Joaquin Arias had a huge night Wednesday with a homer, two doubles, and five RBIs. Arias hasn't been much to write home about, unless you are in an NL-only league, but even then he's only been a moderate performer with a .280 average, three homers, 26 RBIs and 25 runs scored. However, have you seen what he has been doing of late? Over his last 18 contests in the month of August Arias has hit .435. Four-thirty-five. He's also rocking a 1.123 OPS over those 46 at-bats. Hey, better late than never I guess for the guy who qualifies at shortstop and third base. He's still not a very good hitter, but he is rolling.
Adrian Beltre went deep three times Wednesday night to give him 22 long balls on the year. He'll need to pick up the pace a bit to match the 32 homers he hit last season, but he's having yet another impressive season with a .307 average, 73 RBIs and 70 runs scored in 119 games. I know this isn't really the place to make an argument for a player to be inducted into the HOF, but the case of Beltre will be an interesting one. Never considered to be the best player at his position, other than his historic 2004 season (.334-48-121-104), Beltre will have career numbers that place him amongst the top-10 or so third baseman by the time his career ends. Can a guy who was always very good, but rarely great, end up in Cooperstown? Guess we'll find out in a decade.
Andre Ethier had a couple of hits Tuesday night including his 30th double of the season. That gives him 30 doubles in 6-straight years. Only seven guys have hit 30 doubles each of the last five years while Ethier,
Robinson Cano and
Miguel Cabrera have already hit the level this season given them those 6-straight 30 double efforts. That's the good news for Ethier. The bad new follows. Ethier averaged 25 homers a year from 2008-10 with a high of 31, but he's hit only 12 big flies this year. Dating back to the start of last season, 248 games worth of action, Ethier has gone deep just 23 times. Where has the long ball power gone Andre? His HR/F ratio the past two years is about 10.3 percent, a little off his 12 percent career mark but not a huge fall. The reason issue is that he's stopped hitting fly balls. Never a big fly ball hitter to start with, his 36 percent fly ball rate is league average, and the last two years that number has regressed to 31 and 32 percent. As such his GB/FB ratio has been 1.41 and 1.33 the past two years, not exactly the numbers you would like to see for a vaunted power hitter. Face it, Ethier isn't a big time power hitter. He also posted GB/FB ratios of 1.30 in 2007-08, so it's just safe to assume Ethier is a 20 homer bat and nothing more. The guy can hit, but he's more likely to hit a ball into the gap than he is to lift one into the seats.
Derek Jeter – wasn't he supposed to be washed up? That was the general assumption put out there by many entering this season as Jeter was coming off, for him, a down season in which he hit .297 with six homers and 84 runs scored. This season Jeter has turned back the clock significantly. In fact, it looks like it's 2009 all over again. Jeter is hitting .324 with 13 homers after hitting homers in 3-straight games for the first time in his career. Jeter has also been even hotter of late hitting .358 since the All-Star break, a span of 39 games. Even hotter you say? I can give you something for that. Jeter has hit .380 with 14 RBIs and 19 runs scored in 21 August games. Face it. Jeter is a once in a lifetime type of player who has hit .313 with 3,257 hits and 1,847 runs. He deserves all the accolades he receives, and he's still one hell of a fantasy option at shortstop.
Nick Markakis had another three hits Wednesday and with that he's pushed his average up to .305 in August. Over his last 39 games Markakis has been even hotter with a .341 batting average. Look at that. Markakis is now hitting .295 on the season. What is his career average you ask? Try .295. Markakis has never developed into the hitter many hoped he would, but he is still a damn good major league hitter. Since he entered the big leagues in 2006 Markakis has never hit lower than .284, and in every other season he has batted at least .291. He may have only 13 homers and 45 RBIs this season as well, but those numbers are pretty darn impressive for a guy who has appeared in only 89 games because of injury wouldn't you say? In fact, after averaging 14 homers and 67 RBIs the past two years in an average of 160 games played, Markakis could surpass both numbers in about 120 games played this season. Remember that the next time you think of overlooking the Orioles' outfielder.
With Carl Crawford's season over as he's opted to undergo Tommy John Surgery on his injured elbow, the Red Sox have at-bats to give to someone in the outfield. One of those players who will certainly seen an uptick in their playing time will be Scott Podsednik. How many people have noticed, by the way, that Pods is hitting .370 in 92 at-bats this season? Three-seventy. Scottie P is also sporting a .848 OPS which would be the first time his OPS had been over .800 since 2003. Many of you likely weren't even playing fantasy baseball in 2003. There's no way any of this continues, but he's just killed it this year in his limited work.
Martin Prado is hitting .298 on the year with 65 run scored, 56 RBIs and 14 steals, solid numbers for a guy who qualifies as an outfielder an a third baseman. Unfortunately for those people counting on him right now, Prado is in a funk at the dish hitting .252 with a .697 OPS since the All-Star break. He has improved a bit in August hitting .280, and for his career he's posted a .294 batting average, so you can feel fairly confident that he won't continue to wallow for much longer.
Wilin Rosario. There's a name everyone knows by now. He continues to impress at the dish. Over a mere 83 games this season he has gone deep 20 times with 51 RBIs and 46 runs scored. Those are some mighty impressive totals. In fact, those are elite level numbers given his games played total. Moving forward though you cannot expect this type of production per at-bat from Wilin. That 27 percent HR/F ratio is an elite number, and one that 99.9 percent of big leaguers will never touch. I know he has power, and that he plays in Coors Field, but that's a huge number. Rosario has set himself up nicely as one of the better power options behind the plate in baseball, and he should continue to be that type of hitter. Just don't expect him to be a 30 homer threat year after year. That's a huge number for a catcher.
Ray Flowers can be heard daily on Sirius/XM Radio on The Fantasy Drive on Sirius 210 and XM 87 from 7-10 PM EDT, Monday through Friday. Ray's baseball analysis can be found at
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