Archive for Brad Hawpe

The likelihood of the Texas Rangers signing Prince Fielder grew even slimmer on Friday when the team opted to take a cheaper route and sign Brad Hawpe to a minor league league deal.  Hawpe, who is recovering from Tommy John surgery, also received an invite to spring training and, if he makes the cut, is expected to provide insurance for incumbent first baseman Mitch Moreland, who is currently recovering from off season wrist surgery.  Now the question remains…will Hawpe have any fantasy value in 2012?

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It’s a holiday weekend, and in the honor of National Lampoon and holiday/family misadventures everywhere, let’s lead this off with a song and a couple of players that might help fantasy owners on the run:

Trevor Hoffman, Milwaukee Brewers (37% owned)
Trolling for saves is no exact science. We’ve tried using strikeout rates, walk rates, leverage index, ‘thinking stupid,’ and even fingers in the wind to predict closers in the past. Put this post in the latter category. John Axford has done nothing wrong – well, not quite nothing, he does own a 4.50 walk rate that might make sustaining his current performance level difficult, especially if it starts to approach his higher walk rates of the past – but sometimes doing nothing wrong is not good enough. Even though he hasn’t blown a save yet, and is probably the future at the position for Milwaukee, there’s the little matter of the former closer behind him. Not only has Hoffman turned in eight straight innings with only one run surrendered, but he’s also only four saves short of 600. Milwaukee might turn to the Hoff to boost late-season attendance in his run at glory. Stranger things have happened, and Axford owners at the very least should pick up the legendary change-piecer.

Dexter Fowler, Colorado Rockies (5% owned)
Sometimes you just have to keep plucking that chicken. About a month ago, we recommended Fowler in this space, and he promptly sucked for a while and was sent down. Well, at least he raked… in AAA. In 124 plate appearances, he put up a .340/.435/.566 that showed his team that he had little to figure out in the minor leagues. He’s still a member of one of the more crowded houses in the league, as Seth Smith, Ryan Spilborghs, Carlos Gonzalez and Brad Hawpe are all are above-average hitters. Fowler is strong against lefties, though, and in a worst-case scenario, he’ll be a caddy for Smith against lefties. However, Todd Helton has lost all his power (.066 ISO) and is a terrible offensive first baseman right now. The team might best be served (even defensively) by putting Hawpe at first many days, which would open up more at-bats for Fowler. In any case, Fowler has been up and has been playing. He’s played in every game since he’s come back up, and was six for his last eight. Guess finally trying out AAA for the first time did him some good. With his five-tool upside, he’s worth a flier in deeper leagues for sure.

This post comes to you all the way from Tokyo town. I just flew here today (yesterday? tomorrow?) and boy are my arms tired. (badum-ching!) As you can tell, it’s been a looong day. Let me quickly get to a couple waiver wire ideas before I pass out.

Shaun Marcum
Our shallow league special won’t be on the wire long, but if you missed out, don’t worry. There’s plenty of reasons to be suspicious of Mr. Marcum. First, even before he missed all of 2009 with elbow surgery, he hasn’t been the picture of health. His major league high is 159 major league innings in a season, and 168 total innings in a season. He doesn’t have a nice K/9 (7.13 career) or ground ball rate (40.3% career), and though his career ERA looks okay (3.95), his career FIP is much less interesting (4.81). That’s probably because he’s somehow managed to put together 400+ innings with a .273 BABIP. In his first start he had a sparkling .068 BABIP even. If it wasn’t such an obvious idea, actually, it seems that the best move here would be to sell high. Here’s a bet his ERA ends up in the low 4s where it belongs with his peripherals.

Dexter Fowler
It takes a little deeper bench in order to take advantage of the fact that Fowler is being summarily dropped in many leagues, but the reward is there for the patient manager. While Seth Smith is definitely a nice pickup in most leagues since he’s getting the lion’s share of at-bats by taking on righties, Fowler is not yet chopped liver. Obviously, the team is looking at Fowler’s nice .322/.374/.470 major league line against lefties (and his correspondingly putrid .228/.343/.353 line against righties) and making what they believe to be the best short-term move for the team. The problem is that this split has only come in 461 total major league at-bats (which is not a significant level for splits like these), and his minor league splits were non-existent (.843 OPS vs lefties, .859 OPS vs righties). Expect Fowler’s upside to will out and force some sort of move by management (Brad Hawpe, I’m looking at you), and in the meantime, just put him on your bench and slot him in against lefties. You’ll enjoy both short- and long-term return.

Scott Downs
The deep league special is a speculative play based on an incredibly tiny sample size seen in one light. Yes, Jason Frasor blew one save. And yes, it’s one inning. And yes, he probably won’t be removed from the closer’s role in Toronto today. On the other hand, Downs has been amazingly consistent for three years now (FIPs around 3.33 all three years), and managers love consistency. Compare Frasor’s range on his FIPs (2.99 to 4.55) and you’ll see that it’s not at all assured who’s going to have the better year in that pen this year. Throw in the fact that Frasor has been linked to the Twins in trade rumors, and Downs looks like a good bet if you’re a-speculatin’.

Over the offseason we’ll take a look at each position on the diamond and see how the past season affected the positional rankings and where there might be some potential bounceback value picks going into next year’s drafts. (See shortstops, catchers, second basemen, first basemen, third basemen, and left fielders.)

These rankings are for 5×5 rotisserie fantasy baseball. Eligibility was determined by where the player had the most at-bats last year.

The tier-of-his-own player in right field is Justin Upton, and I doubt there will be too much grumbling about this ranking for a guy who hit .300 with 26 home runs and 20 stolen bases in his firs full year. Sure, we may talk a little about his high BABIP (.364), but for now let’s just look at the fan projections and sigh.

That should end the easy portion of our rankings today. Perhaps this is just a little self-pity in anticipation of the comments thread, but the next two tiers could be a single tier, or could be three tiers, and could probably be re-arranged ad infinitum. We’ll give Ichiro! Suzuki credit for his BABIP and (sexy) infield-hitting prowess which are perfect for the right fantasy team.

Now come the players that are impossible to rank. Where do you put a guy like Nelson Cruz, who will give you great power and speed, but will hurt your batting average? Could he be any more different from Shin-Soo Choo, who is is solid across the board but won’t win you a single category? Bobby Abreu is in the Choo-mold, but we’ll move him back a little for the waning power and, to be frank, his old age and body type. It hasn’t hurt him yet, but someday, well it just has to. Right?

I don’t think blame can be attributed for seeing a separation after Abreu. While Nick Markakis is a metronome, his steady ticking doesn’t provide much beyond a .300 average and 20 home runs. The steals in 2007 have proved to be an aberration, and while he may get a power spike some year, there’s no way to predict it. Andre Ethier should, with a better BABIP (.292 in 2009, .316 xBABIP, .322 career BABIP), have a better batting average next year, but is the power real? When Bill James shaves seven home runs off your total, you should take notice. He may not hit 40+% fly balls next year. Some will complain about Jayson Werth’s placement, because he certainly looks like a Nelson-Cruz-lite, and they might be right. But Werth has had issues with staying on the field, and with his batting average and strikeout issues, the tier seems right.

Jay Bruce may just zoom up the charts next year and make his ranking seem silly, but at least the fans are backing my sense that we should temper our enthusiasm on the young slugger just a tad. He does seem like a great upside play, better than the young but inconsistent Hunter Pence behind him, who has seemingly showed us his best already. Brad Hawpe has some strikeout issues, some defense issues, and never really showed the power we thought he might. Forgive me for not believing in the simultaneous spike in both flyball rate (39.6% in 2009, 35.7% career) and HR/FB (17.1% in 2009, 12.9% career) and agreeing with the projections that say Michael Cuddyer’s power may subside next year.

The last tier is not very exciting in my mind. Nick Swisher’s batting average ranges from awful to terrible, Jermaine Dye is getting older and posted a six-year low in line drive percentage (16.9%), Garrett Jones was a 28-year-old rookie who had done nothing before 2007 in the minor leagues, and Magglio Ordonez, well we all saw what happened there. In fact, I would rather wait until the end of the draft to pick someone off of the “just off” list, so the Deep League Value piece this Sunday will feature some gems.

Hopefully you were able to pick up John Danks and trade Bobby Abreu last week. But even if you stood pat there are still plenty of acquisition targets and trade bait guys out there for you. So, here are five guys to pick up and five guys to move.

Acquire

Lance Berkman – It has been a disappointing season for Berkman so far, as he has failed to keep pace with last year in four of the five fantasy categories. Surprisingly, HR is the one category he is currently outperforming last year, as he has both a slightly higher FB rate and HR/FB mark than in 2008. It was unrealistic to expect him to match last year’s career best in SB and R. But his AVG and RBI numbers have been disappointing. But Berkman has just a .248 BABIP (he’s never been below .303 since becoming a full-time player). The past two years Berkman has been a different player before and after the All-Star break. There is a strong possibility we will see that play out for a third straight season as he should experience regression with his BABIP, leading to a better average and more R and RBI.

Cole Hamels – Few imagined that Hamels would be sitting with just four wins and a 4.24 ERA after 13 games but that is where we are. However, Hamels has Quality Starts in three of his last four outings. His K/9 and BB/9 are both improved over last year. Hamels has been dinged by the long ball and is suffering from a .355 BABIP. His FIP is slightly lower than it was last season and is 60 points lower than his current ERA. RoS ZiPS sees him getting eight wins and a 3.60 ERA from here on out, making him a nice buy candidate.

Vernon Wells – Coming into the season the big question with Wells was could he stay healthy. So far, the answer has been yes. But while he’s been a regular in the lineup, his production has been a disappointment. Wells has been hitting for neither AVG nor power. His FB% is a normal 40.3 percent but he is hitting only 5.8 percent HR/FB, compared to a career average of 12.1 percent. Also, his BABIP checks in at just .266. Wells is finally showing signs of life with a modest six-game hitting streak, with three multi-hit games. Hopefully, this is the beginning of an extended hot streak for him.

Javier Vazquez – Year in and year out, probably no pitcher confounds those who carefully monitor statistics more than Vazquez. Currently, he has a brilliant 5.85 K/BB ratio, a 0.91 HR/9 mark, a 1.05 WHIP and a losing record. At least this year Vazquez is able to translate his fine peripherals into a good ERA. Given his history, there is no guarantee that he will get more wins from here on out, but even if he does not, Vazquez is still a fine contributor in three categories and worth investigating if his current owner is fed up with him.

Daniel Murphy – All the injuries suffered by the Mets this year have helped Murphy keep regular playing time, despite his poor start with the bat. Last year in the majors he had a .386 BABIP and a 33.3 percent LD rate. This year he has an 18.6 percent LD rate and a .265 BABIP. There is room for growth in his AVG and Murphy has displayed more HR pop this year than previously. With the uncertainty surrounding Carlos Delgado’s return, Murphy is likely to have at least another month of regular ABs for his BABIP to stabilize.

Trade

Brad Hawpe – Throughout his major league career, Hawpe has used above-average BABIP to post good AVG and solid HR numbers. This year he has a .389 BABIP and a .335 AVG, which is 47 points above his career AVG. And even with that elevated AVG, Hawpe has a career-best .276 ISO. Either Hawpe has moved into elite company or the time has come to sell high on him. I am banking on the latter.

Dan Haren – Throughout the off-season, I encouraged everyone to draft Haren. So, I feel a little bad about declaring him a trade candidate now. But he has a 0.82 WHIP (the lowest mark in the majors for qualified hurlers), a .238 BABIP (again, the lowest mark in the majors for qualified hurlers) and an 86 percent strand rate (the second-best mark). Haren should remain an elite pitcher the rest of the season but his trade value will probably never be higher.

Adrian Gonzalez – According to ESPN, Gonzalez is on a pace for 55 HR this season. If he keeps that up it would be a mistake to trade him. But Gonzalez has a HR/FB rate of 29.5 percent, which dwarfs last year’s career-best 20.7 percent. Also, his .326 ISO is 95 points above last year’s career-best mark. Here is another guy we are trying to sell at the height of his value who will nevertheless be a very productive player the rest of the season.

Ted Lilly – The past three seasons, Lilly has been very good for W and K but with his ERA and WHIP (two of the three years) dragging him down somewhat. So far this year, Lilly sits with a 3.04 ERA and a 1.06 WHIP, both of which would be career-best marks. He has a lifetime 3.26 BB/9 mark and this year it stands at 1.96 so far. And his BABIP checks in at .256, 30 points below his career average. He is still likely to finish with 15 W and 175 K but both the ERA and WHIP figure to rise significantly the rest of the season.

Alexei Ramirez – A brutal start has dragged Ramirez’ overall numbers down but he has been hot in June with a .280 AVG and five HR so far this month. Owners were bullish on Ramirez, giving him an ADP of 70 (just a few spots behind Gonzalez). They were expecting him to build on last year’s numbers but instead Updated ZiPS has him merely repeating or falling short of last year’s fantasy output. Use his hot June to sell now and minimize the damage.