First Pitch - May 14, 2008 - Value Picks
Welcome to the Week 7 edition of "Value Picks." Can you believe its already mid-May? With most fantasy leagues playing on a 22-week schedule before beginning fantasy playoffs, Week 7 means we're almost 1/3 of the way finished. Our attempt in this area of Fantistics is to identify pickup candidates for cheap value that can help you piece together a playoff appearance 15 weeks from now. I hope you find the following list somewhat insightful. By no means are these players unconditionally appropriate for every team or league structure, but perhaps you find that "needle in a haystack" that can get you over the hump. Good luck! - Joe
1. Ian Kennedy (SP - New York Yankees) - We all know the name. Perhaps some of you got excited (like me) at the prospect of having a young, control pitcher hurling for the Yankees every 5th day. The 23-year-old righty started 6 games with the Yanks before being sent down to the minors to "figure it out." In those 6 games, ugly: 8.37 ERA, 2.03 WHIP, 6.1 K/9, 7.6 BB/9, and only 1 quality start. Fantasy players are quick to judge and have little patience with underperforming players, especially unproven rookies. Rightfully so, but to judge a pitcher's entire fantasy potential on 6 starts is extremely short-sighted. Let's take a look at the success of Kennedy that led him to being the pre-season favorite for the Yankees #5 spot in the rotation. Since being sent down to Triple-A Scranton, Kennedy has hurled 8.1 IP and has given up 2 hits, no runs, no walks, and 8 K's while holding opposing hitters to a .077 BAA. Not only are these statistics telling of his potential talent, but it shows an incredible amount of intangible maturity to fail at the big-league level, have his ego crushed by being sent back down to the minors, and then being able to return to dominance at that Triple-A level. So if he was so bad in the big leagues, how did he get there in the first place? His 2007 season in the minor leagues was awesome: 146.3 IP with a 1.91 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, 10.0 K/9, and a 12-3 record. Kennedy has been recalled by the Yankees to get the Thursday start against Tampa Bay and then, if he pitches well, will have his next two starts against the Baltimore Orioles. If Kennedy can rebound and pitch well against the first-place Rays, he may be a decent value-pick consideration.
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3. Manny Parra (SP - Milwaukee Brewers) - Manny Parra is my "pick-to-click" for Fantasy Week 8. First, the obvious: he has two favorable starts against two of the weakest teams in the National League - a Tuesday 5/20 start against Pittsburgh and a Sunday 5/25 start against Washington. Ranking both teams by batting average in the National League, the Pirates rank 13 of 16 with a team average of .251 and the Nationals rank 15 of 16 at .235 (by the way, the lowly Padres are last at .234). Now, the stats. Parra has 7 starts with the Brewers this year with no quality starts to his name. I say, he's due. He has given up 3 ER or less in all but one of his starts while posting a 7.2 K/9 and a groundball:flyball rate of 1.36. His WHIP of 1.87 is somewhat driven by a high H/9 of 11.3 and BB/9 of 5.5 as well as an unlucky BHIP%. He's been going deep into counts, averaging almost 20 pitches per inning, but has only reached the 100-pitch mark once this season before being removed from the game. I think we may have a perfect storm on our hands of Parra building up to back-to-back quality starts against weaker teams with everything falling into place. As of last check, Parra was owned in less than 2% of all leagues, but I bet that percentage creeps higher as fantasy players take notice of his favorable 2-start calendar in Week 8.
4. John Buck - (C - Kansas City Royals) - A large part of identifying value picks is looking at underperforming players relative to their pre-season forecast. Buck's projected 2008 performance was a 0.62 FPI, .269 average, .341 OBP, 23 HR at a rate of 18.1 HR/AB, and a .831 OPS. Well, the average and OBP components have been dead-on, but the power is way-off (for now). He's hitting .268 with an OBP of .349, but he has just 2 HR at a rate of 48.5 , and an OPS of .730. The good news here is that Buck is walking a lot more than anticipated with a 0.68 BB/K compared to his projected rate of 0.39. That's a good sign of better things to come and he should be able to reverse his slow power rate during the summer months. He's barely owned in any league, but with 18 HR in just 347 AB last season, he can be considered a good value pick for potential HR production. Furthermore, with big-name catchers on the DL (like Jorge Posada) and more fill-in catchers like Ryan Doumit recently joining the disabled list, I think now is a good time to "Buck" the trend and take a value risk on the Royals' catcher.
5. Khalil Greene - (SS - San Diego Padres) - Another "household" name with low fantasy ownership is starting to turn-around from an early slow start. Its time to grab him at a weak SS position. He's only owned by 1 out of every 5 fantasy owners, yet still has the potential to hit 25 HR (even in pitcher-friendly Petco Park in San Diego). He only has 3 HR on the season after hitting 27 last year with a variance in HR/AB rates of 26.4 between a rate of 22.6 last season and a 49.0 this season. His 3 HR have all come in the month of May with two of them hit in the last few days. A look at his overall FPI shows the same underperformance so far in 2008. His 2007 FPI was 0.54 and he's only at 0.35 this year with a projected value of 0.54. His OPS has been steadily rising early in his career and I think he should continue to rebound from his slow start and be one of the few productive hitters in an extremely weak Padres lineup.
