Podsednik & Gomez: Deep League Waiver Wire

The fun part about MLB trades for fantasy owners is all the new opportunities afforded to players on the teams involved. New roles open up and suddenly intriguing fantasy options are available for the taking from the free agent pool.

Scott Podsednik | BOS OF | CBS 4% Owned

He’s back! After failing to record an at-bat in the Majors last season, Podsednik has become one of the beneficiaries of the massively insanely ridiculous blockbuster the Red Sox and Dodgers pulled off over the weekend. In addition, reinjured David Ortiz only adds more security to his playing time. Podsednik is now 36 years old and was never a power hitter. What he did provide fantasy owners, however, was steals, and lots of them. That could be problematic though because speed is the first skill to fade as father time approaches. Now while his Spd score is just 4.8, which sits below the league average and not surprisingly represents a career low, he has stolen seven bases in nine attempts over 112 at-bats. That’s a full season 600 at-bat pace of nearly 38 swipes.

Aside from the speed, which he clearly still possesses enough of to contribute in the stolen base category, he should also be a slight positive in batting average. While he obviously won’t maintain a high .300 average, supported by an inflated .436 BABIP, he makes good contact and sports a career .325 BABIP. His batted ball distribution also supports a better than league average BABIP mark. With Daniel Nava also injured, along with Ortiz being out and Crawford gone, Podsednik might very well play every day. If he continues to hit lead off, he may be a solid three category producer.

Mauro Gomez | BOS 1B | 5% Owned

Gomez is much more of an unknown than Podsednik is, but he has also been the beneficiary of trades and injuries. He has been playing regularly at the designated hitter slot and the Red Sox might as well find out what they have here. Of course, Gomez is going to turn 28 in a week and a half, so this is not some young hotshot prospect we’re looking at. In fact, this is his third organization since making his minor league debut in 2006. However, he does show some fantasy promise over the next month. During his second tour of duty at Triple-A, he enjoyed a power spike as his ISO jumped to a career best .279. This was actually the third time he posted an ISO over .200, so the man has serious pop.

The problem with many of the older minor league sluggers is an inability to make acceptable contact. While Gomez certainly hasn’t made great contact, it has been respectable given his power. The good news is that he has also posted strong BABIP marks nearly every season of his minor league career. That means he has a much better shot of hitting .270 or so that would be batting average neutral than .240, and really hurting your team in the category.