Archive for alex avila

The catcher position, with respect to fantasy baseball has seen quite the inundation of new talent.  There was a time when, if you didn’t own one of the big three — Joe Mauer, Brian McCann, Victor Martinez — it didn’t really matter who you had as your backstop.  Sure, there were some that were more productive than others, but overall, there were numerous interchangeable players and whether you grabbed one in the 9th round or in the 15th round, it didn’t make much difference.  Now, with blossoming stars like Carlos Santana, Buster Posey, Alex Avila, and Matt Wieters, things are looking a little different.  The position is much deeper and production is on the rise.  One of these rising stars, though, has an interesting future ahead of him and fantasy owners will have some tough decisions to make.  What will come of Jesus Montero in 2012?

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Today’s suggested Would You Rather comes via email from someone named SuicideKing and I couldn’t be happier about posting it here.  Talk about throwing something right in your wheelhouse!  If you’ve been reading all season, you’ll know I’ve never been shy about my dislike for drafting Joe Mauer as high as he usually goes and that I’ve been a huge Alex Avila fan all year.  But this is business here, so let’s do an objective comparison and then I’ll turn it over to the rest of you for further discussion.

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Back around the end of May, after a torrid start to the season, I posed the simple question about Tigers catcher Alex Avila — is he for real?  At the time of the piece, we looked at his .333 BABIP, his 30.0 K%, his gaudy 17.4% HR/FB and not only wondered if his .250 ISO was the real deal, but if these numbers were indicating an over-achiever who was headed for a significant drop.  Well, after watching him the rest of the way and looking at his current .304-17-65, it might finally be safe to say that he is, in fact, for real.  Now the question is, what do we do with him next season?

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Time to re-visit those monthly rankings, again.  As always, the criteria used for these is as follows:

1.  Current performance level
2.  Expected performance for rest of season
3.  Value based on standard 5×5 categories (avg over OBP)

One note, despite the fact that it is late in the season, we are not accounting for keeper value right now.  We are staying within the parameters of this season alone.  Injured players remain on the list at the bottom so we can just see who was up there from start to finish.  That being said, here’s how the catching position looks right now…. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re now sitting here in mid-July and four times the Catcher Rankings have been adjusted to reflect both the current season’s performance and expected rest of season projections.  For the most part, the criticisms have been mild as we all seem to be, reasonably, on the same page.  However, there’s one thing that continuously sticks out at me and today, I feel it’s time to address it.  The title obviously says it all, but still, I feel it necessary to ask the question:  What’s up with all the Chris Iannetta love? Read the rest of this entry »

As the season moves on, things are really settling in with the catcher rankings.  Not a whole lot of movement from tier to tier (almost none), but some movement within.  Remember, the criteria used for the rankings is as follows:

1.  Current performance level
2.  Expected performance for rest of season
3.  Value based on standard 5×5 categories (avg over OBP)

Here’s how it looks heading into July. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re a third of the through the season, so I’d like to take a look at which players have provided the best production relative to their auction cost in ottoneu leagues…and by extension, probably much of fantasy baseball.  While this is specific to ottoneu, I think this will apply to most of fantasy baseball.

We’ll start today with catchers and corner infielders.  I’ll give you the top three values at that position, plus my pick for the player of those three that is least likely to regress (or, perhaps, the player likely to regress the least).   Avg. Cost is just their current average cost in ottoneu, whereas the “Performed As” number is essentially an measure of what the dollar value would be for performance at this level for an entire season (using the lwts-based FanGraphs Points system; methods description at the bottom).  Expect this to change by season’s end: these guys are all overperforming, and are all good bets to regress to some degree.

Catcher

My Pick: Ramon Hernandez Read the rest of this entry »

As we get ready to head into a new month, it’s time to update the 2011 Catchers Rankings once again.  Remember, the criteria for these rankings is as follows:

The arrows are used to highlight a player moving up or down in tier, but you’ll also notice some minor tweaks within the tiers as well.  Some that will obviously have more impact than others. Read the rest of this entry »

With the calendar getting ready to flip to June and with updated catcher rankings on their way, there’s been a decent behind-the-scenes debate over the power and performance of 24 year old Detroit Tigers backstop Alex Avila.  Currently, Avila is sporting a slash line of .279/.346/.529 with 8 home runs and 28 RBI.  He’s tied for second in HR amongst catchers, leads in RBI production and according to most overall rankings based strictly on 2011 performance, he is listed as the second best catcher behind Russell Martin.  There’s no doubting his current performance totals here, but the question remains…can he keep it going? Read the rest of this entry »

There’s really no need to be embarrassed.  It’s a very common problem.  In fact, I hear that it happens to a lot of fantasy owners.  I, myself, have been known to experience it from time to time.  No, no…I’m not just saying it to make you feel better.  It happens to everyone.  Believe it or not, even to girls. Read the rest of this entry »