Eric Hosmer has been a huge disappointment this season with a 0.174/0.243/0.316 slash line. Most of his problems stem from a 0.169 BABIP. I am going to look to see if there are any under lying problems for the drop and any possible reasons for optimism.

As I stated previously, Eric has a BABIP of 0.169. It is the lowest value of all hitters with at least 150 PA. In 2011, he was 50th out of 145 qualified hitters with a 0.314 BABIP.

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Today marks latest batch of trends in the American League outfield.

Bullish:
Mike Trout – I know that it is hard to be bullish on a kid who is as highly touted as Trout, but so far he has shown that he is as much production as we projected. His strikeout rate is a touch high, 22.7%, but he makes up for it with excellent power and speed. In just 88 plate appearances, he has four homers and 10 walks. To put that another way: he has as many walks as Albert Pujols does and Pujols has 176 PA’s this year. Trout is an absolute superstar in the making, if he isn’t already one. He is still available in 31% of Yahoo! formats somehow although ESPN leagues have been quicker to reel him in (that will be only Trout pun from me all season, I promise), as his ownership rating there is a healthy 94%. For anyone in any format in need of offense, Trout is a fantastic pickup.

Raul Ibanez – I’m surprised to say his name too. After his disaster of a 2011 season where he “hit” .245/.289/.419, he has shown that he isn’t finished just yet. Compare to last year, he has cut his strikeout rate in half to an unbelievably low 9.8% while upping his walk rate to 7.4%. I don’t expect that low strikeout rate to continue, but perhaps it is a sign of a major adjustment on his part? Just yesterday he hit his ninth home run of the year and a 25 home run season wouldn’t be shocking at this point. Given his surrounding lineup and his batting position of fifth against right handed pitching, his RBI totals should be nice shot in the arm as well. Once again we see that ESPN is quicker on the draw; his ownership rating there is 83% and it went up over 50% in the past week. Yahoo! lags behind considerably despite his LF and RF eligibility, he is only owned in 41% of leagues. Anyone in need of a solid OF bat that will play 4-5 times a week should pick up Ibanez. I know I am. Read the rest of this entry »

As I have mentioned many times in the past, SwStk% is highly correlated with strikeout rate/percentage. Of course, as with any pair of metrics, there are always going to be outliers who do not fit the general pattern. Sometimes there is an explanation not captured by the metrics we are looking at, other times it is just a matter of some version of luck that should change soon. The latter case gives us an opportunity to forecast improvement or declines. So let’s take a look at the leaders in Swstk%, matching it with their strikeout percentages to determine if there are any imminent strikeout rate surgers.

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Last Saturday, I looked at the bottom dwellers in hitter BABIP. In a surprise move, one of those hitters, Adam Lind, was actualy sent down to Triple-A. Today we will look at the BABIP leaders. These are your potential trade candidates, but I’ll look more in depth into the interesting names.

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More than a month into the season, we are in full-fledged buy low and sell high mode. Though I always say it is much harder to execute these trades than all the fantasy advice articles you read will have you believe, it is still worth making an attempt. Today, I won’t be writing your standard buy low post, but rather analyze several pitchers who have been disappointments thus far and look at the reasons why you should buy low and why you may want to pass. Hopefully, we can then come to a verdict.

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Injuries are the theme in this installment. As in, one former top prospect’s current DL stint is costing him a golden opportunity, a used-to-be-can’t-miss player needs another shot before he suffers yet another ailment, and a future big leaguer could use some more aches and pains to befall those ahead of him if he’s going to make his debut this season.

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Last season, I drank the Adam Dunn Kool-Aid. He was coming over from the the National League. He would likely be in the lineup everyday, even if hurt, with the option of the D.H in the AL. What could go wrong? Pretty much everything. It couldn’t happen again I figured, so this season I drank the Albert Pujols flavored Kool-Aid. With him getting up in the years, he would be able to get a rest from fielding, DH a bit, continue hitting, win the MVP, and most importantly, lead my fantasy team to a title. Yea … that is not happening.

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Even though we are over a month into the season, a hitter’s BABIP and resulting batting average are still rather meaningless. In fact, neither statistic stabilizes within 550 plate appearances. That means that it has little predictive value at this point and should have limited weight when evaluating a player now. Therefore, hitters with extremely high or low BABIPs should potentially be looked at as trade bait or acquisition targets, respectively. Let’s first look at the possible targets, or those with abnormally low BABIP marks.

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“Hello, boys! I’m baaack!”
–Russell Casse from Independence Day

Much like the so-crazy-he-has-to-be-right Casse from the 1996 summer blockbuster Independence Day and his never-ending efforts to prove non-believers wrong about his alien abduction, I am bringing back the Mining the Minors column to continue my quest to keep fantasy owners aware of lesser-known minor leaguers who are nearing the majors — and (crazy, I know) just might make an impact on fantasy teams in deeper and/or keeper leagues.

Or put another way: Just because many of these non-big leaguers are currently unowned in the vast majority of fantasy leagues doesn’t mean they should be, ahem, alien to you, dear fantasy owner.

For those of you new to this space, of if you just need a refresher on the method behind this column, I invite you to read the inaugural Mining the Minors from last season.

In the interest of staying current, I’ve taken the liberty of updating the above link with examples from last season of the various types of minor leaguers I’ll be checking in on this year.

1) Lesser-known prospects making names for themselves
2011 Impact Examples: Paul Goldschmidt, Jose Altuve, Ryan Lavarnway, Juan Nicasio, Brad Peacock, Addison Reed

2) Solid but non-elite prospects
2011 Impact Examples: Jemile Weeks, Eric Thames, Henderson Alvarez, Lance Lynn, Josh Collmenter, Javy Guerra

3) Former top prospects whose careers had stalled or fallen off
2011 Impact Examples: Danny Duffy, Todd Frazier, Fautino De Los Santos, Alex White, Zach Stewart and Nick Hagadone

4) Triple-A veteran types
2011 Impact Examples: Ryan Vogelsong, Nolan Reimold, Brett Pill, Jose Constanza, Tom Wilhelmsen, Michael Fiers

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We already have a month of baseball in the books and pitcher ERAs are not surprisingly still all over the place. This is my favorite time of the season as it is hard for many owners to ignore a bloated ERA, and the opportunity to improve your staff by buying at a discount is there. If you have a tough time yourself ignoring ERA, you must be strong! Look at the underlying skills and be confident that eventually the ERA will match it. Now for some American League starting pitcher talk…

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