David Freese - Freese is one of my favorite kinds of guys to draft mid-round: a guy that hasn't yet had success at the big league level yet has never failed to have success elsewhere (career minor league line of 307/384/531), a player with noticeable warts (no speed, relatively high K rate) yet equally apparent attributes. Freese is already 29 and wouldn't get much respect at all if it weren't for his postseason heroics last October, yet the only issue I see with him is his propensity to spend time on the DL. I fully expect him to breakout this season to the tune of an average above .280 and 20+ homers, but as always for a player this brittle a solid backup plan would be wise.
Zach Cozart - Cozart has hit in all four games to start the year, and now has basically been on fire since the beginning of 2011. The 26 year old looked like a low AVG, solid power, good speed middle infielder for his first four minor league seasons, but for the past year-plus has greatly improved his contact rate without losing a step anywhere else. How long do we need to see this before we assume it's a change in skill level? I'm not there yet, but Cozart is plenty useful even if he doesn't hit for average as a SS with power and speed batting near the top of a very solid lineup. If he can hit for AVG as well.....he's a first-division starter in every way. I liked him enough before, and now I'm even more optimistic.
Josh Thole - Thole reached base three more times yesterday, making him 7 for 11 in that category through three games. At age 25, there is a chance that the one deficiency in his game, a near-complete lack of power, could be mitigated a bit in the near future. Even so, the catching position is still weak enough that a guy that consistently has an LD rate solidly above 20% should merit more attention than Thole gets, particularly in leagues that weight OBP over AVG. I am higher on him than most.
Kirk Nieuwenhuis - Let's get this out of the way up front: I've been a big Nieuwenhuis fan since partway through his 2009 FSL campaign, so I'm a bit biased. I am definitely excited that he's getting a bit of a chance now with Torres likely out for the rest of April, although he is going to be in a platoon with Scott Hairston. Nieuwenhuis has a K rate that could prove to be a problem AVG-wise at the big league level, but the 24 year old has enough power (64 XBH in 124 games in 2010) and speed (double-digit steals in three of four minor league seasons) to be interesting. A line of something approaching 260/330/450 would be my expectation with regular playing time, which would make him a viable option in deeper and NL-only leagues right now, and at age 24 there is still room for growth as well.
Bryan LaHair - LaHair, fresh off of 40 homers last season, popped his first homer of the year yesterday against the Brewers after picking up a pair of doubles on Sunday. I'm fairly optimistic here....LaHair has killed it for three straight years at AAA and is still in his prime at age 29. Aside from Joey Votto, how many NL 1B are clearly going to give you better performance? If he finished top-5 in value for NL 1B this year, I would not be surprised.
