Currently, Erick Aybar is being touted as the lead off hitter for the Angels. Even though he has held this position in the batting order before, it is even more important with Albert Pujols on the team. If he is able to get on base at any decent clip, he will be an excellent source of Runs.

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From Hisashi Iwakuma to Matt Moore.

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The perception of age is one of the more interesting facets of player evaluation to me, and I don’t mean that in the Miguel Tejada sense. Highly touted prospects who make their debuts at a particularly young age or who don’t find an extremely high level of success shortly after debuting often lose some of their notoriety, despite being in the part of their career where some failure ought to be expected. Without checking, name the ages of these players: Delmon Young, Justin Upton, Dayan Viciedo, and Dexter Fowler. I’m going to guess that for the people who guessed and got it wrong, overestimating the players’ ages was more uncommon than underestimating. Each of these guys made news a few years ago, but only Upton has made a substantial mark so far, and even he is probably underappreciated relative to his performance.

With the exception of Young, I like these guys for reasons beyond their age, but seeing the 26-year-old Fowler on the cusp of coming into his own is especially gratifying for me. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I have a fantasy addiction to Fowler — I think I’ve owned him in at least one league every year since his first full season in 2009 — and while toolsy players are always on my radar, having him play his home games in Coors made Fowler the player I’m almost always willing to take a flier on. Heading into the 2012 season, however, Fowler finally looks less like a bundle of tools and more like a composed baseball player. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in November I discussed bargain shopping in Houston and how there are still a few hidden gems that would make for strong selections at the tail end of your draft.  Well, today, we’re going to look at another perennial cellar-dwelling team and see what kind of fantasy gold can be found.  Funny thing, though, is that these Royals — these, more often than not, punching bags of the AL — are looking pretty darn good lately and there’s going to be quite the battle to obtain a number of their players’ services in fantasy drafts this year.

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The Milwaukee Brewers may have expected to go into the regular season without one of their key players. While the Brewers will have Ryan Braun for the entire season, Corey Hart might miss some time at the beginning of the year following arthroscopic surgery on his knee. Though the outfielder is expected to only miss three-to-four weeks — and might even be ready for Opening Day — there’s also a chance he’ll miss a few games to begin the season. While that doesn’t seem like much, it could have an impact on the transitioning Brewers.

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From Garrett Richards to Wily Peralta.

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From Juan Abreu to Joe Benson.

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Mike Minor is a forgotten man. The lefty is overshadowed by young studs like Julio Teheran, Randall Delgado and Arodys Vizcaino within the Braves’ organization, and a career ERA closer to five than four in the majors over the past two seasons seemingly supplies ammo to those who panned Atlanta for playing it safe with the seventh pick in the 2009 draft. Fantasy folks certainly aren’t impressed, as MockDraftCentral’s latest ADP numbers have Minor going 308th overall, behind damaged goods like Carlos Zambrano and Francisco Liriano and just ahead of the Aaron Harangs of the world.

While it’s easy to recall the “low upside” label slapped on Minor when he came out of Vanderbilt and point to his unimpressive big league ERA as confirmation, that assessment ignores his superb minor league track record and promising peripheral stats in the majors. Minor, locked in to a back-of-the-rotation spot with the Braves, looks like one of the biggest sleepers in the game entering spring training.

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From Dave Sappelt to Liam Hendriks.

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From Martin Perez to Wil Myers.

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