May 21, 2010

Supporting the cause

One thing people don’t usually consider when drafting starting pitchers is the quality of his offense. Those who took a chance on Roy Oswalt bouncing back to ace-like form this season should be hailing themselves as prophets right now, as the 32-year-old has pitched to a stellar 2.66 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP with 60 K’s in 61 innings. However, those owners might have been wise to consider that the Astros went into the season with a starting lineup that only a mother could love and with their two best sluggers on the wrong side of age 33. Right on cue, Houston has managed a miniscule total of 18 runs scored over Oswalt’s nine starts, resulting in just two wins for the right-hander.

On Thursday night, Oswalt faced off against the only pitcher in baseball besides him who has thrown a quality start (at least six innings with three earned runs or less) in all nine of his outings, Ubaldo Jimenez. While Ubaldo threw seven innings of shutout ball to record his eighth victory, Oswalt churned out a solid six-inning, two-earned-run performance. He was rewarded with his sixth loss. This game pretty much summed up the hard luck Oswalt and his owners have been feeling all season, and warrants a look into the impact of the run support a pitcher receives.

To give you an idea of how incredibly miserly the Astros have been for their ace, Oswalt’s Run Support Average is currently 2.66 – which ironically (and amazingly) equals his ERA. Run Support Average (RSA) is like the reverse stat of ERA for a pitcher – it’s a team’s runs scored, averaged over nine innings, while the pitcher is of record. In 2009, the pitcher with the worst RSA in baseball who threw at least 140 innings was Johan Santana at 4.75. Since 2004, no pitcher who has thrown that many innings in a season had an RSA below 4.15. Yeah, it’s been that bad for Oswalt, and there’s a few other pitchers who should feel similarly snake-bitten right now.

Mr. Pickup of the month for April, Brad Penny, is Mr. Winless for the month of May, which has a lot to do with the Cards offering just a 2.73 RSA (also unbelievably identical to his 2.73 ERA) through eight starts. You thought Zack Greinke was a tough-luck 16-game winner during his Cy Young campaign? Well, so far, Greinke has just one victory to show for his seven quality starts and 2.72 ERA, thanks to a 3.92 RSA.

The Padres’ Clayton Richard’s 2.94 ERA through eight starts is good for top-20 in the National League, and would probably get him some fantasy love if it wasn’t for the fourth worst RSA in baseball (3.67) which prevented him from notching his first win until April 30. As a result he’s owned in just 26 percent of Yahoo! leagues.

Kevin Millwood might have the sorriest story of them all. A 3.65 ERA and 1.26 WHIP would make him a solid little fantasy starter except for the fact that he’s currently winless through nine starts because the Orioles have provided him with a meager 3.94 RSA. Millwood’s peripheral numbers are pretty much equal to a guy like Clay Buchholtz, who’s scratched out five wins thanks to an 8.15 RSA. Buccholz is owned in 55 percent of Yahoo! leagues, while Millwood is virtually neglected at 21 percent.

On the flip side, run support can also turn a mediocre pitcher into a fantasy hero. Last season, Joe Saunders and Jorge De La Rosa both reached the 16-win plateau, and fantasy reverence, despite plus-4.30 ERAs mainly because they were the beneficiaries of RSAs over nine from their respective offenses. Riding that train so far this year is Minnesota’s Kevin Slowey, who has five wins despite a 4.70 ERA thanks to a 9.20 RSA.

Derek Lowe’s 5.47 ERA and five wins don’t match at all, because the Braves have provided an average of 10.06 runs per game while he’s been on the mound. This is virtually the only reason Lowe is owned in 52 percent of Yahoo! leagues, because only three of his nine outings have been of the quality variety. Jamie Moyer pitches behind the best offense in the NL, so it’s no surprise he has an RSA of 8.25 and is the owner of five victories despite a pedestrian 4.30 ERA.

If these guys all have five wins, it’s a crime Oswalt has only two. When he takes on the Brewers next week, support the cause for the Astros to score some runs against the pitching staff with baseball’s third worst ERA.

May 14, 2010

Off the Snide

Meet Matt Stairs version 2.0. His name is Travis Snider. He appears to be angry. It’s possible that’s because annoying writers
are calling him Matt Stairs version 2.0.
I don’t know.

Just check out
his headshot and you’ll see a guy who appears seriously perturbed. Lately, MSV2 has been taking out this anger on baseballs — and turning heads in fantasy leagues.

The comparisons to Stairs are clear. Snider bats left handed, has a goatee, swings
hard, and hits bombs.

At a stocky 6-foot,
235 pounds, Snider is noticeably larger than the newly slimmed-down Stairs. And that extra mass leads to plenty of power. The other major
difference between the two players: Stairs managed just three full seasons as a
starter and has a .264 career average, while Snider — well he’s going to be a
beast.

The Jays brought Snider up to start the 2009 campaign as a
21-year-old. Ranked by MLB.com as the No. 7 overall prospect entering last season, he got a lot
of love as a fantasy sleeper. Snider came
out of the gate raking, then flopped and was sent down on May 20 after hitting
.216 for the month. It’s possible the
headshot was taken that day, when he stormed out of the clubhouse rejecting
all inquiries from the press.

Snider apparently devoted that channeled that anger into destroying Triple-A pitching, posting a monster .337-14-40 clip with a 1.094 OPS in 175 at-bats for Las Vegas. Rewarded with another callup, he, posted a .816 OPS in
September, and headed into 2010 penciled in as an everyday outfielder for the
Jays.

Snider struggled out of the gate, hitting .155 in April with just five RBIs
and a .338 slugging percentage. Then May — his ’09 nemesis — arrived. But this time, something clicked.

Over a 14-game stretch from April 29-May 14, Snider hit .385 with four homers, 11 RBIs, 11 runs, eight doubles and a 1.187 OPS. He posted seven multi-hit
games over that span, and even threw in a couple steals for good
measure. After looking virtually clueless
against southpaws in ’09, he’s batting .350 (7-for-20) off them with
three doubles thus far.

On May 12, Snider showed some maturity at the plate, switching to a heavier bat and shortening up his swing to smack a
double and a two-run homer off Red Sox knuckleballer Tim Wakefield. He followed that up on Friday with a
three-run shot off Rangers starter Rich Harden and his third stolen base in a 2-for-4 performance.

Snider is an extra-base hit machine right now and appears to
be coming into his own at age 22. He’s been slotted at the bottom of the Jays
lineup (batted ninth on Friday), but you can bet he’ll work his way into prime RBI territory if this production continues.
With six long balls already, he easily has the potential for a 25-dinger campaign. The rough April could drag down his final average, but there’s a good chance he’ll bat at least .280
the rest of the way.

In an unfortunate twist, Snider was placed on the 15-day Disabled List with a banged up wrist after this piece was originally written . Nevertheless, you should hit up the
waiver wire and stash him on your DL until he comes back in a couple weeks, as he’s available in 90 percent of Yahoo!
leagues right now.

May 12, 2010

The enigma that is Bronson Arroyo

You should have known what you were getting yourself into with Bronson Arroyo. Having him on your fantasy team can be gut-wrenching. He can carry your pitching staff or he can utterly destroy you. For your viewing pleasure, the essence of Arroyo’s wicked volatility has already been fully captured in the early stages of 2010, leaving many owners an emotionally-drained wreck.

At the end of each season, like clockwork, the 33-year-old right-hander will put up numbers you’d sign up for in a New York minute. Arroyo has been a 14-game winner four times over the last five seasons, has thrown an average of 209 innings while compiling a palatable 4.08 ERA from 2004-2009, and is usually good for around 150 strikeouts.

At this point, you might ask yourself what the big deal is in all of this. Well, what seems like a model of consistency from year to year is nothing but a facade once you delve within each individual season. In an impressive 2008 campaign, Arroyo compiled a stellar 15-11 record with 163 K’s and a 3.47 post All-Star break ERA. However, a quick glance at his game log reveals that he permitted five earned runs (or more) a ridiculous 11 times, equating to an astonishing 32 percent of his starts.

Furthermore, the Cincinnati hurler finished 2009 at 15-13 with a very solid 3.84 ERA and 1.27 WHIP, but was hit up for at least five earned runs 10 more times. That included two nine-run shellackings within a three-start span, one of them in just one inning of work. How many 15-game winners ever get hit that hard on such a regular basis?

In the fantasy world, catastrophic starts like these will single-handedly lose you the ERA and WHIP categories before the week even gets going. But the thing with Arroyo is, he’ll leave you battered and bruised and ready to cut bait only to then run off a string of starts like he did at the end of 2009, when he went 5-3 over his last 12 starts with a sparkling 1.90 ERA and 0.95 WHIP.

When he began this season with eight stellar innings of one-run ball, owners were once again reeled in. Then came the sobering reminder of Arroyo’s dark side, when he was roughed up in three straight starts, culminating in an eight-run romping over three innings by the Padres. Of course, he followed that up with two wins and a 3.05 ERA over his next three outings, highlighted by a seven-inning gem against the Pirates this past Monday.

Going through the game logs over the last few seasons, there are absolutely no patterns or trends to be found that offer evidence of what makes Arroyo fall apart. Last year, his five-run shellings were split evenly between The Great American Ballpark and the road. They happened against the 65-win Royals, 70-win Mets, 75-win Blue Jays and twice against the 70-win Diamondbacks. He was hit hard twice by the Cards, only to dominate them in a near complete-game gem to end the season. In similarly peculiar fashion this year, he was roughed up by the sub-.500 Marlins and Pirates, while hurling his best outing against the first-place Cardinals.

This all must be a lot to digest, but one thing you can conclude is that owning Bronson Arroyo on your fantasy team is going to be a wild rollercoaster ride. Clearly most people are too squeamish to stomach it, as Arroyo is currently forsaken in 68 percent of Yahoo! leagues. But if you’re capable of being tossed around without losing your lunch, and have a resilient heart, the ride will likely be well worth it in the end.

May 11, 2010

Hit one out already!

It’s coming. You can feel it. Any day now, Grady Sizemore and Ben Zobrist will get that first home run. It’s a giant eyesore, I know, to scan down your team’s box score and see a big goose egg under the HR category next to a guy you pegged for at least 25 there. By mid-May, that ‘zero’ is just a slap in the face. Sizemore and Zobrist might as well be on the 60-day DL when it comes their trade value, and as tempting as it is to cut one of them, you just know as soon as you do they’ll start launching ’em left and right. Your eyes light up when you check the box score and see a 4-1-1-1 next to Zobrist’s name, only to be disappointed when you look down and discover he sprayed a single and hit a sacrifice fly. It’s gotten to the point where you couldn’t care less about multi-hit or multi-RBI performances from Sizemore; all you want to see is home run No. 1.

It eases the stress a tad when you consider that last year Matt Holliday tortured owners up to April 30th until he first went deep, then proceeded to belt 23 more. David Ortiz waited until May 20th to hit one out and ultimately finished with 28. Carlos Lee appeared lifeless before he got off the schneid in walk-off fashion just last week, and has been groovin’ ever since.

In an attempt to offer more hope, here’s some scrounged up evidence that suggests Grady and Ben will finally get one over the fence soon (although it may all be stemming from denial considering I own both of them on the same team, which I can barely bring myself to look at anymore).

Sizemore’s .213 average, 12 RBIs and .583 OPS are brutal. Owners that drafted the (former?) superstar center fielder in the mid-late second round are really cursing him right now. But recently he seems to be on the verge of breaking out. On May 7th the ultimate stomach punch came, when he finally crushed a solo shot over the right-field fence in the first inning – only to have the game stats officially wiped out when it was called due to rain in the fourth.

The dynamic 27-year-old is too powerful to be held down much longer, as he averaged 27 long balls per 162 games from ’05-’09. Even in what was widely labeled a disastrous 2009 season, Sizemore went deep 18 times in 106 injury-plagued games which equates to about 27 over a full season. He had a recent string of five-straight games with an RBI (although it was exactly one in each), and he’s notched three multi-hit games over his last eight. You’d think this would mean power is the next logical progression, right? RIGHT???

Zobrist really likes to taunt you. Batting in the three spot for the third highest scoring offense in baseball, you’d think he’d have to have at least five or six bombs by now. The Rays average over 5.5 runs per game, and have scored at least eight runs 12 times, but somehow Zobrist has only crossed the plate 12 times himself. You get excited when you see Tampa put up a 10-spot and figure the super-utility man must have contributed, only to discover yet another empty 1-for-4 performance. A .267-0-13 line through 120 at-bats has many ‘experts’ declaring his 27-homer campaign (in just 501 at-bats) from 2009 a fluke. However, that would also mean his 12 long balls in 198 at-bats in 2008 (a 30-homer pace) were also strokes of luck. The Rays clearly aren’t buying into to this skepticism, as they awarded Zobrist with a sweet three-year contract extension worth up to $30 million back on April 24^th when his production looked just as meager.

It might be hard to notice, but the 28-year-old has slowly turned it around of late, batting .333 (11-for-33) over his last nine games with a .405 on-base percentage. He does have nine extra-base hits on the year (seven double and two triples) so it’s not like he’s been a complete slap hitter, and six stolen bases have done just enough to prevent owners from going nuts. Maybe if he stops getting jerked around between second base and right field and can settle on a position, he’ll be able to relax more at the plate. I got a feeling Big Z will get that Big Z-ro off his back in the near future.

So just be a little more patient, and don’t do anything rash. Although if this week comes and goes with no balls flyin’ out, that might just become a hypocritical statement.

May 6, 2010

Fickle Stripes

Providing optimism in Tigerland right now is the stellar play of three rookie position players. You may remember some fool on this very blog suggesting center fielder Austin Jackson was fool’s gold earlier in the season. It seems that many have been equally skeptical considering the 23-year-old runaway Rookie of the Month is still only owned in 65 percent of Yahoo! Leagues, but right now he leads the Majors in hits (45), is second in batting average (.376) and tied for fifth in runs scored (23). I don’t usually put too much stock in the BABIP (batting average on balls in play) statistic when it comes to assessing an offensive players ability (if you’re hitting weak pop-ups and grounders all the time, you’re going to have a bad BABIP. How does that mean you’ve been ‘unlucky’?). Yet the fact that Jackson’s BABIP is sitting at a comically high .524 right now has to mean he’s due for a significant drop off, right? Jackson’s also on pace for 201 strikeouts, which has to eventually catch up to him too, right? I would say yes, but he’s done enough over his first 28 games to make any potential hater wary of heading down that road once again.

Brennan Boesch is large. At 6-foot-5, 230 pounds, you don’t have to look at statistics to know this 24-year-old has extra-base power. But when you do check the facts, you’ll find that the lefty batsmen averaged 112 RBIs per 162 games in his four-plus Minor League seasons. He managed to drive in runs at a superb rate mainly due to an impressive ability to hit with runners in scoring position. Surprisingly, Boesch’s home-run swing didn’t come around until ’09 when he crushed 28 long balls. After putting up a .379-3-17 line through 15 games at Triple-A this season, he was called up to replace an injured Carlos Guillen in left field. All Boesch has done in 10 games since the call-up is hit .324 with, two homers, 10 RBIs and five doubles. It’ll be tough to replace this kid in the lineup when 34-year-old Guillen returns from his hamstring pull, and considering Carlos missed 130 games to injury over the previous two seasons, something tells me Boesch will find a way to continue raking with the big club.

On April 28 Alex Avila was hitting .097, and all the sleeper hype he’d been gotten in the preseason was, well, sleeping. Yet a recent 5-for-8 stretch has raised his average 103 points, highlighted by a two-homer gamer on Wednesday, and Avila is now once again looking like a potential fantasy contributor. The 23-year-old backup rocketed through the Minors in just one-and-a-half seasons, racking up a .280 average with 13 homers and 77 RBIs in 151 games. In 61 impressive at-bats in a part-time role with the big club last season, Avila socked five homers and drove in 14. His only competition for at-bats right now is Gerald Laird and his .141 average, and with Mr. Laird likely on a short leash already because of some compelling shenanigans, Avila should have a clear road ahead.

However amidst the giddiness generated by fresh young offensive talent, there lies the 800-pound Gorilla in the room. Putting a damper everything is the fact that the Tigers’ two most promising young pitchers have a combined 6.97 ERA through 12 starts, and have shown some disturbing trends.

Their 21-year-old phenom Rick Porcello was roughed up for the fifth straight outing Wednesday against the Twins, and looked anything but phenomenal. The right-hander, who consistently lived in the mid-90s during his impressive 14-win rookie campaign, was sitting around 89 mph for most of Wednesday, reaching as low as 87. When you’re throwing in the high 80’s and your change-up comes in at 81, it’s not fooling anyone. It’s possible that the 170 2/3 innings Porcello threw as a 20-year-old are beginning to catch up with him, and a lack of life in his arm has contributed to a scary 7.50 ERA, 1.87 WHIP, and .354 opponents’ batting average. He’s just not himself right now, so don’t be surprised if he misses some starts in the near future.

Equally ineffective has been Max Scherzer, who got shelled by the Twins on May 3 for 10 earned runs. That made it 16 earned runs over the last two starts for the 25-year-old right-hander, bringing his ERA up to 6.47. In 2009 with Arizona, Scherzer displayed nasty stuff, striking out 174 batters in 170 1/3 innings, while holding opposing hitters to a .253 average. So far this season the nastiness has been lacking, as he’s K’ed a surprisingly low 21 batters through 32 innings, and opponents have hit .315 off him. Another guy used to throwing heat in the mid-90s, Scherzer’s fastball seems to have dropped a notch, averaging around 91-92. Usually when an electric young strikeout pitcher struggles, the Ks are still there regardless of how many runs he surrenders, so something seems to be wrong.

Hmm….did I mention Austin Jackson was Rookie of the Month?

May 3, 2010

Going Gorzo!

On the way to Best Buy this afternoon to replace the TV that I smashed Sunday night, I started thinking: What would be more ego-annihilating than a future Hall-of-Famer surrendering a bases loaded walk to a 47-year-old pitcher who resembles Creed from “The Office”, followed by a grand slam and a two-run moon shot, all in a huge nationally televised game against his team’s severely hated rival? Well, nothing, really.

However, a distant second would be a former 14-game winner, who was once favorably compared to Tom Glavine, receiving a demotion to the Minors in consecutive seasons by a team that averaged fewer than 65 wins during those seasons with a combined ERA of 4.96 among its starters. Oh, and then he’s rendered a thrown-in with a middle reliever in a mid-season trade that netted his team virtually nothing in return.

Well if you managed to follow all that, that’s precisely how the Pirates handled young southpaw Tom Gorzelanny in the years following his breakout campaign of 2007. And now, Gorzelanny is making everyone else pay on a revenge tour around the National League.

In ’07, a 24-year-old Gorzelanny turned heads all around the league by going 14-10 on a 68-win team, sporting a 3.88 ERA and even making the MLB.com Final Votefan ballot for the All-Star Game. However, after experiencing some ambiguous shoulder trouble, he (understandably) struggled during the first half of ’08. Now, with all the success the Pirates have had over the past two decades, you can understand them having a win-now mentality and keeping a short leash with talented young players …or something. That’s presumably why they sent Gorzelanny down to Triple-A in July of ’08, then again to begin ’09 and for a third time later that June. All he did during those Triple-A stints was dominate the competition, compiling a stellar 2.36 ERA and 1.11 WHIP with a 118/34 K/BB ratio over 122 innings. Yet, this wasn’t good enough for the Pirates.

After being dealt to the Cubs along with John Grabow on July 31, 2009 for starter Kevin Hart and Minor Leaguers Jose Ascanio and Josh Harrison, Chicago rationally decided to give Gorzelanny another chance to start in the bigs. Outside of two rough shellackings that inflated his ERA, Gorzelanny looked like his old self, allowing two runs or fewer in his other five starts. The Cubs continued to show faith by making him their fifth starter heading into 2010, and he’s delivered.

After Sunday’s impressive 10-strikeout performance against the D-backs, the now 28-year-old pitcher has a 2.48 ERA and a 1.10 WHIP, with a 27/10 K/BB ratio in 29 innings. He’s allowed two runs or fewer in all five of his starts, striking out at least seven in three of them while holding opponents to a .208 batting average. If you can digest all these numbers and confusing pronouns, you’ll see that Gorzelanny now appears to be basically the same hyped-up guy from 2007 who was one of the top pitchers in the NL. And while the impressive strikeout-rate many not last, he should continue to be a solid fantasy starter in mixed leagues.

April 28, 2010

Brewing up trouble

Well, that was quick. You didn’t have to be a profit to see Trevor Hoffman’s demise coming this season after his surprising success in 2009, but even the most cynical forecaster would have given until mid-May before he’d be going down in flames. Yet after two crushing blown saves in less than 18 hours to the lowly Pirates, the future Hall-of-Famer has likely served up his last ninth-inning stomach punch for a while.

After a 17-3 drubbing by the Brewers on April 26th, the Pirates had been outscored 72-12 over a seven-game losing streak. However, demoralized they were not, as they just needed a little Trevor in their lives to spark two heroic comebacks. Hoffman couldn’t preserve a one-run lead Tuesday, allowing a game-tying bomb to none other than Ronny Cedeno, then made sure his team was completely out of contention by serving up a grand slam to Ryan Doumit – who hadn’t had an RBI in 12 games. On Wednesday, Hoffman made another one-run lead vanish as he was bested again by a Doumit long ball, and Milwaukee later lost in 14 innings.

The 42-year-old’s ERA actually went down with Wednesday’s outing to a comical 13.00, accompanied by an even 2.00 WHIP. It was his fourth blown save , and the sixth of nine appearances in which he allowed an earned run. While we had all become accustomed to Hoffman coughing up leads in crucial September and postseason games, looking lost against the Pirates in April may finally be a sign for the all-time saves leader to hang up his cleats. The Brew Crew can’t afford to cough away any more games, so they’re all but certain go with someone new in the next closing opportunity. While Milwaukee is brewing overtime to drown out the sorrows from the last two games, here are two closing candidates who you should keep your eyes on.

LaTroy Hawkins pitched a perfect eighth inning on Wednesday while striking out two, so he might seem like the logical choice to fill Hoffman’s shoes. However he is LaTroy Hawkins, and there’s no way manager Ken Macha would feel good about having a 37-year-old who’s been on eight teams in the last eight years coming in to close out tight games for his team on a nightly basis.

Before Wednesday the right-hander had not pitched in a big spot in almost two weeks, since he surrendered four earned runs to the Cubs and three to the Nationals in consecutive eighth-inning appearances that directly resulted Milwaukee losses. Those two disasters along with a 7.71 ERA don’t exactly inspire confidence in the late innings.

Yes, Hawkins miraculously revived his career by pitching to a 2.13 ERA in 63 1/3 innings last season with the Astros, and was 11-for-15 in save opportunities while filling in for an injured Jose Valverde. But that’s about all he has going for him. This is a guy with a career 4.54 ERA and 1.44 WHIP, and 47 blown saves over the past seven seasons (with two already in 2010). That’s a lot of disappointing nights. If there was a career blown saves leaderboard somewhere – and yes I tried to find one – he’d have to be near the very top. In conclusion, if he’s named the closer, I don’t see him keeping that title for long.

Now it’s easy to sound like a negative person when discussing LaTroy Hawkins and a washed up Trevor Hoffman, so let’s take a positive turn and see Carlos Villanueva. Ahhhhhhh. Macha must feel this type of refreshment when thinking of the young right-hander and his stellar statistics. After striking out one in a perfect sixth-inning Wednesday, the 26-year-old has not allowed a run in 12 innings this season and owns a paper-thin 0.75 WHIP. He’s got a dominant 11.25 K/9 rate and has held opponents to a stunning .135 batting average. Sounds very closery to me.

The biggest thing he’s got going against him is that while Hoffman was working his way back from an injury in early 2009, Villanueva struggled to fill the void with three blown saves. He did, however, convert three saves during that stretch, and now he is a year wiser and pitching much better. Something tells me that even if Hawkins is given the initial chance to close games, youth will eventually be served. Villanueva is the guy I’d consider grabbing for now.

April 26, 2010

Wade-ing for love

How big a sample of stellar starting pitching does it take for a guy to prove he belongs in a Major League rotation? Would nine starts in ’09 with a 3.69 ERA, a 1.17 WHIP and a .210 opponents’ batting average suffice? Or how about six September-October outings (just in time to be a fantasy playoff MVP) at a 3-0, 2.00 and 0.97 clip? You would think with starting pitching at a premium, a performance like that would be enough to for a guy to land a big-league gig the following year. Nope. Not for Wade LeBlanc.

Despite continued brilliance in Spring Training – a 4-0 record, 1.96 ERA and a 0.96 WHIP in 23 innings – the 25-year-old southpaw was curiously the odd man out of San Diego’s rotation to open 2010, and the Padres sent him to Triple-A Portland. He was beaten out by Clayton Richard’s 4.41 ERA from 2009, as well as the still-raw stuff of 22-year-old phenom Matt Latos. Why? Maybe the Friars couldn’t get passed LeBlanc’s sub-90 mph fastball, or his lack of a flashy arsenal, or his low strikeout rate. Not sure.

Well you couldn’t blame Wade for being angered by the disrespect, and he made sure that no one really likes him when he’s angry. Early this month in Portland, the guy with a 6.18 career K/9 rate seemed to concentrate more on making guys whiff than pitching effectively. LeBlanc fanned an impressive 15 batters in 10 Triple-A innings, but uncharacteristically allowed four earned runs in both his starts and compiled a bloated 7.20 ERA. Think he was trying to make a point? Hey look! I can strike out over a batter per inning! Am I as interesting as Latos yet?

Thankfully, everyone was spared soon, as a spot in the Padres rotation opened up after Chris Young went on the DL with a shoulder injury. LeBlanc got the call and has pitched like a man determined to stick around. He continued the unusual streak of Ks in his first start, making seven Diamondbacks whiff while allowing just one earned run over five innings. Next, LeBlanc masterfully LeBlanked the Reds over six innings, scattering just three hits in a vintage victory on April 24^th. A fastball-slider-changeup pitcher, the southpaw consistently kept the Reds hitters off-balance with Tom Glavine-ish proficiency.

While he still may not have proven his value to San Diego, LeBlanc has proven to me over the last eight months that he’s a fine fantasy starter when granted the privilege of taking the mound in a Major League game. He’ll get at least one more chance to plead his case before Young returns. If he comes through again on April 28^th when the Brewers come to town, the Padres brass will really have to think twice before yanking him from the rotation – especially considering the struggles of Latos. If they finally come to their senses, snatch up Wade “The White” LeBlanc while you can.

April 21, 2010

Old names, new values

When surfing through the waiver wire, people tend to skip over stale, unappealing names despite good numbers accompanying them or recent upticks in value due to injuries or trades. Guys like Magglio Ordonez, Vernon Wells, Jose Guillen and Scott
Podsednik are names that possessed similar unattractiveness heading into 2010, but now have fantasy teams riding high. While it may feel unpleasant, there’s a few oldies but goodies still out there who can help you out.

Carlos Guillen
of the Tigers now has a five-game hitting streak after going 2-for-4
with a run scored Tuesday night, bringing his average up to .291. While
his one homer, five RBIs and eight runs scored won’t exactly jump out
at you, it’s time to start keeping an eye on the once-prolific
offensive threat. The 34-year-old outfielder/designated
hitter was a forgotten man heading into 2010 after struggling through
two straight injury-plagued seasons. He did, however,
quietly stroke 11 dingers while driving home 34 in just 52 games from
July-September last season, showing there’s still a little pop left in
his bat. Guillen is currently batting fifth in the Tigers
lineup with four guys hitting a combined .326 ahead of him, so he
should have ample RBI opportunities. At the very least, Guillen is currently worth a flier in AL-only leagues.

After going 2-for-4 with a solo homer yesterday, Andruw Jones is now batting .323 with four homers and seven RBIs in 31 at-bats with the White Sox. Attempting to revive his career after compiling a mindboggling .190 average in 490 at-bats over the past two seasons, the 33-year-old is looking good so far. He showed some life in 2009 when he socked 17 long balls in 82 games with the Rangers, but a .214 average rendered him somewhat of an afterthought in the offseason, and he quietly settled with a DH role in Chicago. The one thing holding him back is a crowded outfield and manager Ozzie Gullien’s soft spot for Omar Vizquel, all of which take away starts from Jones. With Vizquel hitting .125, and fellow outfielders Juan Pierre and Carlos Quentin hitting a combined .192, it’ll be hard for Gullien to keep Jones out of a struggling lineup going forward, as he currently holds the team lead in average by 54 points.

This one is painful to even write about, but you can’t really ignore Cristian Guzman much longer. A 4-for-5 performance Tuesday night put him at a .362 clip with nine runs scored and six RBis in just 10 starts. After rendering Guzman a backup to Ian Desmond and Adam Kennedy, Nats manager Jim Riggleman came to his senses and has started Guzman for nine straight games around the keystone. Guzman’s responded with six multi-hit games, and has eight hits and four runs scored over his last three. The 32-year-old (how is he possibly only 32???) batted .301 from 2008-2009 with solid run totals, and his value is boosted by eligibility at second base and shortstop. If you need some help at the thin middle-infield positions, give the underappreciated Guzman a chance.

With the news coming down Tuesday that Angels catcher Jeff Mathis will be out at least 6-8 weeks with a fractured right wrist, it appears Mike Napoli will finally, FINALLY get his chance to be the everyday backstop for an extended period of time. After two years of frustrating the fantasy world with tantalizingly strong power numbers, but exasperatingly sporadic playing time, Napoli had seemed to hit rock bottom in 2010. Mathis had started 10 of the team’s 14 games, hit safely in all of them, and sported a .324 average which all but buried Napoli and his 3-for-19 clip to begin the year. Napoli was dropped like a bad habit in fantasy leagues everywhere. However after Mathis’ injury, manager Mike Scioscia will have no choice but to play the guy who crushed 40 homers with 105 RBIs and 99 runs scored in just 609 at-bats from 2008-2009. Now Napoli will get two months to show what he’s capable of, and you can bet he goes deep around 10 times over that span. If you’re stuck with a guy like Ryan Doumit or Geovanny Soto as your fantasy backstop, now’s the time to pick up Big Naps.

April 19, 2010

Keeping the faith

Right about now is the time of year that truly tests the patience of impetuous owners with players who have stumbled badly out of the gate. It’s hard not to take it personally when someone you showed faith in early in the draft single-handedly ruins your team’s ERA or batting average. While the temptation may be there to deal or dump these guys, there are certain players who you’d be wise to grant an extra-long leash. And if you can sense intolerance amongst other owners of these players, a nice opportunity presents itself to buy low.

After getting shellacked for seven runs in six innings by the Rays on Sunday, Jon Lester is now 0-2 with an 8.44 ERA and 1.88 WHIP through three starts. This has to have owners pulling their hair out after they probably drafted the 26-year-old southpaw somewhere in the top four or five rounds.

What you may not know, however, is that Lester is a consistently bad early-season performer. Last year Lester gave up 11 earned runs over his first two starts, compiled a 5.40 ERA and 1.53 WHIP in April, and a 5.86 ERA and 1.56 WHIP in May. In 2008, he gave up four earned runs in four of his first six outings to the tune of a 5.40 ERA and 1.77 WHIP. He eventually worked things out and went on to post elite fantasy starting numbers in both seasons. Unfortunately, Lester is such a slow beginner that he could experience a few more ugly starts before really turning it on. Be patient if you own him, and if you don’t, see if you can fleece someone before he starts mowing ’em down.

White Sox starter Gavin Floyd destroyed the weekly ERAs and WHIPs for a lot of owners Sunday, after the Indians put a seven spot on him before he could retire a batter in the second inning. This came on the heels of a shaky outing against the Blue Jays, making Floyd 0-2 and the proud owner of a 9.00 ERA and 2.23 WHIP. Owners may be feeling resentful of the right-hander after Sunday, but maintain control of your mouse. The 27-year-old has managed 14 Ks through 13 innings, and his velocity has been reaching the 92-93 mph range per usual.

A dissection of Floyd’s 2009 season shows there’s truly no reason to fret. After eight starts last year, he had an astoundingly bad 7.71 ERA and 1.87 WHIP, allowing at least six runs in five separate appearances. After being banished to the waiver wire in almost every league, Floyd promptly went 4-1 with a 1.39 ERA and 0.90 WHIP over his next eight outings. While another incredible stretch like that isn’t very likely, expect him to turn things around soon.

Carlos Lee’s .104 average through 12 games is flat out scary. He is without an extra-base hit or an RBI, with 11 strikeouts and just one walk. Whispers are starting to fly that the 33-year-old is on the decline, but you won’t want to believe them just yet. Lee has a lifetime .259 batting average and .795 OPS in April, which are 31 points and 51 points below his respective career numbers. In 2009 he was hitting .189 with one long ball through 10 games, and then went on to a .300-26-102 season.

El Caballo has been just as the nickname suggests throughout his career, posting seven straight seasons of at least 26 homers and 99 RBIs, while hitting .300 or better in each of the last four. Guys that consistent don’t just fall off a cliff. It’s very likely that Lee is pressing with fellow basher Lance Berkman out, stuck in an otherwise anemic Astros lineup. With Berkman likely returning this week, it’s safe to expect Lee to once again begin performing with equinity.