Waiver Wire Pickups: Hitters
While going through looking at DL information, I have seen some pretty decent players available. Here is a list of hitters that are less than 50%, 40%, 30%, 20% and 10% owned in Yahoo leagues.
<50% Owned: Chris Davis (47% owned) – I know Chris disappointed last season, mainly with his 0.238 batting average. His 21 home runs in 391 ABs was not horrible. Looking at his 2010 projections, they have him hitting anywhere from 0.251 to 0.285 with 21 to 30 home runs. There is a chance that he will produce in 2010 as did in 2009, but there is also a chance that he will hit 0.285 like in 2008. He is definitely worth adding to the bench and being qualified at 1B and 3B is also attractive.
< 40% Owned: David DeJesus (37% owned) – The main problem with David is he can't do any one thing good enough to get noticed. He is the epitome of the average player. Sometimes that is all you need on a team. He will hit for OK average while subbing in for players on the DL or days off. He is a nice pick up for teams ahead that can't take a chance on a player that may drag them down.
< 30% Owned: Nick Johnson (23% owned) –Nick’s real value is in his ability to take a base. In leagues with OBP as a stat, he is nice pick up. If you can handle the low batting average, he is a nice pickup in AL only or deeper leagues.
<20% Owned: Chris Iannetta (15% owned) – Chris was really supposed to break out in 2009, but disappointed. His main draw back, for a catcher, was his 0.228 batting average. I really wouldn't want to be starting him everyday, but he will make a great fill in for the days your main catcher has off.
<10% Owned: Conor Jackson (11% owned) – I have to break my rules here, but Connor was the inspiration for this article. I was looking for 1st base replacements and I saw he was at 9% owned (since has jump a bit) and I could not believe it. Last season he had Valley Fever (a 6 to 9 month cold). His skills should be near his previous levels of 0.300 BA, 10-15 Hrs, 10SB (5 in 30 games last year). With his 1B and OF eligibility, he will make a great bench sub or a starter in a deeper league.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
are you missing nick’s writeup, and missing someone else in the list?
Mike Aviles
Felix Pie
Travis Hafner
Jose Bautista
and of course Sean Rodriguez, who the Y! douches have as U-only (for now)
Where is Sean Rodriguez going to be playing? Won’t he be splitting ABs with Willy Aybar at 2b? In a deep league, definitely a pickup, but he got drafted in my 12 team mixed points league. Didn’t get that.
He’s ticketed to be their starting 2B with Zobrist moving to RF full-time.
Oh, wow. I don’t know how I missed that. Seems like Scott Kazmir might be part of another one-sided trade. Thanks.
Just wondering where you got that info. ESPN and MLB.com depth charts still have Zobrist at 2B and Joyce in RF.
That was my understanding. I know Joyce is probably on the DL or on a rehab assignment in AAA to start the season. Everything else I’ve seen points to him being the RF and Zobrist the 2B when things are normal.
Where’s RJ Anderson for clarification?
For fantasy pruposes, all I care about is he will have 2B eligibility after the first week, since Joyce will be on the DL. SRod will play almost every day, and he will rake. He’s going to approach Aaron Hill’s production, and not too many leagues have an Aaron Hill clone on the waiver wire.
The Sean Rodriguez love is out of control. He’s having an awesome Spring, not unlike many others who have done nothing once the games started counting.
Yes he had a very good 289 PA’s in Triple-A in 2008 slugging 21 HR’s (in a hitter friendly league, and home ballpark I believe) and posting respectable BB and K rates (10.0% and 18.1% respectively). He then received 187 PA’s for the Angels and went on to strike out in almost exactly 1/3 of his AB’s and slug a measley 3 HR’s.
Fast forward to 2009. He continues to hit for power in Triple-A, 30 HR’s in 459 PA’s, and K’s at a miserable rate (greater than 30%). If I’m not mistaken, pitchers actually get better in the Majors, and HR’s tend to get harder to slug than in the PCL, I mean maybe I’m crazy, correct me if I’m wrong. So I’m wondering what all the excitement is about?
The Rays plan to use him like they’ve used Zobrist in the past – a superutility guy who plays literally every position (I think he’s even their emergency catcher). So if he can hit even reasonably well, the fact that he will have eligibility at many positions makes him a valuable bench player at least.
Definitely not implying any hostility (want to be cautious after looking at the Mariners Ranking thread), but where is Sean Rod going to play when Joyce and Zobrist are healthy? I know Maddon is known for ingenuity, but Kapler is also in the mix for ABs. At best, it seems Sean Rod will get some ABs in April, and when Zobrist moves to RF vs. lefties.
SS, CF, 3B, everywhere.
Why do you keep pimping Bautista and his 0.238 lifetime average? Did I miss something?
Yeah, hit “refresh”- dude is r’oided out and is a monster now. He’s TOR’s everyday leadoff hitter and he is 3B- eligible. 3B is a very thin position, esp in the AL.
I can’t imagine Nick Johnson would be a good pick at all for an NL only league.
Can’t hurt your AVG, at least.
Nick Johnson is in the AL, not NL
Corrected – Thanks
BTW, for those of you who play in deeeeeeeeeep leagues, Mark Kotsay is CWS’s everyday DH #3 hitter against RHP. He’s completely unowned, statistically.
Ozzie is a fool.
Hey come on!
From Spring Training stats (I know)…
Andruw Jones (.326, 2HR, 4 SB, 0 CS)
Carlos Gomez (11 SB, 0 CS)
Will Venable (4 HR, 9 SB)
Carlos Gomez can’t be on a waiver wire, can he?
Gomez is only 3% owned, but you would need to be pretty desperate for steals to pick him. Sub .250 average and no power.
My bad- I was thinking Carlos Gonzalez. I was freaking out. Carry on!
Why do you use players’ first names in your articles? Do you know them personally?
That is just the way I have always written. I really don’t know, but now you got me thinking why. Dang it.
The availability percentage is an interesting tool. You have to question yourself when you look at your roster and see a bunch of 75%+ but then an 8% outlier. (I use CBS which includes it in your basic roster view.)
Another feature is Recent Trades. Recently, these 2 trade went down in CBS leagues:
03/31/10
Mauer, Joe C MIN and Span, Denard CF MIN
—for—-
Braun, Ryan J. LF
03/30/10
Dye, Jermaine RF CHW
Mauer, Joe C MIN
Uribe, Juan 2B SF
Young, Chris B. CF ARI
—for—-
Baker, John C FLA
Choo, Shin-Soo RF CLE
Ellsbury, Jacoby CF BOS
Kazmir, Scott SP ANA
I want to see some figures on Aviles!!! He is SS eligible on Yahoo and only 2% owned. I’ve read that he is battling C. Getz for the full time 2B job, and with 2 more triples today in spring training he’s looking real good. Is he gonna help my team? Does anyone think he’ll be better than J.J. Hardy???
A Royal, a topic I know too much about. He will be playing for a bit with Callaspo and Gordon out. His arm isn’t really 100% yet, but it won’t matter the other injuires. He should do fine, but his plate disipline is horrible. Pitchers may begin catching on and his number should fall.
http://www.royalsreview.com/2010/2/2/1287163/did-injuries-last-season-change
I picked up Aviles last week in my AL-only league- too much potential value to leave on the waiver wire. If he’s back I’ll trade my starting SS for value and happily replace with Aviles, who, if he’s back, will still be underrated by most owners.
I am kinda confused on why all this Ianetta sleeper talk. Is Olivo not going to play?
Okay, I’m done drafting, so I will enlighten those who aren’t. If you do not pick Joe Mauer with your first pick you are making a critical mistake. No player projects to outdistance others in like positions. This is simple math, no major statistical formats needed. Let’s say Albert Pujols scores the most fantasy points, be it a Rotisseri League or Head-to-Head (its all the same really). But he will finish with around 100-150 points more than the Howard, Cabrera, Fielder, Texiera, Gonzalez, Votto, Lee, Morales, Morneau, etc. Mauer on the other hand will score 200 more than the nearest competitor. Due to the fact that he is in the American League and will DH on days he doesn’t catch, even a great year by say McCann won’t near his production. A case can be made for Ramirez at shortstop, but Tulowitski will probably be close, perhaps Rollins if he bounces back, unlikely from my perspective but possible and sleepers like Elvis Andrus if he steals 40 bases or more. Take my advise. Don’t pass on Mauer!
For those of you in deep catching leagues, consider a Jeff Clement/Buster Posey (or Carlos Santana) type duo. As an everyday 1b, Clement could provide huge value at C by virtue of not needing off days and hitting like a bad 1b (or in other words, a great C). The Posey/Santana part of the foil is designed to protect against the Bucs swapping Jones to 1b fulltime.