Like vultures picking every last piece of meat off a carcass in the hot desert sun, it’s time for us to take another look at the waiver wire and see what remaining pieces of fantasy value lie in the pool of unwanted free agents… Read the rest of this entry »
Last year, Jason Donald, Jayson (not Laynce) Nix, Drew Sutton, Mark Grudzielanek and Luis Valbuena played second base for the Indians. Andy Marte joined this stupendous crew once you include third base.
Not a single one topped a .307 wOBA for the year. Donald’s .253/.312/.378 made for the best of the bunch.
That is a crisis, ladies and gentleman. And crisis usually means opportunity in fantasy baseball. If you were able to guess the correct owner of the second and third base roles in Cleveland next year and beyond, you could take advantage of that opportunity in your keeper league now.
Of course, the leaders in the clubhouse are Mssrs Donald and Nix, as they finished the year in those roles, are under control, and the Indians are in no shape to push their prospects onto a team that most likely won’t contend next year. But Donald and Nix are flawed, and there’s little reason to think that they’ll improve next year.
Donald’s strikeout rate last year (23.6%) was just too close to his minor league rate (23%) to think he can reduce it too much, and he never even showed average power in Triple-A (.146 max ISO at that level). His career-high in stolen bases was 12, too, so speed won’t be the reason he sticks around. His defense could improve – he is a former shortstop – but will it be good enough to float a poor bat? Luis Valbuena showed us that former shortstops with poor bats and too many strikeouts don’t always stick as slick-fielding second baseman, right? Nix may have some upside – he has power, at the very least (.165 ISO) – but he’s over 700 PAs into his career and he strikes out too much and has a career .248 BABIP. He may or may not be a poor fielder, too. This is not a foundational pair.
Cue Jason Kipnis, Lonnie Chisenhall, and Cord Phelps. Somewhere in this trio the team hopes to find two infielders.
Phelps is coming off a great year (.317/.386/.506), and it was good enough to make Carson Cistulli’s MLE hot list. He’s the closest to the major leagues – he played a full year at Double- and Triple-A – and therefore he may get the first shot once Donald and Nix underwhelm. But his power sort of came out of nowhere (his .189 ISO at Triple-A was preceded by a .100 at Double-A, and a .102 in High-A). He may make a good re-draft name to file away, but as a long-term keeper don’t spend too many resources to get him.
Phelps does not have the upside of Arizona Fall League attendee Jason Kipnis, for example. His career .307/.386/.486 shows that he has a bat worth targeting. He’s walked about ten percent of the time, struck out about twenty percent of the time, and showed above-average power at every level. At the AFL all-star game, he flashed the leather with a great pick at third base and then hit a ringing double off of Chris Carpenter after the Cubs’ prospect hit triple digits on the stadium gun. Get excited.
Chisenhall had a poor 100+ at-bats Double-A in 2009 but he also had an inexplicable .176 BABIP there. Otherwise, he’s shown good power overall (.183 ISO) and the potential for more. He’s only struck out more than 20% of the time at one level, as well. Given a healthy and productive start to the 2011 season, he may also get a shot at a major league job soon, and his more extended power run also places his upside above Phelps’. Everyone will find a favorite among the three, but with a crisis on the infield in Cleveland, there’s assuredly opportunity for two of these men to step forward and provide value.
I still can’t find anything, and my earthly belongings are on a truck somewhere between New York and California – with New York being more likely despite me being in California. Ain’t moving grand? That said, let’s get on to the meat of the matter. To the Waiver Wire, dudes!
Asdrubal Cabrera, Cleveland Indians (42%)
This should serve as a reminder that Cabrera is still alive. The team has already begun talking about a rehab assignment, and he may be back soon after the All-Star break. Maybe the injury will sap some of his power, but it’s not like Cabrera was smacking the stuffing out of the ball anyway (.081 ISO) and power is not really his game. His feet should be fine – although one stolen base in 140+ 2010 plate appearances doesn’t inspire confidence. So wait, why do we like him? Well, Cabrera can put up a nice batting average (.287 career) and plays at a tough position. There are plenty of owners out there looking at worse situations at shortstop, and if they wanted to get ahead of the game and owned an open DL spot, they could drop their current shortstop, pick up Cabrera, and then pick up Jason Donald (1% owned in Yahoo leagues) for the meantime. Emulating the Cleveland Indians isn’t usually the way to go, but in this case, it should make for a player with a decent batting average at the very least. While Donald’s walk rate is not inspiring (4.9%), he doesn’t strike out much (18.2%) and his BABIP (.330) is not out of line for a man with his above-average wheels or current line drive percentage (22.9%). It looks like he can continue putting up the stats that he’s sporting right now in the short-term future.
Jayson Nix, Cleveland Indians (1% owned)
Hey, it’s Cleveland Indians’ Middle Infield Day! Chalk this up as a win for deep league owners, as most mixed leaguers will want to stay clear of the Cleveland ‘situation.’ Carson Cistulli noted that a) Cleveland’s lineup is wicked young; and b) Nix will be in the mix going forward. Young lineups and bad teams mean opportunities for fantasy managers, and if Nix wins the playing time at second base, he will be more than relevant in deeper leagues given his ability to put up above-average power (.185 ISO this year, .190 last) for a middle infielder. He even has a little speed (10 stolen bases, 2 caught stealing in 2009). Donald will shift over from shortstop once Cabrera returns and should give Nix a run for his money, but at some point, Nix’ batted ball luck will have to change. Do you know that his career BABIP is .234? That’s putrid. Even coming in 451 plate appearances, that is not sustainable. Yes, he’s a fly-ball hitter (48.3% career), and fly balls have worse BABIPs, but this is just ridiculous. Perhaps he needs to work on his line drive stroke (13.1% career, 10.6% this year), but the best news right now is that he has playing time for two weeks and the chance to catch fire. Long term, it’s either Donald that wins at the position, ostensibly for his defense, or as Satchel Price pointed out in his excellent “2013” series, Jason Kipnis for his good-looking bat.
Don’t expect to see Asdrubal Cabrera take the field again anytime soon, as the switch-hitting shortstop suffered a broken left forearm last evening against the Rays. Cabrera collided with 3B Jhonny Peralta on a Hank Blalock ground ball hit up the middle (the infield was shifted for the lefty pull hitter). There’s no firm estimate on how much time he’ll miss, but Cabrera is likely headed for surgery.
The former M’s prospect was off to a mild start in 2010, batting .287/.322/.368 (.303 wOBA) in 149 plate appearances. Cabrera’s plate discipline was off-kilter, as he swung at 28.5 percent of pitches outside of the zone and took a hack at just 59.6 percent of in-zone pitches. For comparison, Cabrera’s career O-Swing is 24.7, and his Z-Swing is 65.7. Chasing more offerings off the dish and keeping the bat on the shoulder more often when the pitcher puts one in the strike zone is a recipe for fewer walks, and Cabrera’s rate of free passes taken was down to 4.7. Also, after nabbing 17 bases in 21 tries in 2009, Cabrera had just one SB and 2 CS in 2010.
In his place, the Indians will turn to a combination of Luis Valbuena and the recently recalled Jason Donald.
Valbuena, 24, has a career .235/.301/.387 triple-slash in 544 major league PA. The lefty hitter, himself a former Mariner, has shown decent secondary skills for a middle infielder (8.3 BB%, .152 ISO).
However, Valbuena has punched out 24.3 percent of the time and he has a track record of scuffling against southpaw pitching. During his minor league career, Valbuena had a .241/.319/.311 line vs. LHP. His managers have gone to great lengths to shield him from lefties in the majors: just 12 percent of his big league PA have come against same-side pitching. Questionable D at the keystone won’t help his big for more playing time, either (career -9.3 UZR/150 at 2B, and ugly numbers at short in a small sample of playing time). ZiPS projects a .247/.317/.377 line for Valbuena for the rest of the 2010 season, with a .308 wOBA.
Donald, meanwhile, was a part of the underwhelming collection of talent Cleveland acquired from Philadelphia in exchange for Cliff Lee in July of 2009. The Arizona product has a career .284/.371/.434 line as a minor leaguer, with a 10.3 percent walk rate, a 23 percent K rate and a .150 Isolated Power. Donald was off to a .277/.396/.423 start at Triple-A Columbus in 2010. Neither ZiPS (.290 wOBA) nor CHONE (.299 wOBA) had especially sunny major league forecasts for him.
The 25-year-old ranked as Baseball America’s #69 prospect prior to 2009, but he missed time with left knee and back injuries last year and slipped to 15th in the Indians’ system before 2010. Almost exclusively a shortstop before this season, Donald had mostly been playing second base with Columbus. BA called him a “fringy defensive shortstop whose range and overall defensive skill set might be better suited for second base.”
While the Tribe will turn to Valbuena and Donald, fantasy owners seeking to fill the void created by Cabrera’s injury should look elsewhere. Shortstops with low Yahoo ownership rates include: Everth Cabrera (11%), Alcides Escobar (13%) and Ian Desmond (14%, and also has 2B eligibility). Maicer Izturis (19%) qualifies at short, second and third, and he could nab a good chunk of Brandon Wood’s playing time at the hot corner once he returns from a shoulder injury.