Jose Guillen is bound to be one of the more popular pick-ups on Monday after his 4 RBI Sunday afternoon against Scott Baker and the Minnesota Twins. Over the past week, Jose Guillen’s hit .357 with 3 HR and 10 RBI and has seen his Yahoo! ownership increase to 19% — Yes, Jose Guillen is a bad, bad man. If you already know Jose’s enjoyable history, you can skip the next couple paragraphs and go directly to his fantasy analysis.
First off, I’ll make this clear: I adore Jose Guillen because you really have no clue what you’re going to get from him. Much like Milton Bradley, another favourite of mine, you could get anything from an All-Star to an Axe Murderer.
When my girlfriend and I snagged our first ever Major League Baseball, it was Jose Guillen that hung around and signed it. Later Joey, I jump over cars, Gathright signed it as well.
The story behind Jose Guillen is a long and complicated one, but he’s been on 9 different teams since he broke into the Majors in 1997 and hasn’t stayed with the same team longer than 2 years. Guillen was also named in the Mitchell Report, after he allegedly purchased steroids and HGH from a Florida Pharmacy:
The San Francisco Chronicle published a story linking Guillen to the purchase of more than $19,000 worth of steroids and human-growth hormone between May 2002 and June 2005.
In addition to the steroid use, Guillen’s had more than a couple run-ins with hecklers at the ballpark. Check out Joey Gathright run in to stop Jose Guillen from more than likely beheading a fan that was heckling Guillen in the Royals home stadium.
Guillen also straight-up bitched Mike Scioscia when his current team, the Washington Nationals, played his former team, the Anaheim Angels, in inter-league play. Upset at being left off the post-season roster and then traded by the Angels, Guillen told Nationals Coach, Frank Robinson, to ask the umpire to check Brendan Donnelly’s glove for any illegal substances — The ump found pine-tar. Guillen later admitted that he’d snitched, and went on an epic rant about Mike Scioscia being a little bitch:
He was talking to me last year about respect and class and how we have to move on, I don’t care really much about Mike Scioscia.
I have no respect for him any more, because I’m still hurt from what happened last year. Mike Scioscia to me is like a piece of garbage. I don’t care if I get in trouble. He can go to hell.
Finally, in one of my favourite moments of the 2008 season, Guillen went on a profanity laced tirade about his Royals teammates during a 12-game losing streak:
“Too many fucking babies here. They don’t know how to fucking play the fucking game and win the game right, the way it’s supposed to be fucking played. And that’s the problem here. Now I know why this organization’s been losing for a while. Now I fucking know.”
But you’ve got to love Guillen for standing up for his coach, Trey Hillman. Guillen continued the rant by saying, “He [Hillman] cares more than anyone here about winning, That guy cares. Every single day. It’s killing him. We’ve just got to be smart and know what we need to do to win games. That’s it. There’s too many guys that won’t do this, do that, like they’ve given up, like they don’t care.”
I’m sure plenty of baseball purists dislike Jose Guillen, but you’ve got to admit that he’s entertaining as fuck, and equally as honest.
Jose Guillen’s Fantasy Impact
Prior to today’s home run and 4 RBI effort, Jose Guillen was batting .262 AVG / .326 OBP / .429 SLG, which is in-line with his career averages.
Jose Guillen will never hit for a great average, but .275 is a fair expectation given his track record (.273 Career AVG, .294 Career Max.) So long as Guillen can maintain a solid average, he’ll help you in 3 of the 5 roto categories without hurting you too much, which is outstanding for a late-round draft pick or waiver-wire pick-up.
After playing 153 Games in each of his last two years, Guillen’s managed to top 95 RBI in both seasons. Assuming Kansas City’s offense is at least mildly improved, Guillen should also score somewhere between 70 and 80 runs. When coupled with Guillen’s 20-30 HR power, you’ve got yourself a ball player with a fairly high-ceiling.
Plate discipline has never been Guillen’s strong-suit and in the early going he continues to chase pitches out of the zone. Pitchers are either being careful or have caught onto Guillen’s tendencies as he’s seeing a mere 43% of pitches in the zone. This number should trend upwards to Guillen’s average of 50% even if Guillen refuses to take a walk.
Guillen’s proven the ability to function at a high-level with poor plate discipline, so to predict a drastic decline seems presumptive. Guillen’s swinging at fewer pitches in general, both inside and outside of the zone. It’s Guillen’s lack of contact (8% decrease, ) which is probably a direct result of minor injuries, that has rendered him a terrific waiver-wire or buy-low candidate.
Regardless of how it occurs, Guillen should start seeing more strikes and making solid contact as the season progresses. Guillen will generally have trouble with control pitchers, but if a pitcher makes a mistake like Scott Baker did today, Guillen will make sound contact.
Considering the starters that Guillen has faced (Beurhle, Danks, Floyd, Galarraga, Perkins, Slowey, Purcey, Richmond, Tallet and Baker, ) it’s no surprise he hasn’t smash-killed the ball to this point. As Guillen works his way through the harder throwing / mistake-prone pitchers in the league, he should continue to improve across the board.
Guillen will have issues staying healthy, as seen by his recent hip-flexor / groin injury, which will rob Guillen of a lot of his natural (or chemically aided) potency. Although Guillen is generally an ass, he’s also a gamer that’ll play through minor injuries which chip away at his effectiveness. While this is great for the Kansas City Royals and their 3-year / 36-Million dollar investment, it’s bad for fantasy owners.
If you pick up Guillen, you’ll have to monitor his injury situation fairly carefully. The pay-off is absolutely worth the risk though as you could be provided with a 25+ HR / 100 RBI season from a free-agent you picked off the waiver-wire.
