New Studs on the Block takes a look at players ready to make the leap from "possibly productive fantasy player" to "must-have fantasy stud." This is not a "you've never heard of this dude, but ... " series -- these should be names you already know.
Today I wanna proclaim the following three young pitchers are going to be absolute fantasy monsters by the end of the season, if you don't consider them to meet said criteria already ... basically what I'm saying is that you should never consider benching the following in any fantasy league. I'm that psyched for the potential of these boys.
Brandon Morrow, RP, Mariners I already wrote about his menacing presence on the hill and beastly potential as a closer. Since that entry, he's been out of his freaking mind, though. I didn't even imagine this. In nine appearances he's closed all six of his save chances, while striking out 12 in 9 2/3 innings. That's not even the best part. Seriously. He's faced 31 hitters, and only two have reached base. One walk, one hit. That's it. Neither dude scored, either. He's allowing a .098 OPS as closer! That's gross. Yes, I'm aware the Mariners suck big-time. Common sense dictates that when a bad team wins it's generally gonna be a close game and the wins are rare enough that the closer won't get overworked. He can still pile up saves. And he'll continue to do so.
Kerry Wood turns 31 next Monday. It was once thought by his 31st birthday that he'd have racked up all kinds of accolades by now. So he's old and a disappointment by those standards.
More recently it was thought he'd be out of baseball by now. So he's a feel-good story by that standard.
Most of all, though, he is absolutely filthy on the mound right now.
I remember on May 1st, after Wood blew a save against the Brewers, one of my friends texted me and asked when the Cubs would remove Wood from the closer duties. It actually prompted me to write this. Sure, it was probably somewhat wishful thinking -- but I just had this feeling. The makeup he has on the hill teamed with his size and ability to throw nearly 100 MPH along with the maturity and character he's built up through all the trying injury-riddled years just had "stud closer" written all over it to my biased eyes. I have never been more happy to be correct.
Since that blown save on the first of May, he has been lights out. He's been better than Carlos Marmol.
New Studs on the Block takes a look at players ready to make the leap from "possibly productive fantasy player" to "must-have fantasy stud." This is not a "you've never heard of this dude, but ... " series -- these should be names you already know.
Ian Kinsler has been teasing fantasy owners for the past two seasons ever since being anointed a future star back before his rookie season in 2006. The reason was that he scored 102 times with 19 stolen bases in the triple-A during 2005 as a 23 year-old. Oh yeah, and he drove in 94 runs while dropping 23 bombs as well (in 131 games) at the second most power-starved fantasy position.
As we know, it's a lot more exciting to hope you are grabbing a young stud in the making (a la Jay Bruce) than take an aging vet where you know the exact extent of his upside (Aramis Ramirez, for example), so Kinsler was saddled with quite high fantasy expectations heading into his rookie campaign.
In '06 he went .286-14-55 with 11 steals. Good enough for 7th in rookie-of-the-year voting, but not great.
In '07 he ended with .263-20-61 and 23 steals, but the numbers are a bit deceiving because of a surge where he went .298-9-22 in April.
He's in the middle of a breakout season now, though.
New Studs on the Block takes a look at players ready to make the leap from "possibly productive fantasy player" to "must-have fantasy stud." This is not a "you've never heard of this dude, but ... " series -- these should be names you already know.
Fantasy players (assuming a league that uses categories instead of total-points) love speed. Stolen bases are only one category, and power hitters fill three categories easily ... so usually I would bemoan how overrated a base-stealer-only was in fantasy circles (run through my archives and you'll find I like power hitters and power pitchers). There are currently only two players with more stolen bases than Jacoby Ellsbury (Ichiro and Michael Bourn), so you'd expect me to call him overrated.
But that's not the case. As a matter of fact, I think Ellsbury is underrated because of the stigma of not being a full-time player in Boston. He's technically not full-time, only he kind of is. If that makes sense. Basically, he plays nearly everyday even if Coco Crisp is in the lineup by filling in for Manny Ramirez or J.D. Drew's occasional off-days.
He's doing quite well with his playing time, and I'm expecting even more growth as we move forward.
New Studs on the Block takes a look at players ready to make the leap from "possibly productive fantasy player" to "must-have fantasy stud." This is not a "you've never heard of this dude, but ... " series -- these should be names you already know.
During last season, it seemed like most of the fantasy world was over-hyping Carlos Quentin. He was highly touted by many stat-guys as the next big power hitting outfielder, and he actually did hit nine homers in only 166 at-bats in his rookie campaign ('06). He followed that up with a subpar yet injury riddled 2007, which caused his stock to plummet. The Diamondbacks saw an outfield of Chris Young, Justin Upton, and Eric Byrnes and decided to just cut bait. Judging from his ADP this season, everyone had given up on him already.
WIthout doing some sort of a background check on Quentin, I could hear some thoughts of striking while the iron is hot and "selling high" on him. "Chris Shelton redeux!"
New Studs on the Block takes a look at players ready to make the leap from "possibly productive fantasy player" to "must-have fantasy stud." This is not a "you've never heard of this dude, but ... " series -- these should be names you already know.
When I say Josh Hamilton is a superstar, I mean just that. It's not, "he could be a superstar eventually," or "he's a really damn good player." I'm saying he's on level with Carlos Beltran, Carl Crawford, and Carlos Lee ... to name a few Carls. For all the run that he got last year for his story (you know, loved the white stuff and other items dispersed by Dr. Feelgood until he cleaned up his act and became a baseball player again), he's actually underrated this season.
He started that way, as evidenced by his average draft position on several major fantasy carriers. On one -- probably the biggest out there -- he was selected 113th on average. On another, he was selected 150th on average. The latter site actually lists the highest and lowest a player was selected, and someone actually landed Hamilton with the 218th pick in one draft. Whoever you are: BRAVO!
Mock Draft Central had him taken on average 129th.
New Studs takes a look at players ready to make the leap from "possibly productive fantasy player" to "must-have fantasy stud." This is not a "you've never heard of this dude, but ... " series -- these should be names you already know.
Coming into the season, I was as skeptical as anyone -- being a Cubs fan -- concerning Geovany Soto's breakthrough 2007 campaign. Prior to 2007, Soto had only 25 career jacks in nearly 1600 at-bats in the minors. He never OPSed higher than 750, and his career minor league batting average was .262.
Of course, in 2007 he absolutely destroyed the Pacific Coast League with a .353 average, 1076 OPS, 26 HRs, and 109 RBIs in only 110 games. He even crushed the ball in the show once he was recalled to the tune of a 1048 OPS with five bombs and 23 RBI in only 28 games.
So we knew he was capable, but what about consistency (you know Joe Morgan was worried about it)? 2007, after all, could easily have been an outlier instead of a breakthrough campaign. We've seen fluky seasons before.
It wasn't one of those, though. It was a beginning.
Here at the offices of "Stud or Shelton" we examine players who seem to be outperforming expectations to see if they are for real, or instead a flash in the pan like former Tigers hotshot Chris Shelton. As always, we apologize for rubbing salt in the wound of the Shelton family.
If the San Francisco Giants started the season with one strength, it was the starting pitching. Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum represent two of the most promising young starters in all of baseball and – at least before the season started – Barry Zito seemed like a decent #3 pitcher (even if he is the highest paid pitcher in the history of the game.)The rotation was set to be rounded out with Noah Lowry and Kevin Correia, but an injury to Lowry opened up a spot for Jonathan Sanchez.
Sanchez has absolutely taken advantage of this opportunity, though he got off to a rough start against the Brewers, allowing seven ER in just four IP.Owners who have hung tough with him since then have been quite happy, thanks, as Sanchez has only allowed another six earned runs in an additional 29.2 innings.Overall, this season he's 2-1, with 40 K against just 16 walks, with a 3.48 ERA and a respectable 1.28 WHIP. The kid has been dealing, that's for sure. The question is, is he a stud, or a flash in the pan?
New Studs takes a look at players ready to make the leap from "possibly productive fantasy player" to "must-have fantasy stud." This is not a "you've never heard of this dude, but ... " series -- these should be names you already know.
When the Tampa Bay Rays pay a guy, it's time to pay attention. They have been -- for the past decade or so -- one of the cheapest teams in the majors (still 2nd cheapest in the great State of Florida, though!). So when the Rays announced a contract extension for rookie Evan Longoria, the news was shocking on two levels.
First of all, the Rays granted someone a six year extension, which could grow into nine years depending on several factors (Scott Boras' level of involvement at any time throughout the process being a significant one). Secondly, though, was the fact that any major league team would offer this level of commitment to a guy that only had amassed 20 big league at-bats at the time. Think about it, this isn't the NFL where you can tear up someone's contract on a whim. These things don't expire early.
New Studs takes a look at players ready to make the leap from "possibly productive fantasy player" to "must-have fantasy stud." This is not a "you've never heard of this dude, but ... " series -- these should be names you already know.
Both of these guys came into the season with gobs of upside, but tempered expectations for different reasons. With one, we were worried that he's still not ready to make "The Leap," after having been teased by his potential the past two seasons. The other? Well, his team sucks. Really, really sucks. So did you really want to waste a high draft pick on a guy that can't win more than ten games? Judging from ADP charts, the answer was a resounding "NO!"
All of a sudden they have something in common: They are simultaneously making the jump from, "dude, he's pretty damn solid, but ... " territory into the "This guy is a freaking monster!" zone. When you drop the "but," the guy is ready to make an appearance on the ever-growing "New Studs on the Block," list.
Welcome aboard, Linc and King Felix. Please bring your nasty stuff and power arms as you join us ...
New Studs on the Block takes a look at players ready to make the leap from "possibly productive fantasy player" to "must-have fantasy stud." This is not a "you've never heard of this dude, but ... " series -- these should be names you already know.
New Studs on the Block
New Studs on the Block
New Studs on the Block
New Studs on the Block
New Studs
Here at the offices of "Stud or Shelton" we examine players who seem to be outperforming expectations to see if they are for real, or instead a flash in the pan like former Tigers hotshot Chris Shelton. As always, we apologize for rubbing salt in the wound of the Shelton family.
New Studs
New Studs
