These are the players you want to drop, add or simply hold onto for your fantasy baseball roster.
DROPS
Every Baltimore Oriole not named Nick Markakis, Ramon Hernandez or Brian Roberts – This team looks atrocious. Millar’s best is behind him, and he was never that good, shortstop is a black hole, Mora is mediocre and will get injured soon, forget Adam Jones for now, I don’t even like Luke Scott anymore as a deep sleeper.
Ronny Paulino – Doumit looks to be getting the starts against righties. Overall, there’s mostly righties. Look elsewhere.
ADDS
Mark Lowe – Second in line (presumably) Sean Green (not the Jew that retired) then Eric O’Flaherty. Then again, Miguel Batista got the save the other night, so, ya know, don’t invest too heavily.
Jair Jurrjens – He’s still very raw, but I liked what I’ve seen so far. I would take a flier, if there’s room.
Brian Bannister – The other day, when asked about Bannister, I said he was like last year’s Maddux. I stand by that. There is a place for that on certain teams.
Ryan Church – The Mets are outfield poor. In deep leagues, you have to take a look because of the lineup he’s in.
Angel Pagan – Speaking of the Mets, and speaking of deep leagues, NL-onlyers take a look. He’ll be in left until Alou returns.
Joey Gathright – Bourn, Carlos Gomez have to make room — more cheap steals.
Blake DeWitt – In very deep leagues, keep it in the back of your mind that DeWitt was considered the best hitter in the 2004 draft.
Franklin Gutierrez, Billy Butler, Andre Ethier, Melky Cabrera, Nate McLouth, Lastings Milledge – There’s been a lot of discussion on this site about these six fifth outfielders. So with Rudy Gamble’s permission, I’m just going to reprint what he had to say in the comments of this post.
Billy Butler – Best average and RBI of the bunch. Got valuable experience last year. And 1B potential. Only downside vs. the rest is no speed.
Nate McLouth – Best SB and Run potential of the bunch. Enough pop for 15 HR. Enough speed for 30 SB. AVG won’t be great.
Lastings Milledge – Most upside of the group but I’m just not sold on any part of his game. Not a good base stealer. No minor league history of plus power.
Melky Cabrera – By no means a great player but he’s young, has 2 years experience, playing for a running manager in a great lineup, and w/ more job security than the guys below him on this list. I think he ends up 75/15/75/15 with a respectably .280 average.
Franklin Gutierrez – No plus power or speed in his minor league history. I think he may fall short of Melky in all 5 categories. Might have playing time cut into. Grey’s note: I don’t see his playing time cut and I like FraGu’s (<—forced nickname!) promise. I see 70/20/80/.270/20. And maybe someone in the Indians’ brass has been reading Razzball, because Gutierrez moved up to the sixth spot the last two days. Just sayin’.
Andre Ethier – His stats for the past two years are just bleh. 15 HR power and no speed. Probably second to Butler on projected AVG. And there’s no doubt Pierre reclaims his job if Ethier slumps.
Scott Hairston – That’s right, I’m adding another name into the six fifth-outfielder-mix. Hairston never got a fair shake in the desert, but he’s got good pop.
Jose Lopez – If you have an erection for longer than four hours after you pick up Lopez, you should go see a doctor. But he’s hitting number two on the Mariners. So, well, there’s that. Honestly, he’s young and he’s started off hot.
HOLDS
Pedro Martinez – He’s going on the DL for 4-6 weeks. I think it’s probably going to end up closer to 6 weeks because of his age. Then he’ll have to rehab. I could see dropping him, if you have someone already filling your DL slot, but I’m going to hold onto Pedro for now.
Juan Pierre – You drafted him for steals. He’s still going to end up with thirty to forty. The Pierre Situation with Ethier hasn’t been decided yet. You need to hold pat. There’s still 25 more weeks in the season. Chill, people.
Tom Gordon – I hate him with great fervor, but we need to see Lidge come back and be healthy before he moves to a “Drop.”
