It’s official: this is the most boring deep league waiver wire to date. The combined age of the recommended players is an elderly 71. <cliché>But these guys still have some gas left in the tank!</cliché>
Casey McGehee (ESPN: 4 percent owned; Yahoo!: 5 percent owned)
After scoring the fewest runs in baseball in both April and May, the Pirates’ offense seems to have come to life a bit in June. They’re one of the 10 highest scoring offenses in baseball so far this month and while that’s not the highest bar imaginable, the fact that their offense has become more than just Andrew McCutchen and the Pips is a big part of the reason that the Jolly Roger has been raised so many times this month. While Pedro Alvarez may lead the team with four home runs this month, no Pirate has a higher OPS than Casey McGehee, whose .366/.458/.659 month so far leads the team in all three slash categories (min 3 PAs). Read the rest of this entry »
Summer is (almost) officially upon us and if your teams are anything like mine, you are starting to feel the injuries more than the heat this June (maybe that is because the heat hasn’t come to Seattle yet, but still). Every year, at least one of my teams gets hit by an injury bug and I am left scrambling for replacement players and trying to figure out how to make room for a stop-gap at multiple positions when I really don’t have anyone I want to cut loose.
When that happens, I look for the Multiple Position Temps. These are not the guys you expect to carry you to a title, but players you can pick up, fill in as needed, maybe get some decent stats, and weather the storm until you starting infield makes its way back to full healthy. Most importantly, you can grab one of these guys, use him at 3-4 positions, and not have to scramble every time a spot in your lineup opens up.
Two youngsters this week, one a corner bat off to a dreadful start and another a starting pitcher yet to throw a big league inning…
Ike Davis | 1B | Mets | Owned: 38% Yahoo! and 27.0% ESPN
Things seem to be slowly coming around for Davis, who at -0.8 WAR, is no longer the worst player in baseball (Brennan Boesch at -1.1 WAR). He has a neat little eight-game hitting streak going that includes a monster three games against the Rays — 6-for-11 with a double, a homer, three walks, and two strikeouts — and has raised his OPS nearly 100 points. More importantly, his batted ball profile is starting to look like a power hitter’s…
The Chicago White Sox’s pitching staff isn’t living up to expectations. For a team that was so reliant on hitting in the early 2000s, the White Sox’s pitching has carried them in recent years. This year, however, things are a bit different. They’ve received surprise performances by Chris Sale and Jake Peavy, but their normal rotation stalwarts — John Danks and Gavin Floyd — have floundered. Danks eventually went on the DL with a shoulder injury. In his absence, José Quintana has been fantastic. In 35.1 innings, the rookie has an exceptional 1.53 ERA. With the team’s rotation still in shambles, Quintana may keep his job longer than anticipated.
Denard Span (ESPN: 38 percent owned; Yahoo!: 19 percent owned)
The Twins’ offense finally looks like it’s heading in the right direction. Through Wednesday night’s game, they’ve scored 68 runs, the most in baseball and just 20 runs shy of their total for the entire month of April. While the Twins are trending up, their leadoff man Denard Span is heading in the opposite direction in terms of ownership. As much as I like Span, and I like Span a lot, I understand entirely why owners are willing to jettison him so quickly: He’s a tweener. Read the rest of this entry »
Let’s break from the usual three-player Mining the Minors write-ups to cover more ground (or if you prefer, more bases — this is a baseball site after all). This time, we’ll hit on three pairs, with one of each position — starting pitcher, outfielder and reliever — coming from each league.
Let’s face it, the waiver wire is looking pretty bleak these days. Obviously if you’re in a real shallow league of eight to ten teams, there are always guys worthy of picking up even for just a week or so. But the deeper your league gets the worse it looks out there and as writers trying to suggest a worthwhile pick-up, it can often be difficult. So now that I threw that caveat out there, here are two guys that probably aren’t bad enough that they could contribute as a possible fill-in for you while your guy maybe nurses a sore hamstring or is mired in some sort of multi-week slump. Read the rest of this entry »
Today’s deep league waiver wire highlights an outfielder I am somewhat shocked still has such a low ownership percentage and a pitcher who you should get an early jump on.
Tom Wilhelmsen (ESPN: 41 percent owned; Yahoo!: 29 percent owned)
Matt Capps. Chris Perez. Jim Johnson. Brett Myers. Santiago Casilla. If you had these guys as five of the top 10 closers — determined purely by saves, peripherals are another matter entirely — I recommend playing the lottery a little more often, or at least finding a little-known website based out of the Caribbean where you can gamble on sports legally. The prevailing logic in fantasy drafts is not to pay for saves and while this year will go down as one of the easiest examples of unexpected players grabbing saves by the bunch, that draft logic is no longer the best advice anymore. Read the rest of this entry »
