Sep. 6, 2011

Sliders: Riding the hot hand

By Scott White | Fantasy Writer
Follow Scott

If I asked you to name the five highest-scoring shortstops in Head-to-Head leagues since the All-Star break, could you do it?

I'm thinking you'd guess the obvious name at the top of the list: Troy Tulowitzki. And you'd be right.

I'm thinking you'd also guess some of the names popping up in the headlines in recent weeks: Emilio Bonifacio, Derek Jeter and J.J. Hardy. And you'd be right about them, too.

But that fifth guy would give you fits.

Follow us, Like us, Join us

Want more? Join the discussion on our Facebook page and Google+ and follow us on Twitter for additional insight while interacting with a community geared toward Fantasy Baseball.

You'd throw out a few more of the obvious names like Asdrubal Cabrera, Starlin Castro or Elvis Andrus. You'd bring up some of this season's hottest waiver claims like Yunel Escobar, Jhonny Peralta and Erick Aybar. You'd guess Rafael Furcal, thinking his move to St. Louis had sparked him to new heights. You'd guess Jimmy Rollins, thinking he might have done enough damage before straining his groin. You'd guess Yuniesky Betancourt, thinking he's just obscure enough to have inspired the question in the first place. You'd guess Albert Pujols, Alex Gordon and Dan Uggla, thinking one of them must have gained eligibility at the position without you knowing.

And with each guess, you'd be wrong.

Jed Lowrie. Miguel Tejada. Mickey Mouse. It'd get a little silly.

Pretty soon, you'd just start spitting out names one after the other, without even thinking, without even breathing except to ask for a glass of water or scream, "What did I do to deserve this!?"

"I play Fantasy Baseball, for crying out loud. How can I not think of this guy?"

Hanging Sliders ... These guys look like Sliders, but not so fast! Their recent play might cause you to misinterpret their Fantasy appeal.

Cliff Pennington, SS, Athletics

Eventually, you'd get to Cliff Pennington, but only after first guessing Cliff Lee, Cliff Huxtable and Clifford the Big Red Dog.

Pennington is a virtual unknown in Fantasy, and where he is known, it's because of his mediocrity. He's a 27-year-old with a less-than-stellar walk rate and the inability to hit for average or power. But he's not so bad that he's an obvious candidate for worst everyday player in the majors. No, he's under-the-radar bad, the kind that only comes to mind when you look at the Athletics lineup and think, "They still haven't found anyone better than him?"

Which explains why he'd literally be the last person you'd expect to rank among the top five shortstops in anything.

Yet here he is, averaging 19.6 Head-to-Head points over the last six weeks and outscoring all but one shortstop with 32.5 points just last week.

So does it mean anything? Are we witnessing the beginnings of the next great Fantasy shortstop? Has Pennington had his Kevin Elster moment and discovered that he might actually be able to hit a little? Not so fast.

In 44 games since the All-Star break -- a span of 158 at-bats -- he's batting .335. His four homers, six steals and .910 OPS during that stretch aren't anything out of character for him given the disproportionate batting average. It's kind of like that 27-game stretch at the end of 2009 in which he hit .333 with two homers, two steals and a .933 OPS in 96 at-bats. Yeah, he was Fantasy-relevant at the time, but it's not like he had morphed into some completely different player the way Jose Bautista did a couple years ago or Alex Gordon did earlier this year. He was Cliff Pennington doing the absolute best Cliff Pennington can do.

Unless you honestly expect him to continue hitting at a .335 clip, you can't expect his minor gains in the other categories to continue either. Maybe if he had a reasonable explanation for all of it, like some breakthrough in the batting cages where he realized he needed to change the position of his hands or begin his swing earlier, you could give him some benefit of the doubt. But here's the best explanation he can offer: "Just trying to have good at-bats, swing at strikes," he said. "I'm seeing the ball well."

Even the blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.

With Pennington's recent hot hitting, his ownership percentage has nearly doubled to 48. And that's fine. It's a weak position. Hanley Ramirez and Jimmy Rollins are out. Pennington, while he's going well, might honestly be the best you can do.

But don't make the mistake of thinking he's anything more than the hot hand.

Sliders ... These players are more than just hot or cold. Their recent play indicates a long-term change in value.

Chase Utley, 2B, Phillies

Somewhere between all the injuries and 30-homer seasons, Fantasy owners -- or, really, baseball fans in general -- lost sight of one important detail about Utley.

He's 32 years old. He'll be 33 before the end of 2011, which is the same age as perceived "old guys" Rafael Furcal, Chone Figgins and Vicente Padilla.

Kind of sheds new light on his numbers, doesn't it?

Not only is Utley a 32-year-old, but he's a 32-year-old who has seen a steady decline in batting average -- from .332 to .292 to .282 to .275 to .263 -- and OPS -- from .976 to .915 to .905 to .832 to .778 -- over the last four seasons.

We've all tried to deny it, pointing to an untimely slump in 2009, a thumb injury in 2010 and a knee injury earlier this year, but the numbers are getting pretty much impossible to ignore: Folks, Utley is on the decline.

He's still probably one of the best 12 players at his position -- his plate discipline has only gotten better with age, and he has managed to contribute a relevant number of stolen bases even with the balky knee -- but he has only nine homers in 335 at-bats, which would translate to about 16 in 600 at-bats. In other words, barring a late surge in September, Utley is about a .270-hitting, 16-homer, .800-OPS guy.

Neil Walker, here we come.

So what does that mean from a practical standpoint? Well, if nothing else, it puts his .206 batting average and .569 OPS over his last 25 games in perspective. He still compares favorably to players like Ben Zobrist and Brandon Phillips on a per-game basis, which means he's clearly still a worthy starter in Fantasy. But is he an automatic start when he's performing so poorly? I wouldn't be so sure. I also wouldn't be surprised if he didn't have another 20-point Head-to-Head week the rest of the way with the front-running Phillies almost certain to rest their veterans down the stretch.

The decline might mean more to Utley's Fantasy value next year than this year, but if you don't see any evidence of it by now, you're just not paying attention.

Javy Guerra, RP, Dodgers

Back before the All-Star break when the Dodgers had a stretch of 43 games with only three saves, nobody knew who their closer was.

We thought it might be Guerra -- after all, he had two of the three saves during that stretch -- but given his lack of experience and the impending returns of Jonathan Broxton, Hong-Chih Kuo and Kenley Jansen from injury, he seemed like too much of a long shot to factor outside of NL-only leagues.

Have you looked at his numbers lately? Since getting a shot at that third save on July 8, he has a total of 13 saves, tied for sixth-most in baseball. He has gone 5-for-5 in save chances during a recent surge for the Dodgers that has resulted in them winning 11 of their last 13 games, including 4-for-4 in Fantasy Week 22 (Aug. 29-Sept. 4) alone. And it's not like he's getting those saves Bob Wickman-style. His numbers hold up across the board. With a mid-90s fastball, he can legitimately overpower hitters, and he appears to have overcome the control problems that plagued him throughout his minor-league career, issuing just 2.7 walks per nine innings.

In a way, he reminds me of John Axford. He rose up from obscurity without ever really holding the title of "closer in waiting," but once he found himself in a position to get saves, it was the most natural fit in the world.

Yet for some reason, Fantasy owners continue to see him as a temporary solution, owning him at about the same rate (48 percent) as the long-forgotten Broxton (45 percent). Shoot, even setup man Francisco Rodriguez is getting more love than that (57 percent).

It's not June anymore, people. The question of who's getting saves in Los Angeles has been answered. Guerra has been doing the job effectively enough for long enough that he'd have to do something seriously wrong to lose it.

And now that the Dodgers are actually performing the way a team with a deep starting rotation and legitimate MVP candidate should, he's as deserving of a roster spot as Brandon League, Fernando Salas or any of those other closers that pass as No. 2 Fantasy options.

Martin Prado, 2B/3B/OF, Braves

Coming into the season, Prado was kind of in Fantasy no man's land.

Nobody was under the delusion that he could become an elite player, really, but he was valuable enough at a weak position (third base) that he ended up going off the board in about the fifth or sixth round. Enough people wanted him that they had no choice but to reach for him.

I wonder how those people feel now.

In a development that seemingly no one cared to consider back in spring training, Prado has regressed -- and not just by a little. He's hitting only .265 after hitting a combined .309 over the previous three seasons. His .705 OPS is about 100 points lower than last year's and on par with players like Raul Ibanez and Alberto Callaspo.

Yup, that's your fifth-round pick.

Hey, mine too. I ended up with Prado as my starting third baseman in several leagues, targeting him as the one tweener between the costly elite class and the relative scrubs at the position. It's just another reminder that a player whose value depends mostly on a high batting average isn't the most reliable Fantasy option.

Prado's one saving grace is that his totals aren't half bad, considering the time he missed with a staph infection earlier this year. On a per-game basis, he's performing at about the same level as Mark Reynolds and Edwin Encarnacion in Head-to-Head leagues, which means he's still one of the best 10 or 12 options at the position. But in standard mixed leagues, he's closer to being replacement-level than a legitimate asset.

Prado's starting percentage has only recently begun to fall, dropping from 94 to 81 over the last two weeks. I wouldn't be surprised if it fell even more over the next two.

Lucas Duda, 1B/OF, Mets

Duda hit .304 with 23 homers and a .967 OPS in 425 at-bats between Double- and Triple-A last year, earning the organization's minor-league player of the year award, but the scouts weren't all that impressed. Baseball America considered him the Mets' seventh-best prospect coming into the year -- a tepid endorsement for a player in his mid-20s -- with the expectation being that those numbers wouldn't translate to the major-league level.

Duda took over as an everyday player when the Mets traded Carlos Beltran to the Giants on July 27. His numbers since then: a .300 batting average, eight homers and a .915 OPS in 35 games.

Take that!

The numbers have translated, which is the best you can hope for from a player making the initial leap to the majors. Typically, he's a disappointment at first. He's overmatched. He's underwhelming. He requires more time to meet his potential. But if he picks up where he left off, like his promotion to the big leagues was just another plane ride, he's a viable Fantasy contributor.

Entering Fantasy Week 23 (Sept. 5-11), Duda had scored at least 20 Head-to-Head points in four of the previous seven weeks, averaging 19.4 points during that stretch. By comparison, Freddie Freeman and Gaby Sanchez had scored 20-plus points in only two of those seven weeks, averaging 15.1 and 13.4 points, respectively.

Duda's eligibility at first base and the outfield -- two of the deepest positions in Fantasy -- limits his value, but even so, he has performed well enough in a full-time role to deserve starting consideration in mixed leagues. If you're short an outfielder or corner infielder and are wondering what could possibly be on the waiver wire at this point in the season, he might be that key piece that leads you to the championship.

Chad Billingsley, SP, Dodgers

I'm putting my foot down here and now.

Billingsley has gotten a free pass in Fantasy for far too long, continually getting drafted among the top 25 starting pitchers even though his numbers have been trending the wrong direction for the last three years.

His strikeout rate (7.4 per nine innings) is his lowest since his rookie season. He's walking about four batters per nine innings. His 1.45 WHIP ranks 91st among the 100 pitchers who qualify for the ERA title, behind notable washouts like A.J. Burnett, Carlos Zambrano and Derek Lowe.

Tell me what part of that is supposed to get me excited.

If he was a fledgling pitcher in his second or third season, I could cut him some slack. Pitching in the majors is hard. It has a learning curve. I get that. But Billingsley is in his fifth season with at least 20 starts. He's on pace for his fourth season with at least 190 innings. As far as 27-year-old starting pitchers go, he's as established as it gets.

You can talk all you want about his stuff, his pedigree or how he won 16 games with 201 strikeouts in 2008, but it doesn't change the fact he's not a good pitcher.

And he's been at his worst lately, posting a 4.75 ERA and 1.55 WHIP in nine starts since the All-Star break. Maybe you could put up with the high WHIP and walk rate back when he was a strikeout-per-inning guy, but he's not anymore. To date, James McDonald has been a better strikeout pitcher than Billingsley.

I'm not saying that, at age 27, Billingsley is a lost cause who should never see the light of day in Fantasy again. Late bloomers happen. It's a possibility for him. But the blind faith in him has to stop. At some point, the performance has to take priority.

In seasonal mixed leagues, Billingsley isn't really worth your time anymore, and in next year's drafts, I won't be targeting him until the late rounds.

Stay in touch with the most passionate Fantasy staff in the business by following us via Twitter . You can also follow Scott on Twitter ( @cbsscottwhite ) and can e-mail us your questions to DMFantasyBaseball@cbs.com . Be sure to put Sliders in the subject field. Please include your full name, hometown and state.