his debut for the Rangers on Thursday night, hitting eighth and playing first base.
There’s no shortage of excitement surrounding Olt, the 49th overall pick in 2010. Regarded as a fine defensive third baseman, his 28 homers were second in the minors behind only Royals prospect Wil Myers, and so it’s no surprise that when teams were offering pitchers like Zack Greinke and Josh Johnson to the Rangers at the deadline, Olt was the name they all were after, along with Jurickson Profar. Given what rough shape third base is in around the bigs these days, it’s not hard to see why a power bat who can actually field the position was in such high demand, and Texas understandably refused to part with him.
Unfortunately for Olt, Texas happens to have one of the few third basemen playing at a high level on both sides of the ball, and Adrian Beltre isn’t going anywhere for a while. That’s why Olt began to see time at first base and right field as his time in the minors began to wear down, though it’s being reported that Olt would play the outfield “only in an emergency situation” for the Rangers at this point. Other than the occasional day off for Beltre, Olt’s role is expected to be limited to first base and designated hitter, mainly against lefty pitching. Read the rest of this entry »
Sitting just 4.5 games out of first place in the NL West (6.5 out of the wild card), it was just a matter of time before the Arizona Diamondbacks did something to fill that gaping hole they’ve had a third base all season. They came into the year with high hopes that Ryan Roberts would be able to duplicate his breakout 2011 numbers. When he failed, they turned to the underwhelming Cody Ransom. When that didn’t work, they tried bringing up Josh Bell. Another bust. They ultimately went back to Roberts, but for just a short time as he was soon demoted and traded and the D-Backs went with minor leaguer Ryan Wheeler while they regrouped and plotted their next move. That moved showed up on Sunday when Arizona announced they had traded minor leaguers Bobby Borchering and Marc Krauss to the Astros for third baseman Chris Johnson. While the move gives the Diamondbacks and improved situation at the hot corner, it may not be so great for fantasy owners. Read the rest of this entry »
Coming into this season, the Marlins had Hanley Ramirez at third base, Omar Infante at second base, and a full outfield. Donovan Solano? Well… he was a mystery. Literally:
Guess Non-Roster Invitees don’t usually register like this. Well, at least now we know where he signed. And especially after Hanley Ramirez and Omar Infante have left town, he looks like the starting third baseman for the Fish. And with Matt Dominguez gone, the team doesn’t have an internal prospect ready to take the job away. The only mystery remaining with this suddenly important Marlin is how he’ll do with all that major league playing time.
With the addition of a second wild card team for each league, the decision to be a buyer or seller at the trade deadline becomes a bit more difficult, despite it being just two weeks away. For the San Diego Padres, however, the decision is neither difficult nor complicated. Sitting 14 games out of both first place in the NL West and the final wild card slot, the Padres will most definitely be sellers over the next two weeks and while collectively, they can’t seem to put it all together, individually there’s some value to be had. It’s time to bring the jalopy to the chop shop and make some money selling off the parts. Read the rest of this entry »
Let’s kick off the week with an outfielder and an infielder…
Rajai Davis | OF | Blue Jays | Owned: 13% Yahoo! and 16.0% ESPN
This probably isn’t the best time to suggest grabbing Davis for your outfield — he’s currently mired in an ugly 0-for-23 slide (27 total plate appearances) with more ground ball double plays (three) than walks (two). He’s only struck out six times during the slump, so he’s not completely lost at the plate just yet. Rajai’s season batting line is down to .243/.300/.376 after sitting at a much more respectable .273/.324/.412 prior to this slump.
By now, you might have a favorite ranker among the four of us. That’s fine, we’re adults. We’ve gathered to give you four options for a reason. In fact, we’ve gathered these four guys in particular for a reason.
Jeff Zimmerman primarily uses ZiPs rest-of-season projections, with a few tweaks, and so he’s our Sober Suzy. ZiPs does use information from this year, weighted against information from past years, and it does include playing time projections, but it does not get caught up in the excitement of a player in a breakout. Zach Sanders has his own projections, which are more intuitive, and he uses his value calculator to stack the players up against each other. On the other end of the spectrum, you have me and Mike Podhorzer. We are more intuitive, and yet we have different ideas about the players and different levels of cynicism.
Taken as a whole, you should get a reasonable set of rankings that doesn’t get too caught up in a hot month, or too upset about a bad start. That’s the aim.
With the second half looming, many of you are going to be looking for players to help you in the stretch run for a title (let’s hope, dedicated readers, that you’re among those in the top half of the standings). If you’re hurting at third base, there are a few opportunities that you might want to inquire about given recent trends.
On the season, Moustakas has hit a very respectable .268/.327/.490 with 15 home runs and 47 RBI and is probably a fringey-tier-two but easily top tier three kind of third base talent. But it’s possible Moustakas owners are fearing an extended slump after he put up a .212/.232/.481 line in his last 56 plate appearances. During that time, he’s walked less than 4% and fell into a funk that started to resemble some of the struggles that he had in 2011. In fact, if you toss out July 2 where he hit his grand slam, there really hasn’t been much in the way of production at all from him.
Should you go knocking on his owner’s door, point out the recent slump, the miserable platoon splits versus lefties (.221/.264/.337) and see if you can get them to overlook how brutal his batted ball luck has been recently (.200 BABIP last 56 PA). He’s not going to be much help in OBP leagues, but in standard roto, you’re probably going to be pretty happy with him.
Kevin Youkilis needed a change of scenery. With the White Sox desperate for help at third, they happily obliged. While the 33-year-old third baseman carries a strong career line, Youkilis is batting just .233/.315/.377 this season. But Youkilis will also be moving into a better situation. He won’t have to worry about losing playing time to anyone, and will be moving to a more homer-friendly park. Even though Youkilis will be an upgrade for the White Sox, it’s unclear whether his performance will be strong enough for fantasy teams.
Read the rest of this entry »
On Saturday, I identified a couple of players who fantasy owners might consider buying high on. I purposely ignored players who were expected to be top guys to begin with, but were having even better season than projected (David Wright, Adam Jones), as I preferred to look at more of the cheaper players with surprising performances. Similarly, the sell low guys will be players that were expected to generate high dollar values. I think it’s tougher to recommend selling low on a player than buying high, because we always preach patience and believe that a player will bounce back to his established level of performance, rather than weight the first 3 months of the season so heavily. At the risk of being very wrong…
