Archive for Danny Espinosa

I’ve written about Luis Valbuena a couple of different times this winter: once in regard to the third basemen available on the free agent market and then again as a comparison against Chase Headley, as it looked like the New York Yankees were in pursuit of the veteran third baseman. With Valbuena now suiting up for the Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim) thanks to a recent two-year deal, now comes the time that we evaluate whether or not he’ll be a fantasy asset in the coming year.

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Check out last month’s rankings here.

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No more bland, rote tiers from this guy! Thanks to the urging of commenter “Urban Shocker,” my eyes are now open to the fun that can be had with ridiculously labeled tiers. You see, I used to just write these monthly second-base columns with boring old numbered tiers. That is, until Urban Shocker convinced me in the comments section of my April rankings to name my tiers from then on.

To be perfectly honest, the task of doing these monthly rankings can get rather stale — for both me and you — as the season wears on. Eventually, it gets to the point where the rankings barely change, because 30-day samples don’t substantially change the way I/we think about a certain player.

Furthermore, there’s only so many ways I can say “Jose Altuve had a good month again,” or “Dee Gordon steals lots of bases,” or “Holy crap, Dan Uggla is so incredibly terrible!” (Actually, never mind on that last one. I will never get sick of making jokes about Uggla, who got paid $13 million last year to post a weighted offense 72% below league-average.)

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There is still a smorgasbord of outfield and middle-infield waiver wire options. Let’s sort using 20% ownership in Yahoo leagues as our qualifier.

Using a combination of contact percentage and isolated slugging, here is the 2015 zCt+zISO leader board:

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For all the years that I’ve been playing fantasy baseball, I’ve never really understood the idea of punting saves. Not that I don’t understand the concept, but that I don’t understand the rationale behind thinking that it’s a good strategy. You load up on starters with the hope of locking up wins and strikeouts while doing your best to stay competitive in WHIP and ERA. Perfectly viable strategy, right? But what about the fact that Wins is, more or less, an arbitrary category and while your guy goes seven strong and exits with the lead, some clown of a set-up man comes in, walks the leadoff guy and then serves up a two-run shot to tie the game. A great game for your starter, for sure, but you make no advancement in a category you’ve supposedly built your team to excel in. Read the rest of this entry »

When an organization decides to give a player an opportunity to play every day and take over a starting position, fantasy owners need to stand up and take notice.  Especially if the player qualifies at a position that is either thing to begin with or has been decimated by injuries through these first two months of the season.  Here are two prime examples that are likely sitting on your waiver wire just waiting to be claimed.

Josh Bell, ARI  |3B|  Ownership:  ESPN – 0.5%  Yahoo – 1.0%

Right on the heels of my last Kicking Rocks piece which clamored for Bell’s call-up, the Diamondbacks finally said enough to the Cody Ransom/Ryan Roberts platoon they had working the hot corner this season.  With little or no legitimate production at the position, it made perfect sense for the team to give Bell a shot, if not for anything but to at least just kick the tires and see what they had.  It’s not like things could get worse, right?

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So we’ve done a pretty thorough bludgeoning of the recent reader mock draft, looking at almost every round except for the fliers, and covering several of the positions along the way as well. Second base has me particularly concerned headed into 2012, so let’s break down how the readers handled the challenge of staffing their squads at that position.

The following chart is pretty self explanatory – where the player was selected in the reader mock, what their average draft position is over at Mock Draft Central, and the difference between the two to the right:

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Usually Thursday’s are reserved for Kicking Rocks, but with such limited complaints and too few games remaining to do much about it anyway, it’s time again to play some Keeper League ‘Would You Rather…?’  Moving around the diamond this week brings us to second base and a pair of young, potentially studly long term options.

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Unless you’re sitting on one of the top five or six guys that are out there, chances are you’re struggling with production at second base and are looking desperately to find someone to plug that hole for the rest of the year.  Well, based on these ownership percentages, you might just have that help right in front of you.  Here’s a pair of guys you might want consider using right now… Read the rest of this entry »

I’m off to the Arizona Fall League and Ron Shandler’s First Pitch this weekend, so my posting schedule will be erratic. The good news is that I’ll have plenty of fodder for those posts when I do get around to writing them.

Back to the matter at hand. We’ve been talking about the middle infield recently, doing keeper rankings for second base and shortstop in the past two weeks. A fitting segue might be to a pair of middle infielders on one team, especially since their flaws are as apparent as their upside.

Ian Desmond saved a lot of Yunel Escobar owners this year, and since he was so cheap (practically undrafted going in), let’s not speak too harshly about him. On the other hand, the flaws are obvious, even within his .269/.308/.392 batting line. We know he doesn’t walk (5% career), so he’s a poor option in OBP leagues. Given his strikeouts (20.8% in 2010) and lack of power (.124 ISO last year), it’s unlikely that he’ll put up great batting averages or power a team to victory, either. To top it off, UZR (and subjective reports) have not enjoyed his defensive effort (-8.1 UZR/150 career). So what is there to like about him?

Well, for one, he’s a live, every-day body at a tough position. 22 shortstops qualified for the batting title, and their average batting line was .266/.322/.391 – Desmond’s line is even close to average, making him relevant in all leagues. Also, though his 2010 power was below-average, his career ISO (.145) is almost exactly average for all major leaguers. His career minor league ISO might be familiar (.129), but he also slugged better as he advanced. Lastly, his line drive percentage (15.8%) was so low that it only has one place to go. There’s no definite answer here, but it certainly looks like there’s power projection left in Desmond’s profile. Paired with his decent speed (5.5 speed score, 17/22 SBs), he can be a workhorse shortstop in most leagues. The flaws will probably keep him from being elite, though.

Across the middle infield from him is newcomer Danny Espinosa. Unfortunately, we only have 112 ML plate appearances to use in our analysis, and not many of his stats will have met Pizza Cutter’s reliability benchmarks in that few at-bats.

We can, however, learn something about Espinosa from his walk, strikeout, groundball and HR/FB rates, which all stabilize under 100 PAs. From his walk and strikeout rates (8% and 29.1% respectively), we can tell that Espinosa is a little bit different style of hitter than Desmond. The walks are about average, so perhaps the .365 OBP from the minor leagues will carry over. But that strikeout rate – arg. It’s a problem, and he exhibited the same problem in the minor leagues (25.7%). Even once the BABIP (.239) regresses next year, Espinosa will be a batting average risk.

Espinosa famously began his career with three home runs in his first five games and six in his first month, but how much power will he show over a full season? He hit a good amount of groundballs (45.8%), but his one-to-one groundball-to-flyball ratio is not going to keep him from showing power (Adrian Gonzalez and Ryan Zimmerman showed the same ratio this year). His minor league ISO (.185) seems to suggest that he can exhibit at least average power, if not the .233 ISO he put up in his debut.

Though he didn’t steal a base in his debut, Espinosa averaged about 24 stolen bases per full season in the minor leagues and has good wheels. Add in his average power and batting average risk, and you have another flawed Nationals’ middle infielder that can help late in 2011 mixed-league drafts. Espinosa had the more stable progression through the minor leagues, showed more power and on-base abiiity, but plays the easier position to fill. In OBP leagues, at least, he’s the obvious play between the two.

Embracing their youth movement, the Nationals have called up shortstop Danny Espinosa. Because of Ian Desmond’s place on the roster, Espinosa will be playing second base in D.C, and should find playing time on most days for the rest of 2010.

Rated Washington’s fourth best prospect by Marc Hulet, Espinosa has tools that fantasy owners should be drooling over. He has the ability to hit for power as well as steal bases, a quality rarely found in a middle infielder.

The twenty-three year old made his way through the Nationals Double-A and Triple-A affiliates this season, hitting at both levels. During his stint in Harrisburg (AA), Espinosa had an ISO of .202 and 20 steals in 432 trips to the plate. His overall numbers transferred over well to Syracuse (AAA), but his power production declined a bit, which is probably due to a small sample and an adjustment period.

Espinosa will never be a guy with a high LD%, so his batting average may pay the price. However, he’s fast enough to live with hitting grounders, and has the potential to strike out at a below-average rate, allowing Espinosa to keep a respectable batting average in the future. It’s unlikely he’ll ever hit .300, but a .275/20/15 line next year is reasonable and could be expected from the young switch-hitter.. While it’s nothing spectacular, it’s good enough to be owned in every league next year, regardless of his position in the middle infield.

If you’re in a keeper league, Espinosa’s your guy. Owners in redraft leagues shouldn’t be too eager to jump on him, but he’s a good bench option if you’re looking to fill out a roster with upside.