The Replacements: July 1B Edition

This week I wanted to check on three teams with injuries at first base and what timetables those teams are looking at for returns, along with analysis of their replacements. I skipped the Cardinals in this write-up because most fans should be rather familiar with Matt Adams and Jedd Gyorko is being picked up like crazy in most leagues, so his availability has started to get limited in deeper leagues.

 Miami Marlins

Good news for Justin Bour is that he should be coming back to the Marlins soon. He is supposed to start a rehab assignment in High A this week, and will likely spend around a week before getting called back up.

For now, Derek Dietrich will be getting at-bats against righties after Dee Gordon was reinstated. Dietrich could become like a Brock Holt where he might not necessarily start everyday, but will still get ABs while garnering various position eligibilities. Don’t think of him simply as a short-term pick-up. The OBP has been strong because of those HBPs and I expect the power to come back. His ISO has been uncharacteristically low and if that comes back, he can serve as a nice fill-in option when slots open up. The only thing blocking his way is if the Marlins line-up can stay consistently healthy and Ichiro Suzuki would eat up those replacement innings in the outfield. My guess is he will end up seeing most of his looks at third base as the season progresses.

 New York Mets

 As of Sunday, Duda has progressed to baseball activities, but there is still no timetable on his return. In other words, James Loney owners should still significant PAs. I’ve written about him before and although there is nothing spectacular here, he is still available in over 96% of ESPN leagues. Let’s compare him to say Adrian Gonzalez who is owned in over 93% of ESPN leagues. I understand that Gonzalez has a much better track record, but let’s assume that power is gone. If it doesn’t come back, Loney can be a better start than Gonzalez outside of perhaps OBP leagues. Let’s look at their rate stats so far this year:

I understand that we are working with small sample sizes, but these numbers are not far off career norms. Well everything except the power. There are some slight differences between this year’s rates versus career numbers, though nothing that is alarming. The power is the only marked difference for each player. There are also some plausible arguments for why Gonzalez’ power has dropped and may not come back, as well as why James Loney’s bump in power may be legit. I get that his bump in power doesn’t mean much for fantasy since he’s not seeing a lot of balls leave the park. Don’t just cut Gonzalez for Loney, but hopefully this provides some food for thought in those deeper leagues.

 Los Angeles of Anaheim Angels

 C.J. Cron broke his hand on July 11^th and was said to return 6-8 weeks from then, meaning he is still 4-6 weeks from returning. In his place the Angels are implementing a platoon, but I’m going to focus on the strong side with Ji-Man Choi.

I am not a scout or anything like that so my analysis is based on the numbers presented to me, so I apologize if I miss some key components when evaluating Choi. Looking at his numbers, Choi doesn’t hit for really any power, but does know how to walk as his BB% is consistently over 10, including his brief stint in the pros so far. His batting average has been all over the place in the minors, yet he batted over .300 in AAA this year and he’s never dipped below .200, so the sub .200 BA in the bigs is somewhat surprising. Given more time, I expect that to correct itself and could provide some value in OBP leagues. Even with that correction, Choi would be a very deep league pick-up and once Cron comes back, I see very little value in holding onto him even if he stays up.