Hitch, ditch, or pitch: Week six
by Ben PritchettMay 09, 2011
After a month-long hiatus that included, among other things, countless hours of baseball watching, I am back to bring you the first installment of what I’m going to call "Hitch, Ditch, or Pitch." The players we’ll discuss over the next several weeks will be players who are, in one way or another, underperforming.
The term "hitch" will be used to indicate that you should hang onto the player mentioned, stash on your bench, or monitor on the waiver wire.
"Ditch" is pretty self-explanatory. These are the guys that I’ll be encouraging you to let go.
Lastly, there’s "pitch," which is probably my favorite category we’ll be exploring. This category will be reserved for trading advice, whether that be advising to trade for/away any certain player. Hopefully, this can be a fun exercise to, at the very least, get your wheels spinning about the future of your fantasy team.
As we enter week six-ish of the baseball season, we should all be pretty acquainted with our rosters. You should know by now the strengths and weaknesses of your own personal ball club. If you don’t, I encourage you to warm up a Hot Pocket and spend some time looking over the stats you’ve accumulated to this point.
As in life, it’s always a good idea to take time-outs where you step away from your team and take a bird’s eye look at the overall picture. I like to seek out the advice of people that have a worthwhile opinion.
For example, my FantasyPros 911 NL-Only expert league team is really starting to suffer from my lack of closers. During the auction, I made the rookie mistake of devaluing the closer spot so severely that it left me without any considerable option. Furthermore, I missed out on Sean Burnett.
With the Cuban Missile (Aroldis Chapman) as my lone reliever, I have found myself in a very desperate place. Overall, my team is playing well, but the ten points I have punted to the rest of the league has started to worry me. I have now begun to question my ability to squeeze enough saves out of the waiver wire to make an impact.
Now we segue into my next point. A weakness is only a weakness if you let it fester. It’s like a tick on a dog. If you find the little bloodsucker soon enough, it can be a relatively painless ordeal. On the other hand, if that tick goes unnoticed, it can cause all kinds of problems—even physical harm—to the dog. It’s time for us all to check our rosters, grab some cauterized tweezers and rid our teams of the "ticks."
Hitch
Matt Wieters C BAL: Chances are that if you currently own Wieters, you are most likely out of many other catcher options, especially in deeper leagues. You can’t trade him, and you can’t drop him. He has been showing some life lately, and I think his managers should weather the storms that Weiters will undoubtedly bring throughout the rest of the season.
Nelson Cruz OF TEX: Cruz represents the guy you should have traded away when he started off the season with five home runs in five games. Trust me. I pitched this guy all over the league and was unsuccessful in every query. My thought was that Cruz’s value would never be greater than it was at that moment.
Hurriedly, I began throwing out insane offers for Pujols, Braun, and the like. They were all unsuccessful, but I remain proud of myself because I was able to recognize that every player you own should have a price tag. Understanding how to manage value is still key to winning fantasy baseball.
Cruz is now relegated to the 15-day disabled list, and his stats are a shell of what they were. I’m hitched now for better or worse to Nelson.
Ian Desmond SS WAS: I was a Desmond fan going into the season, and I am a Desmond fan here on May 9. With three home runs and 10 steals through 112 at-bats, he’s on pace for roughly 15-17 homers and 50-plus stolen bases over the course of the entire season. Those stats alone prove his value. I don’t care how much he strikes out or how bad his average may be by season’s end. I would even go as far as say that if I were to re-rank shortstops, I would move him into the top five.
Jayson Werth OF WAS: His strikeout percentage is down from previous years. He’s walking at generally the same rate. Werth’s BABIP is a frustrating .261 when he never had a BABIP below .300 previously in his career. I look at his HR/FB rate of 11.4 percent, and I further my belief that Werth is really getting unlucky.
My only concern is his eye-popping 25.5 percent infield flyball percentage. So he’s definitely pressing way too hard to jumpstart his bat. That 25.5 number is ridiculous considering he was a five percent IFFB guy last year. Something that should be monitored.
Ditch
Carlos Pena 1B CHC: I’m done with you Pena. I loved your value at the beginning of this season, and your three home runs this week have begun to tug at my heartstrings. I advise all those in 12-team leagues and shallower to jump ship and open the door to all the studly up-and-coming talent about to enter the majors over the next month or so (Anthony Rizzo, Brandon Belt, Mike Moustakas).
Marlon Byrd OF CHC: Maybe I am too harsh on the Cubbies, but when two of your best players are named Darwin and Starlin and weigh a combined 200 pounds, then you should really examine the depth of your baseball team.
I know Alfonso Soriano has rediscovered his inner 2004, but it’s time to cut ties with all these other fringe players. Byrd is one of those guys that I just don’t think has the chops to be an impact player in 2011. I know he’s hitting over .300, and if you can deal him, then more power to you. I just can’t stomach the lack of home runs, steals, runs, and RBIs.
Adam LaRoche 1B WAS: I don’t have time to wait until the second half of the season to cash in on LaRoche. Maybe all you guys out in the THT world can, but I have given up on this guy. There are too many good first baseman out there. Honestly, I would take the slumping Michael Morse over LaRoche. If you have the roster space, the patience, or depth of league, then by all means, wait it out. I’m not.
Miguel Tejada SS/3B SFO: Tejada is done as a viable option in all but the deepest of leagues. There are too many serviceable third basemen to even consider him there, and I would rather salvage my shortstop position off the waiver wire. Grabbing a guy like Tyler Plouffe for example, would make me feel that I am at least working towards bettering my team. If you are rostering Tejada, then you’ve already given up on your shortstop position.
Pitch for
Dan Uggla 2B ATL: I tell you why I’m trading for Dan Uggla. Normally, I’m not one to let my emotions play a huge role in my decision making, but I have always held a grudge against Uggla. I have never been able to obtain his services on my fantasy teams for one reason or another, and he cost me one hundred dollars in the All-Star Game where he struck out twice with runners on base and booted three balls in the field.
Well, needless to say, I’m older now. I don’t bet on baseball anymore—real baseball, anyways. I find myself drawn to this guy. His power is obviously legit. The table in front of him will always be set in Atlanta. I believe he has enough maturity as a hitter to make it through these early-season struggles.
Jason Heyward OF ATL: I’ve always been a Heyward fan. His large, looping bat looks like it’s twice the size when he releases it through the strike zone. I truly feel he will be every bit as good as all the analysts prognosticated he would be in 2011.
As I watch him, I have noticed that he can tilt the head of the bat ever so slightly as it enters the zone, which sometimes causes that uppercut swing that generally doesn’t work well with his bat movement. I don’t think that will linger long, and the time is fading on getting Heyward cheap.
Carl Crawford OF BOS: I would honestly pitch for any of the Boston regulars. I feel they are all representing a decent bargains right now. Some recent trades that I saw involving Crawford were for guys like Francisco Liriano, Brandon Morrow, Heyward, and even an Aaron Hill/Jason Kubel 2-for-1 deal (courtesy of CBS Sports).
That’s downright disrespectful for as valuable a skill set as Crawford has. He’s rocking a .250 BABIP that is a far cry from his .323 career average. With only five steals to his credit, many owners may be over-thinking the injuries, which would definitely work to your advantage.
Pitch away
Derek Jeter SS NYY: I know he finished Sunday with a 4-for-6 day with two home runs and a stolen base, but as I have stated earlier in my preseason articles, I’m a true believer that we are witnessing the twilight of this Hall of Famer. His mechanics as a hitter are shot, and his defense is even worse. There’s nothing the Yanks can do, but you, as his fantasy owner, can jump ship. Sure you’ll be only getting thirty cents on the dollar, but I’d rather have thirty cents than twenty, maybe.
Chone Figgins 2B/3B SEA: Here’s another guy that I wasn’t high on entering the season. For me Figgins was nothing more than a middle infield filler and much lower than even Danny Espinosa in my personally rankings. I don’t think he’s even rosterable in shallow leagues.
His history as a speedster works to your advantage as an owner if you can still get some poor sap to rid you of him. I just don’t think there’s much hope for him, and he’s one or two call-ups from being out of a job. It’s time for the Mariners to usher in the Dustin Ackley dynasty, and you should do the same. I am, of course, assuming you are using Figgins as a middle infielder. If he’s your third baseman, you have bigger fish to fry.
Gordon Beckham 2B CHW: He’s too streaky for me. I’ve always loved his skill set and his hard-hat demeanor, but his two week-long droughts really irk me, especially in my head-to-head leagues. I don’t know if he’ll always be this kind of player where when he’s on, he’s on and when he’s off, he’s off. But I’m beginning to think he is. For head-to-head gamers, it is time to cash in on the "Beckham" name. Ideally, I’d time the trade around the call up of Brett Lawrie.
Adam Jones OF BAL: What player are we looking at with Jones? Is he the future 30/20 guy we all once thought he could be? Or is he the sub-20 homer guy with 10 steal potential that he is perennially showing us he is?
I don’t know what it is about Adam Jones. Some people really like him, and some people have no interest in him whatsoever.
I may be one of the few who remain undecided. I own him in our THT writers Yahoo! league, and I routinely find myself questioning why I continually start him over guys like Ryan Roberts. I say if you can find someone willing to give you 100 percent of his preseason value, I would jump all over it. I see someone like a Neftali Feliz as a preseason equal to Adam Jones.
Lastly, here’s my “Pritch Slap” for week six: It’s never too early to better your team, but it’s always too late to panic.
Ben Pritchett can be reached for questions, comments, gripes, or considerations at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or you could follow his whims on twitter @pritchettclan.
<< Return to Article