Kotchman & Pena: 1B Risers
Let’s take a look at a pair of first baseman slowly inching their way towards fantasy relevance, or back to relevance in one case…
Casey Kotchman | Rays | Ownership: 1% Yahoo!, 0.5% ESPN
It’s a crazy world we live in, one in which the question of whether or not Kotchman is worth a roster spot is a valid one. He’s hit .352/.425/.451 with a homer and eight runs scored in 80 PA since being called up following Manny Ramirez’s sudden retirement, but he’s been even better of late: .386/.449/.523 in 49 PA over the last two weeks. Kotchman’s riding out a nice BABIP streak (.421 over the last two weeks, .396 overall), though you’d expect it to be a little higher than usual given his extreme ground ball tendencies (57.6% this year, 53.4 career). I guess the turf in Tampa is helping him out, maybe speeding up (or, in reality, not slowing down) some of those grounders and helping them find holes.
Joe Maddon’s employed one of his unique platoons at first base, using Kotchman against righties and Dan Johnson against lefties even though both guys bat from the left side. We have a pretty good idea of what Kotchman is at this point of his career, a well-below average offensive first baseman with some glove skills, but he’s hitting well now and is worth a spot in AL-only or deeper mixed leagues in the interim. Just make sure you watch the pitching probables and be vigilant if he shows signs of slowing down.
Carlos Pena | Cubs | Ownership: 48% Yahoo!, 55.5% ESPN
Pena’s tenure on Chicago’s north side didn’t exactly start as planned. He had just two hits (but also three walks) in his first 15 plate appearances before being sidelined for a few days with a sprained thumb. Pena fell into a deep and prolonged slump after coming back, hitting just .151/.274/.151 for the balance of April. He started to show some signs of life in early-May but is now on a full blown tear, with a .379/.486/.729 line to go along with three homers in the month. He has eight hits in his last four games as well.
Despite his relatively awful 2010 season, coming into the season I liked the idea of Pena in Wrigley, a building with a 119 HR park factor for left-handed batters according to StatCorner. Regardless of where he’s playing, the guy will kill your batting average (hasn’t hit over .250 since 2007), but he’ll draw enough walks to have value in OBP leagues and power is very real. He obviously won’t maintain his current torrid pace over the full season, but ZiPS sees a .238/.362/.481 batting line with 22 homers the rest of the way. Only seven other first baseman match that combination of wOBA (.370) and HR.
Mike writes about the Yankees at River Ave. Blues and baseball in general at CBS Sports.
My ownership of Pena has been extremely fortunate this year so far. I had him benched in a deep league with shallow benches and wound up with a quad-fecta of David Wright, Pablo Sandoval, Alex Gordon, and Justin Smoak manning 1B/3B/CI (Gordon was in my outfield most days). Then I went and traded BJ Upton away, forcing Gordon into my outfield full time (I also have Heyward, Bruce, and Beltran, so Gordon was my fourth outfielder in the 5-OF format), and then Pablo Sandoval got hurt, forcing Pena into my lineup just in time for him to get hot. Of course, now it doesn’t help that Smoak and Gordon have cooled a bit (neither does Heyward’s injury), and I was bummed that I missed on Hosmer when he came up so much earlier than expected, but hopefully the other three can hold down the fort until Panda gets back and/or I can snag Belt, Rizzo, or Moustakas for an upside flier/backup plan.
I think this is the perfect spot for “cool story, bro.”
Cool story, bro.
I would like to know more about this! Please go on!
kewlstorybro. 4 out ov 5 starz. Wuld listn again.
Lol, bored at work, felt like sharing, so sue me. Sorry to waste your precious commentspace that’s usually taken advantage of soooo meaningfully.
On that note, why is it that responses to comments in these comments sections are at least 70% negative? Does anyone ever respond to anything substantial anymore (have they ever?), or just to things they either don’t care about that they can use to show off their vast array of sarcastic, nerdy, response memes, or things they consider trolling? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for snide responses to serious trolling, but this obviously wasn’t trolling. It seems like the best way to get responses to a comment on fangraphs at this point is to respond to a Dave Cameron post with nothing but “#6org”. Isn’t intelligent discourse one of the tenets of fangraphs? Sorry to say, but I think you guys are failing….