AL Quick Pitch: A few rehab appearances have fantasy owners hopeful for the return of Jake Peavy, Andrew Bailey, and Aaron Hill, but I wouldn't hold your breath for fantasy week #5. The catchers had a big night on Friday, with Carlos Santana hopefully reversing his fortune heading into May. And Matt Wieters is building on last season. If you told me on draft day I could get Wieters with an .800+ OPS, I'd take it everytime. BJ Upton continues to kill me whenever I play against him. Speedsters Juan Pierre and Chone Figgins had cold Aprils, with Figgins getting the worst of it. Positions aside, I would still take Pierre with the best chance of putting it all together and posting another 60+ SB year. Dice-K left Friday's game with an apparent elbow injury. Let's see how it looks when he wakes up today. We've heard a lot of "Robbie Cano, Don't Ya Know" HR calls this year, but the K/BB makes me wonder if he'll be back above a 20.0 AB/HR very shortly.
BJ Upton (OF - Rays) - The only way to predict performance from BJ Upton is to make sure the team that has him in my fantasy league is playing against me that week. Ok, I'll try not to be too bitter as I write this. Upton has hit safely in 6 of the last 7 games and hit his first HR since April 6th last night. That raises his average from a lowly .210 a week ago to .247. With that HR, his AB/HR improves to 29.7 on the year. I think its safe to assume that the one year of 24 HR was a fluke given his now career AB/HR rate of 36.5 over 2,600+ AB. But his XBH% is also consistently sub-10%, peaking at 9.8% last year and currently at 6.7% for the year. I am a little encouraged by his BB/K ratio being over 0.50 so far this year, compared to his historical rates of 0.33, 0.42, 0.72, 0.38, and 0.41. That one good year was in 2008, but he also hit just 9 HR in that season. If Upton stays healthy, he's good for SB. Other than that, he looks consistently overrated to me. That is, of course, until 13 weeks from now when I'll face him again in my H2H league.
Matt Wieters (C - Orioles) - Wieters had a disappointing 2010 season given the hype surrounding the young catcher. He posted a .249/.319/.377 with 11 HR. With the first month of 2011 almost behind us, Wieters has certainly improved at just about every offensive level. He is hitting .260/.333/.493 with 4 HR. That's an AB/HR of 18.3 compared to last year's rate of 40.5. There aren't many catchers out there posting .825+ OPS marks (McCann, Posey, and Martin come to my mind) and Wieters is still trending upward. I don't know if this will be an eye opening breakout season or not, but he is certainly trending in the right direction.
Carlos Santana (C - Indians) - Two HRs in two days may be the sign that Santana is coming around. His average has fallen all the way to below Mendoza-line levels to .195. The good news with Santana is that he has still managed to draw 165walks to keep his OBP at .316 (a big feat when you're hitting in the 100's). With only 17 K's, that's an EYE of just about 1.0. With the last two games, you may have missed your buy low opportunity with Santana as I'm chalking up April to a slow season start.
Juan Pierre (OF - White Sox) - Pierre has had a slow start to the 2011 season, hitting just .252 with a .296 OBP. That has kept his SB totals lower than usual (for him) with 5 in 7 attempts. Coming off a year of swiping 68 in 2010, he is well off his pace. Pierre's BABIP is historically low, trending in the .280's right now but normally more like in the .315 range, so we're probably looking at a reversal of luck at some point soon. Of the speedster-only outfielders (Bourn, Gardner, etc), Pierre tops my list moving forward in '11.
Robinson Cano (2B - Yankees) - With two more HR's in last night's game, Cano brings his season total to 8. Since 2008, we have seen a steady improvement in Cano's AB/HR rates, starting with 42.6, 25.5, 21.6, and now 11.8. The Ruthian level of 11.8 is likely not sustainable for Cano (8.1% of all plate appearances are HRs right now compared to last year's 4.2%), but it certainly looks like an improvement on last year's 21.6 is very realistic. I would watch out for the walk rate as a potential indicator that a slowdown is near. He's walking just 3.0% of the time with a K/BB of 4.67. Compare that to last year's 8.2% and 1.35 rate.
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