Archive for aledmys diaz

Each Thursday, I’ll be looking at the top waiver targets who could be available in your deeper leagues. Every player who will be included in this series will have an ownership rate of 33 percent or lower in CBS and Fantrax leagues, which is a pretty good indication of these players being available in at least some mixed leagues with at least 15 teams.

Note: Ownership percentages are listed in parentheses, with CBS listed first and Fantrax listed second.

Franchy Cordero, OF, Padres (9/27): To be honest, I worried that by the time I wrote this, Cordero would be too popular to include in this week’s column. He is an industry favorite, probably in no small part because of the splash he made on Statcast leaderboards during his brief time up with the Padres last season. Both his barrels per batted ball event ratio (14.3 percent) and exit velocity on flies and liners (97.3 mph) placed Cordero in the top 20 for hitters with at least 30 batted balls.
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Another great Monday to you all! I don’t have as many specific players to go over, but the ones I do have listed I want to go into a little more detail on.

To start with, let’s go with Stephen Strasburg and his curious elbow/forearm.

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A fine extra-day-off to you all…unless you have to pull the “work on a holiday” thing. Props to you for sure. Either way, thanks for reading and for all of the comments in the previous weeks.

I mentioned this last week, but I want to camp on this topic for a second. The number-one purpose of a team’s minor league farm system is to develop future talent, we all know that. However, there is a extra fringe benefit that having lower-level teams provide, and that is a place for their injured MLB guys to go down and get some valuable game experience before their official return back to the show. You can “simulate games” all you want, but that extra kick of adrenaline that comes from real competition is something practice can’t provide. For the majority of the season, it’s a regular thing to send a guy down to the minors for a game or tow or three. Now we are the point in the year where most minor leagues begin playoffs today or tomorrow, and it is a little much sometimes for a minor league manager fighting for a title to be expected to throw a random guy from the big-league team into their mix for one game.

Which leaves really the fall instructional leagues as a team’s only viable option for rehab assignments for their players at this point in the season. Made up mainly of AA-and-below level players, and even then, doesn’t start for about another 2 weeks. This “black hole” of games is definitely something to be factored into how fast/slow a team decides to bring an injured player back, or to shut him down altogether.

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