Statistically speaking, a single home run (like a single hit) is fairly meaningless. It’s the ultimate small sample, showing how one batter did against one pitcher (and one pitch) under one specific set of conditions. But psychologically speaking, when it’s the first home run of the season, it can mean so much more. The hitter feels confident in his swing or relieved at having gotten his first longball of the season out of the way, and it could mean a turnaround is coming. Look at Albert Pujols: in 27 plate appearances since his first jack of the season, he’s picked up 5 RBI—as many as he picked up in the 114 plate appearances before he finally went yard.

As Jason Collette and Paul Sporer covered in BP’s Towers of Power Fantasy Hour podcast this week, four front-line third-base qualifiers—Evan Longoria, Mat Gamel, Kevin Youkilis, and Pablo Sandoval—hit the DL this past week, leaving fantasy owners scrambling at an already-thin position. While many of the replacement players are marginal, sometimes a warm body is all you need to keep your fantasy squad afloat until more help arrives via an early-season callup. I’ll examine a few of those hot corner replacement options in this week’s column.

The remainder of this post cannot be viewed at this subscription level. Please click here to subscribe.

A compulsive lineup tinkerer, I have a rule with my fantasy teams to mess with them as little as possible the first month of the season, except in the case of injury or outright demotion. It’s too easy to overreact to small sample sizes, hot and cold streaks, or that tweet suggesting the manager’s secret man-crush on an obscure player in Double-A.

The remainder of this post cannot be viewed at this subscription level. Please click here to subscribe.

The deep pool of early draft oversights and lesser-known players is drying up, as evidenced by rising ownership rates among nearly all of the VPs. As your fellow owners start giving up on some of their early gambles and as the injuries keep piling up, that pool will get even shallower. Grab your bargains while you can, before the mad rush for players begins.

The remainder of this post cannot be viewed at this subscription level. Please click here to subscribe.

For our nation’s scholars, graduation is just around the corner, but we start things early here at Value Picks, bidding adieu to our first departee. He leaves the list after quickly exceeding ownership thresholds, but I’ve got lots of other players ready to prove themselves to VP readers, including several bubble candidates in Playing Pepper.

The remainder of this post cannot be viewed at this subscription level. Please click here to subscribe.

The principle at Value Picks is simple: find valuable players with less than 20 percent ownership in most (preferably all) of the Big Three fantasy sites (Yahoo!, ESPN, and CBS). It’s not always easy to find players fitting this description, but in past seasons, I’ve called readers’ attention to then-undervalued players like Gaby Sanchez, David Freese, and Lucas Duda, who enjoy much higher ownership rates these days.

The remainder of this post cannot be viewed at this subscription level. Please click here to subscribe.

If you need further confirmation of how difficult baseball is, compare its amateur draft to those of football or basketball, where first-round picks generally go onto success and top-pick busts like Sam Bowie or Ricky Williams make headlines. Baseball’s draft history, on the other hand, is littered with first-round failures and late-round successes. Some first-round picks eventually help their clubs but not always at the position where they were drafted. This week’s Value Picks looks at several Spring Training storylines surrounding former first-round draft picks and whether there’s any fantasy value to be found there.

The remainder of this post cannot be viewed at this subscription level. Please click here to subscribe.

The early stages of a fantasy draft are like shopping in an upscale department store. It’s easy to find what you want and you know all the brands, but it’s pricey too. The late stages, on the other hand, are more like shopping at a thrift store. You never know whether you’ll find something you like and you’re lucky to find a name you recognize, but anything can be had for just a few bucks. And while fantasy seasons can be lost in the early rounds from overpayment and injury, they’re usually won in the middle and late rounds, when scouting and shrewd valuation can help you find the thrift-store jewel that everyone else passed over.

So this week, I’m looking at the thrift-store, bargain-barrel phase of your draft: round twenty and beyond. All of these designated hitters and corner infielders are being drafted then, and they’re all projected by PECOTA to earn $5 or less in standard leagues. This latter group includes other good players like David Freese, Justin Morneau, Mike Moustakas, Chipper Jones, and Todd Helton, but their Average Draft Position is higher than their PECOTA projections. In classic department-store style, owners are overpaying for name-brand merchandise.

The remainder of this post cannot be viewed at this subscription level. Please click here to subscribe.

Part of the excitement of Spring Training is watching Opening Day rosters take shape—usually, this involves whether a top prospect will start the year in the minors or which utility man grabs the final bench spot. Less often, we get to watch two players compete for the right to start, an especially important choice at the power position of first base. While both Cleveland and Pittsburgh seems to have made their choices at the cold corner, there are still some other options that could rise to the challenge and bring value to their fantasy owners.

Casey Kotchman | 1B | Cleveland Indians
Mixed: -$6 | AL-only: $7 | PECOTA 1B Rank: 19 | 1B ADP: 31

The remainder of this post cannot be viewed at this subscription level. Please click here to subscribe.

Two of the main considerations for real-world and fantasy baseball managers during Spring Training are injuries (which I looked at last week) and playing time. This week, I’ll look at a little of both at first base, starting with the Giants’ positional battle and moving onto the futures of two players with mysterious—or at least difficult-to-detect—ailments.

Aubrey Huff | 1B | San Francisco Giants
Mixed: $-4 | NL-only: $9 | PECOTA 1B Rank: 21 | 1B ADP: 26

The remainder of this post cannot be viewed at this subscription level. Please click here to subscribe.

Spring Training games began this past weekend, and roster attrition has already begun, shooting down the goal of most managers to get to Opening Day with a healthy starting lineup. AJ Burnett showed why bunting isn’t as easy as David Letterman would have you believe, while Corey Hart will miss his second consecutive Spring Training with torn knee cartilage.

On my positional beat, injuries came in several flavors: devastating, longer-than-expected, and shorter-than-expected. In the devastating category, Scott Sizemore had barely taken the field when he blew out the ACL in his left knee, and the A’s are now looking for internal replacements for the remainder of the season. Ryan Howard had a setback that wasn’t a setback after his sutures developed an infection, leaving the Phillies with a gaping hole at first base until his indefinite return. And in Braves’ camp, Freddie Freeman showed why it’s better to be 22 than 32 as he is healing faster than expected from his dislocated knee.

The remainder of this post cannot be viewed at this subscription level. Please click here to subscribe.

Over the last two weeks, I’ve looked at several players that are easy to love based on their history and PECOTA’s projection for a resurgent season. As a result, for many of those players—such as Albert Pujols, Joey Votto, and David Wright—their ADPs tended to closely match their PECOTA rankings. What about the players you (or opposing owners) love to hate? These guys have an ADP below their PECOTA rankings because they’ve disappointed in the past or are just misunderstood by most fantasy owners.

So this week, we get into the real Value Picks—those players outside the Usual Suspects which you can squeeze some value out of. Just like bad medicine, you may find some of this hard to swallow come Draft Day, but it’ll be good for your fantasy team if taken in the right doses. Let’s face it: sometimes it’s good to be hated.

The remainder of this post cannot be viewed at this subscription level. Please click here to subscribe.