So the 2011 season is underway and after pitching a whopping 1.1 innings, a closer has already lost his job. It must suck to be Fernando Rodney right about now. I could continue this rant about how sometimes managers seem to show such little understanding of the concept of sample size, but I have digressed enough. On to this week’s deep league waiver wire options for fantasy teams already fishing for some free agent bait.

Juan Miranda, ARI, 1B | 5% Owned

Despite only accumulating eight at-bats over the team’s first four games, manager Kirk Gibson reported today that Miranda will probably get most of the starts at first base early on this season. Of course, the emphasis should be on early. If Miranda is not hitting, the job will likely go to Russell Branyan, unless of course Brandon Allen is tearing it up at Triple-A, at which point he may get the call. Bottom line is if Miranda hits, he should see the majority of the playing time. Will he hit is the question though. In his minor league career, the 28-year old has shown solid power and an above average walk rate, while making acceptable contact. He has also shown a good propensity to hit fly balls, generally hitting them over 40% of the time. Unfortunately, according to his splits, he has typically had trouble with lefties, with the exception of his 2009 season when he posted an uncharacteristic .291/.371/.507 slash line. In addition, this same splits page shows some unimpressive MLEs, which gives us less reason for optimism. However, playing half his games in a ballpark that favors left-handed power (114 LHB HR park factor), and on a team likely going nowhere, the D-Backs should exercise plenty of patience with him. He won’t be making fantasy owners rush to the waiver wire to add him anytime soon, but Miranda could provide some cheap power.

Jayson Nix, TOR, 2B/3B | 2% Owned

Filling in temporarily while Jose Bautista takes a short leave of absence, Nix is expected to fill a utility role for his new team. With the ability to fill in at second and third base, and enough power to at least be considered to start at designated hitter if necessary, he should find enough at-bats to contribute in the counting stats. Nix’s biggest attributes are power (.172 and .184 ISO rates the last two seasons) and tons of fly balls (nearly 48% FB% last two seasons). Sounds like a perfect fit for the Jays, huh? Unfortunately, all those fly balls find gloves more often than the average hitter, keeping his career BABIP at an ugly .247. Nix has played in hitter’s parks most of his career, and he finds himself moving to one that inflates right-handed home runs by 16%, so he should continue to enjoy hitting at home. Though he only stole one base in three attempts last year, the 28-year old has shown better speed in the past, with 10 steals in 2009 and double digit totals during his minor league days. The extreme fly ball ways and low LD% means his batting average is going to be of no help, but the power should be enough to generate some value in AL-Only leagues.

The Rays may be 0-3 and off to the worst start in franchise history, but the biggest concern in the Tampa Bay area revolves around the health of Evan Longoria.

The All-Star third basemen has been put on the 15 day disabled list and will miss a minimum of three weeks. That loss presents a giant hole to fill for both a Rays lineup that already needed help scoring runs, and fantasy owners who grabbed Longoria in the early rounds of their drafts. The third base position isn’t particularly deep this season, so finding a suitable replacement may prove difficult. Lets take a look at a few possibilities…

Sean Rodriguez and Felipe Lopez

These two will be picking up the playing time in Tampa Bay with Longoria out. Rodriguez is owned in nearly 100 percent of ESPN leagues, so he’s not likely to be found on the waiver wire. However, if you have another player on your team that can handle second base or the outfield – Rodriguez’s two eligible positions – he could fill in nicely at the hot corner. One issue facing Rodriguez is the fact that he doesn’t yet qualify at third base. Give it a week or so and he should pick up the minimum amount of starts to qualify. We know what the 25-year-old brings to the table. He hits left handed pitching exceptionally well, and while he struggles a bit against right handed pitching his outstanding defense should allow him more starts against righties.

When Rodriguez is not in the lineup he’ll be replaced by recently recalled Felipe Lopez. A switch hitter, Lopez has better career numbers against righties, but over the last three seasons has hit .297/.350/.413 against southpaws. He already qualifies at third base, as well as second base and shortstop, and that versatility could prove very valuable over the next few weeks. Lopez had a substandard 2010 season, hitting .233/.311/.345 in 441 PA’s, but proved valuable in 2008 and 2009. Marcel projections a .270/.340/.389 line from Lopez this season, and he’s only owned in o.3% of ESPN leagues at the moment. Keep an eye on when he plays, but you could certainly do a lot worse in the shallow pool of third basemen.

Danny Valencia

It’s rare to find a starter at a shallow position owned in so few leagues (4.1% ESPN), especially one who enjoyed the half season that Danny Valencia did in 2010. In 322 PA’s the rookie put up an impressive line of .311/.351/.448 and even hit seven home runs. Expecting that same type of production is likely foolish, but Valencia is very capable of putting up an average in the .280-.290 range with ~15 home runs. The fact that he’s available in 96% of leagues is frankly shocking to me. You know how many third basemen hit .300 with 15+ home runs last season? Three. Valencia is capable of that. In fact, picking him up only as a replacement for Longoria may be a waste of his abilities. While he might not crack your starting lineup, he’s a very valuable player to stash away on your bench for the entire season.

Opening day always seems like it’s full of surprises.

We had just hours to absorb the news that Edwin Encarnacion went from waiver candidate/fantasy obscurity to starting third baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays and while I was fully expecting Chipper Jones to break his (insert body part here) on his first on-deck circle practice swing, it’s clear that the geezer doesn’t want to go on the cart just yet. Sure, Jones is perhaps not a hot commodity in dynasty leagues and Encarnacion won’t get the hearts of folks who tabulate errors or count OBP all-a-flutter. But Encarnacion and Jones, from a standard league standpoint, aren’t quite dead yet, and your fantasy squad might want to take notice.

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This past week, Brent Morel was named the starter at third base for the Chicago White Sox, to the absolute delight of White Sox pitchers. While his glove is definitely a plus, fantasy baseball mavens want to know about the bat, and although Morel isn’t going to do an Evan Longoria rookie campaign impersonation, his bat isn’t something to completely ignore.

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Directly related to this comment from Mike Podhorzer and his piece on the Cheapest Pitching Staff Possible, I often use a term to describe the process by which a manager reacts, in my estimation, incorrectly to the developments of his or her respective snake draft.  As Mike pointed out, “zigging” when your fellow managers are “zagging” may allow you a degree of competitive advantage, and failure to do so is what I call ‘chasing the draft’, and while it’s hard to avoid sometimes, it frequently requires that you wad up your draft strategy and toss it in the rubbish bin.

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In life, they say that with age comes wisdom.  Well, in fantasy baseball, they say that with age comes a decline in numbers and that it’s time to start looking elsewhere for a younger option with much more upside.   While there’s some decent young talent out there at third, there are also plenty of seniors that are still hanging on that you may want to avoid.  Just to mention a few… Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, we rolled out our third basemen rankings for the upcoming season, and although the list gets awfully dicey after the first couple of tiers, there are some names whose stock is up headed into the draft.

Since Howard nicely summarized Pablo Sandoval’s horrific 2010 on and off the field, I’ll leave him off the list, although I’d say he is certainly on several bounce-back radars.

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When you look around the league at the various 40-man rosters, it’s hard not to be impressed by the position player depth the Rockies have accumulated, especially on the infield. Troy Tulowitzki is obviously locked in at short, and Todd Helton will be given every opportunity to show that he can still be a full-time first baseman The other two positions are a little more up in the air. Second base is another conversation for another time, so let’s discuss the hot corner.

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Remember the days when third base used to be one of the deepest positions and loaded with talent?  Well, not anymore and not for the last few seasons either.  It’s at the point where you need to start seriously considering a significant investment in one of the top 5 guys out there or be doomed to sit with mediocrity at a position once known for it’s outstanding power production. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past six or so seasons few players have been as misunderstood as Adrian Beltre. The big contract he earned after the 2004 season in which he hit 48 home runs has clouded people’s opinion of him. Is he ever going to show that much power again? Probably not, but the 28 home runs and .233 ISO he put up last year show what he is capable of when he escapes Seattle. If you ignore his 2009 season in which he hit only 11 dingers, Beltre averaged nearly 24 home runs in the Emerald City. That number isn’t far off his 28 last season in hitter friendly Boston, but it came with a far inferior averge ISO of .188. The higher the ISO the better the opportunity for extra base hits. Safeco Field consistently ranks as one of the toughest parks in the majors for hitters, stifling right handed power like the Florida sun. Fenway Park is the polar opposite; a great hitters’ park that is the primary reason Jim Rice is in the Hall of Fame.

As good as Fenway was to Beltre, he’ll be spending the next five years of his life in an even better location: The Ballpark at Arlington. The .321 average Beltre posted last season should fall a bit since it’s unlikely he’ll maintain a .331 BABIP. However, the power numbers are real, and I’d expect him to run a bit more with the Rangers (123 SB last year, 68 for Boston) and increase his steals from 2 back into the 10-12 range. If you believe Beltre is only going to hit well in a contract year, then nothing I say is going to change your mind. For those of us who believe, and we do here at RotoGraphs if you check out our position rankings, the 2011 season should be good to Beltre.

Another third baseman on the move is strikeout king Mark Reynolds, leaving the hitter haven that is Chase Field for the beauty of Camden Yards. Baltimore is also a very good hitters park, so nothing substantial will be gained or lost in that department. Reynolds presents a conundrum for fantasy owners. His strikeout totals are astronomical, yet his power numbers are extremely coveted. Even in a year in which he hit .198 he somehow managed to smack 32 dongers in less than 600 at bats. The drop in batting average is due to a BABIP of .257, which is just a tad below his career average of .346. Reynolds’s FB percentage rose to a staggering 54.9% last season, seven percent higher than the previous year. The increase in fly balls means a drop in line drives and groundballs, resulting in far more outs and substantially less power – he dropped 50 points in ISO from 2009. He’ll be surrounded by a better set of teammates in Baltimore, taking the offensive pressure off of his back and creating more RBI opportunities than he had in Arizona. Cutting down on the fly balls will be the key to his continued fantasy revelance.