Rounding the Bases: Zobrist Heats Up While Trout and Sale Keep Rolling

Posted by Howard Bender on 06/10/2012 | 0 Comments

Tags: fantasy baseball, Ben Zobrist, Chris Sale, Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, Jerry hairston, Tyler Colvin, Jason heyward, Corey Hart, Carlos Zambrano, Paul Goldschmidt, Eric Hosmer, Alex Liddi, Andres Torres

Just a quickie recap of Saturday’s baseball games as I am needed elsewhere.  Turns out, the Fantasy Sports Trade Association conference is this week so the Fantasy Alarm Radio Show will be done live from San Francisco and I’ll be heading into the studio to join Jeff Mans and Ted Schuster for what should be an exciting three hours beginning at 5pm (ET).  I’m going to have to spend some time in hair and make-up in case one of them decides to bring a web cam in and stream this sucker.  I’ve been told I’ve got a great face for radio, so I want to make sure I’m at my best.

Now for the highlights….

Fantasy Beast of the Day

It gives me great pleasure to hand this daily award over to Tampa Bay’s Ben Zobrist.  Not just because I own him in a handful of leagues and certainly not because I swiped him out from under Ray Flower’s watchful eye during our draft in the KFFL Experts League, but because he has, for lack of a better way to say it, sucked so far this season and hasn’t come close to earning the value assigned to someone drafted where he was drafted in most leagues.  Obviously you always run the risk that someone will under-perform on your squad and while Zobrist has struggled with the batting average and some injuries over the last two seasons, I thought, with a clean bill of health entering the season, that he’d be a solid option what with his multi-position eligibility and 20-plus home run capabilities.  I still don’t think I was wrong to have such faith in him, but it has been a harrowing first two months with him.  Hopefully we’re looking at a corner being turned as he is batting .300 with two home runs, six RBI and seven runs scored for the month of June.  Hopefully, he’ll keep up this pace and regain his proper place amongst the top second basemen of the league.

Fantasy Highs

What more can you really say about this group.  Chris Sale has become a fantastic starting pitcher, as we knew he would.  The back and forth between the bullpen and rotation was, thankfully, short-lived and over his last five starts he is now 5-0 with a 0.98 ERA, a 0.71 WHIP and owns a 43:7 K:BB ratio.  If that’s not elite, then I don’t know what is.

Mike Trout is now batting .349 on the year with five home runs and 13 stolen bases.  Over his last seven games, he is batting .517 with nine runs scored, five RBI and five stolen bases.  Living up to the hype?  Yeah, I’d say so…..

Tyler Colvin and Jerry Hairston make the leaderboard, but are obviously just role players for fantasy unless you’re in some crazy deep, 20-team NL-only league.  Still, we can always appreciate the role players as, sometimes, they can be key components to a championship run.  Building your depth with the right role players is important because nobody escapes the clutches of the injury bug all year long.

And finally there is Albert Pujols.  King Albert, Prince Albert, the Big Pooh, whatever you want to call him.  He finally started to turn things around with seven home runs in the second half of May, but it took him eight games into June (and 10 since his last long ball) to connect for his first homer of the month.  Hopefully he’ll keep the momentum going as he now has four straight multi-hit games with a home run, four runs scored and six RBI.  Fingers crossed though as this has been an odd year for him.

Oh yeah….and kudos to Paul Goldschmidt for extending his hit streak to 16 games and Eric Hosmer for bringing his up to 11.      

Fantasy Lows               

“Into each life, a little rain must fall.”  Great quote form a movie with a little splash of baseball in it…My Blue Heaven.  And truer words were never spoke.  Especially when just a day or two before, both Jason Heyward and Corey Hart appeared in the Fantasy Highs section with some stellar performances.  As we all know, it’s a long season and days like this are bound to happen.  Yes, even for you Carlos Zambrano.  The Big Z took his second seven-run beating over his last four starts, and while he still has a solid 3.55 ERA, it might be time to put him into the “streaming” category as opposed to the “ride him while he’s hot” category. 

Games are starting momentarily so we’ll save the longer injury look until tonight/Monday morning.  Nothing major to report right now that you don’t already know anyway…

Enjoy your Sunday and if you’ve got SiriusXM radio, then give us a listen later today!

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Howard Bender has been covering fantasy sports for over ten years on a variety of web sites including his own, The Fantasy Baseball Buzz.  You can follow him on Twitter at @rotobuzzguy or email him at rotobuzzguy@gmail.com.