Key Stats: At 27 years old, Gaby Sanchez was an all-star. In the past, that statement would usually mean that a player should be ranked higher than 147, but the same rules apply to making a baseball all star team as they do for an under eight year old soccer league - everyone gets a trophy. The first half was good though. Sanchez hit .293 and hit 13 home runs. It was a far cry from his second half which saw him hit just .225 with 6 home runs. Overall the line for Sanchez was respecatable - more than 70 runs and RBI along with 19 home runs. The problem for Sanchez in fantasy is that that line is average at best at first base.  no comments

Key Stats: For the fourth straight season Alexei Ramirez had 15 or more home runs. He’s only 30 years old and hasn’t ever had serious issues staying on the field. In four seasons Ramirez has never been ranked better than 96^th or worse than 171^st by Yahoo rankings. He has been a consistent player at a position that has been anything but over the same time period. There is also no glaring weakness in any of his splits which indicates he’s a lazy manager’s dream. no comments

Key Stats:  Hudson posted an ERA of 3.49 this past season, which is good. Not the amazing Cy Young Award type numbers people dream of, but he kept it under three and a half runs. That ERA would have been team best on nine different clubs this past season. What’s really eye opening however is that he posted a lower FIP (3.28) than ERA and his xFIP, tERA and SIERA were all 3.79 or under. That’s outstanding.
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Key Stats: Since 2004, Francisco Cordero has 302 saves. For a little perspective on that Mariano Rivera – the best closer of this or any generation – has 320 saves in that same time span (2 more saves per year).  Cordero’s numbers haven’t always been pretty in this time, but he’s one of those pitchers that will likely be in in the 9^th inning wherever he winds up because of the old “he has closer experience” theory. And while there are more promising players as far as upside goes, Cordero has appeared in at least 66 games every year since 2003. That means he will end the year with at least 30 saves.

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Key Stats:  Your 2011 AL Rookie of the Year ladies and gents. Despite a .254 AVG, Trumbo provided us with 29 HR’s and 87 runs which were both tops on the Angels. The 9 steals as a first baseman are icing on the cake. He had an ISO of .223 (30th in baseball).

Skeptics Say: He doesn’t have a very good eye. Trumbo swung at 42.7% of the pitches that were thrown outside of the strike zone. Of qualified batters only five swung at a higher percentage of those pitches.  If this was a veteran it’s a red flag, but rookies learning the strike zone is common. Likewise, his first pitch strike percentage is in the wrong end of the top 30 of qualified batters. So here we have a young player that swings at bad pitches and is behind early and often in counts. He struck out 120 (20.9%) times, but he only walked 26 (4.4%) times. He posted an OBP of .291 and at 26 years old, even for a rookie, we would have liked to see that a bit higher.

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Key Stats: Paul Goldschmidt hit 65 home runs in just under 900 at-bats in two seasons at the minor league level. And this isn’t a case like Bryan LaHair clubbing 63 over the past two seasons for Triple-A Iowa. Goldschmidt is only 23 as opposed to LaHair who is 28. While that rate did slow once he joined the Diamondbacks, he was still hitting a home run at a rate that was less than once every 20 at-bats (a ratio that improves if you take in his playoff numbers). The only reason that Goldschmidt doesn’t have more love is because he was never highly touted. And looking past the power, Goldschmidt has also had no trouble hitting for average and producing a very high OPS. no comments

Key Stats: 31.5 - The number of HR's Ike was on pace to hit before getting hurt in 2011. He was averaging a HR every 18 AB's (one every five games or so). His HR to fly ball ratio was 17.1% (league average is generally around 10.6%). Ike is still a developing power hitter, which we'll get into more later. He showed improvement in his plate discipline as well, cutting down on swinging at pitches outside the strike zone and his swinging strikes.

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Key Stats: At the age of 31, Adam Dunn’s skills seemed to have disappeared last season. It’s not often that a player’s skills just suddenly erode at the age of 31 – let alone a player that had the run of consistency that Dunn had from 2004 through 2010. Some numbers that make it harder to write Dunn off include that his BABIP was almost 90 points lower last year than it was in 2010 and over 50 points off of his career rate. His line drive rate last year was 20% - which was just ahead of his career line drive rate. And finally his home run to fly ball rate was 9.6% and had been double that every year of his career since 2003. no comments