Archive for Lorenzo Cain

The Kansas City Royals made a surprise run to the World Series this year. Lorenzo Cain was a significant factor in that outcome, relatively speaking. Jeff Sullivan welcomed the center and right fielder to stardom last month. (The anecdote at the beginning is priceless!) The 2014 ALCS MVP kind of arrived.

Fantasy baseball players found Cain to be pretty likable, too. He hit .301 with five home runs, 55 runs, 53 RBIs, and 28 stolen bases. He was the 100^th outfielder taken, on average, around the main roto/head-to-head Webiverse, according to Fantasy Pros. His average preseason ranking from the four horsemen was 82^nd. He finished 37^th, per Zach Sanders’ end-of-season outfield rankings, in roto money earned. That’s tidy profit.

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You know a team failed to make a big offseason splash when their biggest highlight is when some Grammy-winning artist from New Zealand says her big hit was inspired by George Brett signing a bunch of baseballs. But so it goes for the Kansas City Royals as they made just a few minor tweaks to get themselves ready for a run at the playoffs in 2014. One of the tweaks, though, was the acquisition of a new right fielder, somewhat of a problem spot for them last season. So let’s take a look at that move and what fantasy owners can expect from the Kansas City outfield this season. Read the rest of this entry »

The Kansas City Royals have been one of the most enigmatic teams in the last few years. Not because they’re small market or because they’ve been a perennial punching bag for the rest of the American League, but because expectations have been on the rise for some time now and they consistently fail to deliver. Once the worst farm system in baseball, the Royals were suddenly flush with all of this great, young talent. We saw the debuts of players like Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas and watched as they added key pieces like Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar. They hadn’t quite put it all together over the last two seasons, but this year, with a revamped rotation, the Royals became darlings in the American League and some even thought they could compete for a wild card this year. But while James Shields and Jeremy Guthrie did their part early on, the hitters failed miserably. The young studs were a disaster and after a modest 14-10 April, things spun out of control as the Royals went 8-20 in May and opened June 1-2. Manager Ned Yost was at a loss. He shuffled the lineup dozens of times without success. They fired their hitting coach and replaced him with the legendary George Brett, hoping that some Royals royalty would jump start the offense. But instead, it was the nerds who got things going for the Royals. Yost put the lineup decision into the hands of the sabermetric boys and the next thing we knew, Kansas City was on a six-game winning streak. Read the rest of this entry »

When we, the writers of RotoGraphs, were presenting our 10 Bold Predictions, number six on my list was that Jarrod Dyson would lead the American League in stolen bases. I was basing it on his 30 steals in a part-time role last year, that he was opening this season in the bigs as the Royals’ fourth outfielder and that between Lorenzo Cain’s propensity for injury and Jeff Francoeur’s inability to hit, he would see plenty of time in a starting role. Well right now, he’s got six steals which is half of what the current AL leader has, and while Cain has remained surprisingly healthy so far, Francoeur is certainly doing his part to help my cause. If he’s sitting there on your waiver wire, it’s time to pick up Dyson. Read the rest of this entry »

It was supposed to be a breakout season for Lorenzo Cain, the 26-year old centerfielder acquired by the Royals as part of the return package for Zack Greinke. He was basically told that the centerfield job was his to lose during spring training and it was actually a little exciting watching him run away with it as he hit .371 with five home runs, 11 doubles, and five stolen bases. Not to mention, a 12.9% walk rate, something the Royals desperately hoped he would retain from his minor league numbers. He was slated to bat second in the order and was primed to be a serious fantasy asset this year.

But then the injury bug swooped in and bit poor Lorenzo in the groin after he went crashing into the wall during the first week of the season. He landed on the disabled list and then, to make matters worse, ended up tearing his hip flexor during his rehab stint which put him on the shelf for the rest of the first half. Some fantasy owners have been able to stash him on their DL this whole time, while others were just forced to cut bait and send him back to the player pool. Well, now as the second half is about to begin, you have your chance to run with Cain as he is back and ready to finish what he started.

If you’re looking for some outfield help and he’s out there on your waiver wire, Cain is definitely worth a look. The Royals will likely start him off easy and keep him hitting out of the seven or eight-hole to start — keep the pressure off and let him do his thing.  He’s got a little bit of pop in his bat and has good speed on the bases, so if he starts off strongly, there’s a good chance that Ned Yost starts to test him out in the two-hole, depending on the performance of Alcides Escobar. Obviously a move up in the order would boost his value, but baby steps are needed here. He appeared to be getting better during his rehab outing as he went from batting .208 at Double-A Northwest Arkansas for the first half of the session to .321 for Triple-A Omaha in the second. He dropped his strikeout rate, started taking some walks, and was just more productive overall. But while that is definitely encouraging, there’s no need to rush him with lofty expectations.

One caveat here with regard to the speed game which could be a little discouraging. Not only did Cain miss a few games towards the end of his rehab stint with sore legs, but he also never attempted a stolen base at any point. Obviously, early on in the rehab you don’t want to push it, but you would have liked to have seen him at least attempt a stolen base at some point — see what kind of a jump he gets, what kind of burst of speed he’s got right now, but nothing. It’s not certain if he was being tentative or if the coaches and trainers were just being cautious.

Now Cain’s return has more of an impact than just saying goodbye to Jarrod Dyson until September. His return also means that the promotion of Wil Myers, something everyone has been clamoring for, is on hold indefinitely. The team has already said that they will not bring Myers up unless he has the opportunity to play every day. With Cain taking over centerfield, Alex Gordon and Jeff Francoeur handling the corners and Jason Bourgeois holding down the fourth outfielder responsibilities, there’s just no room for Myers to play regularly, regardless of how well he is hitting in Omaha. Fantasy owners that have Myers stashed will simply have to wait patiently and hope that the team can find a way to pawn off Francoeur. The market for him right now is not strong, but perhaps when we’re a little closer to the trade deadline, some contending team will be looking for a right-handed bat to come off the bench. For now though, he will continue to patrol right field.

The Royals situation is definitely worth watching over the next month to see if they can recapture that spark we saw back in spring training. If they can all click as they did then you could find yourself with some strong fantasy performers for your second half run. If they don’t, then all you Myers owners will finally reap the benefits of stashing him away as the Royals would then become sellers on the market. Either way, there should be a good amount of second-half fantasy help coming out of Kansas City this year.

Back in November I discussed bargain shopping in Houston and how there are still a few hidden gems that would make for strong selections at the tail end of your draft.  Well, today, we’re going to look at another perennial cellar-dwelling team and see what kind of fantasy gold can be found.  Funny thing, though, is that these Royals — these, more often than not, punching bags of the AL — are looking pretty darn good lately and there’s going to be quite the battle to obtain a number of their players’ services in fantasy drafts this year.

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It’s summer, it’s the weekend, and you ain’t got stuff to do. Well, maybe you should check that your lineups are set and your bench doesn’t have dead wood on it before you head out into the sun. You owe your fantasy teams that much at least.

Chris Perez, Cleveland (20% owned)
It’s your last chance to speculate on saves in Cleveland. The reasons to think Perez will be the eventual winner of the closer role are legion. He’s younger than Kerry Wood on a bad team looking to the future. He can be a better pitcher than Kerry Wood. He’s cheaper than Kerry Wood. Other teams are interested in trading for Kerry Wood. This is not to say that Perez is perfect. You’d like to see a lot more strikeouts than 7.60 per nine, a lot fewer walks than 4.72 per nine, and more groundballs than 32.6%. HIs 5.18 xFIP is really worrisome, actually, and you can see he’s been lucky (.236 BABIP, 82.1% LOB). On the other hand, his strikeout and walk rates have been much better in the past, and he does own a closer’s arsenal of strikeout stuff normally. He’s one of the better saves-speculation pickups out there, if not the best.

Jim Thome, Minnesota (5% owned)
On April 19th, Brian Joura big-upped Thome in his Waiver Wire piece. On May 19th, I reminded y’all. It’s another month later, so it’s time for your monthly Thome update. The most recent news has Justin Morneau hitting the DL with concussion issues and opening up a spot for Thome to play regularly. In OBP leagues, that’s all you had to say, because Thome is still elite in OBP (.372) and power (.287). If your league uses batting average, you’ll have to give him a longer think because he’ll never again post a nice batting average with those strikeout and contact rates.

Lorenzo Cain, Milwaukee (Yet to be added to Yahoo database)
With Doug Davis hitting the DL, the Brew crew decided to call up long-time prospect Cain to help man the outfield. There are bushels of caveats to mention in Cain’s case. First, he’s been around a while, and it took him five years to get through the Brewer’s minor league system, which is not usually a positive. Second, the twenty-four year old was never once dominating, as his .782 career and .846 full-year peak minor league OPSes can attest. He’s also pretty much a speed-only guy, judging from his career minor league .416 SLG and .124 ISO. He’s more of a slight speedster (6’2″ 200 lbs, 123 stolen bases in 572 minor league games at a 78% success rate). He was also rated “The Tumbler” by Marc Hulet because of strikeout issues last year. The last notch against him is that the Milwaukee outfield is still crowded… for now. Corey Hart is rumored to be leaving town soon, and deep league speed-starved managers could do worse for a speculative pickup here. At least Cain is coming off his best year as an amateur, hitting .326/.407/.439 combined so far in 2010. He also cut his strikeouts this year (down to 20.7% from 24.1%), so he’s going well right now.