Recent Disappointments

Over the course of the season, every player rides the wave of highs and lows. Today, I'll high-light some of those players who are barely keeping their heads above the rising tide right now.

Marlon Byrd is batting .226 over his last 93 at-bats with just a single homer as he continues to have one of the most unique seasons in baseball this year. The recent slump has dropped Byrd's average down down to a still respectable .284, but it's his run production that is so fascinating. Byrd has a mere 28 RBI in 387 at-bats this season, a pace that would equate to 40 RBI over 550 at-bats. If that sounds awful it is, but it's even more distressing when you realize that Byrd has spent 30 percent of his season batting third for the Cubs and another 34 percent batting fifth. How is it possible to spend 64 percent of your seasonal at-bats in the third and fifth holes in the lineup and still be on a pace for mere 40 RBI in 550 at-bats? That's just shocking.

Asdrubal Cabrera has had a remarkable season. It doesn't look like he is going to get to 20/20, he has 16 steals and last stole a base back on August 13th (yikes), but still, it's been a rather remarkable season. Coming into the year he had hit 18 homers. He has 22 this season. He came into the year with career bests of 68 RBI and 81 runs. He has 82 RBI and is just two runs off that career best mark with three weeks left in the regular season. If you've have Cabrera on your roster all season long you cannot be upset at his performance, not in the least. However, that doesn't mean you can't be disappointed by his work over the past month. Cabrera is hitting a sickly .185 over his last 95 at-bats, and though he has knocked in 16 runs, the guy has scored only five times. He isn't producing hits, isn't scoring runs, and has stopped stealing bases. Do you dare go in another direction for the final three weeks of the regular season?

Chris Davis has long been my white whale. I look at the prodigious power and his outright domination of Triple-A (.340-38-146 over his last 591 at-bats), not to mention his previous success in the big leagues (38 homers, 114 RBI in his first 686 big league at-bats), and think this guy is a potential 30 homer bat. He still might be that, but he's looking an awful lot like Carlos Pena with those 21 Ks in 50 at-bats with the Orioles. I think it might be time for me to face facts. Davis might just be a AAAA player (too good for the minors but not good enough to have success in the big leagues).

Adam Lind will be shut down for a few days with a wrist issue. He should have been left out of your fantasy lineup for a long while however. Over the last month Lind has hit five homers while knocking in 18 runs so you might be thinking 'what the hell are you talking about Ray?' You wanna know what I'm talking about? How about that .178 average and .575 OPS over the past month. In fact, it's even worse than that as he has hit .186 with a .562 OPS over his last 46 games. That's a high price to pay for a few homers.

Martin Prado just cannot get it going. He's hitting, if you can call it that, .181 with no homers and six runs scored over his last 94 at-bats.

Pablo Sandoval is hitting a mere .247 over his last 81 at-bats to drop his season long average to .297. That's pretty impressive given his failures last season (.268), and 18 homers in just 371 at-bats is a pretty solid number as well, but he needs to start rapping out hits to help out your fantasy squad down the stretch. OK, the truth is I'm just down on the Giants and not necessarily Sandoval. Where did it all go wrong for the club? It all went wrong when the front office thought the club had enough offense to compete. What a waste of a pitching staff.

Chris Young is hitting, sit down if you missed it, .147 over 156 at-bats since the All-Star break. He has a sprained ligament in his thumb that is the main culprit for the downturn in his production. At this point it's almost impossible to suggest leaving him in your starting lineup unless you are in a deep NL-only league.

By Ray Flowers