Deep League Waiver Wire: April 4th
Jack Cust | 2% Owned (Y!) | 0.4% Owned (ESPN)
Be forewarned ESPN owners: Jack Cust is not outfield eligible. But if you’re like me and play more on the Yahoo! side of things, Cust could be a nice addition if things go right for him. We all know by now that Cust is much more valuable in OBP leagues, but if your team can stomach a relatively low batting average, you don’t have much to worry about. Cust has seemingly always had playing time questions surrounding him, but since the Mariners don’t have much in the way of a suitable platoon player, Cust should be an everyday player. Add him if you’re looking for some extra pop and decent RBIs.
Jason Bartlett | 9% | 3.8%
Bartlett is one of “those guys.” You know, the guys you don’t feel good about owning, even if it will help your team. Bartlett has a nice line-drive swing, and getting out of the AL East certainly won’t hurt his batting average. Even if you only expect Bartlett to hit .270 with 15-20 steals, that line makes him worth owning in deeper leagues, and maybe even in some shallower leagues that have a MI spot. Bartlett will be hitting towards the top of the Padres’ lineup most days, but the hitters behind him could limit his runs scored.
Jose Lopez | 7% | 71.4%
First off: does anyone have any idea why Jose Lopez is owned in over 70% of ESPN leagues? For those of you wondering, Lopez’s ownership rated jumped up less than 10% after opening day, which means he was owned (and presumably drafted) in 60% of leagues this offseason. Regardless, Lopez is a great add in deeper leagues. He’s only third base eligible right now, but he’ll be eligible to play second base sometime soon, depending on your league’s settings. Coors and the NL West could be a great fit for Lopez’s pull power, and almost anything is better than Safeco for Lopez’s skill set. He has plenty of competition behind him should he falter, but I’d expect Lopez to hang on to the job for most of the season.
Zach is the creator and co-author of RotoGraphs' Roto Riteup series, and RotoGraphs' second-longest tenured writer. You can follow him on twitter.
I can see why hes owned in 70% of espn leagues, as middle infielder 20+ hrs in coors field is very useful.
Lopez only qualifies at 3B this season.
No power at the hot corner?
no thanks.
well, i guess this is true if your league has no mechanism for handing out new position eligibility during the season
So far, Lopez has played at 2B for Colorado. Three games away from gaining 2B/MI eligibility in most leagues.
ESPN requires 10 games, fwiw.
Can I thumbs down myself? Yes I can.
I should pay more attention.
is Jose Lopez this year’s CarGo? I hope so
As in, like, a 30/30 MVP-type threat? Lord no.
LOL
He’s owned in ESPN, bc ESPN used ZIPS projections this year, and ZIPS is crazy about Jose Lopez.
Displayed ADP makes all the difference in the world during the draft.
ESPN ADP – 116.9
Yahoo Preseason Rank – 331
So Jose Lopez is getting auto-picked by ESPN drafts while he’s being ignored by the Yahoo auto-picker. Mystery solved.
Correction – ESPN ADP is 226, not 116.
Thats exactly right. And in a 12 team league with 22-24 roster spots he’s getting auto-drafted in one of the last 2 or 3 rounds.. The same BS goes on for Yahoo, just look at all the “handcuff” bullpen guys that are 50% or more owned. I auto drafted (by accident) one of my Yahoo leagues and I ended up with Hong Chi Kuo, Luke Gregorson, Daniel Bard AND Jake McGee! Makes me wonder if the Yahoo rankings are based on HOLDS being one of the pitcher categories?
I don’t play ESPN, but the Yahoo rankings are an almost complete mystery every year. Then again, if you read the articles posted by the ‘experts’ over there you get a mish-mash of bad spelling, poor sentence construction, anachronistic and self-contradictory points, and frankly moronic ‘advice.’ Funston especially is poor; I honestly have no idea how he ever made it out of the basement and in to the big time.
Yahoo – the best free games on the web, the worst in-house fantasy guys. By far.
ESPN’s fantasy guys are worse. But they’re all bad. At least Y! is occasionally funny.
Could you do a really, really, deep league waiver wire?
All these players are owned in my league, which happens when you have 18-teams.
I love Jose Lopez and would draft him in every league. I’m almost certain that the CarGo article regarding altered pitch trajectory in Coors was linked to from this very site.
Lopez seems like an ideal candidate to eat that up.
can we get a post comparing yahoo and espn leagues. why is there such a difference in ownership. is it because of the predraft ranks (with a lot of inexperienced people following those blindly)? ive noticed significant differences between the 2. on a somewhat related note, yahoo’s setup is just terrible. I had to postpone one of my drafts twice this year because the league locks unnecessarily before the draft and a) doesnt let you unlock it and b) wont let you reschedule the draft for later in the same day. both of these things are not issues on ESPN. last year i will be using yahoo