30-odd games into the season, one of the biggest positive surprises has been the play of the Houston Astros. Baseball’s absolute doormat last year rebuilt their front office, adding a slew of really smart people, but expectations were low, since as smart as their director of decision sciences is, he isn’t hitting cleaning.

Two of the Astros’ best producers right now are widely available in most circumstances, and while the fantasy world has gotten wise to Jose Altuve, there is still some value to be had in Houston. Read the rest of this entry »

This week we’re going to take a look at two National League shortstop eligible players who have increased their value dramatically over the past two weeks. One is far less of a surprise than the other.

Jed Lowrie:

He’s always had the potential to be a productive fantasy shortstop but hasn’t been given a full time opportunity. His time in Boston was checkered with injuries and up and down performance. Here are his OPS and games played numbers each of the past four season

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Today I am going to look at a 3 players on the DL that may be able available in a league and should be returning to the field soon. The players could be added to a regular or DL spot.

Ownership rates are ESPN and then Yahoo.

Nolan Reimold (29%, 35%) – Usually, I don’t look at players with this high of an ownership rate because they are just not available in active and/or deep leagues. I am just amazed at how much he is being dropped. He has experienced a 61% point drop in his ownership rate at ESPN (The fact that over 60% of the leagues at ESPN are this active really surprises me).

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The waiver wire is still full of quality options as we start the season’s second month. Here’s an outfielder and a bullpen arm who are likely better than someone on your roster…

Ryan Sweeney | OF | Red Sox | Owned: 11% Yahoo! and 17.2% ESPN

Just a secondary piece in the Andrew Bailey–Josh Reddick trade, Sweeney has become in an important cog in the top-heavy Red Sox offense. His .368/.398/.540 batting line is excellent but nothing something I would expect him to sustain for the next 130-something games, mostly because his .457 BABIP (!) is not built to last. Sweeney has always been a high contact/BABIP hitter however — .330 career — and he moved into a much, much more favorable home ballpark with the trade. A .450 BABIP is nuts, but a .350 BABIP is probably doable.

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Third base has been hit pretty hard by injuries recently. Evan Longoria, Kevin Youkilis, Ryan Zimmerman, and now Pablo Sandoval are on the shelf, and a couple of them are going to be there long enough to collect some substantial dust. So it’s likely that there are many of us scrambling for answers at third base while we work the phones for any trade possibilities (okay, nobody talks on the phone anymore, but I can’t really say while we work the Google can I?).

When I was interviewed by the intrepid Carson Cistulli on Fangraphs audio a couple weeks ago, he asked me if I thought third base was a deeper position that it was a year ago and at that time, I still said no. With so many of the typical top 10 struggling to produce, when you start looking down the list, it gets ugly pretty darn fast. Now that we’ve lost several of them to the disabled list, it makes third base a particular challenge — so you might want to get creative. Or perhaps you have to.

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For the vast majority of fantasy leagues, outs are outs no matter how they come. For the leagues that do count strikeouts as a hitting category, the follow pair of players probably isn’t a good option as both of them see a third strike with great frequency.

Jason Kubel (ESPN: 89 percent owned; Yahoo!: 48 percent owned)

The first week or so of the season was unkind to Kubel as he was breaking in his new home in Arizona. He struck out in almost a third of his plate appearances over the first eight games of the season, which would be fine if he also walked in a third and hit home runs in the remaining third, but alas, he did not. Instead, he generally made a mess of things en route to a .200/.310/.240 start. During the 10 game hitting streak that follow his slow start, Kubel hit .421/.476/.737 with three home runs, and now has his overall line up to a far more respectable .338/.400/.532. Read the rest of this entry »

With a full month of baseball in the books, you’d have to think that your league’s waiver wire has been picked clean.  However, between the recent rash of injuries and rookie call-ups, there are certainly a few names that have slipped through the cracks.  Here are two guys you might want to consider depending on the holes in your roster. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s the best day of the week as we once again take a dip into the free agent pool. My goal by the end of the season is to incorporate as many puns as I can into my introduction, so feel free to offer suggestions in the comments. Today is a look at two hitters who may actually earn some mixed league value, which doesn’t happen very often when looking at the 15% owned and below.

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Allen Craig (ESPN: 17 percent owned; Yahoo!: 26 percent owned)

After undergoing offseason knee surgery, Craig, who hit .263/.417/.737 in the World Series, is finally ready to return to the Cardinals’ lineup. He’s expected to be activated off the disabled list sometime Tuesday, provided he felt no pain following his 3-for-4 performance that included a pair of home runs on Monday night for Triple-A Memphis. Craig was a waiver wire wonder last year, that is, when he was on the field. He started more than 10 games in a month just once in 2011, that coming when he started 17 games in May. His knee is responsible for most of his missed time, so in theory that should be cleared up now that he has had surgery to repair the damage.

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Let’s start the week off with two players who have recently been promoted to more high-profile roles, one due to ineffectiveness and the other due to injury…

Scott Downs | RP | Angels | Owned: 41% Yahoo! and 33.0% ESPN

One of my ten bold predictions before the season said that Downs would save at least ten games for the Halos. Jordan Walden is good but shaky, and I figured that any misstep early on could result in him losing his job, even just temporarily. Mike Scioscia pulled the plug on his struggling closer after he’d blown a save against the Rays last Thursday, inserting Downs into the ninth inning role. He closed out his first game on Saturday with a perfect inning against the Indians in a one-run game.

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