Posts tagged ‘Carlos Pena’

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Wednesday: 05.18.2011

We’re Going Streaking!

Carlos Pena is in the midst of one of his famous Pena Power Pushes with five home runs in his last 12 games.  He has a .368/.490/.789 line during the stretch with 9 R, 11 RBI and 10 BB.  I’m sure many of his fantasy league owners didn’t get all of or any of this stretch as they were frustrated by the .157/.286/.171 line prior to the run.

Of course if you know anything about Pena then you know you have to sit through these kind of slumps so if you draft him then the onus is on you to practice extreme levels of patience.  Since emerging as a prolific and consistent power hitter in 2007, he has been possibly the streakiest home run hitter in the game.

  • He had 10 streaks of 10+ games without a home run from 2007-2010:
    • 10 – 3 times
    • 11 – 2 times
    • 12 – 2 times
    • 13 – 1 time
    • 18 – 1 time
    • 19 – 1 time
  • He had 12 streaks of 5+ home runs where he hit at least one every other game:
    • 5 in 6 games
    • 5 in 10 games
    • 5 in 11 games
    • 6 in 5 games
    • 6 in 8 games
    • 6 in 10 games
    • 6 in 10 games (followed by an 18-game cold streak, his longest of ’08)
    • 6 in 11 games
    • 7 in 6 games
    • 7 in 13 games (followed by an 11-game cold streak, his longest of ’09)
    • 7 in 13 games (preceded by a 13-game cold streak, his longest of ’07)
    • 9 in 11 games

The 21-game homer-less streak he started this season with is his longest since his rise to prominence, but it was also injury-related as he was dealing with a thumb injury so that only compounded things for a guy who is naturally inconsistent.  Morale of the story: if you are willing to take the risk of drafting him, set it and forget it.  Secondary morale: NEVER draft him in a H2H week.  He will kill you three weeks at a time before finally winning one by himself.

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Carl Crawford is hitting .290 in 62 May at-bats notching a hit in 13 of his 15 games.  There hasn’t really been much else yet (2 SB, 4 RBI, 7 R), but considering the fact that he hit .155 for entire month of April his owners will take any glimmer of hope that their first round (or second round at latest) pick is ready to perform like one.

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Drew Stubbs has reached base in his last 10 games posting a very strong .349/.440/.535 with 2 HR, 4 RBI, 4 SB, 7 BB and 9 R in 43 at-bats.  He was a target sleeper for many, namely Matthew Berry of ESPN and Cory Schwartz of MLB.com, being tabbed as potentially this year’s Carlos Gonzalez.  So far he has lived up to the billing pacing for a season of .279 batting average with 27 home runs, 77 RBIs, 123 runs scored and 54 stolen bases which would no doubt make him one of the best fantasy players in all of baseball.  He is currently rated 5th on ESPN’s Player Rater and checks in 8th overall in Yahoo!’s ranking.

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Before hitting the disabled list with an injury, Victor Martinez had a .250/.292/.417 line and hadn’t hit a home run in 12 games as the Tigers were an underwhelming 8-9.  He has torched the place since coming back from injury hitting .415/.489/.683 with 7 XBH (including 2 HR), 14 RBI, 9 R and 6 BB in 41 at-bats.  His surge places him 3rd among catchers on ESPN’s Player Rater behind teammate Alex Avila.

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Martin Prado has reached base in 20 straight games dating back to April 26th including hits in 19 of them.  He was hitting .240 before the run, but going .360/.394/.551 w/4 HR, 17 RBI, 13 R, 5 BB, 3 CS in 89 AB has brought him to .296/.338/.450 which is just a tick below his career marks while his 117 OPS+ is right in line with his career 116 given the down hitting environment of 2011.

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Perhaps Alberto Callaspo is the oasis you are looking for in the third base wasteland.  It was pretty weak before the season started and a rash of injuries might have taken it past shortstop as the worst fantasy position on the diamond.  He is available in a lot of leagues, too: CBS: 60%, ESPN: 49%, Y!: 32%.  In his last 12 games he is hitting .391/.404/.522 w/11 RBI.  Only 2 R and 0 HR & 0 SB, but again, it’s awful at third base so beggars can’t be choosy.  He is hitting .309 on the season and on pace for 75 RBI.

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Adrian Gonzalez is positively destroying the competition in his last 10 games to the tune of a .386/.429/.932(!) line with 7 HR, 16 RBI and 12 R in 44 at-bats.  He was hitting .250 exactly a month ago; he is hitting .327 now.

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Rajai Davis has surged since returning from injury with 10 stolen bases and 10 runs scored in 15 games.

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Mike Trout is living up to the prospect hype following his 2010 breakout, especially in his last 10 games: .357/.417/.643 with 2 HR, 5 RBI, 7 R, 2 SB, 5 BB in 42 AB.  Of course, he has been raking all year long hitting .315/.400/.569 with 6 HR, 17 XBH, 17 RBI, 17 BB so he is almost making it difficult on himself to have a stretch that actually stands out.

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The Kansas City Royals have already called up two of their best prospects in Eric Hosmer and Danny Duffy, who makes his major league debut on Wednesday night.  Could Mike Moustakas be next?  There isn’t quite the natural opening that there was for both Hosmer and Duffy as Mike Aviles is playing well and even if you were to suggest moving him to second base, they still have Wilson Betemit.  That hasn’t stopped Mous from letting his bat make a bid for a call up as he has posted a .394/.474/.909 line in his last nine games with 9 XBH (4 HR), 12 RBI, 10 R, 1 SB, 5 BB and just 3 K (24 in his other 26 games) in 33 at-bats.  Man, perhaps even Dayton Moore can’t mess this up.  What a ridiculous crop of talent.

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Dustin Ackley is also making a strong bid to get called up, but unlike with Moustakas in KC, the Mariners can definitely use his bat… and how.  Ackley is white-hot in his last 10 going .463/.540/.707 with 2 HR, 8 RBI, 10 R, 8 BB, 5 K in 41 AB.  During the streak he has one 0-fer and seven multi-hit games.  His season line is now up to .280/.399(!)/.445.  He has 33 walks against just 25 strikeouts.  Given their anemic offense and his brilliant control of the strike zone, it might be time to speculate on Ackley in leagues where he is available and would be useful (this wouldn’t include 10 team mixed leagues) such as any AL-Only league and deeper mixed leagues with a bench.  I would definitely speculate in any OBP league that fits these size criteria because at the very least he will draw walks as soon as he reaches the bigs.

Next time, I will look at some pitchers in the midst of a hot streaks.

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Friday: 02.11.2011

Daily Dose – February 11th

A link-less, abbreviated Dose heading into the weekend as I drop some first base-related knowledge bombs on y’all:

Knowledge Bomb 1: A couple days ago, I released my top 25 catcher rankings to kick off my positional rankings.  Let’s continue our way around the diamond and head over to the ultra-deep first base.  On the offensive side of things, first base is hands down the deepest position with several superstars and plenty of talent to go around.  The best way to utilize the depth is to also grab your corner infielder (in leagues that use the spot) from this pool.  Some feel that the depth at first base allows you to wait on the position altogether, but I don’t think that is the right play at all.

I think you should be ready to double and perhaps triple dip (1B, CI, DH) into the plentiful bounty of first base.  There are other strategies to be employed, but my feeling is that with the excess of power potential at the position compared with the dwindling power supplies in the league at large, why not maximize the position and its four-category contribution: power (HR, RBI, R and AVG as each HR contributes a hit, too)?

Even if you played up position scarcity and chose a shortstop in the first round and an outfielder in the second round (it’s thinner than you think, folks), you will still have stud potential available in the next two or three rounds.  Let me show you what I mean (guys who have dual-eligibility at first base aren’t going to be included in the actual top 25 as they don’t have nearly the value at first that they do at their normal position.  That means there won’t be any Victor Martinez, Buster Posey, Pablo Sandoval, etc.. Kevin Youkilis will show up because he won’t start the season with 3B eligibility after playing just 2 games there last year.):

  1. Albert Pujols
  2. Miguel Cabrera
  3. Joey Votto
  4. Mark Teixeira
  5. Kevin Youkilis
  6. Adrian Gonzalez
  7. Prince Fielder
  8. Adam Dunn
  9. Ryan Howard
  10. Kendry Morales
  11. Justin Morneau
  12. Paul Konerko
  13. Billy Butler
  14. Derrek Lee
  15. Gaby Sanchez
  16. Adam LaRoche
  17. Aubrey Huff
  18. Ike Davis
  19. Carlos Pena
  20. Lance Berkman
  21. Kila Ka’aihue
  22. Justin Smoak
  23. James Loney
  24. Daric Barton
  25. Matt LaPorta

Overvalued: Ryan Howard – this one is relative as I still think he is plenty valuable as a major power source, but I’m not sure he returns to his truly elite power self as some of the warning signs are to be taken seriously.  He’s been going off the board as the 5th or 6th first baseman in a lot of industry mock drafts that I have seen and his ADP (average draft position) is 6th and 7th at Mock Draft Central and Couch Managers, respectively.  I’ve got him 9th, so it’s not a huge dip, but I wouldn’t make him down for 40-140 automatically in 2011.

Undervalued: None – no one being seriously overlooked, at least not by more than a slot or two which isn’t enough to get up in arms.  There is some value at the position because the depth pushes some guys down, but no one is being criminally passed over in lieu of lesser options.

Target: Kendry Morales – Yes, he is coming off of the big leg injury, but that isn’t something that will sap his power or hamper him at all this year.  He had a breakout 2009 and was in the midst of an excellent follow-up in 2010 when the accident happened, I expect him to pick up right where he left off and continue as one of the best first basemen in the league.  Even if you already locked up an elite first baseman in the first or second round, there would be nothing wrong with coming back in the fifth round and slotting Morales’ 30-home run power into your corner infield spot.

Best of the Rest: Adam Lind – he doesn’t yet qualify at first base in standard league formats, but as his assumed position for Opening Day, your league may allow you to draft him there.  Even if that isn’t the case, he will earn his eligibility there quickly and he has elite power potential with the ability to hit .275+ yet he is going behind LaRoche and Pena (who he is a rich man’s version of) according to current ADP numbers.  If he were first base eligible right now, I would slot him between Konerko and Butler.

Rookie to Watch: Freddie Freeman – He strikes me as James Loney-esque right now lacking enough power to be a starting first baseman.  He could be a .280 hitter with mid-teens power, though, which is still worth rostering even in mixed leagues given the late round cost attached.  He’s really the only rookie 1B with a chance to start in 2011.

Knowledge Bomb 2: There were 13 first basemen to hit at least 20 home runs and drive in at least 80 runs:

  • 10 of the 13 scored 85+ runs
  • 5 of the 13 scores 100+ runs
  • 6 of the 13 hit .290+
  • 10 of the 13 hit .260+ (a .260 AVG will cost a team just .002 in team AVG over a full season)
  • 4 of the 13 chipped in 7+ stolen bases (Votto [16] & Pujols [14] doubled the contribution)

Knowledge Bomb 3: Check out the home run season totals at three key thresholds broken down by position:

Few leagues use each outfield position individually, but even if I had lumped all three together the point of first base’s power prowess would have still held.  You need three to five outfielders in all leagues whereas you need just one first baseman (but could feasibly roster up to three with corner and DH).  First base is the only elite power source on the diamond.  If you leave your draft or auction with Billy Butler (who I really like, so don’t get me wrong there) as your starting first baseman, you have messed up and you will likely be struggling for power all year long.

I will reiterate that you needn’t take a first baseman in the first or even the second round to cash in on the power surplus.  So if you wanted to go shortstop and third baseman to attack some of the scarcity around the infield, that would be a feasible strategy and you would still have plenty of power first basemen available to you in the third and fourth rounds.  However, if you’re looking at a blank 1B spot on your roster in the back end of the fifth round, chances are you are well behind your leaguemates at the position.

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Wednesday: 02.2.2011

Daily Dose: February 2nd

I woke up this morning to something you don’t often (ever?) see in Austin, TX: rolling blackouts.  It’s Coldpocalypse  2011 here in Central Texas and it sucks.  No, it’s not as bad as the feet of snow being dumped on the Midwest and Northeast, but it’s all about context.  I don’t live in those places for a reason.  I hate cold weather and so 15 degrees with a wind chill of 0 is my own personal winter hell.  Oh for those who don’t know, I grew up in Detroit where obviously I went through plenty of blistering winters.  The fact is I lived there from 0-14 and you just don’t have the same disdain for inclement weather at that age that you do as an adult.

I can’t fathom how anyone would rather be cold than hot.  Give me 100 any day of the week over 40, much less teens.  Sure, sometimes the sweltering heat can be annoying, but it doesn’t instantly put me in a bad mood like freezing cold.  I think heatwaves can cause rolling blackouts, too, but since I have never experienced them in the summer, I will forever associate them with awful cold weather, increasing my utter disdain for winter temperatures.

OK, enough of my frozen tears as I’m sure plenty of you reading this have 9 ThermaCare wraps on your back to alleviate the uncontrollable pain sustained shoveling 23 inches of snow out of your driveway.  Time for the Daily Dose.

One of my favorite articles every winter is the List of 12 by Cory Schwartz (@schwartzstops) from MLB Network’s Fantasy 411 TV show and podcast.  Schwartz developed the list years ago (the original iteration had 12 guys if you can believe that) as a way of identifying potential breakouts in the upcoming fantasy season.  It’s not as simple as being on it makes you a breakout candidate, which is why Schwartz analyzes each of the 15 arms on this year’s list.  There are some very enticing names on the list including Jason Hammel and Shaun Marcum.  I’m worried that Marcum’s offseason trade to Milwaukee may raise his profile a bit when he would otherwise be an overlooked gem.

I swear I’m not a Baseball Prospectus fanboy.  You’re going to have to trust me on that, but I could understand how it might look that way with so many of their links popping up in the first two editions of the Daily Dose.  It was quite fitting on that on National Signing Day, they unveiled a talent-laden recruiting class of their own.  If you’re not already a subscriber, today should be your impetus.

Obviously there is a lot of great free content out there, but your money would be well invested in a BP subscription.  Congrats to entire new group of writers over there, but specifically my good friend Jason Collette (@jasoncollette), who I have known for years and Sky Kalkman (@Sky_Kalkman), who I’ve known virtually for some time as we are both  members of the Rotojunkie message.

One of the debuts was from Jason Parks (@ProfessorParks) who took the devil’s advocate approach to prospects by looking at what could go wrong in 2011.  He looked at five Kansas City Royals prospects first.  The Royals are widely regarded as the best system in baseball right now and Parks looked at the five best in their organization, so he was getting at the best of the best and making sure you don’t get too caught up in the hype and understand that it might not pan out as planned right away.

It’s one thing to be a pretty face.  It’s quite another to be a very pretty girl who also happens to be absolutely hilarious and that’s what ESPN’s Michelle Beadle (@ESPN_Michelle) pulls off regularly.  Most recently it was in this excellent Super Bowl Ad video.  Lots of girls are pretty, Michelle is attractive because she seems to offer much more than her looks.  Oh yeah, she’s also from Texas and her birthday is just a day before mine (Oct. 23rd).

Speaking of pretty girls, AskMen has released their Top 99 Women of 2011 and Mint.com does a great job breaking down the list in a series of interesting ways.   I definitely don’t agree with their #1, Blake Lively.  She’s definitely pretty, but not #1 pretty.  Scarlett Johansson remains my #1 with my #2 matching AskMen’s, Mila Kunis.  I was happy to see that brunettes overwhelmingly dominated the list proving what I’ve known for some time: they are just better than blondes.  I’m glad to see they wedged Emma Stone in there with her strawberry blonde/reddish hair as opposed to her natural blonde look which doesn’t look natural (or good) at all.  I couldn’t help but laugh when they listed someone named Whitney Port as a notably absent “A-Lister”.  I thought A-Listers were people that everyone knew?  I had to Google this no-talent hack to find out exactly why I had no clue who she was: she’s an MTV “reality” person.  Who are your favorites on the list?  Any major snubs in your opinion?

I have long detested “reality” TV if for no other reason than the completely idiotic name.  It couldn’t possibly be less real if it tried yet this name has inexplicably stuck.  I was thrilled to see the czar of this genre, Mark Burnett, agree with my sentiment recently:

Muttered the man seated behind me: “Um, it’s a reality show.”

No it’s not! says Burnett. “I hate the word ‘reality.’ I think it’s just a made-up word by journalists. What the hell has it got to do with reality? Reality is me standing here right now. Let’s face it: None of the shows are reality. They’re not really marooned on the island in Survivor. [laughter] But the feeling’s real. They’re not really applying for a job with Donald Trump. I mean, who would?” [more laughter]

IMDB.com released part one of a four-part documentary on the making of The Social Network.  I love behind the scenes looks into things so I was really interested in this documentary especially because I really enjoyed the movie back in October.  My only real problem is that for some reason Rooney Mara, the girl who played Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend in the opening scene, is being getting so much attention for her innocuous scene.

I’m so sick and tired of hearing how great she was in her 9 seconds of screen time.  I was surprised she wasn’t up for Best Actress in the Oscars after hearing everyone talk about it.  I’m sure most of it is just to build hype for her in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but it didn’t make the gushing any less nauseating.  She didn’t steal her scene let alone the movie.  It was standard Sorkin dialogue that she executed well enough, but the hype to performance ratio is off-the-charts.

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Podcast Recommendation: First off, I feel like not enough people listen to podcasts.  They are excellent.  They are a much better version of sports radio (mainly because there are no commercials).  Whether you’re new to podcasts are a savvy veteran, you have to subscribe to The Jonah Keri Podcast.  I dare you not to get the theme song stuck in your head after hearing it once, but beyond that it’s just a brilliantly done show.  He gets amazing guests including writers, announcers, bloggers, ballplayers and other podcasters and while most are sports-centric, he isn’t just focused on one sport.  He did a Hall of Fame week back in January where he did five days of shows including ones with Tim Raines and Bert Blyleven.  Keri has put together arguably the best podcast going and yet it’s all of 21 episodes old.

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As I noted yesterday, I’m a 2K sports guy.  Of course, since I have an Xbox360, it isn’t 100% by choice, but I’ve been happy with their improving baseball series the last few years.  In the interest of equal time, though, here is the MLB 11: The Show trailer

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Knowledge Bomb: Baltimore Orioles outfielder Nick Markakis is likely to fly a bit under the radar in drafts and auctions this year as he not only failed to meet the high power expectations of him (12 HR in 2010), but he fell off significantly from his 2009 figure of 18.  Mix in weak counting stats (60 RBI, 79 R) thanks to an anemic Orioles offense (613 runs, 27th in MLB) and it was a tough season for the 26-year old.  But don’t forget his primary category where he counted to be a high impact producer: batting average.  Markakis hasn’t hit below .291 in any of his five seasons and delivered 629 at-bats of .297 goodness last year.

If you replace 550-600 ABs of a fantasy team’s batting average with Markakis, it is worth three batting average points.  That may not sound like a lot, but when you’re talking about one guy impacting a 6500 at-bat sample by three points, it is significant.  Replacing Mark Teixeira, who had an atypical batting average year in 2010, with Markakis would have been worth four batting average points.

When you are looking to build your batting average, the high volume of at-bats is just important as the average itself.  In the last three years only Markakis and Ichiro Suzuki have managed a .290 or better average in 595 or more at-bats.  You don’t have to necessarily build for batting average when taking one of these guys, they can be your insurance policy to roster a low-average, high-power type like Adam Dunn, Mark Reynolds or Carlos Pena who all come at a bit cheaper because of their unappealing batting averages.

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