Archive for J.P. Arencibia

With trade deadlines well in the rear-view mirror, the only way to bolster fantasy teams at this point in the season is via the waiver wire. Fortunately, we here at Rotographs have you covered in this regard. A couple weeks ago, Adam McFadden wrote about a bunch of underowned players, which spawned my own column on the topic. Steven Shumansky expanded our list even further last week, and I’ve still managed to find four players — owned in 20% or fewer leagues on Yahoo! — to recommend for those of you trying to pad your power or speed numbers down the stretch.

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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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Earlier this week, Jeff Zimmerman presented Early 2015 Hitter Projections using Steamer and/or ZIPS averaged ROS projections. The main contingency at this time: all values are set to 600 plate appearances. If I had all the time in the world, I would go through the list and manually adjust the PA based on lineup position, career PA/G, etc, but I’m not that much of a Mensch.

The next day, Mike Podhorzer highlighted some of the surprises ranked in the top 30. Again the 600 PA contingency is clear as Rajai Davis, Jarrod Dyson and Corey Dickerson make the list although if Dickerson doesn’t get platooned, I (and Mike) think he’ll surpass expectations. His splits page tells us there is no good reason to platoon him.

In Mike’s intro, he also referenced that there is no adjustment for position in Jeff’s SGP rankings. That’s where this post comes in.

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Before I go gushing over all that crazy, delicious power, allow me to qualify the title statement and tell you that I’m strictly talking about drafting him as the second catcher in a two-catcher league. The position is extremely deep once again, so using him in a 12-to-14-team league as your primary backstop is not the way to go. I would consider him as my primary in a deep AL-only league, but for the sake of this discussion, I am speaking in terms of complementary help in most mixed leagues that require you to start two backstops.

Now let’s gush!

When Geovany Soto was diagnosed with a torn meniscus and word broke that he would be out for 10-to-12 weeks, I immediately bumped J.P. Arencibia up my draft boards. With that power in that ballpark? It seemed like a no-brainer for someone who, while averaging just 421 at-bats over his first three seasons, averaged just over 20 home runs and 63 RBI per year. Now with a bigger role in Texas and in a more productive lineup, that power is indeed, as David Wiers put it in Tuesday’s Roto Riteup, borderline tantalizing. Read the rest of this entry »

With the non-waiver trade deadline coming up tonight, the flurry of deals we’ve seen, the rash of injuries lately, not to mention your fantasy league’s trade deadline, it’s not easy to keep tabs on each and every player.  Sometimes things just fall through the cracks.  And since the catching position, all to often, goes unwatched and unnoticed unless you’re having blatant issues at the position, perhaps a general update piece will be helpful. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time again to re-visit the catcher tiers as the calendar flips to July. I’ve taken both current and expected performance into account, some thoughts and expectations of my own and a few comments from you, my very own Peanut Gallery. Things are looking a little different than they did back in June, so without further ado… Read the rest of this entry »

Is your team lagging in production from behind the plate?  Can you sacrifice some batting average if it means a boost in the counting stats?  Well, if you answered yes to either or both of these questions, here are a pair of catchers you should probably look into to give your fantasy team a nice little burst of power. Read the rest of this entry »

The release of the monthly positional rankings and subsequent position tiers always spurs a lot of discussion here on the site.  Some people like them, some people hate them and some people just have questions as to why they are the way they are.  So while Eno and the boys get ready to compile the rankings for the month of June, I figured I’d open up the catchers discussion early and see if we can’t help influence some of the decisions. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in early April, we took a look at a few catcher prospects that you should have had on your radar, both as long-term keeper prospects and potential 2012 call-ups in case something went awry on the major league level.  We’re a little more than a month past that first look and while none of them have set foot in the big leagues just yet, different aspects of their situations have changed and a re-visit seemed like a good idea.  Are they any closer to a shot in the majors, and if so, how long before we see them? Read the rest of this entry »

Talk about your run of bad luck…

Wilson Ramos signs with the Twins, forever to be blocked from a starting gig with Joe Mauer already in-house.  He gets traded to the Nationals who then decide that they’d rather have a marquee name like Ivan Rodriguez behind the plate.  So Ramos bides his time, earns more and more PT as the season progresses, and heads into the offseason, knowing that he will be the full-time catcher in 2012. Read the rest of this entry »