Posts Tagged ‘Brad Hawpe’

2011 Fantasy Baseball – NL Hitting Stats

Posted by Todd Lammi on April 15th, 2011

Nearing the end of the third week of the season and close to 50 at bats in the book, it is time to start looking to see if there are any early trends in terms or at bats or performance that could lead us to make some adjustments in terms of statistical projections for the rest of the season. While 50 at bats may seem like a small sample size and it is, we can watch the trends to see if they continue over the next few weeks to then get ahead of the other fantasy baseball owners in your league.

With that said, here is a look around the National League in order of runs scored per team to see if there are any numbers that stand out:

Cincinnati Reds: currently the highest scoring offense in all of major league baseball, the Reds have a couple of players that stand out. Jonny Gomes has all of a sudden turned into Frank Thomas at the plate, walking 14 times with only eight strikeouts, after a 39 walk to 123 strikeout season in 2010. Drew Stubbs has cut his strikeout rate four percentage points so far in 2011 which should give him a better chance to make some small gains in batting average. Jay Bruce on the other hand is heading in the wrong direction with a 10 percentage point jump in strikeouts, leaving him with 15k’s in 41 at bats and a .220 average.

Philadelphia Phillies: despite the loss of Jayson Werth to free agency and Chase Utley to injury, the Phillies are second in the National League in runs scored, thanks to six of the regulars hitting over .300. Wilson Valdez has been solid at second base and is hitting .351 with a stolen base and should be owned in all NL-only formats. Catcher Carlos Ruiz has gotten off to a good start as well hitting the same .351 with tow home runs and eight RBI.

Colorado Rockies: Troy Tulowitzki is justifying his position as a top 5 pick in fantasy baseball drafts this year, hitting .364 with seven home runs and 14 RBI. Jonathan Herrera has been the big surprise, hitting .458 with four stolen bases and eight walks against two strikeouts and is likely to start eating into Jose Lopez’s playing time.

St. Louis Cardinals: Lance Berkman has been the story in St. Louis so far with a .311 batting average and four home runs to go with 11 RBI. So far his move to the outfield has been going well, but I would still bet on an injury at some point this season. David Freese has hit when playing, batting .342 with two home runs and six RBI, but with him sitting out every third or fourth game, it makes him tough to own in mixed league formats.

Arizona Diamondbacks: only five players on the team currently have over 30 at bats this season and one of them is Willie Bloomquist who filled in nicely while Stephen Drew was out. The rest of the players like Gerardo Parra, Mevlin Mora, Juan Miranda, Russell Branyan, etc. are splitting too much time to give them any value in mixed leagues.

New York Mets: David Wright seems to have made progress on his strikeouts as his rate is at 25% which gives him a much better chance to hit over .300 again. Brad Emaus (30 at bats) and Daniel Murphy (27 at bats) are still in a battle for the second base job. Murphy has a lot more value in fantasy leagues because of his multi-position eligibility.

Houston Astros: who would have guessed that the best hitter on the Astros at this point would be Angel Sanchez? Sanchez is hitting .353 with one home run, eight RBI and a stolen base. Jason Boureois has some value in deeper NL-only leagues since he does not get many at bats, but he has managed to steal four bases early on thanks to some pinch-running.

Chicago Cubs: rookie Darwin Barney has been a pleasant surprise, hitting .345 with three walks and only one strikeout in 29 at bats. Tyler Colvin has seen additional time this week with Kosuke Fukudome out with a bad hamstring;.

Milwaukee Brewers: Nyjer Morgan has been out hitting Carlos Gomez which has not been an issue yet since Corey Hart has been out of the lineup, but once he returns, someone is going to lose some playing time. Prince Fielder looks motivated as he heads toward free agency and is hitting .372 with three home runs and 15 RBI.

Florida Marlins: Logan Morrison looks to be ahead of schedule in terms of the power department with three home runs and five doubles this season to go with nine walks and nine strikeouts. Donnie Murphy has not been the answer at third base, hitting just .143 in 28 at bats.

San Francisco Giants: I wrote last season about the impact of people changing positions and what it meant to their batting stats. It is too early to tell if we are seeing that with Aubrey Huff, but he definitely doesn’t look comfortable in the outfield. There was talk of switching Huff and rookie Brandon Belt in the field, but Belt is hitting .195 and moving him to the outfield is not going to help matters. There is also the issue of Cody Ross returning to the lineup soon which will impact at bats as well.

Los Angeles Dodgers: Matt Kemp looks like a new man this season and is hitting .444 with two home runs and eight stolen bases, to go with nine walks and only seven strikeouts. Jamey Carroll is hitting .372 with two stolen bases and has more value now with Rafael Furcal out of action due to injury.

Washington Nationals: lots of young hitters struggling in Washington around the Mendoza line, including free agent signee Jayson Werth. Wilson Ramos has been one of the few guys hitting with a .455 batting average and should see more time going forward over Ivan Rodriguez.

Atlanta Braves: the lone bright spot in Atlanta on offense is that Chipper Jones is healthy and hitting with a .304 average with one home run. Rookie Freddie Freeman has struggled with a .214 average and Alex Gonzalez has returned to earth after his first half power outburst in 2010 leaving the Braves a hitter short in their quest to win the division.

San Diego Padres: Orlando Hudson has taken advantage of the Padres aggressive attitude on the base paths and already has six stolen bases, putting him well on his way to surpassing his career high of ten. Brad Hawpe has been awful so far with a .129 average and more alarming, 13 strikeouts in 31 at bats. His platoon mate Jorge Cantu has not fared much better, hitting .148 in 27 official trips to the plate.

Pittsburgh Pirates: the lone bright spot so far in Pittsburgh has been Jose Tabata with two home runs and six stolen bases to go with a .302 average. Pedro Alvarez continues to struggle making contact, hitting .196 with 16 whiffs in 46 at bats.

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The Daily Dirt for Friday

Posted by Todd Lammi on June 19th, 2009

by Todd Lammi

Looking to add some power to their offense, the San Diego Padres recalled their top minor slugger Kyle Blanks from Triple-A. The Padres face left-handed starters in five of their next six games and will be playing American League clubs, giving Blanks the possibility of starting at first base, the outfield or at designated hitter. Blanks hit .283 with 12 home runs and 38 RBI in 66 games at Triple-A., while batting .424 over his last 10 games. In other fantasy baseball news around the diamond on Friday…

Hitters:

Derek Lee continues to roll, going 3-for-5 with two home runs and two RBI. Lee sent the game into extra innings with his home run off of Kerry Wood in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Brad Hawpe went 3-for-4 with three RBI, including his 10th home run of the season. Hawpe is currently second in the National League with a .343 batting average and fifth in RBI with 50 on the season.

Victor Martinez smacked his 12th home run of the season and drove in three runs, giving him 53 RBI on the season. Martinez has now driven in 12 runs in his last eight games.

Prince Fielder went 2-for-4 and clubbed his 17th home run of the season. Fielder also drove in three runs, giving him a RBI in five consecutive games., totaling 12 plated runners.

Jason Bay collected his 18th home run on the season and drove in two runs giving him 65 RBI on the season, good for second place behind Fielder’s 67. Bay has driven in 10 runs in his last nine game.

Miguel Olivo went 2-or-4 and blasted his 10th home run of the season. Olivo has certainly taken advantage of John Buck being out of action, by hitting five home runs and driving in 11 runs in his last nine games.

Aaron Rowand went 3-for-3 and hit his seventh home run of the season. After batting fifth for the majority of the season last year, he has found a home lately atop the batting order as the lead-off hitter, where is batting .346.

Marcus Thames went 2-for-4, knocking out two home runs and driving in four runs. Thames now has three home runs in his last two games.

Garret Anderson went 3-for-3 with four RBI in an Atlanta Braves 8-2 win over the Boston Red Sox. Nate McLouth went 2-for-4 with two RBI and added his 12th home run on the season.

Pitchers:

Fernando Nieve picked up his second win of the year, allowing one run in six innings with four strikeouts. Nieve has now allowed three runs in 14 2/3 innings since being recalled on June 6th. His next start will come against the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday.

Andy Pettite allowed one run in seven innings with seven strikeouts to up his mark to 7-3 on the season. It was no surprise the win came on the road for Pettite, where he has a 2.59 ERA and is holding opposing hitters to a .226 average compared to his home splits of a 5.77 ERA and a .332 average allowed. Fantasy baseball owners might want to consider benching him for his home starts.

Kevin Slowey allowed one run in six innings with six strikeouts to notch his 10th win of the season. Slowey moved into a tie with Roy Halladay for the win lead in the American League.

Jon Garland tossed seven shutout innings, allowing seven hits with three strikeouts. The no decision snapped his five game losing streak.

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Fantasy Baseball – the Daily Dirt for Tuesday

Posted by Todd Lammi on May 12th, 2009

by Todd Lammi

With all of the talk in the news again about performance enhancing drugs, it is nice to see there are still some legitimate hitters in the major leagues, as several players had multiple home run games last night.

Hitters:

Adam Jones hit two home runs, giving him eight on the season, to go along with 25 RBI. His batting average is now up to .363 and he leads the American League in runs scored with 35.

Jim Thome hit two home runs, scored three runs and had four RBI. The home runs were Thome’s first since April 22nd and he now stands one behind Mike Schmidt for 13th place on the all-time home run list.

Prince Fielder went 3 for 4 with two home runs and four RBI to power the Milwaukee Brewers to a 6-3 win over the Florida Marlins. He is currently on pace to far surpass his walk total of 84 from last season with 27 free passes already through 33 games.

Jason Werth went 2 for 4 with two runs scored and stole four bases, giving him seven on the season. His thievery included a steal of home in the seventh inning.

Aaron Hill hit his ninth home run of the season, and is now hitting .357 with 30 RBI for the year.

Josh Hamilton returned from the disabled list and hit a two-run home run in the seventh inning to spark a six run rally in the Texas Rangers 7-1 win over the Seattle Mariners.

Chris Davis hit his ninth home run, but he is going to have a hard time getting his average over .240 with 50 strikeouts in 108 at bats.

Adrian Gonzalez hit his 11th home run and drove in two runs in the San Diego Padres 6-2 loss to the Chicago Cubs. He is getting little help from his teammates as the second best hitter in the lineup is David Eckstein with a .263 batting average.

Joe Mauer homered for the third time in four games and missed another home run when he was robbed by Clete Thomas in the first inning. Mauer has now driven in nine runs in his last five contests.

Brad Hawpe went 4 for 4 with 5 RBI including his fifth home run of the season in a Colorado Rockies 12-1 rout of the Houston Astros. Ian Stewart added two home runs and drove in five runs as well.

Matt LaPorta got his first start in the last five games and went 1 for 3 while playing first base. LaPorta is now hitting .188 on the season.

Pitchers:

Roy Halladay became the first pitcher to seven wins, tossing a complete game against the New York Yankees. Halladay scattered five hits and one earned run while striking out five.

Zach Duke picked up his fourth in of the season, allowing one run in eight innings to lower his ERA to 2.52. Duke allowed five base runners and struck out five.

Jair Jurrjens lost a win on a blown save by Mike Gonzalez in the ninth inning. Jurrjens allowed two runs in 7 2/3 innings with four strikeouts.

Rich Harden allowed two runs in six innings with five strikeouts to move to 4-1 on the season. His counterpart Jake Peavy took the loss, allowing three runs in six innings with nine strikeouts. There is little room for error when Peavy is on the mound as the San Diego Padres offense has scored only nine runs in his last five starts.

Kevin Slowey allowed one run in six innings with two strikeouts to improve his record to 5-1 on the year.

Ubaldo Jimenez allowed one run in seven innings with four strikeouts to pick up his third win of the year. Jimenez has now allowed one run in back to back starts.

Micah Owings allowed one run in seven innings with four strikeouts to pick up win number three on the year. Owings was much more effective with his pitches Tuesday night, needing only 90 pitches to get through seven innings.

Recent call up Luke Hochevar got a rude awakening coming back to the major leagues, allowing eight runs in two innings against the Oakland Athletics.

Closers:

Scott Downs got a vote of confidence as the Toronto Blue Jays closer going forward after G.M. J.P. Riccardi announced that B.J. Ryan would serve in a set up role when he comes off the disabled list.

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