BDPP83, Reymond Fuentes of the Boston Red Sox, Bowman Chrome Autograph

Buy or Sell: It’s About Value…

Projected Value: High+

Finally, we’ve got some sex appeal in our autograph checklist.  Fuentes is Carlos Beltran’s nephew, or cousin, or something — Only God knows because the internet’s called him about eight different variations of “relative”.

First off Fuentes was drafted by the Red Sox out of Peurto Rico.  The team affiliation is enough to drive the price up, but we’ll have to see where this opens.

Fuentes is young (b. 1991) and fast as fuck (under 6.3 in the 60,) but his frame and already advanced swing that gives hope.  At this point, Fuentes knows how to hit the ball hard from pole to pole.  It’s fair to project at least a slight uptick in power, but for the most part we’re talking a doubles (and triples) machine.

The Red Sox paid him a good amount for the 28th spot and you’ve got to assume that he’s more than just a trade chip.  Obviously, the most important aspect of value is whether or not he plays for the Red Sox — Which, I have to assume he will.

Right now, he’s only weighing in at a buck-sixty, which leaves plenty of room for growth without sacrificing speed.

The Tristar Cards are presenting pretty awesome deals right now, and I’m buying.  Whether or not his stock rises before BDPP (a good chance w/ BB America’s Organizational Lists heading towards the American League Soon)

BDPP78, Tim Wheeler of the Colorado Rockies, Bowman Chrome Autograph

Buy or Sell: Probably Buying

Projected Value: Medium +

Wheeler and Brett Jackson seem to be linked at the hip: a shared hip that’s pretty athletically gifted.  Selected one spot after Jackson, Wheeler saw his draft stock slowly rise as he played out his final season.  It didn’t hurt that Tim Wheeler was willing to sign for 900K, either.

In the Northwest League, Wheeler played well enough for Baseball America to place him a couple slots below Jackson on their yearly round-up of the Short Season Leagues.

If Wheeler had slipped into the second round, beyond the prying eyes of the common-prospector, his cards might be a very solid investment piece.

As it stands, Wheeler is just an athletically gifted kid that’s worth keeping an eye on.  Everything’s there for Wheeler to develop into an above-average, everyday, outfielder for the Rockies.

There’s quite a bit of untapped power in his frame and the kid can run well.   Wheeler’s final season at Sacramento State really opened some eyes, but you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt.  Ignorant eyes will view his 1.200 OPS in the WAC as something to bust a nut over — Don’t get *too* excited.

Wheeler’s got potential though.  Better yet, Wheeler has the tools and the make-up to get a strong following.  He’s definitely capable of putting up the jaw-dropping power & speed numbers required to make it into hot-lists, and thus raise his value considerably.

As long as his prices don’t go crazy out of the gate, I’d recommend purchasing a few medium numbered refractors.

The Florida Marlins are stubbornly perched just five games back of the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East, and a measly three games behind the wild-card leading San Francisco Giants.

The Marlins recent acquisition of a Nick Johnson gives them tremendous flexibility for a playoff run.  It appears as though Johnson will take up first, with Cantu moving to third. Emilio Bonifacio should split time with Chris Coghlan in left field, but both are capable of playing multiple positions, if need be.

I whole-heartedly agree with the Nick Johnson rental, but the Marlins have someone already in their system that could have provided a similar boost for the playoff run.  You guessed it, Cameron Maybin.

Unlike the majority of hard-core prospect watchers, I wasn’t enamored with Maybin to start this year, or last year, or as a Tiger.  Maybin’s always exhibited a sense of recklessness and a lack of discipline.  Defensively and at the plate, Maybin seemingly lacks the desire to capitalize on all of his natural talents, the desire to achieve greatness.

Maybin’s making a convert out of me with his stay in AAA-New Orleans, though. Prior to this year, Maybin had never spent time in AAA ball, he’d made the jump straight from AA ball in two consecutive seasons.  In 240 AAA plate appearances, Cameron Maybin’s hitting .329 with 3 home runs and six stolen bases.  This shouldn’t come as a surprise though, Maybin’s definitely been-there done-that with the power-speed combo.  What should come as a surprise is Maybin’s dedication to making each plate appearance count.  Even during Maybin’s most promising Minor League seasons, he couldn’t refrain from striking out between 25-30% of the time.  That impatient approach festered into a 37% MLB strike-out rate before Maybin was optioned early in the 2009 season.

In AAA-New Orleans, Maybin’s striking out under 20% of the time. Maybin’s also posted a 0.72 BB/K Ratio by maintaining his consistent above average walk-rate, while lowering his strike-outs.  Quite literally, Cameron Maybin has been earning his free passes rather than pitchers avoiding his strike-zone with intentional, unintentional walks.

Maybin’s continued to hit the ball hard through this transitional period; legging out 6  triples and 14 doubles to go along with his three home-runs.  Maybin does have a BABIP above .400 in New Orleans, so the .329 average isn’t completely legit, but Maybin is capable of posting a well above league-average BABIP.

As is often the case with hot young prospects, Cameron Maybin was overwhelmed by superior big-league talent.  He was quickly flustered and started pushing too hard to make a difference. Maybin’s settled down both in the batters box and mentally.  The numbers reflect a quick adjustment, and suggest that Maybin’s finally ready for the show.

Unfortunately, Florida’s probably going to have to fall out of the pennant race for Maybin to contribute regularly.  With the harem of league-average fielders that Florida’s amassed, there’s really no room for Maybin’s learning curve especially when you’re already five games back.  The curve won’t be that long, but even if it takes Maybin five games to hit his stride, that’s probably too long for a contender.

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.

Some think Cole Hamels was the 2008 World Series MVP — I don’t. No player contributed more to the Phillies winning the World Series than Michael Bourn.

The Phillies traded Bourn and a couple throw-ins to the Astros during the GM Meetings of 2007 and in turn acquired Brad Lidge and Eric Bruntlett. Lidge didn’t blow a save the entire year and Bruntlett performed marvelously in his utility role.  Do the Phillies win the World Series without Lidge or Brunlett? Do the Phillies even get to the play-offs without these two stand-outs?

Astro’s GM, Ed Wade, was heavily criticized for the move, but still seemed positive heading into 2008:

We receive a speed center fielder, a top of the order bat, who we think has the ability to be a catalyst for our club for a long time and hopefully set the stage for Hunter Pence and Berkman and Carlos Lee to drive him in,”

Someone clearly failed to tell Ed Wade that ‘setting the stage’ isn’t a tangeable ability and he should have paid more attention to OBP and K%.

Bourn was awful in 2008 as he exhibited the bad habits you’d expect from a power-hitting first baseman without any of the benefits — Think Mike Jacobs, with no power!

In 517 Plate Appearances, Bourn walked 37 times which was good for a 7.3% BB-Rate.  Bourn also managed to strike out 23.8 percent of the time and finished the year up with 111 K’s.  Bourn’s slash line was an awful .229 AVG/.288 OBP/.300 SLG.  If not for Michael Bourn’s 41 SB in 51 attempts, he’d be one of the worst starting position players out there. The speedy Bourn also posted a UZR/150 well below what was expected of him, so it’s not like his glove was keeping him in the line-up either.

Thus far in 2009, Michael Bourn’s been a lot closer to his 2007-self than the 2008 version. Bourn’s still not playing quite every day and is sitting against most lefties, but he could be useful in deeper leagues.

In 23 G and 91 PA, Bourn’s hit .278 on a .344 BABIP which resembles his 2007 line of .277 on a .330 BABIP. Bourn’s also posting an 11% BB Rate which is up 3% from 2008, and much closer to the 10% he posted in 2007.  Both of these have lead to Michael Bourn getting on base at a .360 clip in 2009, which resulted in seven stolen base opportunities. Make no mistake, Michael Bourn’s value comes from his Stolen Bases but he has to get on base at a reasonable rate to be afforded the opportunity to even attempt a stolen base, let alone get starter’s at-bats.

Bourn’s also marginally decreased his strike-out rate, although the 2 percent dip in 79 at-bats says very little about his plate approach.  What does say a lot about Bourn’s approach is his return to the land of 2.5 ground balls per fly-ball.  Bourn shouldn’t even think about replicating the almost-30 percent Fly Ball ratio that he put up in 2008.  Bourn’s infinitely more useful as a Line-Drive and Ground-Ball hitter, as can be seen in both of his 2007 and 2009 numbers.

Finally after 388 pitches, it’s quite clear that Bourn’s adjusted, at least somewhat, his plate discipline.  Michael Bourn’s limited his swing percentage to 37% — whether this sharp decline is good or bad will depend on how Bourn adapts when pitchers increase the number of pitches thrown inside the strike-zone.  At this point, Bourn isn’t chasing which is a solid indicator of improved discipline.

Bourn’s been splitting time atop the line-up in the 1 & 2 slots, and at the arse-end of the line-up batting 8th.  If Bourn can maintain a half-decent OBP, he’ll be useful atop an average-at-best Astros’ line-up.

Bourn’s one of the more interesting cases at this point in the season and could definitely be worth a look in deeper leagues.  In 12-team mixed leagues with deep benches, he’s a nice speculative speed add.

I’m not sure if I can flat-out recommend Bourn, but he does seem to be putting it together a la his rookie season of 2007.  I’d never expect him to maintain his .790 OPS, but something in the .730 range seems do-able.

Derek Carty over at the Hardballtimes.com profiled Delmon Young late last year, and it’s a solid read.  It does however repeat what every fantasy owner already knows:

Young is a young guy who is a good athlete and a scout favorite—and has breakout potential on this basis—but improved numbers in 2009 will have to come from legitimate skill growth or good fortune.

In case you’re unsure of the Delmon Young story, here’s a quick recap.  Young was drafted first overall by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, way back in the year 2003, as  a standout highschooler.

Young smash-killed the ball in the low-minors as an 18 and 19 year old. During his time in the minors, Young ranked no lower than 3rd overall on the Baseball America Top-100 Prospects list.

Then the Devil Rays rushed him through Triple-A and called him up to the bigs as a 20-year old and thus began Delmon Young’s power outage.

Young’s always been young for his level, and at this point in his career people are actually starting to give up on him with good reason.  The Minnesota Twins outfield is pretty jam-packed, and Delmon Young isn’t even guaranteed a starting spot.

Gomez and Span can both play center or left, possibly even right field.  Cuddyer’s got a great arm,  and is a solid corner outfielder who should be playing in RF.  These leaves Young, and Pirdie as the 4th and 5th outfielders vying for one of the starting spots.

It looks like Kubel, who could still play outfield in an emergency, will be manning the DH spot. Right now it looks like it’s really going to come down Delmon Young and Denard Span battling for the LF job. Cuddyer isn’t the epitome of health; so Young will nab RF at-bats even if he ends up starting the season as the 4th outfielder.

With that said, there’s absolutely no statistical data that says Delmon Young’s heading for improvement.  He’s not getting unlucky, he’s not being effected by a poor park.  When things look this bad for a former top-prospect / man-child, you’ve gotta assume that their pride is going to be taking a huge hit.

Athletes, even when they’re getting paid insanely massive-jumbo-jumbo amounts of money, are still competitive as all hell.  This is why I’m predicting one of those breakouts that two-months from now everyone will say they called it.

Delmon Young is still a very young 23 years old. Absolutely nothing points to him getting better, other than the fact he’s 23 years old.

With a late round pick, why not pick someone with all of the talent in the world?  Delmon Young lacks focus, he definitely makes up for in bat-throwing ability.

As the case with all of the sleepers that I recommend based on nothing more than a gut feeling, don’t draft them too high.  You can just cut bait with Delmon Young a month into the season if he still hasn’t displayed focus and better strike-zone judgment. Even if Young remains a free-swinging enigma, he still has the possibility of succeeding by ensuring he uses those quick wrists of his.

Here’s some of that off-season MLB.com fodder that says every players in better shape and ready for a breakout season:

“I feel really good right now,” he said. “At one point my body composition had changed a lot, but my weight stayed the same. Now, since we’ve been doing more power lifting the last month, the weight has been coming off. I just feel good.”

Photos Courtesy of Keith Allison and Trev Stair, Flickr

It’s almost opening day, and it’s about time to look at some roster-fillers in moderately deep leagues. I’ve always been hesitant to blabber on about early round draft picks, because for the most part you’re not going to win or lose the draft in the first 10-rounds, unless your competition is a group of no-nothing idiots.

Matt Joyce

Joyce was acquired by the Rays late last year for Edwin Jackson, in what was widely heralded as a brilliant move for the Rays. The Rays, who are stuffed full of nutritiously delicious starting pitcher depth, magically turned a 2009-arbitration eligible starting pitcher  into a power hitting right fielder with a cheap price-tag for 2 more years.

Unfortunately for the Rays, Matt Joyce has been battling a mysterious calf strain.  The MRI’s have shown it to just be a strain, but it has plagued him essentially the whole of spring training. Joyce finally did pitch hit and DH against the Yankees on Sunday, the 22nd.

Joyce was originally slated to be the Rays starting right fielder, giving the Rays one of the better defensive outfields in the game.  At this point, after missing all of camp, it’ll be interesting to see what the Rays do.  Almost all of the media outlets are reporting that there’s a better than average shot that Joyce doesn’t even start the year in the Bigs.

While I understand Joyce is a young kid who needs all the seasoning he can get, he’s still a better option in right field than anyone the Rays can throw out there. Even if we assume Joyce doesn’t play for a month, or is limited to platoon duty — what should be expected?

1. Hits Righties
2. Good Power
3. Low Average
4. Lots of Strike-outs
5. Lots of Walks
6. Very Solid Defense

We’re basically looking at a guy, like Adam Dunn, who possesses less fantasy value than real world value (assuming your league doesn’t use OBP or award points for BBs).

It’s going to be tough to project Joyce’s batting average this year. While he did hit a very solid .270 in triple-A before the call-up, which he followed up with a .252 AVG in Detroit; We may have a player who hits for somewhere between .220 and .240.

It’s somewhat painful projecting an optimistic-ceiling for Joyce’s batting average at .270, but it’s gotta be done.

Joyce should come in somewhere in the low-.250′s, if he’s played substantially from each side of the plate.  If Joyce is limited to platoon duty, he may emerge as a Jayson Werth-lite, posting somewhere in the neighborhood of .270ish with power.

Joyce’s consistent walk rate of 10+ percent, doesn’t negate his striking out over a quarter of the time, but it helps. If Joyce can float somewhere in the .50 BB to K rate, he’ll provide useful pop to the back-end of your fantasy line-up.

With the front of the Rays line-up solidified, it looks as though Joyce will be manning the 6 or 7th spot behind Iwamura, Crawford, Upton, Longoria, Pena and Burrell. You shouldn’t be fooled by Pena and Burrell’s low averages, as their high-OBP (both are projected above .375-OBP) will produce ample RBI opportunities for the power-hitting Joyce.

Even if Joyce bats at the tail end of the Rays line-up, he’s still in position to knock in his fair share with Barlett and Navarro manning the other two spots.  The depth in Tampa renders Joyce’s position in the batting order negligible when determining his fantasy value.  Joyce’s solid ~.35oOBP should also keep him on-base enough to score his fair share.

Assuming Joyce gets healthy, and nabs the starting gig no more than a month into the season — What should we expect?

65 to 70 of both Runs and RBIs should be in the cards, to go along with 20-25 HR power. The majority of the statistical models project Joyce below the 20-HR mark for the upcoming 2009 season, but I couldn’t disagree more.  The only thing keeping Joyce from hitting ‘taters is his playing time.  If he gets 460, or 451 AB as predicted by Zips and Oliver respectively, he’ll smash-kill the ball.

Whether or not a final line of 22HR, 68 RBI, 70 R, .245 AVG and 2 SB is useful, really depends on your league.

If it isn’t, I can guarentee you that there will at least be a few hot-streaks where Joyce is rosterable even in the shallowest leagues.  Of course a great month doesn’t make a great season.

Keep an eye out for Joyce, as Gross and Zobrist can only man that RF spot for so long.  If Joyce continues to be plagued by this injury, we’ve got a problem.  All the signs were there, and technically still are there, for a hidden gem but nothing kills a fantasy sleeper like missing Spring Training.

Assume Joyce goes for 16HR/60R/60RBI/.250 if he stays in that platoon for too long, and lower it further if his injury really lingers.  One bright spot, if you can call it that, is Joyce’s average will improve the more he’s platooned (to a ceiling of about .260 – .270, let’s not go crazy here).

Carlos Gonzalez is a superior talent and will develop into a 25/25 or 35/15 player with superior defensive skills. This is of course true — IF — CarGo can get an idea of what the strike-zone is.

The sky is the limit with this guy, but the basement is not that pretty. We’re talking serial killer-type basement, with limbs in the freezer and Detroit Lions games  on a constant loop. We’re talking Wily Mo Pena + Juan Encarnacion + A Bit More Defense. 30% K-rate, and 5%-BB rate type basement.

Last year Baseball Prospectus came in with Carlos Gonzalez at 26th overall, while Baseball America had him at 22nd overall.  CarGo is a great player, but that strike-out rate and swing-rate are potential deal-breakers. Whether or not these two things are tied to skill level or just the lack of desire to improve is up for debate.

As I mentioned in the Dexter Fowler article, the Rockies outfield is crowded.  Right now, it looks like the left-field job is a toss up between Carlos Gonzalez and Seth Smith. While Gonzalez has more upside, it looks like S. Smith is more MLB-ready which I’ll get into in the next article.

Carlos Gonzalez: Statistically Speaking

So the table isn’t particularly beautiful, but it is courtesy of fangraphs.com. Open Office was unstoppable in converting 5% to .050, but it’s 9am on a Saturday so we’ll wage that war at a later point in time.

The Strike-Out Rate stands out, as Gonzalez constantly puts up about 25%. It’s somewhat comical that whenever there’s a small sample size warning, Gonzalez has cut down on his K-Rate. His walk rate is atrocious for someone who strikes out that much.

We’ve almost got all of the bad out of the way:  Carlos Gonzalez swings at everything, absolutely everything.  Dave Cameron over at fangraphs put together an analysis of Cargo and his absolutely ridiculous Swing Rate, and O-Swing Rate (how often does he swing at pitches outside the zone). I really can’t praise the gentlemen over at fangraphs enough for putting together smart analysis and putting together the stats in an easily readable package.

Carlos Gonzalez in the Venezuelan Winter League: A New Hope

Carlos Gonzalez Regular Season VWL numbers:

MLB LINK

The 21 strike-outs in 100 PA, seems about in-line with Gonzalez’s regular numbers but an 11% BB rate is a nice improvement.  When you follow it up with his playoff numbers, we might just be on to something.

Gonzalez’s Venezuelan WL Playoff Numbers

MLB LINK

Of course there is the requisite small sample size warning, but he walked 11 times in 14 games. Maybe Carlos is starting to come due, and understand the game?

Opportunity and Final Analysis

The Rockies starting left-fielder job is about an open a competition as there is. Currently Gonzalez is listed as the starting left-fielder, but other than Brad Hawpe in RF no-one’s assured a job. (CBS seems to have the most-updated Depth Charts, why? no-one knows)

Gonzalez could hold onto the job with a strong camp, but Major League Ready Seth Smith could also nab the job.  Matt Murton was once listed as one of the Cubs’ better prospects, so technically he’s also got a shot at the job.  If Dexter Fowler breaks camp with the starting CF job, there’s a chance that Clint Hurdle could even move Ryan Spillbroghs over to left. If Spillbroghs ends up in CF, Scott Podsednik may steal the LF job as the Rockies desperately need a lead-off hitter.

There’s probably a few more possibilities, but for the most part — those are the more likely scenarios.

I have Gonzalez listed as a top-100 OF, as odds are that he’ll break camp with the job.  We all know how hitter-friendly Coors Field is, and Gonzalez has pop.  Even if Gonzalez can get his BB-Rate up to 8 or 9 percent, it’ll make a 20 percent K-Rate more palatable.

Gonzalez has about a 75 percent chance of breaking camp with the job, and I’d imagine he’d bottom out at about 350AB.  The Rockies should be looking to shop one of their young outfielders, or veterans as the depth is nutty.

Carlos Gonzalez has the opportunity to put up top-30 OF numbers if everything goes well, but a more realistic goal is top-50.

Gonzalez is one of my favourite sleepers going into 2009, but the bust potential is massive.

If you buy Cargo’s hype, then you better have a back-up plan or at least have suitable replacements on the waiver-wire.  He could be a very nice late round gamble though as there are very few players that you can nab in the very late rounds that have the potential to put up early mid-round numbers. Most of them have already been through the ringer more than a few times and everyone in your fantasy league will know their name.

If you’re in a keeper league, regardless of Gonzalez’s Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus ratings, he’s far from a sure thing.  The risk and reward is exponentially increased when you’re dealing with Gonzalez in a dynasty-type league. Devaluing Gonzalez in a dynasty league is probably a wise move as there are safer “top prospects”.

Photo Provided By Kimberly* Flickr

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:

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.

Bobby Abreu has apparently inked up a 5-million dollar, 1 year deal, which could end up being 8 million if he fulfills all of the lovely incentives contracts have now-a-days.  I’m guessing it’s your basic 500+ PA = 1 Million, 100RBI = 500K, 100 R = 500K, Curing Colo-Rectal Cancer = The Remainder.

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You know the economy is in the tank when elderly-sluggers are agreeing to short term contracts that pay them around their current value, rather than past value.  It wasn’t that long ago when the Angels had to doll out 50 million over 5-years to nail down a 32-year old Gary Matthews Jr.

With that said, if you’re an Abreu owner or plan to become one sometime in the near future, this is probably what you were looking for. Elderly Eight-Figure Angels Attempting To Play The Outfield, is also in Disney pre-production with Danny Glover already signed on to play Bobby Abreu and Cheech Marin reportedly in talks for the role of Juan Rivera.

There’s a nice little post on fangraphs that examines where the AB are going to come from, because quite frankly I’m a bit perplexed — but whenever you can sign someone as consistent as Abreu for relatively cheap, you’ve gotta jump.

So, who’s value is affected the most?

Brandon Wood had one last shot to lose the perma-prospect, possible AAAA player, tag that comes with hitting 30 HR in AAA and following that up with a 30% K-rate and .551 OPS in the Majors.  Yes, that’s On Base Plus Slugging. I thought Wood had a shot at proving himself this year, but maybe another year concentrating solely on defense and strike-zone judgment will help him in the long run.

Gary Matthews Jr. looks like he’ll miss at least a month of the 2009 season, as he slowly and surely recovers from off-season knee surgery.  Matthews Jr. really stunk the joint up last year, batting sub-.250 with little power or speed to speak of. The signing of Abreu may actually help Matthews, allowing him time to genuinely recover.  Matthews Jr. goes from almost no fantasy value, to actually being a solid pickup once the injury bug hits or September rolls around.  Matthews Jr’s glove should keep him in the outfield when the going gets tough.

Juan Rivera just inked a 3-year 12-million dollar contract with the Angel’s this off-season, which at the time seemed like a solid move by the team. Rivera’s value is slightly decreased by the signing of Abreu, but I still think he’ll get his AB.  If Rivera can get somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 plate appearances, he’ll have value.  The previous two years have not been kind injury-wise to Rivera, but the Abreu signing doesn’t change that. What the Abreu signing does do is allow Rivera a better shot at scoring runs, or driving in runs.

Abreu is bound to bat second, there’s no way he doesn’t bat second so: Figgins, Abreu, Vladdy, Hunter, Rivera seems about right.

The Rest: Vladimir Guerrero, Torii Hunter, and the Arse End (Kendrick & Aybar/Izturis)

These gents should all benefit quite a bit with the Abreu signing.  Abreu brings a .300 AVG, and .380OBP to the table (Bill James has him at .389OBP) which should increase his, and his peers Runs Batted In. While Abreu is no longer the dude that smashed a .550 SLG percentage each and every year, he’ll still hit around .470-.480 on the SLG scale which means — Kendrick, Aybar and Figgins are going to be scoring at least 4 or 5 more runs.

The fantasy world doesn’t deal with defense, so from a purely offensive perspective — this is a great deal.  Abreu increases everyone’s value, almost completely across the board.

The Angels are aggressive by nature, but this may mean that Scoisca doesn’t give them the green quite as much.  We’re starting to get a bit trivial, but maybe take away 2 or 3 SB from each of Figgins, Aybar and Izturis.

If you expected Aybar or Kendrick to be batting second, obviously you’ve gotta downgrade them.

Onto Abreu, Bobby Abreu.

Abreu’s still going to get some beautiful pitches to hit and his eye is still going to come in handy.  Unless you think Abreu has fallen off the cliff skill-wise, you can expect similar numbers with possibly — just maybe — a slight increase in Stolen Bases.

20 HR, 100R, 100RBI, 25SB, and a 300 AVG are probably his ceiling and his basement.  The only issue is an injury issue.  When you’ve got a line-up and outfield as deep as the Angels, you’ll be given a couple days off here and there. Brandon Wood’s probably going to get some AB here and there, as will Willits.