Archive for pedro alvarez

For all the years that I’ve been playing fantasy baseball, I’ve never really understood the idea of punting saves. Not that I don’t understand the concept, but that I don’t understand the rationale behind thinking that it’s a good strategy. You load up on starters with the hope of locking up wins and strikeouts while doing your best to stay competitive in WHIP and ERA. Perfectly viable strategy, right? But what about the fact that Wins is, more or less, an arbitrary category and while your guy goes seven strong and exits with the lead, some clown of a set-up man comes in, walks the leadoff guy and then serves up a two-run shot to tie the game. A great game for your starter, for sure, but you make no advancement in a category you’ve supposedly built your team to excel in. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking at the recent ridiculously early mock draft from a stony selection of the Rotographs raconteurs, I was A) quite pleased that I didn’t participate and subject myself to the scrutiny of the learned readers here and B) struck by the fact that third base continues to give me the heebee jeebees.

Third base has generally been my beat over the last twelve months for Rotographs and the implications of the 2012 season haven’t helped me rest well when thinking about the hot corner. While this year might welcome Chase Headley to the fantasy super-duper we also saw the departure of Jose Bautista due to eligibility, Kevin Youkilis due to Kevin Youkilis, Alex Rodriguez to the girl in the fourth row, and Michael Young to relevance.

And this gives me pause.

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Ahem, no. Let’s just get that out of the way.

The fact is, Alvarez is hitting .196/.260/.380 off left handed pitchers and his strikeout rate is 37%. For a bigger sample size, in nearly 300 plate appearances in his career, he’s hitting .205/.279/.348 versus lefties with a 37.5% strikeout rate. That’s Lucas Duda territory, and we know where he is right now. You don’t want him in your lineup versus a left handed pitcher if you can avoid it.

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Third base has been challenging enough this season with injuries and ineffectiveness, so I find it extra-super-duper important to try and keep my thumb on the pulse of trends at the position. And despite the fact that we’re finally starting to pull out of that terrifying black abyss of the small sample size chasm, I frequently check the last couple weeks for trends in production. And trends there are (stats current as of Thursday evening).

After starting the season going .329/.387/.576 with six home runs and 24 RBI, David Freese has felt the cold snap of BABIP-reality. His BABIP during that stretch was darn near .400 and while we may all want to hug and cuddle the 2011 World Series darling, it just couldn’t last. Well, the lights flashed about two weeks ago and the bar is about closed. Since May 4th, Freese has hit .155/.219/.310 with a BABIP of .171. That has brought his overall BABIP down to a tidy .300, and we suddenly have something that looks a little more like what we expected from Freese at .265/.323/.490. His power numbers still look pretty good of course, but his strikeouts are up and his 24.3% HR/FB rate isn’t likely to stick. So if you own him it’s time to decide whether you might want to shop him while he’s still got that new car smell or if you’re comfortable with the David Freese that we saw last year for the rest of the season. He’s still likely going to have a career year in terms of overall counting stats, but then again he’s never played in more than 97 games in a season.

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When he slid into second and immediately grabbed his knee, my heart dropped.  The sickening taste of bile crept up my throat and into my mouth as I anxiously awaited for him to stand up, dust himself off and signal to the trainers that he was fine.  When that didn’t happen and he gingerly limped off the field, immediate thoughts of a torn ACL raced through my head.  In three different leagues I grabbed Evan Longoria at the tail end of the first round and until that moment, I wasn’t giving third base another thought.  Now, with news of a partially torn hamstring and a six to eight week recovery period, I’m left here staring at my computer screen, feeling like Kramer when the Kenny Rogers Roasters sign was finally turned off. Read the rest of this entry »

We read the tea leaves as best we can throughout Spring Training. Playing time, roles, platoons, etc., have a significant effect on the value of players on our fantasy teams. Despite the most reliable of crystal balls, once the season starts, you finally get to the truth about how players will be used. While the numbers are obviously far too small for us to do much dissecting at this point, the actual roles of players can be telling.

As much as I doubted that Mark Trumbo would see much action at third base, the two games he’s started have both been at the hot corner and it very much seem(ed) like the team was committed to playing him there routinely. In many leagues, he will qualify at third in just three more starts there and with that eligibility, Trumbo will be far more valuable. The burning question is whether his brutal defense will allow him to ever qualify. He’s already made three errors, he was left out of Monday’s starting lineup in favor of Alberto Callaspo, and it’s not likely that he’s going to displace Vernon Wells in the outfield anytime soon. While his defense was an ongoing topic of concern throughout the Spring, it’s certainly going to be under the proverbial microscope going forward. If Mike Scioscia loses any confidence he once had in Trumbo, it might not be long before Trumbo is a part-time player and irrelevant in fantasy circles. If he can somehow stick at third, however – he’s certainly worth owning, assuming you don’t play in an OBP league.

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Pedro Alvarez was supposed to be a middle-of-the-order force by now, threatening to sink boaters in the Allegheny River with each mighty cut and working walks with his keen eye. Instead, the second overall pick out of Vanderbilt in the ’08 draft was the second-most valuable infielder named Pedro on his own team in 2011 (Ciriaco: 0.2 Wins Above Replacement, Alvarez: -0.8 WAR). Through a little less than 650 plate appearances in the majors, Pittsburgh’s $6 million man has a .230 average, a .304 OBP and a .392 slugging percentage. The main reason is his resemblance to another, albeit fictional Pedro. Pedro Cerrano.

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“Don’t take your love away from me
Don’t you leave my heart in misery
If you go then I’ll be blue
‘Cause breaking up his hard to do.”

It plays over and over in my head every time I look at a roster that includes the likes of Hanley Ramirez, Adam Dunn, Dan Uggla and Joe Mauer.  Aggravataing?  Yes.  Both the song and the lack of production.  But what’s really aggravating is that question that keeps popping into your head as well, “How long do I stick with this guy?” Read the rest of this entry »

There’s really no need to be embarrassed.  It’s a very common problem.  In fact, I hear that it happens to a lot of fantasy owners.  I, myself, have been known to experience it from time to time.  No, no…I’m not just saying it to make you feel better.  It happens to everyone.  Believe it or not, even to girls. Read the rest of this entry »

Blame it on the injuries.  Blame it on the fact that the once lush and dense forest of talent to be found at third base is thinning out faster than a middle aged guy’s hairline.  Blame it on Rio or the bellboy, I don’t really care.  The fact of the matter is, the position is like a fantasy nightmare that picks right back up where you left off no matter how many times you wake yourself up and try to calmly fall back asleep.  And it just keeps getting scarier each time. Read the rest of this entry »