Archive for Devon Travis

Paul tackled the top 15 options at second base. Just missing the cut but earning an honorable mention was Devon Travis. Since reaching the bigs in 2015, he’s been a highly productive offensive player at the keystone position tallying a .301/.342/.469 line with a 119 wRC+. The biggest knock on Travis is that a shoulder injury that required off-season surgery last November has limited him to almost exactly one full season (163 games and 670 plate appearances) of work in The Show. The good news for Travis’ outlook going forward is that once he made his season debut for the Blue Jays on May 25th, he stayed healthy and avoided being bit by the injury bug the remainder (he did suffer a knee injury in the postseason that required an arthroscopic procedure, but he’s expected to be fully ready by spring training). Also, the further removed from his DL activation, the better Travis hit. Read the rest of this entry »

No matter your league size, there’s likely someone on the waiver wire who can give you a boost at second base. This week, I’ve identified three under-owned second-sackers who could bolster your production at the position.

Devon Travis (31% Yahoo, 30.3% ESPN, 66% CBS)

For a while, it seemed like Travis had a shot at leading off for the Jays, as he picked up five starts atop the lineup in Jose Bautista’s absence. However, the 25-year-old was unable to fend off Ezequiel Carrera as the team’s primary leadoff man, and now Bautista is due back soon. Manager John Gibbons recently indicated he’ll likely slot Bautista back into the leadoff spot when he returns.

The dream of “Devon Travis, leadoff hitter” may be a thing of the past, but despite bouncing around between every spot in the order other than third and fourth, Travis is producing well above his ownership rates. Players on CBS have clearly noticed, but there’s no reason he should be so widely available in Yahoo/ESPN leagues. Over the last 30 days, Travis is hitting .325 with three homers, two steals, 15 runs and nine RBI. Pretty darn good for a second baseman who’s likely floating around on your waiver wire.

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You’ve read the title. Hold that thought.

The Toronto Blue Jays acquired second baseman Devon Travis from the Detroit Tigers last offseason. Having never played above Double-A prior to 2015, the Jays thrust Travis into major league action in a trial by fire. He held his own and then some, hitting a robust .304/.361/.498 with eight home runs and three stolen bases in only 238 plate appearances.

Travis may have experienced some good luck, benefiting from a .347 batting average on balls in play (BABIP) as well as a 16-percent rate of home runs per fly ball (HR/FB) — an impressive rate for a 5-foot-9, 195-pound 24-year-old. The 50-percent ground ball rate (GB%) and somewhat lowly 27.8-percent hard-hit rate (Hard%) don’t help his case in regard to the latter, either.

So Travis’ .194 isolated power (ISO) may not hold up under duress of the 2016 season. But he did post decent ISOs in the minors — .210 at High-A in 2013, .161 at Double-A in 2014 — and although the quality of competition pales in comparison to the real thing, it wouldn’t be unheard of for Travis to develop a modest power stroke. Kid’s something of a doubles machine, which would be a boon to any stat line.

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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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