Rain rain go away. Three games were postponed today which will lead to a double header tomorrow between the Mets and Giants for daily leagues looking to score a few extra at-bats or a cheap save out of the ordeal. Ryan Zimmerman and the Nationals were pleased by this news too. Zimmerman wasn't going to play (shoulder), but thinks he should be good to go when the Nats resume their schedule on Tuesday. Here are some other notes from Sunday:

Yesterday I went to the Giants at the Mets game. I'll get to Jon Rauch in a second, but it was the worst display of professional baseball I have ever seen from the stands. Ike Davis who can't get a hit to save his life at Citi Field was 1 for 28 at home heading into his last at-bat. He sent a slow dribbler just past the pitcher and reached for an infield hit. It was actually a hit good enough to drive in a run, and maybe drive up Davis' morale. That is until he got picked off of first base with a guy on second a couple pitches later. That likely drove his state of mind right back to 1 for 28 mode. David Wright shortly thereafter was thrown out trying to steal third and the Mets had gone from two on with none out to none on and two outs. All of this should have never been because Aubrey Huff had made an error on Wright's ball. It was like watching little league. 

It got worse. Frank Francisco came into the 9th for the Mets to protect a three run lead. The easiest mathematical save situation was never more difficult. Three of the first four hitters reached including Buster Posey who came into score. That was it for Francisco. Tim Byrdak came in and got a lefty for two outs. Terry Collins made his final change to bring Rauch into the ballgame. Heading into the game Rauch had allowed three base runners in 8 innings. Rauch faced Brandon Belt who promptly popped up behind shortstop and center field. The pop up ended up dropping, and it was ruled one of the saddest hits you'll ever see to tie a game. The three run lead had been blown. 

It was not Rauch's fault in the least, but Francisco did let those runners on. Here is where the two players numbers stand after yesterday's debauchery.

Rauch: 8.1 IP, 3 H, 1 BB, 4 K, 0.00 ERA
Francisco:  6.1 IP, 9 H, 3 BB, 8 K, 8.53 ERA

This was Terry Collins after the game: “I’m going to talk to Frankie tomorrow. I don’t like to do too much right after the game is over. He’s not happy with what happened. Remember, we are as new at this as anybody else. When he pitched as well as he did earlier in the season, it could be something. I don’t know what it is. But I want him to understand [closing] is why he’s here. He fell behind today in counts, and that hurt him. 
The trust issue came when I said ‘here’s the baseball. Go stop this.’ He’s been scuffling, and hasn’t been making pitches. I just said ‘I want someone in there who I hope will make the right pitch.’ I know Frankie is going to be fine. Again, it’s early in the season and he’s pitched so well. I think the inconsistency of the kinds of games we’ve played where he hasn’t gotten out there three days a week to get comfortable. I’m sure that has a lot to do with it.” 

The most important components of a player's fantasy value are talent, and opportunity. Opportunity can come in many forms. The first that comes to mind is the opportunity to play. Another opportunity, that sometimes gets lost on gamers, is that of hitting in premium lineup slots. The premium lineup slots, as I'll define them, are any of the first four spots in the order. Players that are penciled into any of these spots in the lineup card immediately benefit from additional plate appearances that they wouldn't receive hitting lower in the order. As you'd guess, the best hitters tend to fill these spots in the order. Baseball Reference does an outstanding job of breaking down splits by league and lineup slot, and you can see how batters fare by position in the order in the American League, and the National League. When looking for hidden treasures, namely on bad offensive clubs, a little digging can go a long way. There are 26 players available in more than half of Yahoo! leagues that have accrued the majority of at-bats in one of the top four spots in their team's order. Many of these players are waiver fodder, but a handful are in prime position to provide sneaky value to savvy owners.

We’re over 20 days into the month of April, and you may or may not be liking the early results of your fantasy team. If you are one of the teams off to a slow start, don’t go thinking that all is lost just yet. After all, we still have over five months to go before all is said and done.

 

One thing that many sabermetric writers preach is sample size. Without a large enough sample size, it’s hard to draw a solid conclusion from any given player’s numbers. All offseason long we've looked at numerous players, analyzed the numbers, and drawn our best estimations as to how each will perform during the 2012 season. There in no reason why only 50 or so at-bats or about 20 innings worth of performance should change our minds -- assuming player “x” still exhibits the same skills (i.e. fastball velocity) and is completely healthy.

 

Before having Tommy John surgery last February, Adam Wainwright was one of the five best fantasy pitchers. In 2010 he was actually ranked the 6th best overall player when he finished with 20 wins, 213 strikeouts, a 2.42 ERA, and a 1.05 WHIP. Then of course Tommy John surgery happened, and in the eyes of many an opportunity to get a top 10 caliber starter at the price of a top 20 or 25 starter had arrived. In all the leagues that I drafted in, people reached on the slotted ranking that was given by whatever source was used for the draft. Unfortunately that move has backfired so far this season. 

Wainwright is 0-3 in his first three starts this season. Hitters are batting .310 against him - an 86 point jump from the guy that he was in that brilliant 2010 season. He has only pitched 6% of the innings he pitched in that season, but is already one-third of the way to his home run total allowed in that season. Those numbers paint a very ugly picture, but I'd be much more inclined to buy low than to sell low. Wainwright will right the ship.

We can manipulate the numbers in other ways. Wainwright has 14 strikeouts in 13.2 innings. That's a very solid rate and is actually a little better than the two prior seasons (8.32 K/9 and 8.19 K/9 respectively). He also is not walking very many hitters relative to the strikeouts. His 3.50 K:BB is rate in the middle of where it was in 2009 and 2010. As far as when the ball is put in play, his line drives are up a touch while the ground balls are down just a touch. That explains the increased batting average a little, but keep it all in perspective. This is a very small sample size from a player that can still be classified as rusty. Looking at some of the other recent Tommy John success stories, we have given them fair time to get back to their craft. Jordan Zimmermann and Stephen Strasburg had the opportunity to pitch in September of 2010 and 2011. Joe Nathan last season lost the closing job after tripping out of the gates last year before getting things back together. 

My best advice is to make an offer for Wainwright if you don't own him. I would trade Gio Gonzalez, Yu Darvish, Matt Garza, and Mat Latos one-for-one without any hesitation. Here are some more notes to consider:

Hanley Ramirez was taken by most in the second round of drafts this season despite being a player at 28 years of age that should be in the prime of his career. One bad season and a reputation for not being "Mr. I Care" on the field was enough to scare people away from a guy that has been a top 26 player five consecutive seasons before that injury riddled bad season in 2011. Early in 2012, it appears that Hanley is heading back to the top 26 and maybe the top 10 where he was for three straight years from 2007-2009. He hit a home run for the third straight game yesterday. Forget about the concerns people had about him playing with Jose Reyes. Reyes is going to do for Hanley what he did for David Wright - ensure that he drives in 100 runs by himself. 

In terms of where Hanley would go now in a draft, he would have to be taken in the top three or four players. Certainly Matt Kemp is on a planet by himself, but with eligibility at multiple positions and the proven ability to be a top five caliber player you can make a case that Hanley is as valuable as Albert Pujols or Miguel Cabrera. Obviously this requires that he stays healthy, but that's the same with any player. He is clearly healthy right now and has played at least 142 games in every season with the exception of last year. To me, that's a pretty safe player when you factor in the age. I also think getting him out of harm's way on double play balls isn't the worst thing. I would trade Joey Votto straight up for Hanley without any hesitation, and maybe that kind of deal would fly if someone is still obsessing over the draft results.

When Brian Wilson went down everyone's first assumption was that the saves would then go to Sergio Romo, but as our own Josh Shepardson reported initially, not so fast. Casilla's 6 saves last year compared to Romo's three career saves proves that he has more "closing experience" and thus the decision to throw him in in the 9th yesterday and any day now. 

It did not look like saves would be Casilla's right away though. On April 14, when Wilson's season was already over, Casilla came into a tie game in the 8th inning rather than the 9th. Javy Lopez eventually got the win in the 9th. Something has caused Bruce Bochey to change his mind over the last 72 hours though and Casilla was used exclusively as the 9th inning guy yesterday. 

Although the way he went about was horrible for me personally (I never anticipated Casilla would get the job because of how he was used on April 14), I like the decision. Casilla gave up only 1 home run to the 211 hitters he faced last year and just 2 to 225 hitters he saw in 2010. He should be a stable source as far as saves go for this season - which of course means nothing because nobody has been steady this season. The Giants are the 8th team in the last month to change closers. Here's some more odds and ends:

Bottom of the 9th and you are trying to protect a one run game. Who else do you want on the mound? Well if it's April and your ace and the reigning MVP has already well over 100 pitches perhaps you should think about somoeone other than your ace and the reigning MVP. Or then again maybe not. 

Justin Verlander hit 100 MPH on three of the final four pitches of the game against Alex Gordon to preserve the victory last night. That sort of thing obviously isn't normal, and I also can't imagine that it is healthy. That said, it's not the first time that Verlander's pitch count has climbed into the 130s. Last season against the Red Sox in late May he threw 132 pitches and he also threw 133 pitches in one of the playoff games. What made him an MVP was that he was a guy that would pretty much guarantee his team innings and a high pitch count. 

Verlander only threw 104 and 105 pitches in the first two games of the season, so it would seem that a small jump would have made sense. Jim Leyland stopped using good sense in this one. As Verlander put it after the game Leyland told him, "You're going to get me fired."