Waiver Wire: July 16

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.