Alexei Ramirez (SS - White Sox) - Maybe I'm just stubborn. Or maybe I have a hard time "letting go." But Alexei Ramirez continues to hold the SS slot in my 12-team mixed league and I plan on going down with the ship (well, at least for another few weeks). Just when you think Ramirez has turned it around, he goes hit-less in a few consecutive games and falls back into a funk. To reiterate a point I've been trying to make (or at least convince myself) all along, Ramirez began 2008 extremely slow as well. In April 2008, Ramirez only had 4 hits in 29 AB for an average of .138 (no walks and no home runs). Of course, we started to see an early May turnaround last year that we have yet to see in 2009. In fact, May has been slightly worse than April this season. At least last month he had a HR and 5 SB. This month, no HR and just 1 SB (to go along with a 50-point drop in OBP ). I don't blame owners for being inpatient with Ramirez and cutting the string, but just a few more weeks of patience may yield a turnaround for a guy who I'm chalking up to as an extremely slow-starter.
Dontrelle Willis (SP - Tigers) - The D-Train looked fantastic against the Rangers last night, going a solid 6.1 IP, 5 K's, 2 BB, 1 H, and earning his first W in a long time (since 2007). Of his 100 pitches, 74 were for strikes and he converted 8flyball and 7 ground ball outs in addition to his 5 K's. Willis will probably start getting claimed in leagues with this successful start and another QS on Sunday against Colorado will certainly increase his fantasy value. I'm not quite as convinced. This is not even close to the same Dontrelle from years past. If you have the MLB package, tune-in to his start on Sunday. His leg-kick is half-as-high, his erratic motion (which helped make him effective) is much more controlled, and he has definitely lost a little giddy-up off his fastball. He would have to put together a string of quality starts for me to become a believer. For now, I'll let someone else take the gamble.
Joe Mauer (Catcher - Twins) - Mauer continues to Mash. He hit another HR on Tuesday night, bringing his season total to 7 and his average to .406. We always though Mauer had the potential to be a 25 HR guy, but I never would have thought he would come-off the DL and go on to average a HR for every 9.1 AB through his first 3 weeks. To put it in perspective, Mauer has never averaged more than 1 HR in 40 AB. In fact, heading into 2009, his career rate was over 50.0. With Justin Morneau raking as well, Mauer should continue to get plenty of pitches to drive. We will obviously see a slowdown of power at some point, but if we can walk away from 2009 with a Mauer HR/AB rate of 25.0, we have just found our consensus #1 catcher for 2010.
Matt LaPorta (OF/1B - Indians) - We all know Matt LaPorta is one of the league's top prospects and every fantasy analyst has made the call to "drop everything and pick this guy up!" When you hear that, it basically means that there's an outside chance that this guy may turn into Evan Longoria, but it is far more likely he ends up being more like Alex Gordon in the short-term. That's what we're getting with Matt LaPorta (for now). There's no doubt this guy has potential to be a huge impact to both the Indians and fantasy teams. For now, we're stuck with a guy who is hitting .206 in 34 AB with 1 HR, 4 RBI, and an OPS of .624. He has struck out 9 times while only walking 3 and will likely lose some playing time with the return of Travis Hafner. Every fantasy team is different and only you can determine if your roster flexibility can handle someone like LaPorta.
Mark Buehrle (SP - White Sox) - Mark Buehrle has had a tremendous start to 2009 and looks to be his old self once again. Another quality start from the Sox lefty makes him 6-for-8 this season, bringing his record to 6-1 with a 2.77 ERA and 1.10 WHIP. Buehrle has never been known as a big K guy, so his K/9 of 5.71 is not a huge surprise. But his 2.75 K/BB is solid, helping keep his WHIP low with a H/9 of about 8.0. One area for concern, especially at U.S. Cellular, is his HR/9 of 1.04. If we take a step-back and look at his GB/FB rates, we're seeing a bad trend that could cause concern for the long-haul. In 2008, we saw Buerle post a GB/FB of 1.03, the highest of his career. In years past, he hovered in the 0.85-0.95 range. This season, he's at 0.76, yielding 92 fly ball outs to just 70 on the ground. This could be a leading indicator to more HR's in the future, given he posted HR/9 under 1.0 for the past 2 years.
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