• After sucking the life out of Detroit’s lineup for the past couple of years, Brandon Inge has somehow managed to find a starting job in Oakland after passing through waivers. If you pick Inge up in any league, you probably aren’t someone who reads RotoGraphs.
Third base has been rather unspectacular in 2011, in both fantasy baseball and spikes-on-the-ground baseball. With the playoffs just a few days away, I remarked to a colleague just how terrible third base looks for two of the six teams that we know will be in the post-season and how it’s a testament to the talent that surrounds them. Those two teams are the Milwaukee Brewers and the Detroit Tigers, but their third base situations aren’t quite the same.
Just how bad are their respective third basemen? What follows is a quick history of ineptitude at the hot corner for playoff-bound teams and a brief fantasy analysis for 2012. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve done a fair amount of reading on third base rankings headed into the 2011 fantasy baseball season. While most prognosticators and enthusiasts recognize some elite talent at the tippy-top of the list, references such as “terrifying,” “black hole,” and, ahem, “talentless batch of hackers” have described the rest of the list, which I might venture to simply call not terribly deep. Third base will present many managers with a challenge, but I’m not so sure there aren’t some gems to be had in this list.
This is the first part of a series that will check up on injured players and recent injuries during spring training.
– Brandon Webb is working his way back from shoulder issues, and threw 43 pitches in a bullpen session on Sunday. He also threw 45 pitches in a previous bullpen session on Thursday. The D’Backs are trying to get him ready for some in-game appearances by mid-March, but that may be far too optimistic. Arizona has a shot to be good this year, and if they are smart they will baby him along and attempt to get 25-28 starts out of Webb this year. All looks well with Webb, but that’s what we thought going into last year, and continued to think that at times during the rehab process. If he looks healthy, take a shot at Webb.
– Brandon Inge is still going through the rehab process after undergoing surgery on both knees this offseason. Inge thinks he’ll be ready to start the year, but some Tigers officials aren’t as optimistic. Inge is “bored”, and that is leading him to try to come back from his injury quicker, which is not the best thing for him. During the first half of ’09, Inge was a stud, and it’s unclear if his second half was due to regression, injuries, or a combination of both. Now, with bad knees and lost catcher eligibility, he’s no longer draftable.
– After missing a vast majority of 2009, Daisuke Matsuzaka is continuing to work his way back for the 2010 season. He threw off a mound, although the catcher was standing, and also participated in some long toss. The Red Sox are willing to admit that Dice-K won’t be ready for opening day, but it looks like they hope he will be ready to go sometime in the first month of the season. The Red Sox may choose to go with a four-man rotation until Dice-K gets back on the mound, but they could also place Tim Wakefield in the starting rotation. Wakefield is always a strange fantasy pickup, but he could be a nice waiver wire guy for wins.
More injury notes:
When we checked the center field position and created tiered rankings, there were a few players that were suggested as possible values at the position.
Carlos Gomez and Cameron Maybin could provide some nice speed – at the cost of risking your batting average. Since the rankings were for rotisserie baseball, that risk pushed those players off of the rankings.
But what if we were talking about head-to-head baseball, where punting a category is a strategy many deep leaguers employ? In such a format, you are competing in ten categories every week and can easily ‘punt’ a category if it provides an advantage elsewhere. Imagine the value you could get out of eschewing batting average – your lineup could employ Jimmy Rollins, Mark Reynolds, Adam Dunn, and Jayson Werth, all without the problems that lineup would normally entail.
With that strategy in mind, is Chris Young a viable option in 2010? If Bill James is to be believed, Youngs’ power and speed could return and answer that question affirmatively. The fans have yet to chime in (but should take this chance to give their input).
After famously being demoted to the minor leagues last year, Young returned to a post-All-Star-break line that could help batting-average-punters (.236/.343/.444) – at least in the power department. He didn’t steal a base. We can be forgiven for feeling confused.
Looking at his plate discipline stats may just muddy the waters. Every statistic is going in a different direction. His strikeout rate has gotten steadily worse (24.8% in 2007 to 30.7% last year), but he’s reaching less often (22.9% in 2007 to 18.0% last year). Perhaps it’s all about his contact rate, which is definitely getting worse (79.7% in 2006 to 73.9% last year), but there are plenty of players that succeed with a 75-ish% contact rate (Evan Longoria and Adrian Gonzalez most prominently), and with his still-strong walk rate (9.1% career, 12% in 2009), he has his good qualities.
There’s also something interesting going on with Young’s take rate. As RJ pointed out, Young takes a lot of pitches in the zone, and a good portion of those pitches could have been called balls last year. But again, Victor Martinez and Chris Coghlan both also took about 40% of the pitches they saw in the zone, and they had pretty good years last year.
It may just be that a player that both takes a lot of pitches in the zone and doesn’t make contact is going to have a hard time in major league baseball. Let’s set the bar at Young’s career levels of swinging in the zone (around 60%) and contact rate (around 76%). How many other players in the last two years have had good seasons with those rates?
Last year, the list was short: Mike Cameron, Jason Bay and Brandon Inge all had passable years sporting percentages close to Young’s numbers (but none took as many pitches in the zone, with Cameron swinging the least at 63.7%). In 2008, it was Jason Bay and Mike Cameron again (but Bay made contact on 77.1% of his pitches, and Cameron swung at more pitches than Young.)
It looks like we have a (rather obvious) comp in Mike Cameron then. Except that if you compare Cameron’s career numbers in the two categories (63.9% Z-swing%, 75.4% contact rate), you’ll notice he doesn’t take as many pitches in the zone. He also plays solid center field defense (+5.7 UZR/150 in CF, career).
And you have your two things to work on for Chris Young the Outfielder. In order to be Mike Cameron, he needs to swing at more pitches in the zone and play better defense. Then he’ll always have a place on the field. The good news is that Young swung at more pitches in the zone last year than he did the previous two years. The bad news is that his defense needs to take a serious step forward this year (-4.9 UZR/150 in CF, career). The good news means that he may be ownable in the right league next year. The bad news means that he won’t be ownable in any keeper leagues going forward if the defense doesn’t improve.
After playing 58 games at catcher in 2008, Brandon Inge finally seems to have settled into a full time third base role. Before 2008, he had not played a game at catcher since 2004. Last year, as a full time third baseman, Inge hit .230/.314/.406. As for his platoon splits, he hit .243/.361/.493 against lefties, and .225/.298/.377 against righties. He also hit 27 homers, drove in 84 runs and scored 71 runs.
Inge started his 2009 season on a high note, hitting .268/.360/.515 before the All-Star break. However, knee issues bothered him and he hit only .186/.260/.281 in the second half of the year. 21 of his 27 homers came in the first half, when he had a .304 BABIP. His BABIP in the second half of the year was down to .247, likely due to his knee injury. He has had surgery this offseason that will repair his knees, and should be ready to go at the start of spring training.
The demands of playing catcher have never been good to Inge, and it is understandable. Crouching behind a plate during games and practices is not fun (my catching career only lasted a couple of games), and can affect your legs in ways you cannot imagine. As a third baseman, Inge has a .298 BABIP in 2553 plate appearances. As a catcher, his BABIP is only .240, in 1149 trips to the plate.
So, what do should you expect from Inge in 2010? The 24 fans that have taken the time to project Inge’s numbers think he will hit .237/.321/.400 with 20 homers. I am a bit more optimistic. I see a .250 average with 22 homers next season, with another 75+ RBI year. Because he didn’t play any catcher last year, odds are he isn’t going to be catcher eligible in your league. As a third baseman, his value is quite low (Eno doesn’t even have him ranked), so stay away on draft day.
Click here to make your own projection for Inge’s 2010 campaign.