Carlos Silva (SP—Cubs) Baseball! It's an unpredictable game. As unpredictable as the stock market, an earthquake or my wife’s cooking (I pray she doesn't read this). And once again we take a lesson from baseball that we can apply to life: one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure. Which brings us to Carlos Silva. The treasure part, not the garbage…at least for now. The Milton Bradley for Carlos Silva trade that occurred between Seattle and Chicago this off season was supposed to be two teams trading their problems for the other team’s problems. Similar to the Mets taking on Gary Matthews Jr. to solve the Angels problem and the Angels taking on…? …OK, bad example. But so far, Chicago has gotten the sweet end of the deal as Silva won his first game as a Cub. Silva pitched 7 innings, allowed just 5 hits, zero walks, struck 5 and allowed 0 earned runs. He lowered his season ERA to 0.69. Now, I’m not a strong advocate for Silva but the guy does have some noteworthy abilities, mainly his control. He has a career BB/9 of 1.70, so you know he is never going to hurt you in that department. He tends to be a ground ball pitcher having induced ground balls at a rate of 48% for his career but he also tends to be pretty hittable at times as evident by an elevated LD% of 20%. Silva was just awful in Seattle with an ERA 8.60 in ‘09 and in ’08 with an ERA of 6.46. But his FIP indicates that he pitched a little better than his ERA would indicate with a 5.97 FIP in ’09 and 4.63 FIP in ’08. It was his LOB% in those years that were also low at 54.2 in ’09 and 61.1% in ’08. All of those line drives came back to haunt him. Right now, Silva is pitching way over his skill level, so don’t expect this kind of mastery all season long. He was pitching against the Astros on Friday, remember. But if he continues down this road showing some degree of consistency, he may be worth a spot start in some NL leagues from time to time. Just remember what I said about unpredictability because in baseball, treasure can change to garbage pretty quickly.
Carlos Lee (OF—Astros) It might be difficult to find any player in baseball that is colder than Carlos Lee. To say that the big slugging outfielder is off to a slow start would be an understatement. He has collected only 4 hits on the season and only 2 in his last 35 AB’s. In addition, he has no extra bases on the season and only 1 walk and no RBI. In general, Lee is not known for quick starts. From 2002 to 2009, Lee has a career batting average of .253 in the month of April with 42 home runs cumulative. At this point, that kind of production would be acceptable. Lee has been so unproductive this season that he is 0 for 10 with RISP with just 1 walk. Consequently it should come as no surprise that Lee has had four games this year where the average leverage index was greater than 1.00 indicating higher than average pressure situations and Lee has ended up costing the Astros runs with his poor performance. Not what you are looking for in your cleanup hitter. The dilemma with Lee is what do you do with him? On Friday, he seemed to make better contact going 1 for 4 and was robbed by a great play by Alfonso Soriano (really?). These things seem to happen when slumping. But Lee is far too good of a player to dump and once Lance Berkman is back that should help Lee as well. He will right himself but for now, Lee’s owners will just have to ride out this bad spell. The best action is to have him take a seat on your bench if you’ve got other options, but watch Lee for any signs of life. Because once he rediscovers that he has a pulse and can leave the world of the undead for the world of the living, he should be the fantasy force he was expected to be on draft day.
Casey McGehee (3B—Brewers) Since coming up for good at the end of May last year, Casey McGehee has done nothing but hit. He finished off ’09 batting .301 with 16 home runs and was a viable ROY candidate. He’s off to a fast start this season batting .378 with 4 home runs and a XBH% of better than 15.4%. His plate disciple this young season has been excellent with an EYE of 1.25, consequently he has a pretty fat OBP of .441. McGehee should continue to be a solid hitter although his current batting average will be difficult to sustain. Somewhat puzzling is that he has been able to achieve this average with a pretty high BHIP of .333 but only LD% of 3%. So his current success is credit to power and patience at the plate. However, expect the power and the OBP to take a significant dip since these numbers are probably above McGehee’s ability. But as these numbers dip, his LD% should increase and make up the difference to allow for a decent batting average in the .300 vicinity. Just temper your expectations on the power; McGehee is a solid fantasy option and a strong sleeper.
Kris Benson (SP—Diamondbacks) Here’s a name we haven’t heard much from in a while: Kris Benson. Remember him? Mr. Anna Benson? Ah, now you remember. It appears that Benson (Kris, not Anna) will be starting the game for the Diamondbacks on Saturday against the Padres and Kevin Correia. With Brandon Webb still recovering from injury, Benson has been penciled in for a start. A few days ago, Benson pitched a game for the Reno Aces, the Diamondback’s Triple-A affiliate, and did a fairly solid job. He pitched 5 innings of shutout ball, allowed just 4 hits and 1 walk and struck out 5. It was a good enough performance to earn him this start against the Padres. Benson did pitch a little last year for the Rangers where he was pretty awful with a 8.46 ERA in 8 appearances. Texas management wasn’t too happy with Benson but opponents loved him and showed their appreciation by batting .344 against him. If Benson could somehow dial back the clock and look a little more like the pitcher he was 5 years ago and the #1 draft pick of the Pirates in ‘96, he could become an interesting low-end option in AL-only leagues playing for a competitive Diamondback club. But at the age of 35 with his prime behind him, he is more of a footnote at this point in his career unless he sticks with the club. For now, keep an eye on him and monitor the situation to see if it develops into anything noteworthy.
Chase Utley (2B—Phillies) One of the really fun parts about doing player analysis is finding that diamond in the rough and breaking down the numbers on that guy and recommending him for your fantasy team. Guys like Albert Pujols and Tim Lincecum are less fun to write about because nobody needs to tell you how great these players are and you need to play them all the time. But sometimes you just got to acknowledge great players for what they do on the field everyday and give them a thumbs up and a tip of the cap. Chase Utley is one of those guys. So let's get the obvious out of the way: Utley is a great player at a traditionally weak position (he's great for any position actually) and you need to make sure he is in your lineup everyday, all the time, no questions asked—he is really, really good. There, thats' taken care of. But how good is he? Friday night Utley slammed his league leading 6th home run and upped his BA to .368. Ironically, he is 4th amongst second baseman in average. But he is first in OPS at 1.404 and has an OBP .510. .510!! That's more than half the time the guy is on the bases. He also has an outlandish EYE of 2.75 and he's done all of this with a BHIP of .285 which is about 30 points below is career BHIP average. Could the guy be any better? Of course some of these numbers are going to tail off but at the end of the season, but Utley will more than likely be near the top in many of the primary offensive categories for the N.L. For those of you who paid big money for him or drafted him first—enjoy!
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