Roto Riteup: May 25th, 2012

Despite a short slate of games yesterday, today’s Roto Riteup has plenty of news to cover.

• For those of you who own Austin Jackson, I’m sure you’ve noticed that he has missed the past six games with an abdominal strain. Yesterday the speculation was finally brought to an end as he was moved to the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to May 17th. Even with the retroactive listing, Jackson won’t be back until June 1st at the earliest. For frustrated owners in weekly leagues, you may now sit him without waiting for a late scratch from the lineup.

• At some point today the major league leader in steals, Emilio Bonifacio, will undergo surgery on his left thumb. An estimated down time of four to six weeks is being assumed. With Bonafacio and Jackson out, many people in mixed leagues will be looking for some steals on waiver wire or in free agency.

• Fortunately for those people looking for steals, there happen to be several sleeper names available. One sleeper is Jordan Schafer. Schafer was never a speed burner coming up in the minors, with a single season high of 25 just last year mixed between Triple-A, the Atlanta Braves and the Houston Astros. This year he already is tied for the second most stolen bases in Major League Baseball at 13. ZiPS predicts 17 more SB throughout the season but I think I would take the over on that. Schafer has shown an aggressive knack for stealing and his MLB SB:CS ratio is an impressive 37:9. Schafer is owned in 46% of both Yahoo! and ESPN formats.

• With the recent demotion of Gaby Sanchez combined with a sore knee, Logan Morrison has started the last three games at first base for the Florida Marlins. He is just one more start from gaining 1B and corner infield eligibility in Yahoo! leagues. So far Morrison hasn’t shown the same power display that he did last year, but he is walking more and striking out less than last season. Though he won’t be a fantasy cornerstone, Morrison does have value in shallow rosters for 12 team mixed leagues and any format of 14 team leagues (other than AL only of course). If Morrison’s knee injury has been affecting his swing then maybe the move first base will be less demanding and allow Morrison to rediscover his power stroke. Given that he is owned in 55% of Yahoo! and 49% of ESPN leagues, he could be available and worth a pickup.

• David DeJesus is quietly having a scorching hot month of May. After hitting just .250 in March and April, DeJesus has come around in May to hit .313/.382/.475. After a down offensive year in Oakland last year, DeJesus is looking to rebuild his fantasy name. Although he’ll never be much good for home runs or SB, he is a career .284 hitter. I personally picked him up last week in a league to replace Ryan Sweeney. Based on their skill sets, I deemed DeJesus as a very good replacement. DeJesus is currently toiling away in fantasy free agency with just a 7% ownership rate in Yahoo! and 17% in ESPN. The move out of the O.Co and into Wrigley is sure to give DeJesus much more desirable numbers as well. If your team has also been ravaged by injuries, he makes for a worthy pick up.

For those of you who play daily fantasy games like FanGraphs: The Game, or just like to stream players, here are a couple matchups you may be able to exploit.

A Pitcher for Today: Anthony Bass at NYM
Bass is averaging almost a strike out per inning and a ground ball rate above 50%. I’ll take that any day.

A Pitcher for Tomorrow: Bud Norris at LAD
So far this year Norris is getting more strikeouts and allowing less walks and less homers.

A Hitter for Today: Josh Reddick vs NYY (Ivan Nova)
Reddick has a wOBA of .385 against right-handed pitching this year including nine homers. Nova has the fifth highest HR/9 for qualified starters.