Biggest Fantasy Baseball Surprises: Infielders

As the regular season starts to heat up so to does the fantasy baseball season. A few months removed from draft day decisions we see the errors or our ways or the fruits of our search for super sleepers. Although the fans of some of these teams would not see them as surprises, 5x5 fantasy leagues do so. Going position-by-position, let's look at the biggest fantasy surprises and disappointments so far in the season (data from Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball including the rankings), starting with the infielders

Catcher

Biggest Surprise - Miguel Olivo. He came into the year ranked as the 380th best player in baseball and right now is the top ranked catcher at 124. His .297 average with 18 runs, 8 HR, and 22 RBI have been a pleasant surprise, especially considering many didn't even know if he would be the starting catcher (and he may not be for much longer). 4 stolen bases have helped his cause even further. Amazingly, he's only owned in 67% of fantasy leagues. Honorable Mention - Rod Barajas (#380, 21 runs, 10 HR, 27 RBI) and John Buck (#933, 18 runs, 8 HR, 26 RBI). Picture from the Denver Post

Biggest Disappointment - Victor Martinez. The fact that he's the 6th best catcher is irrelevant since he was supposed to be one of the best players in baseball and was drafted likewise. So far, he's put up an extremely disappointing .258, 6 HR, 20 RBI line--which has actually an improvement from his slow start. For a guy who was picked so early in so many drafts, that's not acceptable, especially considering Martinez was picked as the second catcher in most leagues. His bruised toe suffered this week shouldn't help things much, either. Honorable Mention - Brian McCann (#34, .263, 5 HR, 18 RBI) and Matt Wieters (#105, .253, 11 runs, 4 HR, 15 RBI).

First Base

Biggest Surprise - Paul Konerko. I could have gone with a lot of names here, but Konerko has been the most surprising, even considering his recent slump. His 14 HR is tops at a position where slugging is king after he was only ranked #271 coming into the season. He's the 45th best player in baseball so far and has provided the power numbers for many fantasy teams. And his 14 HR equals of the output of Mark Teixeira and Prince Fielder--combined. Honorable Mention - James Loney (#155, .298, 29 runs, 4 HR, 29 RBI, 6 SB) and Adam LaRoche (#198, .281, 30 runs, 7 HR, 32 RBI) Picture from the Chicago Sun-Times

Biggest Disappointment - Mark Teixeira. For a guy drafted in the first or second round of every draft, these are not the stats you want to see: .210, 25 runs, 7 HR, 30 RBI. While most of the offensive stats actually match up with Albert Pujols', his average is almost 100 points lower. A notoriously slow starter, Tex has gotten off to an extra-slow start this year frustrating both his Yankee fans and his fantasy owners. Him and A-Rod have made the middle of the order quite unproductive. To put it in perspective, former Yankee Eric Hinske is ranked higher on the season than Teixeira despite having only 73 ABs. Definitely can't get worse. Honorable Mention - Derrek Lee (#52, .242, 24 runs, 6 HR, 23 RBI, 1 SB) and Carlos Pena (#85, .189, 23 runs, 8 HR, 28 RBI).

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The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: Middle Infielders

What a night in college basketball last night. An upset and a double OT thriller that almost killed Gus Johnson. But that tournament has nothing on our bracket challenge for best in New York baseball. We've voted for the best closer (Mariano Rivera), the best right handed starter (Tom Seaver), the best southpaw starter (Whitey Ford), the best catcher (Yogi Berra--with poll results after this article), and we're still voting on the best first baseman over to the right. Now we're going to go with the best middle infielder. There weren't enough candidates for both second and short on the New York Yankees and Mets so we'll combine them and give each team a few more candidates. Here we go (with statistics from Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs):

Yankees

Derek Jeter: He won the Rookie of the Year in 1996 and brought winning back to the Bronx. He's finished in the Top-11 in MVP voting 8 different times. He won the All-Star MVP in 2000...and then won the World Series MVP the same year. He's a 3-time Gold Glove winner (probably undeserving), a 2-time Hank Aaron Award winner (also probably undeserving), and a 3-time Silver Slugger (definitely deserving). He's also won a Babe Ruth award and a Roberto Clemente award so he's got a lot of the legends in the game covered. Jeter's a career .317/.388/.459 hitter in the regular season with a .375 wOBA--the only shortstops in history with higher in Major League history (min. 4000) are Honus Wagner, Alex Rodriguez, and Arky Vaughan (meaning higher than Nomar Garciaparra, Ernie Banks, Barry Larkin, Robin Yount, Cal Ripken, Jr., etc.). Jeter has 2,747 hits which means he should reach 3,000 sometime in 2011--and become the first Yankee to hit 3,000. He doesn't just lead in hits amongst Yankee middle infielders either; he also leads in runs (1,574---4th among active players and 49th in ML history), doubles (438), HR (224), RBI (1068), HBP (143--5th among active players and 21st All-time), and SB (305--9th among active players). And no Yankee middle infielder hit over .293 (min 800 games) so no one is within 20 points of his average (which is 6th among active players) and his .388 OBP (15th among active players) is tops among Yankee middle infielders as well. He's now played 138 games in the postseason (which is approaching a full season) and his numbers are great there too with a .313/.383/.479 slashes, .377 wOBA, and 20 HR against superior pitching. Amazingly, 2008 was the only year he didn't get to the playoffs in his sure-to-be Hall of Fame career and last year collected his 5th World Series ring. Since FanGraphs started tracking it in 2002, Jeter has been worth 40.1 wins (only Albert Pujols, A-Rod, Barry Bonds, Lance Berkman, Carlos Beltran, and Chipper Jones have had higher totals over this period), equaling about $144.7 million--but he's truly been invaluable. The Yankees captain is still going and going strong so these numbers are sure to increase as time goes on. (picture from the NY Daily News)

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Billy Wagner Back in 30 Days?

I think the New York Mets need to get a new medical staff. The New York Daily News reports that Billy Wagner thinks he'll be back pitching two innings in a major league game in 30 days. That follows Jose Reyes who was determined to be day-to-day with a hamstring tear, John Maine who somehow got an arm injury from the flu, and J.J. Putz was OK to pitch even though he had to have a bone spur removed. Oh yes, and Carlos Delgado was day-to-day as well...and may be out for the entire season.

Awkward...(but not as awkward as Artie Lange on the Joe Buck show...wow)