An expert on baseball's Junior Circuit, Don's has worked as a columnist both in print and online for multiple outlets over the past seven years. This is Don's first season at Sports Grumblings.
Have Rich Harden? Pay a lot for him? Don says you deserve what you are getting then...
In rotisserie baseball, injuries are a part of the game. If you don’t consider this when rostering a player, you are likely to be sacrificing at bats and/or quality innings pitched. Some players just attract injuries and whose “twinges” end with disabled list time. Other players, when labeled as “day-to-day” might miss one game (if that). The bottom line is you have to account for this and, when possible, utilize this to your advantage.
So…this is the injury-plagued edition of AL Grumblings.
That Milton Bradley is fragile isn’t surprising. It is that he was given “extra” time to recover from his hamstring injury owing to some wrist discomfort. This was a potential bonus for Bradley owners since, in theory, more time equates to less-chance of re-injuring his hamstring. In theory, anyway. I get the impression that Bradley didn’t re-injure his hamstring in as much as it never fully healed. If you predicted the 500+ at bat year for Bradley, you’ll have to wait until next year to get lured in. Bradley does have a useful skill set and I would suspect once fully-healed, he can rattle off a month or two of productive stats. Thus, if I were you, I’d try to cleave him from a disgruntled owner right about now and reap the benefits in the second-half of the season. Of course, he could just as well miss three months with an injury, so keep that in mind.
Speaking of the Athletics, if you drafted Rich Harden (especially off that dominating Spring), this is what you should have expected. By all means, draft an injury-plagued player at a deep discount…that is smart. To pay anywhere near full-value is just foolish at this point (especially pitchers).
In Minnesota, Rondell White is still out with an injury which occurred while leaving the dugout. That the Twins miss White is an indictment of the make-up of their roster. Case in point: the Twins are starting to give full-time at bats to Lew Ford (and were happy to get him back). Also, Ron Gardenhire was recently quoted as saying he “like[s] the instant run production [Garrett Jones] can bring when he walks up to the plate”. Garrett Jones? Yes…he has some pop, but his career minor league OBP is right around 0.300…and he turns 26 next month. There are many guys like Jones floating around the minors. Personally, I think this statement is just a way of Ron Gardenhire asking for some help of GM Terry Ryan. For a team that carries no power at third, short, second, left field, designated hitter, and catcher, you are asking for a lot each night to score a run with three singles out of six spots in your lineup...especially when the other team is scoring 14 runs!
This is not the Chone Figgins we know and love.
Speaking of weak-power lineups, the Angels should get Garrett Anderson backshortly. This would be a welcome thing for a team last in the AL in homers. However, Anderson is a 15-home run guy at this stage in his career with all of his on-base skills tied up into his average…an average, by the way, that was the worst of his 13 year career in 2006. At any rate, reports indicate that Reggie Willits (by the way, he is up to 10 stolen bases now) will continue to serve as lead-off hitter and left-fielder even after Anderson returns (making Anderson a DH). This wouldmean Shea Hillenbrand will be demoted to a reserve role. Or, perhaps, Hillenbrand will steal at bats from Chone Figgins…who hasn’t had a base-hit since May 12th. Now, with all this, the Angels lead the AL West by four games since they have the best pitching staff in the American League (maybe all of baseball). Heck, they were my choice to win the World Series at the beginning of the season. Wouldn’t Alex Rodriguez look good at third-base for the Angels? Ah, but I digress.
Whither Dustin McGowan? The highly-regarded, toolsy right-hander now sports an ERA of 8.21 in his three starts with the Jays. Predictably, he has allowed 10 walks in 15 innings, which has always been his Achilles heel. Just this Friday, before his start against the Phillies, manager John Gibbons mentioned that McGowan is in the rotation to stay. And this pep-talk apparently worked…for four no-hit innings. In the fifth, the wheels fell off. Walk, hit, walk, strikeout and walk (to the pitcher!), single, single, wild pitch, sacrifice fly…and his night was done. Basically, according to McGowan, he was trying to induce a ground ball and lost the strike zone. His catcher, Sal Fasano, says that McGowan has the stuff that should allow him to “cruise to the seventh [inning]”. Personally, I have a soft spot for McGowan, and I don’t really know why. I rostered him in a few leagues and I guess I am a masochist as far as my ERA and WHIP is concerned. I fully expect him to give up plenty of walks and earned runs in Baltimore on Wednesday, with a few strikeouts thrown in for good measure…and I’ll have to waive him (again).
It is difficult to predict who will get saves in Oakland if Justin Duchscherer cannot go this week. I thought the smart money was on Kiko Calero, but his blown save last Wednesday night followed by his appearance in a 15 – 3 blowout on Friday makes me believe that he is being reserved for the seventh and eighth innings. In fact, on Saturday night he pitched to one batter to finish off the eighth inning before giving way to Alan Embree to face some lefties in the ninth inning to earn the save. I suspect this will be a true “bullpen-by-committee” if the Duke’s cortisone shot doesn’t make him ready this week. This isn’t very good news if you are a fantasy baseball player, so you might want to just save your FAAB.
By the time you read this, Octavio Dotel may be off the DL. However, you can’t spell Dotel without "DL" (yeah…I stole it from Rondell…so what, it works). If you are a Joakim Soria owner, you should hold onto him since Dotel is a good bet to either (1) get traded in late-June/early-July if he is successful since he is on a one-year deal or (2) re-injure himself.
Here is your weekly Andy Sonnanstine update: He went six innings allowing seven hits, three walks, and three strikeouts for his fifth victory in a row. His WHIP is under 1.0 on the season and he has more strikeouts than innings pitched. Meanwhile, back in Tampa, the Devil Rays will push Edwin Jackson back in the rotation this week. The rest of the AL is disappointed. They want to see Jackson every five days!
Expert League Updates
The SportsBlurb entry I run (I should probably get them to change that to SportsGrumblings…) has a 2.5 point lead. Notable transactions were a team spending a buck on Alan Embree (for that save he provided the other day) and a $22 bid on Travis Metcalf. Note that Metcalf was farmed out yesterday due to the small sample size effect that has enhanced the way the Rangers view Ramon Vazquez. The 30-year old Vazquez has a career OPS of 0.659 in 1100 Major League at bats. Timing is everything.
An expert on baseball's Junior Circuit, Don's has worked as a columnist both in print and online for multiple outlets over the past seven years. This is Don's first season at Sports Grumblings.
