September 20, 2012

Value Picks

First, Third, and DH for 9/20/12

by Michael Street

This column is coming a few days late since I spent a week with my brother’s family in Orlando—a trip that, of course, included a day at Disney World. Inspired by the visit, I’m giving this week a Disney theme (instead of the other video I introduced my nephews to). After all, sometimes Value Picks makes me feel like WALL-E, sifting through the discards of other teams to find something worth saving. With only a dozen games to play, we’re all hoping to run across the final piece of the puzzle to put us in the money for our fantasy league and make our dreams come true.

Departures
Just like Snow White, Josh Donaldson (Yahoo! 21%, ESPN 21%, CBS 22%) disappeared from sight early this season, sent to the minors where the seven dwarfs—er, the Sacramento River Cats—helped him turn things around. His .304/.380/.539 triple-slash since returning, plus his catcher qualification, has pushed him above VP thresholds, so we graduate him happily. The only jealous queen here is the .326 BABIP that’s chasing Donaldson, but there may not be enough time in the season for her and her batting-average poison apple to completely catch up to him.

Jiminy Cricket! Brandon Belt (Yahoo! 21%, ESPN 29%, CBS 41%) has had a good September, hitting .283/.327/.500 in 49 plate appearances, including his fifth and sixth home runs of the season. With 13 RBI, he’s also on pace for his best month in that category since driving home 15 in June. That’s pushed him over VP thresholds too and may have turned him into the kind of star you can wish upon.

“Goofy” is the best way to explain Brett Wallace’s (Yahoo! 2%, ESPN 0%, CBS 9%) performance thus far. Through September 9, Wallace had a .364 BABIP, and he enjoys a 29 percent line drive rate on the season. That’s well above the league average and has helped him overcome his 29 percent strikeout rate to post a .262 batting average. He’s started to decline recently, however, with a .125/.192/.167 line over his last 26 plate appearances and a .239/.280/.341 average over the past four weeks. That, plus a hyperextended elbow that held him out for a few days and has reportedly weakened his production, tells me not to wait around until Goofy finishes his fall from grace.

Arrivals
When Lonnie Chisenhall (Yahoo! 2%, ESPN 3%, CBS 12%) went down earlier this season to a broken forearm, he was expected to be out 10-14 weeks, which would have put his return at the end of the season. Only a wish granted by the Genie, it seemed, would get this Jafar back on the field in 2012. But Cleveland’s third baseman of the future made it back at the short end of that projection, returning to the Indians’ lineup on September 10. You can read my analysis of Chisenhall from his VP appearance earlier this season, but the quick version is that he’s a mid-level third baseman who’s been hampered by his overly aggressive plate approach. In 28 plate appearances since returning, he has struck out 10 times, so that remains a problem, but he’s also walked three times, balancing that micro-sample 36 percent K% with an 11 percent BB%. The results have also been good; he’s logged a .280/.357/.560 triple-slash since coming back. He’ll get the playing time, allowing his oft-referenced sweet swing to deliver decent returns in batting average and power.

Like Alice in Wonderland, Chris Johnson (Yahoo! 21%, ESPN 22%, CBS 50%) lived in a strange mirror world of his own in 2010, a world where players with high strikeout rates succeed via an unnaturally high BABIP.

Year	BA/OBP/SLG	K%	BABIP
2010	.308/.337/.481	25.1	.387
2011	.251/.291/.378	24.0	.317
2012	.275/.322/.447	26.2	.349

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