Archive for Ian Kinsler

The Mets continue to find new ways of being “Amazin’,” albeit this reference is to Jacob deGrom and his bothersome elbow. Recall he has TJS in 2010, and for whatever reason scar tissue has enveloped parts of his elbow, especially around the ulnar nerve. Recall from your anatomy classes that the ulnar nerve is also the “funny bone.” About as poorly named as “Microsoft Works.” Anyway, also recall how that feels when you hit that nerve….try throwing a baseball and hitting your spots with your elbow feeling that way. Point being is that he is most likely done for the year. Surgery, albeit minor, is required to clean the elbow up of scar tissue. No hesitations as of now for 2017.

Let’s get caught up with our friend Stephen Strasburg, shall we?

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It’s been a rough year for Ian Kinsler and Neil Walker, in very similar ways. Neither is having trouble getting on base, as both have batting averages in the .270s and on-base percentages around .340. The problem is that both Kinsler and Walker have suffered through season-long power outages, severely diminishing each man’s fantasy value.

On the year, Kinsler is the No. 10 fantasy 2B, with Walker slotting in at 13th. However, both have heated up in the month of July, with Kinsler posting an .843 OPS, and Walker sitting at .885 (neither had even broken the .750 mark in any of the season’s first three months). Walker has launched three of his seven 2015 homers since the calendar turned over from June.

Kinsler only has one long ball this month, but he’s also hit two near-homers that struck the top half of the wall, and has a total of six extra-base hits. With both players finally showing signs of power production, let’s take a look at who you’d rather have on your fantasy team rest-of-season.

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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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I am a chronic off-season Mets rosterbater. Many of my potential Mets trade Tweets are far from rational. Some have included proposals for Troy Tulowitzki, which then leads to trading Daniel Murphy in order to open second base for a long-term competition between Wilmer Flores and Dilson Herrera.

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It’s official. 100% of my value is bothering @jeffwzimmerman to run data and then use that data for said content. I did just that this morning for updated shift data. I believe the last time he posted related content on RotoGraphs was here back in May looking at: Early Hitter Shift Data.

It was because of this post and his balls in play (groundball and pop-up rates) that led me to believe Albert Pujols was going to drop off/continue his downward trend. I guess I pushed out the fact that he was the best hitter of his generation. While the .375 BABIP (from the above link) against shifts did not last, he’s at a very respectable .284. Between this and additional discipline (best contact rate since 2008 and hacking less at stuff outside of the zone), he is able to hover around a .280 BA, which remains elite in conjunction with 30HR, 90R and 100+RBI.

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OK, so not really. In fact, if you don’t know Brad Ausmus personally, then he probably doesn’t even know you have a fantasy team, let alone care about it. But the headline is a good attention-grabber and you all know how I love to lure you in with the headline. But while we all know that real-life managers don’t make their decisions based on how they’re going to impact the fantasy world, some times it feels like that when you own a player or two on that team and you don’t agree with a decision…or potential decision as the case may be here. I’m talking about the idea of Ian Kinsler batting leadoff for Detroit this year while Austin Jackson is moved down to the five-hole, or possibly even lower. Kinsler? Really? Read the rest of this entry »

For a team that’s consistently had a postseason presence in recent years, the Tigers will unveil a dramatically different infield this upcoming season. The organization authored perhaps the biggest trade of the offseason, sending slugger Prince Fielder to Texas for second baseman Ian Kinsler. Futhermore, Miguel Cabrera should transition back to first base, while the door opens for top prospect Nick Castellanos to man the hot corner.

Significant changes, but the unwavering piece of the Tigers’ infield, at least in terms of fantasy production, will be Miguel Cabrera. He’s the best hitter on the planet and is probably the consensus number-two fantasy option behind Mike Trout. He may have captured the Triple Crown in 2012, but his 2013 season was unquestionably better. The 30-year-old superstar hit .348/.442/.636 with 44 home runs, and his 192 wRC+ was the highest of his career by a healthy margin.

There’s not much to offer in terms of fantasy analysis on Miguel Cabrera. He’s amazing. He will provide elite production in all major categories, aside from stolen bases. The other thing to love about Miggy is that he’s accumulated at least 600 plate appearances in 10-consecutive seasons. He’s as close to a sure thing as one can get in fantasy baseball.

Around the remainder of the infield, though, we have some things to discuss. And in general, I’m not excited about what the Tigers’ infield offers for fantasy owners in terms of production and value.

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With two 30-30 seasons in his resume, there was a time when it was quite fashionable to select Ian Kinsler as early as the first round in fantasy drafts. 2012 was a down year by his standards, but the lure of a rebound season still kept his price tag hefty with a $20-plus average auction cost and an average draft position in the 20’s. It suffices to say that he lacked a return on investment in 2013.

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Aw come on. I thought that was one of the better and more appropriate puns/play on words we could have used for Jurickson Profar, the latest rookie sensation to make a splash in the big leagues this season. Would you have preferred “Profar, So Good”? How about “Profar Away”? “A Bridge Profar”? Well how about “I Went To The Jurickson Store And They Were All Out of You”? I could probably continue this for a few more paragraphs, but all I’m really trying to do is distract you to the point where your enthusiasm for Profar’s arrival is tempered. Why? Because this isn’t going to last, people. Rein it in. As excited as you are to have Profar finally arrive, you need to relax because he is more than likely to be gone as quickly as he came. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re roughly one month into the season, which means it’s time to update the tiered rankings for each position. Though I wanted to be conservative and not alter too many rankings based on data from only one month, some changes seemed warranted.

Here are the tiers:

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