So, 19 year-old Mike Trout was promoted last night. No, not to Triple-A, to the majors, thanks to an injury to Peter Bourjos. Yeah, I’m kind of in shock too. The Triple-A level isn’t the prospect haven it once was. Many teams use it mainly as a taxi service for minor league depth players. Sure, there are still star prospects there, but Double-A is the true breeding ground for the uber talented. Trout was treating Double-A like his personal playground, hitting .330/.422/.544 with 9 HR and 28 SB in 336 PA.

Sam Miller of the Orange County Register points out that Trout is one of only a handful of teenager position players to be called up since 1985. The list is impressive, though it omits B.J. Upton for some reason. Sam’s point is that if you’re being called up as a teenager you’re probably going to be a star, though not right away as basically everyone on the list hit terribly when called up. He knows the Angels better than I and makes good points about the team not calling Trout up just for the fun of it due to service time and development issues. With Bourjos out they think Trout is better than any alternative they have, and they’re right. He plays excellent defense and is faster than the Flash. But what does this mean for fantasy owners?

If you’re in a standard 10 team mixed league there’s little reason to add Trout. It’s unknown how long Bourjos will be out; with the All-Star break coming he may not need any DL time. If you’re in a keeper league and he just now became available in your player pool sabotage whoever you must to grab him as early as possible. He’s unlikely to help much this season and may not even be with the team in two weeks. He’s the shiny new toy du jour. Be tepid in your excitement.

The other day 4 of us writers did a draft of players owned in less than 10% of all ESPN leagues. We drafted a C, CI, MI, OF, SP and RP and here were the results:

Besides the entire draft results, here is a quick explanation of my 6 picks

John Buck (C)– The choice of Buck was pretty easy. He is a catcher with home run ability. This season so far he has hit 8 HRs in 291 PA with the Marlins and looks to still get plenty more PA. These numbers are just a bit below his career average where he has averaged 1 home run for every 30 PA. His average and SB are non-existent, but what is to be expected from a catcher owned in less than 10% of all leagues. I will gladdly take the home runs, especially from a catcher.

Jonny Gomes (OF) – I figured that I may attempt at locking up home runs with Gomes to go along with Buck. He looks to be on pace for 20 home runs and maybe even get 10 SB. His average is a drag, but he generally gets consistent playing time so he will have chances to accumulate Runs and RBIs to go along with the HRs.

Aaron Crow (RP)– I took the Royals All-Star selection in the hope that Soria will become either injured or traded. Crow then looks to be in line to move into the closer role where he will begin picking up saves. There are other relievers with better rate stats, but I am taking a chance on saves with this pick.

Scott Sizemore (MI)– This is probably the safest move I took. Usually, I would aim for a player that excels at one area, but with Scott he is just an all around below average player. He will get at bats and not destroy or will any category. Boring.

Casey Blake (CI) – I need a CI and the pickings were slim. I am pretty much hoping that he can get back to hitting some home runs. Also, he could put up some OK counting stats (Runs and RBIs).

Brandon McCarthy (SP) – I waited on SP which seemed like the deepest category. I about went with Danny Duffy, but decided against double homer-ism after drafting Crow and instead went with McCarthy. I will take the 3.5 K/BB and hope the A’s offense can show up once or twice during the rest of the season.

Late Wednesday night, the Mariners called up Kyle Seager. In a related story, this edition of Mining the Minors got much more interesting just before midnight.

Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe it’s just me and the fact that my fantasy teams are being decimated with injuries, but do there seem to be a lot more than usual?  Obviously, when you lose a player for an extended period of time it can be a nightmare trying to find similar production.  But if you’re just losing a guy for a two week stretch and need a temporary stopgap to hold you over, then there’s still help to be found.  Here are a pair of guys that seem to be available in a number of leagues and are likely to help you out on a short term basis. Read the rest of this entry »

For the first time this season, I nabbed a waiver wire pick from the “most dropped” players in CBS leagues. Since fantasy owners are generally as bad as non-professional stock market investors, picking up the hot players and dropping the cold ones just to watch the trend reverse shortly thereafter, I will continue checking out that list.

Read the rest of this entry »

Happy 4th of July weekend to you all…

So some of the boys and I decided to test out our waiver wire skills and ran a quick little Deep League Waiver Wire draft.  We had to pick those that we thought would be the most productive for fantasy teams THIS season but had less than a 10% ownership mark using ESPN Fantasy as a guideline.  Since the pick’ns were pretty slim, we left the positions as follows:  C, CI, MI, OF, SP, RP.  I had the first pick of the four of us, so here’s what I did… Read the rest of this entry »

As our own Zach Sanders astutely pointed out recently, the current state of the waiver wire, relative to quality hitting, is pretty grievous. Indeed, I find myself playing far more platoons with my offense and frequently scouring the rough in desperate search of that proverbial diamond. With this in mind, I wanted to highlight a couple players readily available in most standard formats that might be able to help your squad out: Ben Revere and Chris Johnson.

Read the rest of this entry »

Have you scoured the waiver wire for a hitter in your standard leagues lately? If you have, you’ll completely understand the point of this article.

Read the rest of this entry »

Unless your closer’s name is Mariano Rivera, there’s a possibility he’s going to get hurt at some point during the season. Pitchers are a fragile bunch. It happens. Two teams have been hit especially hard in that area this season.

If you had told the Phillies and Dodgers at the start of the season that their closers on June 30th would be Antonio Bastardo and Javy Guerra you’d have been laughed out of the building by Ruben Amaro and Ned Colletti. Yet, here we are. The two teams haven’t needed their star closers much; the Phillies would be in first with me at the back of their pen, and the Dodgers just aren’t good enough for an elite closer to matter. But, to the fantasy consumer, they mean plenty. Let’s take a look at the two new faces.

Read the rest of this entry »

Another top-notch prospect made his long-awaited debut this week. No point in keeping you from getting better acquainted.

Read the rest of this entry »