Thanks to those of you who took the time to submit your sleepers to me this week. I’m hoping you’re WILLING TO SUBMIT YOUR FAVORITE BUST TO ME BY NEXT FRIDAY so we can write the flip side of this post. As for the sleepers, there are some interesting names below and I agree with the assessment of my readers on most of the names. The only comment I have on any of the entries is that for Buck’s sake I’ll be working up an analysis of why it’s tougher to make up a disparity in a statistic like batting average than it is in a cumulative stat like home runs and stolen bases. Now without further adieu, the reader sleepers.

FRANKLIN GUTIERREZ, OF, INDIANS
My definition of a sleeper is not first round talent, but undervalued latter round players.
That fits perfectly for Franklin Gutierrez! No one is talking about Franky G in the solid Cleveland line up. He was a top prospect just a few short years ago and now he’s 25 years old and has finally earned the full time gig in right field. He won’t light up the stat sheet, but certainly could put up a 15/15 year with an outside shot at 20/20 year—all while going undrafted in many leagues.

My other Sleeper(s) are the whole Baltimore OF! We all know Markakis is in store for a solid year even batting in that weak line up. But Luke Scott and Adam Jones need some respect as well. Both could hit 20+ hrs if they can hold on to a full time gig.
-ROBERT from MN

YUNEL ESCOBAR, 2B/SS/3B, BRAVES
I really like Yunel Escobar as a sleeper this year. The SS position seems deep to me, so my plan isn’t going to be to spend a high pick on one of the Big 3, nor can I imagine myself dipping into the next tier (Tejada, Jeter, Tulowitski, or Young). Escobar is a great hitter with gap power….he hit at least .300 in every month he played for the Braves last year. If Atlanta truly is going to use him at the top of their potent lineup, Escobar should excel in average, runs and maybe SBs. He also doesn’t strike out all that much and puts the ball into play. I wouldn’t be surprised if he produces like a top 10 SS. An added bonus is his eligibility at 2B and 3B.
-BRIAN from MN

RICK ANKIEL & CHRIS DUNCAN, OF, CARDINALS
The reason that I put these two players together is that they are essentially the same player. They could both get 75 runs, 25 home runs, 80 runs batted in, zero stolen bases and hit for a .255 batting average. One of them may hit 30 HR’s and one might hit for a .245 batting average, but both will play full time, and both will come very cheap in your upcoming draft, because most fantasy owners are scared away by their projected low batting average.

Most experts agree that you can get your stolen bases “cheap” with players like Willy Taveras (ADP 170), Shane Victorino (ADP 95), and Juan Pierre (108). Again, you could lump these players together by saying that most of them will get 75 runs, 5 home runs, 40 runs batted in, 35 stolen bases and hit for a .285 batting average. If you look into the differences between the “cheap” players and most of the other outfielders drafted, then you will notice that most outfielders can get 10 to 15 more home runs and 30 to 50 more runs batted in, but 20 to 30 less stolen bases.

This doesn’t add up. Fantasy owners are willing to lose in two categories so they can gain in “cheap” stolen bases by drafting Taveras, Victorino, and Pierre, 10 to 20 rounds higher than Ankiel (ADP 60)/Duncan (ADP298). In addition, it is tough to find power after the draft either by the waiver wire or trading. How many times can you find a 25 home run player on the waiver wire or another team willing to trade him to you? While stolen base players that hurt you in runs batted in and home runs can be traded for and found even cheaper in the draft. All fantasy baseball owners are scared by low batting averages, because you can’t make that up, but can’t the same be said for other categories?
-BUCK from MN

RYAN GARKO, 1B, INDIANS
The Indians finally seem committed to Garko, it’s just too bad it took so long considering fantasy owners started believing in him long ago. He ranked among the top 12 first baseman in baseball in batting average and homers last season and the upward trend in his fly ball rate and doubles suggest a power breakout could be coming as soon as this season. Why reach for Carlos Delgado or Todd Helton when you can get similar numbers from Garko at a better price.
-MIKE from NY

DUSTIN MCGOWAN, SP, BLUE JAYS
It seems like it’s been forever since Doc Halladay has had strong peers in the Jays rotation, but in McGowan he has just that. There’s a lot to like about a pitcher who struck out 7.9 batters per nine innings, posted a K:BB ratio of 2.4, and has a strong upward trend towards being an extreme ground ball pitcher. He’s obviously got a strong lineup behind him so offensive support shouldn’t be an issue and the defensive upgrades in Scott Rolen and David Eckstein should make much more of a difference than many people are talking about. D-Mac could win 16 games and post a sub-4 ERA and sub-1.30 WHIP this season and that would be enough to make most fantasy owners drool.
-ALEX from CA

Rays outfielder B.J. Upton was forced out of Thursday’s game after taking a Paul Byrd pitch above his left elbow. The initial diagnosis is a triceps contusion and X-rays on Upton’s arm were negative.”He couldn’t really feel the grip, so we got him out of there and got some ice on it,” Rays manager Joe Maddon told MLB.com. “[It’s] just sort of in a bad spot, where it was going to swell up very quickly, which it did. We’ll see later, but we think he’ll be fine.”

Upton is currently ranked third among second baseman in my player rankings. At this point, I don’t think this injury will cause him to move significantly in those rankings. If he fails to make progress and looks as though he’ll miss some of the regular season, it would behoove fantasy owners to take a more cautious approach. Only then will I force myself to make a decision on how much to adjust his ranking. It’s worth noting that a contusion is essentially a deep bruise and shouldn’t suddenly make him much more injury prone. He should have plenty of time to rest up and be ready for Opening Day.

There are a variety of opinions regarding whether or not Upton can match last season’s production and I won’t get into those now, but I believe he can still hit .300 (though not .330) and post his second straight 20-20 effort this season. If the competition in your league believes this injury reduces him to an average level, kindly offer to find a spot on your roster for him.

My “Line of Questioning” series of articles over at Mock Draft Central concludes with a look at the NL West. In this series I’m looking at the top 10 questions that I think fantasy owners want answered in each division. There are probably other questions left out that you’d like answers to, but I picked the ones I thought were the most interesting. You’ll find the NL West article here.

We all have our sleepers and busts and while I haven’t written a post specific to the topic (Sleeper Showdowns come close), I am more interested to hear your thoughts…that is unless you lack what Everett Ulysses McGill calls, “The capacity for abstract thought,” in the classic movie “O’ Brother Where Art Thou.”  Please submit your sleeper to me with a small paragraph explanation why you believe they’re a sleeper and I’ll put together a post of reader sleepers later this week. Simply post a comment on this thread and I’ll sift through them and pick the best ones! If you are worried your fellow owners in one of your leagues will read it and snipe you at your upcoming draft or auction, we can preserve your anonymity.

Just a quick post to direct your attention over to my player rankings page. I made updates to the page today to address the John Lackey injury and many other developments.

While it was certainly disappointing to see Angels’ ace John Lackey go down with a triceps injury on Saturday, I got great pleasure out of keeping my mouth shut until right after a competing owner paid $32 for him in one of my league auctions. I suppose it had a little something to do with the fact said owner had, on multiple occasions, bid me up on a player after the bidding was essentially closed. Regardless, an Angels team already dealing with Kelvim Escobar being sidelined until May with shoulder tightness, are scrambling.

This would seemingly give top prospect Nick Adenhart a chance to grab a rotation spot, but he has extremely minimal experience above Double-A, making it less likely that he serves as the temporary solution. Obviously with both Escobar and Lackey out, Ervin Santana is suddenly a lock for a rotation spot and the guy that could join him is Dustin Moseley.

Moseley was mildly intriguing in the first half of 2007, when he was an extreme groundballer and posted a 2.41 ERA and 1.07 WHIP, but for whatever reason, those few things he seemed to do right in the first half escaped him after the break. At least with Adenhart there is obvious upside, even if both the Angels and fantasy owners have to navigate through the bumps in the road along the way. All things considered, I think keeper league owners shoud definitely target Adenhart, but there isn’t a league format in which I would consider Moseley.

As for Lackey, the mood was obviously grim in Angels camp. “It’s going to be a huge blow,” fellow starter Joe Saunders told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s definitely not good. John is our horse, the leader of the pitching staff and a leader of the team. Our Nos. 1 and 2 starters are not doing so hot right now. We’re going to have to step up our game.”

Lackey claims that his right elbow locked up pretty significantly on Saturday and he was diagnosed with a triceps strain and expected to miss at least four weeks. That’s four weeks until he resumes baseball activities. The most notable part of the report is that Lackey will need at least four minor league starts to build up his strength, which sidelines him until mid-May. My player rankings will obviously change (hopefully today despite my fighting a sinus infection) and I expect Lackey to fall from ninth among starting pitchers to somewhere in the 15-16 range.

Nationals outfielder Wily Mo Pena, a popular sleeper source for power this season, underwent an MRI exam that showed a significant tear in his left oblique muscle. He’s expected to miss approximately a month with the malady.

“We were willing to give the guy the opportunity to get 500 at-bats, and now another year is going to go by and next year we’ll probably be hearing the same thing about him,” Nationals manager Manny Acta told the Associated Press.

This would theoretically mean another popular sleeper I have trumpeted on this site (Elijah Dukes) would get a starting job, but he left Friday’s split squad game after straining his right hamstring. “It was almost like a little strain or cramp kind of feeling,” Dukes said. “I knew that if I could get up that quick, it couldn’t be a big deal, but it’s always scary to get that feeling that I could be hurt.”

He’s considered day-to-day, and is still the favorite to be the starter in left field when the season begins. That said, he didn’t seem real confident in that role, telling the AP, “I don’t know what my role is going to be,” Dukes said. “When he comes back, I’ll probably be the fourth guy again, so we’ll see what happens.”

What? Isn’t that like saying, “I’m thankful for the opportunity, but I’m not sure how effective I’ll be?”

Nevertheless, count me among the believers that Dukes has made significant progress mentally and appears as though he’s not as much of an off-the-field liability. The only negative development with this news is that you probably have to bump up Dukes auction value a couple bucks by the time your auction or draft rolls around, because despite the injury it still seems as though many more of your competing owners will be aware of him.

NOTE: Yes I’m aware that Pena is on the Nationals now, but I couldn’t resist using this picture of him getting his recommended daily allowance of your Louisville Slugger brand of fiber supplements.

I’ve read plenty of research this offseason that claims the pool of available stolen bases has become much more concentrated and I believe there is some truth to that. Since 1871, 275,557 bases have been stolen at the major league level. Consider the number of players who swiped 20 bags or more in a season over the last five years.

• 2002 = 33 players
• 2003 = 26 players
• 2004 = 27 players
• 2005 = 27 players
• 2006 = 35 players
• 2007 = 42 players

It’s tough for me to imagine that 42 number free falling in the matter of one season and with that many stolen bases available, I’d prefer to get as many as possible from bargain sources. Here are a my three favorite sleeper sources for steals this season.

1) Eugenio Velez, SS/2b, Giants
Don’t be fooled by the fact Velez doesn’t appear on the Giants depth chart right now, he leads the team with 14 spring hits and nine spring steals. The 25-year old outfielder has been groomed as a utility infielder this spring and considering Omar Vizquel is banged up and the second base tandem of Ray Durham and Kevin Frandsen are fairly average, it’s reasonable to assume he’ll pick up his fair share of at bats. He has stolen 118 bases in the minors over the last two seasons and while his ability to get on base consistently is still in question, he’s certainly a solid speculative steals source.

2) Ryan Theriot, SS, Cubs
Unlike Velez, most owners in your fantasy league probably will recognize Theriot’s name. That said, he’s going undrafted in some league formats over on Mock Draft Central, with an ADP of 256.43, making his clearly still a sleeper value. He stole 28 bases in 537 at bats with the Cubbies last season and news came from the Chicago Sun-Times this week that he’ll serve as the team’s leadoff man to start the season, a role that just may last well into the season. He consistently stole bases throughout his minor league career, so it’s a skill he obviously owns and at the top of the lineup he should get even more opportunities to rack up the steals.

3) Nate McLouth, OF, Pirates
McLouth was largely forgotten about behind Jason Bay, Chris Duffy, Nyjer Morgan, et. al, but then he hit 13 homers and stole 22 bases in 329 at bats in 2007, firmly stating his case to be the starting center fielder in Pittsburgh. He’s still battling Morgan for the starting job this season, but he has a strong set of perheripheral stats that suggest he has a great shot at not only winning the starting job, but being productive in it. His 11% walk rate and 77% contact rate suggest there is enough upside to justify an end game pick or $1-2 bucks at the auction table this spring.

In case you’ve missed it, I have had a great blog in my blogroll for a while now. It’s called Disabled List Informer and it’s author Chris Neault is a licensed sports Physical Therapist who just so happens to be a fantasy baseball junkie as well. He offers a very thorough and well written analysis of Giants phenom Tim Lincecum and examines the common thought in scouting circles that his pitching mechanics are the harbinger of a serious injury to come. Check out the post here.

As I sit and watch “No Country for Old Men” for the first time since I saw it in the theater, I struggle to put into words how incredible of a writer Cormac McCarthy is and how ridiculously talented the Coen Brothers are. I am never afraid to admit when something works, and like McCarthy and the Coens, the formula that many sports blogs out there use regularly works. Beyond that, I truly believe that sometimes fantasy owners simply need to read and digest the news. Sometimes they don’t want someone to regurgitate the news and suggest or almost demand they react in a certain way. Hence, my reasoning behind simply providing the following links.

Brewers scratch Ryan Braun from lineup due to a sore right Achilles’ tendon.

A couple of Reds pitching prospects not named Homer are turning heads this spring.

The Price is right for the Rays, just not quite yet.

The Cubbies move shortstop Ryan Theriot to leadoff, which could foretell of a spike in fantasy value due to more base stealing opportunities.

The Jays gain one injury prone pitcher in reliever Armando Benitez and lose a promising young hurler for the season due to a torn labrum.

Metabolic and/or mitochondrial abnormalities could end Rays outfielder Rocco Baldelli’s career.

Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter finally got back on the mound on Tuesday.

A promising spring for Athletics outfielder Carlos Gonzalez takes a brief detour.

Brewers future ace Yovani Gallardo had a very promising day in his recovery from minor knee surgery.

Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett will miss the entire opening series in Japan with his latest injury.

A back injury may force Twins pitcher and popular fantasy sleeper Scott Baker to the DL to start the season