Recent Disappointments

Over the course of the season, every player rides the wave of highs and lows. Today, I’ll high-light some of those players who are barely keeping their heads above the rising tide right now.

Marlon Byrd is batting .226 over his last 93 at-bats with just a single homer as he continues to have one of the most unique seasons in baseball this year. The recent slump has dropped Byrd’s average down down to a still respectable .284, but it’s his run production that is so fascinating. Byrd has a mere 28 RBI in 387 at-bats this season, a pace that would equate to 40 RBI over 550 at-bats. If that sounds awful it is, but it’s even more distressing when you realize that Byrd has spent 30 percent of his season batting third for the Cubs and another 34 percent batting fifth. How is it possible to spend 64 percent of your seasonal at-bats in the third and fifth holes in the lineup and still be on a pace for mere 40 RBI in 550 at-bats? That’s just shocking.

Asdrubal Cabrera has had a remarkable season. It doesn’t look like he is going to get to 20/20, he has 16 steals and last stole a base back on August 13th (yikes), but still, it’s been a rather remarkable season. Coming into the year he had hit 18 homers. He has 22 this season. He came into the year with career bests of 68 RBI and 81 runs. He has 82 RBI and is just two runs off that career best mark with three weeks left in the regular season. If you’ve have Cabrera on your roster all season long you cannot be upset at his performance, not in the least. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t be disappointed by his work over the past month. Cabrera is hitting a sickly .185 over his last 95 at-bats, and though he has knocked in 16 runs, the guy has scored only five times. He isn’t producing hits, isn’t scoring runs, and has stopped stealing bases. Do you dare go in another direction for the final three weeks of the regular season?

Chris Davis has long been my white whale. I look at the prodigious power and his outright domination of Triple-A (.340-38-146 over his last 591 at-bats), not to mention his previous success in the big leagues (38 homers, 114 RBI in his first 686 big league at-bats), and think this guy is a potential 30 homer bat. He still might be that, but he’s looking an awful lot like Carlos Pena with those 21 Ks in 50 at-bats with the Orioles. I think it might be time for me to face facts. Davis might just be a AAAA player (too good for the minors but not good enough to have success in the big leagues).

Adam Lind will be shut down for a few days with a wrist issue. He should have been left out of your fantasy lineup for a long while however. Over the last month Lind has hit five homers while knocking in 18 runs so you might be thinking ‘what the hell are you talking about Ray?’ You wanna know what I’m talking about? How about that .178 average and .575 OPS over the past month. In fact, it’s even worse than that as he has hit .186 with a .562 OPS over his last 46 games. That’s a high price to pay for a few homers.

Martin Prado just cannot get it going. He’s hitting, if you can call it that, .181 with no homers and six runs scored over his last 94 at-bats.

Pablo Sandoval is hitting a mere .247 over his last 81 at-bats to drop his season long average to .297. That’s pretty impressive given his failures last season (.268), and 18 homers in just 371 at-bats is a pretty solid number as well, but he needs to start rapping out hits to help out your fantasy squad down the stretch. OK, the truth is I’m just down on the Giants and not necessarily Sandoval. Where did it all go wrong for the club? It all went wrong when the front office thought the club had enough offense to compete. What a waste of a pitching staff.

Chris Young is hitting, sit down if you missed it, .147 over 156 at-bats since the All-Star break. He has a sprained ligament in his thumb that is the main culprit for the downturn in his production. At this point it’s almost impossible to suggest leaving him in your starting lineup unless you are in a deep NL-only league.

By Ray Flowers

MLB Mailbag: March 16, 2011

Photo By Loren Javier

I’m in a 10-team NL-only league. Which of the two sides in this deal would you prefer: Javier Vazquez ($16) or Marlon Byrd ($11) and Bud Norris ($3)?
– Jeff, Raleigh, North Carolina

An aging veteran hurler or, for virtually the same cost, a solid outfielder and an up and coming flame thrower who often has no idea where he is throwing the ball.

From 2000-09, Vazquez was the only pitcher in baseball who tossed at least 195 innings, with 10 wins and 150 strikeouts each season. That streak came to a crashing halt in 2010. He did win 10 games, but he tossed only 157.1 innings and punched out a mere 121 batters. Did he simply wear down from years of use?

In his career, Vazquez’s average fastball has been 91 mph, but last year that number dropped to 88.7. Less heat equaled less Ks and his K/9 rate of 6.92 was more than a full batter below his career rate of 8.07. Last year was also the first time the mark was below 8.00 since 2004. Javier also had a walk rate of 3.72, his first season with a mark over 3.00 since, get this, the 20th century (1999). On the plus side he is back in the NL where he owns a career ERA of 4.02 with a WHIP of 1.24. He’s also going to pitch his home games in a park that helps to hold down the homers, an important factor for a hurler who has allowed 1.20 HR/9 in his career. Will the return to the Senior Circuit, combined with the better home ball yard, be enough to return him to glory?

Byrd isn’t worthy of being leaned on mixed leagues, but he is just the type of performer that helps to win league specific setups. Only once in his five seasons of at least 400 at-bats has he hit more than 12 homers, knocked in more than 70 runs or scored more than 70 times, but over the last four seasons an average Byrd season has produced a 5×5 line of .294-13-70-70-6. Moreover, the last four years he has never hit below .283. There could be some concern about everyday playing time if everyone stays healthy in the Cubs’ outfield, but there isn’t much doubt that if Byrd is given 500 at-bats that he will once again be a solid producer, even if none of his numbers jump off the page.

As for Bud Norris, I’ve already written about his outlook for 2011 in Which Pitchers Should I Target? Let me sum up my thoughts – he throws gas  (he was 10th in baseball last year in K/9 amongst hurlers who tossed 100-innings at 9.25), batters can’t hit him when he is on (.235 BAA in the second half), but he can lose the strike zone as well as any hurler in the league (4.51 BB/9). There is concern about his secondary stuff which might lead to him eventually being moved to the bullpen, and he hasn’t looked good in spring (10.29 ERA, 1.57 WHIP in three appearances), but that arm is dynamic – there just aren’t that many starters in the league who can legitimately rack up a strikeout per inning.

So which side “wins” here? The one with two players. Byrd isn’t an MVP candidate, but he is a solid, stable performer who can boost any NL-only offense. While Vazquez has history on his side, the depths he fell to last season, coupled with ongoing concerns about the mph on his fastball this spring (he’s still unable to reach 90 mph on most of his fastballs), point to him being nothing more than an average hurler, and a somewhat expensive one in this setup. I’d take a chance on the fire balling arm of Norris and the stable production of Byrd, and then go and spend the extra three dollars on another hurler.

I have a nine batters and Lester as my only starting pitcher. I was wondering if I should still be seeking out quality bats for backups or potential future keepers, or should I start grabbing quality pitching?
– Andrew, Topsham, Maine

The age old question…

I’m on record saying I’m in favor of waiting on pitching. In fact, I wrote an article about why, in many cases, it makes a lot of sense to let others dive into pitching early called Ready for the Journey? In that piece I delve into the 2010 season and look at all the hurlers who “failed” to live up to expectations, as well as highlighting those guys which came out of nowhere to have strong fantasy seasons. Of course, you could make up similar lists for offense, but the point is really this – pitchers’ performances tend to vary more from one season to the other than do hitters. Also, pitchers are at a much higher risk of a catastrophic injury ending their season (Adam Wainwright) than are hitters. Therefore, in a vacuum, it often makes more sense to go for the elite hitters early – there will always be pitchers available later.

Think of it this way.

There are five starters and 30 major league teams. That’s 150 starters that can be drafted. Each team also has a closer and a setup man that probably should be drafted in standard leagues. That’s another 60 pitchers. Add those numbers together and we can say there are 210 pitchers that probably shouldn’t scare the hell out of you on draft day. If you are in a 12 team league that starts nine pitchers, then there will be 108 pitchers active in any week. Now, tell me, do you think if there are 210 pitchers who are decent, but only 108 who are starting in a fantasy league at any one time (just over 51 percent of the hurlers mentioned), that you should be able to put together a decent pitching staff if you wait on hurlers?

I’m not sticking to this “plan” slavishly in any draft. In general, it makes a lot of sense to have one anchor starting pitcher and one reliever in your first 10 selections in a 12 team draft. If that makes you nervous you can go with two starters and a reliever in your first 10 picks. At the same time, there have been many a draft where I came out of the first 10 rounds with one hurler.

The answer to the question is that there is no answer that suffices in all situations. Honestly, it’s about performance, risk and value. If your league is going super heavy early on pitching you can either (a) jump into the mix or (b) build a juggernaut on offense. An intimate understanding of the player pool is key here as it will help you to know when you simply must get involved in the hurler run. To help you to understand what point that might be, I’d direct you to The Strikeout: Starters, as well as the above linked to piece (Which Pitchers Should I Target?) on how to properly evaluate pitchers in the fantasy game.

Ray Flowers can be heard daily on Sirius/XM Radio on The Fantasy Drive, 5-8 PM Eastern, on Sirius 211 and XM 147. Ray’s minute to minute musings can be located at the BaseballGuys’ Twitter account.

It's an Odd World

I was struck by quite a few oddities on this day as I sat down to pen this entry, so I just went with that theme for today.

Mat Latos was reportedly hitting 97 mph on the radar gun last night in his seven shutout innings against the Giants. Latos was almost matched on the night by the Giants Jonathan Sanchez who allowed only one run in his seven innings as the Giants lost 1-0. Moreover, Sanchez struck out 10 while allowing only one hit in the loss. Three points. (1) The last time that the Giants lost a game in which they allowed only one hit World War I was happening – it was September 22nd, 1917. (2) Latos is a potential stud. I worry though that the Padres will limit him to 150-160 innings, so it might be wise to ride him for a while and then move him to a leaguemate who isn’t aware that his innings will be limited. (3) I keep saying it, and people keep laughing at me, but Sanchez just might end up being as valuable as Clayton Kershaw in 2010. Seriously.

The Cubs are a mess, and Lou Pinella isn’t one to sit idly by. He’s already switched the lineup around moving Marlon Byrd (vs. lefties) and Kosuke Fukudome (vs. righties) to the top of the order, and now the team is making a change in the rotation. With Ted Lilly set to return from his minor league rehab assignment this weekend, and with that a starter will need to be moved to the bullpen. Speculation was rampant on Twitter today about who it might be, and ultimately the man chosen to move might have been the one least likely to have taken on a bullpen role – and that is Carlos Zambrano. Big Z hasn’t made a bullpen appearance since 2002. Zambrano certainly has the stuff to dominate in shorts stints, but there are two big concerns. First, he often has no idea where the strike zone is, and you don’t want a late game arm coming in walking guys. Second, Zambrano is the hot head of hot heads. How anyone thinks that matches a role where, even at best, you often end up blowing things for your team, is beyond me. Be very afraid Cubs fans, but if you can, hold on to him in fantasy leagues cause this simply cannot last (sooner or later Carlos Silva will implode).

Mark Ellis missed seven games with a hamstring injury before playing last night. Well, he suffered a setback and today the A’s placed him on the DL. So, he’ll now have to miss 15 more games. Would the team have been better off just placing him on the DL when the injury initially occurred, thereby saving them a week of time? Probably. Too bad the Red Sox did the same thing with their handling of the rib injury to Jacoby Ellsbury (they left him on the bench, but not on the DL, for a week and a half before deciding to DL him).

Prince Fielder isn’t hitting his weight, which is something when you way like a quarter of a ton (he is hitting .224). Beyond the concern with the batting average there is the fact that he hasn’t gone deep in 49 at-bats. Well, I guess we know why – he has a sore hand. I have a sore wrist, but it hasn’t precluded me from continuing to type out really good articles the past week (I must be tougher than Prince).

Zack Greinke allowed two runs over seven innings against the Blue Jays only to see his bullpen cough up the lead and the game. He’s now 0-2 through four starts despite a 3.28 ERA and a 1.18 WHIP.

Speaking of the Royals, Jose Guillen continues to mash as if he was the reincarnated Josh Gibson. Guillen is hitting .377 with six homers and 13 RBI through 15 games. How is that for a forgotten man in the fantasy game?

Oh, and one last thing. Mr. Lyle Overbay, my starting first basemen in JEDWARS, an AL-only league, please remember how to hit. How he is batting .119 through 59 at-bats, considering that he owns a .277 career average, is simply astounding. It also goes to show you that things always even out. What do I mean? I have Guillen going absolutely nuts on that same squad, though his production has pretty much been negated by the failures of Overbay.

By Ray Flowers

Around the Horn: March 1, 2010

(1) Alfonso Soriano to hit 6^th for Cubs.

(2) Troy Glaus says his shoulder is doing well.

(3) Josh Hamilton still dealing with sore shoulder.

(4) Miguel Cabrera quits drinking, ready to mash on field.

(5) Jose Reyes plays/runs with positive results for Mets.

(6) Bobby Jenks – what does 2010 hold in store? You can hear my thoughts in the video and augment that with my Breaking Down: Jenks article.

By Ray Flowers

The Little Things Matter

With all the big deals in the game of baseball the past couple of days, I wanted to make sure I didn’t neglect a couple of the lesser names on the market, either those that have signed or those that are on the brink of inking a new deal.

Why is Marlon Byrd such a hot option? I know he had a nice season with a .283 average, 20 homers and 89 RBI for the Rangers, but does any of that really excite anyone in fantasyland? Maybe not, but the Cubs certainly appear to want to add the 32 year old to their outfield for next season, that if they can ever rid themselves of malcontent Milton Bradley. As for Byrd, I know last season was his first full year in the bigs 9at-bat wise), but he has been over 400 at-bats in each of the past three seasons. Still, he has only one season with more than 10 homers, and he owns a career line of .279/.340/.422, and that ain’t much better than average folks. BY the by, here is how he has done per 162 games in his career: .279-12-69-78-8 with a .762 OPS. Don’t know about you, but I don’t think anyone should be too excited about adding that bat, especially the Cubs since they already have a virtually identical batter in Kosuke Fukudome who hit .259-11-54-79 with six steals last season.

Mike Cameron is a Red Sox. What can we expect from him in 2010? Glad you asked. You can read my thoughts in Breaking Down: Mike Cameron.

Jeff Francoeur hit .319 over his final 36 games last season, and overall he .311 with a .498 SLG in 75 games with the Mets, a marked improvement over his early season work with the Braves (.250, .352 SLG in 82 games). With late season numbers like that you would think that he was fully healthy at the end of the year. In fact, you might think he was injured earlier in the year given the struggles with the Braves. Well if you thought that you would be wrong. Turns out Frenchie had left thumb surgery after the season, and the thumb was so jacked up that the doctors needed to replace a ligament (one was taken from his forearm). He should be fully healed by the time the season starts, and he is clearly one tough cookie.

Matt Holliday was reportedly offered an 8-year deal for $128 million by the Cardinals. However, Buster Olney of ESPN refuted the St. Louis Post-Dispatch report and said the team doesn’t want to go beyond five years. No matter what the offer is, it doesn’t seem likely to be enough to entice Matt Holliday, at least for the moment. To read more about the whole Holliday saga give Ryan Boyer’s Is it five years or eight years for Holliday?

I gave my thoughts on the outlook of Hideki Matsui in his new home with the Angels in Breaking Down: Hideki Matsui.

John Lackey and the Red Sox continue to hold off on officially ratifying the 5-year deal that is thought to be worth $85 million. Looks like the Sox want to have the contract include some language in it to protect themselves from any previously suffered injuries, should the arise again. It’s really just semantics – don’t worry, the deal will get done.

Seems like Ben Sheets is still angling for a one year deal worth $12 million. Of course that includes a boatload of bonuses built into the deal, but after missing all of last season is there really a team out there that is crazy enough to offer him that much even if its almost entirely incentive based?

By Ray Flowers

A Wonderful Wednesday

In today’s The Day in Baseball entry, I’ll highlight the plight of an all-time great, alert you to a guy who has been crazy hot of late, and point out a decision, about four months in coming, that might actually, finally, end up coming to fruition.

Did you catch Marlon Byrd’s act over the past two days? In case you didn’t, let me review it for you. Byrd played in three games, went deep twice, knocked in seven runners and produced nine hits. Yeah, he is pretty much en fuego right now.

If you missed it, Adam Jones’ season is over as he was transferred to the 60-day DL with a sprained ankle. It shouldn’t require surgery, or be a long term issue, but the team realized that he would likely need something like three weeks to recover, and that would basically take them to the end of the year (plus, putting him on the 60-day DL allows the club to add another player to the roster). As a result of the injury Jones falls just short of his first 20 homer season, he finishes with 19 long balls, though a .277-19-70-83-10 season certainly isn’t anything to be upset about in his second full season.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Tim Lincecum return to the hill this weekend. He was in the dugout on Tuesday after being forced to miss the start because of a sore lower back, and he was caught smiling and moving around fairly well. As for the Giants offense, there is no word when it might be back in action. In nine games in September the G-men have recorded more than three runs just twice. Pathetic.

Could it finally be happening? Could The World’s Biggest Idiot, aka Phillies’ manager Charlie Manuel, finally be conceding that he is destroying the moral of his club by continuing to throw Brad Lidge out there in the ninth inning? “…I want to be loyal to him and things like that, but at the same time, like I told him last night, winning the game is the first priority.” Ryan Madson owners can rejoice. It looks like you might get a handful of saves out of the man you have held on to for months waiting for the Phillies to do the right thing. Of course, Brett Myers could end up swooping in to pick up a few saves chances as well, so perhaps Madson owners shouldn’t be too excited after all.

Albert Pujols hit two bombs today and is just three homers short of his first 50 season. Just spit balling here, but is it possible that 20 years from now we will be talking about Pujols as the greatest “steroid free” home run hitter of all-time? Let’s play a little game of what if. (1) Pujols is just 29 years old. (2) In nine seasons he has never hit fewer than 32 home runs in a season. (3) He has averaged 40 home runs a season over his nine year career. (4) If Pujols plays another 10 years while averaging 35 homers a season he will end up with something along the lines of 720 home runs. That would still leave him behind Hank Aaron and his 755 home runs. Just goes to show you how amazingly consistent that Mr. Aaron was in his career.

Huston Street continues to make progress with that sore biceps muscle, but the latest word out of Colorado is that he still isn’t likely to return to action this week as previously hoped. In his place, the Rockies will continue to go with Franklin Morales who has converted 5-straight save chances in his last five appearances during which time he has allowed only five base runners and not a single run. Overall Morales has a 2.60 ERA, a.1.13 WHIP and 36 Ks in 34.2 ABs, and that’s pretty darn good no matter where you are pitching.

Trivia Question: How many straight seasons has Braden Looper won at least 11 games? The answer is three – each of his seasons as a starter. Do you know how many NL hurlers have won at least 11 games each of the past three seasons if we include this season? Try seven (including Lopper): Jamie Moyer, Derek Lowe, Adam Wainwright, Ted Lilly, Jason Marquis and Chad Billingsley.

By Ray Flowers

What is My Value?

I’m always fascinated by how people evaluate player worth on a weekly basis. Therefore, I’m always interested to see the weekly recaps of free agent bidding in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship, or the NFBC. These leagues are made up of 15 teams with 30 person rosters, so there is always a lot of prospecting going on each week as people are basically forced to pick up players, in most cases, that they hope will be able to help them in the future because very, very few full time players are on waivers at one time (therefore, anytime someone has a big week, you can almost be certain they will be a hot property). Here is a review of some of the players that were rostered off waivers this past weekend. Listed are the range of dollar figures for each guy, based on a season long budget of $1000.

Jeremy Accardo – $3 to $207
Wow, talk about a huge spread. Why everyone was so ga-ga over a guy who had spent the entire year in the minors is beyond me (I bid $18 for him in my league). If the club really thought he was that good, would they have let him toil in the minors all season? Anyway, my money is on Jason Frasor taking over the closers role with Scott Downs on the DL, though I don’t know about his long-term outlook. I bid $32 on Frasor, but was outbid in my league (someone went $177 on Frasor and $71 on Accardo in my league). By the way, Frasor went from $11 to $187 dollars overall.

Khalil Greene – $1 to $170
Back hitting home runs and playing third base. Of course, you could have had him for a $1 in about 95 percent of the leagues if you picked him up two weeks ago.

Livan Hernandez – $1 to $25.
You’ve got to be kidding me, right? You’d have to pay me to add him. Next.

Travis Ishikawa – $2 to $34
Seriously? Have you seen what the guy is hitting on the road (.102 with a .412 OPS in 49 at-bats) this season?

Pedro Martinez – $1 to $31
Trying to catch lighting in an old bottle. No team has signed this HOF bound all-time great as of this writing.

John Mayberry – $1 to $91
Will be playing full-time until Raul Ibanez returns, but then what? Most likely he will head back to the minors or be a rather useless fourth option for the Phillies given their top-3 strength in Ibanez, Shane Victorino and Jayson Werth.

Casey McGehee – $1 to $52
Hey, the guy is hitting .348 with 17 runs scored in 36 games. He should be on someone’s roster in a 15 team league with 30 man rosters.

Miguel Montero – $1 to $30
With Chris Snyder on the DL with a back issue, it shouldn’t take more than two weeks to heal up, everyone was on the Montero bandwagon even if they didn’t spend any dough to get him.

Fernando Nieve -$1 to $59
Keep pitching well for the Mets, and as of now he seems to be securing a rotation spot at the expense of the nearly healthy John Maine and/or Oliver Perez.

Scott Richmond – $21 to $122
Strike out 11 batters, and watch the dollars fly. I wonder how much Chad Gaudin will go for this weekend?

Ramon Troncoso – $1 to $28
Save prospecting as people were concerned that Jonathan Broxton might be forced to the DL with that sore toe of his. No such luck so far.

Oh, and one other moronic issue that I felt compelled to address…

The news broke today that Marlon Byrd has been working with Stan Conte, the man who ran BALCO and helped to destroy faith in baseball players with performance enhancing drugs like “the cream” and “the clear” What, was Satan or Mengele unavailable Mr. Byrd? Even if the supplements you are taking are “legal,” does it really make any sense to be dealing with the man who helped to bring baseball to its knees? Idiotic.

By Ray Flowers