Dexter Fowler - COL - Dave Nelson Flickr
Dexter Fowler – Centerfielder – Colorado Rockies
The Rockies have put together the best of both worlds with their outfield. It’s stacked with average to above-average veterans that will do an admirable job filling in until the youngsters come due.
The depth allowed them to trade away one of the best corner-outfielders in the game, in Matt Holliday.
The Veterans: Scott Podsednik, Ryan Spillbroghs, and Brad Hawpe.
The Rookies: Carlos Gonzalez, Dexter Fowler, and Seth Smith.
The Inbetween-ers: Matt Murton, Chris Frey, Dan Ortmeier and Matt Miller
If you wanted to put together an outfield, this is a great way to go about doing so. Unfortunately for fantasy owners, the Rockies outfield depth may negatively effect any single prospects fantasy value.
Dexter Fowler — Center-field-prospect-extraordinare.
Baseball Prospectus, which I generally always use as my starting point, just released their 2009 top prospect rankings/ratings. Fowler comes in at an improved 12th overall. Sandwiched between two uber-prospects in the Marlins organization, Cameron Maybin and Mike Stanton.
SKILLS AND STATS:
| Year | Age | Lg | Level | G | Team | R | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| 2005 | 19 | Pio | Rk | 62 | CAS | 43 | 220 | 60 | 10 | 4 | 4 | 23 | 18 | 6 | 27 | 73 | 0.273 | 0.357 | 0.409 | 766 |
| 2006 | 20 | SAL | A | 99 | ASH | 92 | 405 | 118 | 31 | 6 | 8 | 46 | 42 | 23 | 43 | 79 | 0.291 | 0.368 | 0.457 | 825 |
| 2007 | 21 | Calif | A+ | 65 | MOD | 43 | 245 | 67 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 23 | 20 | 11 | 44 | 64 | 0.273 | 0.397 | 0.367 | 764 |
| 2008 | 22 | Tex | AA | 108 | TUL | 92 | 421 | 141 | 31 | 9 | 9 | 64 | 20 | 8 | 65 | 89 | 0.335 | 0.431 | 0.515 | 946 |
| 22 | NL | MLB | 13 | COL | 3 | 26 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0.154 | 0.185 | 0.154 | 339 |
When scouts draw up a five-tool player, they draw up guys like Torii Hunter and Andruw Jones before he turned on the suck-switch. These are the type of players that the scouts have compared Fowler to. Defense doesn’t convert to fantasy value, so we’ll just huck that out. While this probably lowers Fowler on the prospect list, he’s still a switch-hitting baller with speed to spare.
Much like Cameron Maybin, Fowler can steal a shit-tonne of bases if he’s given the opportunity. The Raw speed isn’t in question — He does however need to work on his base running skills. Luckily, getting caught stealing isn’t a negative in fantasy baseball. The Rockies let Willy Tavares go, because even at such a young age Fowler can do everything that Tavares could.
At this point, Fowler’s power is still pretty raw and his ceiling is probably about 12-15 HR given a full-time gig. Eventually Fowler will top out about 20 HR potential, which is just dandy for your lead-off man. Fowler seems to understand that he’s being groomed for the CF-gig and has been using his power to pound doubles, rather than whack home-runs.
A quick note on Fowler’s picking up switch-hitting after an entire amateur career of only hitting from one side of the plate: WOW. He’s kept his lefty-average over .275 which is darn impressive. The Gents over at baseball-intellect.com put together a nice piece on Fowler vs. Tyler Colvin — just remember, it was put together at the start of 2008 prior to Fowler’s ridiculous .946 OPS bounce-back season.
His Strike-Out Rate is a bit concerning, although he did improve on his 26% High-A rate posting a respectable 20% K-Rate in AA last year. A minor league BB-Rate of between 10-15 percent keeps his OBP at a very solid .400+
Forget about 2007, as 2006 and 2008 appear to be the real Dexter Fowler.
Opportunity
Looking at the remainder of the Rockies line-up, there’s really no typical lead-off hitter. If Fowler gets the job, he’ll almost certainly lead the line-up off — which will result in a whole hoot of a lot of RUN opportunities.
Clint Barmes and Willy Tavares spent the majority of 2008 atop the Rockies line-up, and Tavares is in Cincinnati and Barmes may lose his job to Ian Stewart who is about as far from a lead-off hitter as you can get.
Right now, it’s looking like the Rockies can either lead off with Spillbroghs or Fowler and it’ll be interesting to see how it pans out.
Maybe Seth Smith is more Major League ready at this point, but he’s not a lead-off hitter. Carlos Gonzalez is still swinging at everything, and striking out too much — which is unfortunate.
Watch Fowler in the pre-season, as he could use at least a few months in Triple-A. Unfortunately with the depth the Rockies have in the OF, a slump may relegate Fowler to the minors for a few months of seasoning.
Conclusion
If you’re in a deep league, consider Fowler. His upside is equal to that of Cameron Maybin who’s been flying off draft-boards. A slump is almost inevitable, and impatient owners will more than likely drop him. If you can afford the roster-spot, he’s definitely worth the gamble. Even with limited at-bats in 2009, he’ll produce in at least the stolen base category.
Maybe Fowler isn’t worth a starting spot in your line-up at this point, but he should be the first guy off your bench.
Buy the Hype.
Even if he doesn’t make the club out of camp, he’s worth rostering in a 5-6 OF 12 team league, or your first, possibly second, bench spot on a 14 team 4-OF league. It’ll be an interesting fight between Gonzalez, Smith and Fowler.
