The RotoCop

Jorge Cantu and Garrett Jones are my kind of players: Guys that nobody else seems to want to own that can help you win your league.  Now, there are some obvious differences between these two, namely that Cantu hits in a better lineup, is more proven, and has hit much better so far this year.  All that means, though, is that Cantu might be a little less underrated than he was a month ago (but still underrated by many), whereas the somewhat more risky Jones continues to fly well under the radar and can be had for a song (I just picked him up in my 12-team league and didn’t need to use a waiver claim to do it).

We’ll start with Cantu, who makes me wish I had started this website before he led baseball in RBIs in April… Anyway, Dalton Del Don of Rotowire could have been speaking for a lot more of the fantasy community than just himself when he uttered this mia culpa: “I’ve never been a big Jorge Cantu fan in fantasy leagues, but frankly, it’s been to my detriment.”  But let’s give Dalton some credit for living up to his past mistakes.  He hits on a point about Cantu’s power that I have been making ever since I approached my keeper league offseason without a third baseman: “While he still managed 100 RBIs last season, it’s pretty clear he was playing through a debilitating ankle injury, so a return to his 2008 type power (when he hit 29 homers) can’t be ruled out in 2010.”  It wouldn’t just be a return to his 2008 type power, either: Cantu also smacked 28 homers and 117 RBIs in his only other 500-plus at bat season in 2005.  When healthy, this guy’s legit.

Dalton also makes a good point when he writes that Cantu “has a better chance of driving in those runs because of his inability to walk much – that’s actually a plus in fantasy terms.”  Indeed, Cantu rarely forces his owners to endure the frustration that is watching your guy work the count and draw a walk with runners at the corners and nobody out.  You could argue that Cantu’s batting average would be a bit higher if he were a more patient hitter, but he’s actually hit over .285 in two of his three 5oo-plus at bat seasons, and is a .278 hitter for his career.  I’ll gladly take that at a scarce position when combined with nice RBI and HR production.

Now let’s move on to Jones.  I get to earn the money I’m not making on this website with this one, because the jury is still very much out of Garrett.  It’s certainly possible that Jones will end up being waiver wire fodder in all leagues by season’s end, but I don’t think he deserves to be there right now.  That’s why I was appalled when I read this from the Roto Times: “While [Jones is] a great source of cheap power in NL-only leagues, he’s borderline unownable in most mixed formats.”  Borderline unownable?  Really?  Let’s examine the facts.

These are Garrett Jones’ stats from 2009: 314 ABs, .293 avg., 45 Runs, 21 HRs, 44 RBIs, 10 SBs.  Granted, the RBI and Run production in a pretty weak Pirates lineup were not as elite as the other stats, but who wouldn’t want a guy who put up a half season of what would amount to 37 HRs and 18 SBs (with a .290+ batting average) in 550 at bats?  Plus, a glance at Garrett’s split stats shows that he absolutely owned right-handed pitching to the tune of a .333 avg., 15 HRs, and 9 SBs in 213 at bats.  For those of you scoring at home, that amounts to a 39 HR, 23 SB pace over 550 at bats, with an elite average to boot.  Now, through 93 at bats this year, Jones is hitting just .237 with 4 HRs, 17 RBI, 11 Runs, and 2 steals.  He’ll “only” get 24 HRs, 101 RBIs, and 12 steals if he keeps up that pace for 550 at bats.  Even those numbers don’t seem “borderline unownable” to me, unless you actually believe he’s going to hit .237 all season.

Some people might just not have noticed last year’s numbers because they were only in half a season.  And Jones was far from an elite prospect, so that probably explains why a lot of people think last year’s numbers were a fluke.  That line of thinking is working out real well with Casey McGehee, huh? The fact is, sometimes top prospects like Alex Gordon never pan out, and non-prospects like Jones and McGehee do.  I’m obviously more willing to jump on an elite prospect before some schmo who gets hot for a couple weeks, but I think we’ve seen enough from Jones and McGehee at this point to find room for them on our rosters, prospect status be damned.  The Pirates may not have a whole lot to choose from, but they’re batting Jones in the heart of their order, so clearly they like what they see.  His power/speed combo looks real to me, and the big-time splits make me happy to try him out against weaker right-handers while I find out if he’s the real deal.  If he’s not, I’ll have lost nothing besides a roster space for the time I owned him.

Following in the footsteps on Justin Smoak and Ike Davis, a couple rookies of note have been called up in the last couple days.  It’s always tough to predict what a young hitter is going to do their first (or second or third) time in the big leagues, but that doesn’t prevent fantasy writers from fielding their best guesses.  Here’s what a variety of fantasy experts are saying about the latest call-ups:

Kila Ka’aihue, 1B/DH, Royals

Yahoo’s Andy Behrens points out that Royals manager Trey Hillman said “Right now, you can view [Ka'aihue] as an extra bat off the bench.”  But Behrens concludes: “In a mixed league of respectable depth, I’d still add him, depending on my category and position needs. He’s an obvious pick-up in formats that use OBP. Ka’aihue seems to have mastered the minor leagues; there’s power upside here, if Hillman decides he’s interested.”

Rotoworld says that Ka’aihue is “worth watching for now, but might not get a real chance to profile his skills until the Royals can find a taker for Jose Guillen.”

FanGraphs’ Mike Axisa argues that Ka’aihue compares favorably with Ike Davis because he doesn’t have a “massive platoon split,” and that while Ka’aihue “might not have the defensive value and long-term outlook of Justin Smoak … he’s a bit older and his power is more present than projected.”  Axisa “guess[es]” that Ku-aihue will be the primary DH while Rick Ankiel is out (with Jose Guillen playing in the outfield), and concludes, “if you’re looking for a little boost from the 1B or UTIL spots, here’s your guy. That goes double if you’re in a deep mixed or AL-only league.”

Razzball’s Grey Albright says that “If given the chance at full playing time, the Royals could have a 25 homer, .400 OBP first baseman/DH.”  Grey adds, “Grab [him] in deep mixed and AL-Only leagues.  Everyone else, hold your junk until we see how his playing time shakes out and to make sure this Kila is shooting something besides BBs.”  Grey definitely gets a free pass on that pun, too, ‘cus it’s a good one.

KFFL’s Tim Heaney thinks that Ka’aihue will only “start once or twice a week, at first,” but still thinks that “Managers should be proactive in chugging some Hawaiian Punch in leagues that favor tucking away top offensive prospects. You’ll have to be patient, but the potential payoff shouldn’t be ignored.”

What does the Rotocop think about Ka’aihue, you ask?  First, I think I have no idea how to pronounce this dude’s name.  But more importantly, the playing time issue is key.  Not just because he needs to play regularly to be of use in fantasy leagues, but also because there’s no way to know how good he is if he doesn’t get on the field enough.  Most rookies struggle at first, and the Royals lineup isn’t going to make it any easier on Kila.  If I see that he’s playing regularly and hitting well, I may pounce, but someone else could very well jump on him before then, and I can live with that.  Except in the rare case of a Ryan Braun or Jason Heyward, where the upside is so high that you have to go out and get the guy immediately, I tend to be more tentative about rookies.  There’s simply no way to know whether Davis, Smoak, or Ka’aihue will be the better hitter in the major leagues.  It will probably take quite a while to know for sure, and in the meantime they’ll all probably give you worse stats than a boring veteran like, say, the guy Ka’aihue might be displacing at DH: Jose Guillen.

Steven Pearce, 1B, Pirates

The Royals aren’t the only small market team that is calling up a minor leaguer to try to jump start their weak offense.  Pearce, 27, is only a year older than Ka’aihue, but he’s already had some growing pains in the Major Leagues the last couple years, so he comes with a lot less hype.  Those are the type of guys that can make nice post-hype sleepers, although you need only look at the guy Pearce will be replacing in the lineup — Jeff Clement — to realize that a lot of guys just never live up to their initial prospect status.

A clear sign of Pearce’s fall from grace is that he’s not getting much written about his call-up in the fantasy community.  The Roto Times says that Pearce is “worth a look in most NL-only leagues” because he should get a fair amount of playing time, while Rotoworld says Pearce “is moving dangerously close to being labeled as a Quad-A bat,” but “could hold value in deeper NL-only leagues.” Most writers are more concerned with what Pearce’s presence will mean for Clement’s playing time.  Of course, Clement would be long forgotten too if he didn’t have catcher eligibility in a lot of leagues.

Bonus: Buster Posey, C, Giants

Speaking of catcher eligibility, the Roto Times notes that, according to Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury-News, the Giants may be about to call up Buster Posey.  San Francisco badly wants to add another potent bat to their lineup, but given the way Bengie Molina is hitting so far this year, you probably could have won a lot of money in Vegas if you placed a bet on Posey getting called up before the Indians’s prized catcher, Carlos Santana.  Of course, Posey may end up playing more at 1B than catcher if he does get called up.  Regardless, he and Santana are the kind of rookie hitters I like to take a chance on, because they are eligible at a position where they don’t need to work miracles to have big-time value.  It’s a lot like why I targeted sophmore catcher Matt Wieters in drafts this year.  You don’t know exactly what you’ll get from him, but even if he doesn’t bust out this year, he should still be a top five catcher.

Several fantasy writers are making sure you remember that Jonathan Broxton is really good, even if he isn’t getting saves right now.  Rotoworld’s Thor Nystrom writes that “Broxton owners shouldn’t feel anxiety” about his lack of saves so far, while Yahoo’s Scott Pianowski similarly says, “Take heart, gamers, these things come in bunches.”  The Sporting News’ Matt Lutovsky also predicts that Broxton “will likely see a bunch [of saves] soon,” but decided to drop him a couple spots in his closer rankings anyway.  Bottom line: It’s near impossible to predict which closers will get the most saves.  The Dodgers are finally starting to win some games, which could help Broxton (hard to get saves when your team loses), but it’s entirely possible he ends up with closer to 30 saves than 40.  That doesn’t mean you should rush out and trade him for current saves leader Matt Capps.

Rotoworld’s Aaron Gleeman astutely points out that Ubaldo Jimenez is throwing a whole lot of pitches so far this season.  I’ll confess to being late to the Ubaldo party — I shied away from him in drafts because of his high walk rates the last two years — but he seems to being doing just fine so far (understatement), despite continuing to walk his fair share of batters.  However, while Ubaldo might be filthy enough to have a strong WHIP despite issuing a lot of free passes, you’ve got to think that his high number of strikeouts and walks is going to mean continued high pitch counts, which could mean a fatigued arm or injury later this year or next season.

According to the Rotoworld player news department, “It seems” White Sox hurler Jake Peavy is “finally over the command problems that plagued him during April.”  The Rotocop is a Peavy owner and is about as high on Peavy as anyone, but that still “seems” a bit charitable.  After all, Jake had TWELVE walks in his previous two starts before shutting down the Royals Monday.  This certainly could be the return of the Peavy I expected all along, but I’ll need to see more than one good start against the Royals before I plug him back in my lineup.  That being said, Peavy’s struggles have certainly been because of his lack of command, and NOT because of his switch to the American League, which has been significantly overblown.  Sure, moving to the DH league will always have some impact on a pitcher’s numbers, and it never hurts to pitch your home games in Petco Park.  But a quick glance at Peavy’s splits shows that he dominated every bit as much on the road as at home in  2004, 2005, 2007, and 2009, and his career numbers are somewhere between excellent and fine against every AL team except the 3 Ts: Toronto, Tampa Bay, and Texas. It just so happens that three of Peavy’s four starts against the 3 Ts were this year, and he walked almost a batter per inning in those contests.  It’s all about the command for Jake.

Brett Cecil is quickly establishing himself as the best player to sport a Blue Jay jersey since Prince Fielder’s daddy hung them up.  And even that Cecil might not count, since he only played for the Jays before he was any good (he then went to Japan to learn how to play the game, just like Colby Lewis).  But I digress… Fantasy experts are singing the praises of Brett Cecil after his dominant performance against the Tribe on Monday.  Rotoworld chimes in that “the Blue Jays may have something pretty special here” and dubs Cecil mixed league-worthy, and the Roto Times, which often says pitchers are worth a “flier,” gushes of Cecil, “If he remains unowned in any of your leagues, it should go without saying that you need to snatch him up.”  Yahoo’s Pianowski offers a more restrained endorsement of Cecil, reminding readers that he pitches in “the killer AL East,” but concludes that Cecil has already had some success against the Rays and Red Sox, and is well worth using in his next start against the ChiSox.  The RotoCop’s take?  Cecil has some major upside, so he’s certainly worth a “flier” if you’ve got the room on your roster.  But I’d much prefer to own Cecil’s teammate Ricky Romero, who’s had five excellent starts this year compared to Cecil’s two, and also pitched remarkably well prior to the All Star Break last year, whereas Cecil struggled throughout ’09.

Speaking of the Roto Times, every once in a while you see a piece of fantasy advice that makes you go “huh?” like Scooby Doo.  Roto Times saying that Alex Rios is “a fringe option in most average-sized mixed leagues” certainly qualifies.  According to the number-crunchers over at Baseball Monster, Rios was a top 40 producer in standard 5X5 rotisserie leagues in 2007, top 60 in 2008, and a top 75 player in 5X5 leagues so far in 2010.  That means there are roughly 10-20 fantasy outfielders who will do more to help your fantasy team win than Rios.  In other words, he’s a solid #2 OF in mixed leagues.  That doesn’t seem “fringe” to me.  Not to pick on Roto Times, which is a fine publication, but they also seem to have overlooked Timmy Lincecum when they wrote that Ubaldo Jimenez “is seriously challenging Roy Halladay for the mantle of ‘baseball’s best’ [pitcher] at the moment.”  Jimenez and Halladay have ever so slightly outperformed Lincecum so far, but he needs to at least be in the conversation.

Not a lot has been said so far about Ben Zobrist’s slow start, but Yahoo’s Brandon Funston points out that Zobrist is hitting fewer fly balls and swinging at more pitches out of the strike zone.  Funston concludes that Zobrist is “pressing,” but that “If anyone is selling Zobrist for less than 85 cents on the dollar, I’d get in on that deal.”  Hard to argue with that.  There is some risk with Zobrist given that he’s only had one big year and was never an elite prospect, but Shortstop is a fantasy wasteland this year, and even though Zobrist probably won’t maintain SS eligibility next year, you keeper leaguers can feel confident that his numbers will play well at 2B too.  With numbers like last year’s, he’d even be great in the outfield, but the jury’s still out on that level of production.  The bright side on this year’s performance is that Zobrist has already stolen five bases, which suggests his speed should help maintain his value until his bat picks up.  And even if he ends up being more of a 20-15 guy than a 30-20 guy, Zobrist should get lots of runs and RBIs hitting in a potent Rays lineup.

Funston is also among the many fantasy writers who have come around on the aforementioned Colby Lewis.  He points out that Lewis “already has three 10-K games, a mark that was bested by just Tim Lincecum, Zack Greinke, Justin Verlander and Jon Lester last season.”  The RotoCop has been very high on Lewis since the preseason, and for that I thank Jeremish Oshan of The Hardball Times, who noted before the season began that the Oliver projection system pegged Lewis to be a top 10 pitcher in 2010.  Tim Dierkes was also all over Lewis at Roto Authority, pointing out that the CHONE and PECOTA projections also suggested “Lewis could be quite valuable in any league.”  Of course, the CHONE and PECOTA projections were nowhere near as high on Lewis as Oliver (think high 3′s ERA and mid-1.20′s WHIP vs. low 3′s ERA and 1.09 WHIP), and most other fantasy writers were sleeping on Lewis.  But after reading what Oshan and Dierkes had to say, looking at the astounding numbers Lewis put up in Japan, as well as accounts of his matured approach as a pitcher, I was sold.  There’s no doubt that Lewis will have to adjust to pitching in the Texas summer heat, but he gets a bunch of starts against the A’s and Mariners to ease the pain.  I see no reason he can’t be a top-25 starting pitcher all season long.