Me no happy Ryan Raburn doesn’t have 2nd base eligibility across all formats. He missed starting 20 games at 2nd by two games. Deuces are wild. Or as they say in LA nightclubs, douches are wild. If Leyland wasn’t out having a smoke, Raburn would’ve got those last two games. Switch to Vapor Pro! (Which reminds me… Recently, I went to visit a friend who runs one of these posh rehab clinics — He used to be so much fun! Oh, well. — and everyone smokes. Some smoke Vapor Pro so they can smoke indoors too. Anyhoo, my friend just did a pick up of a new patient and I guess when they go in to grab an addict they have to clean their cupboards of any booze so when the addict returns home there’s no temptations. Well, it just happened that my friend still had this no-longer-needed booze in his car. So guess who went home with twenty bottles of wine, a few bottles of fancy schmancy vodka and some whiskey? I got booze for days!) In some formats, Raburn does have 2nd base eligibility. In those leagues, I say this sleeper post is a no-brainer, my specialty. Now maybe he’s dealing with the same issue as Alexei Ramirez and can’t take the cold weather, but Raburn’s 2nd half in 2009 was better than his 1st half and last year he made it a trend with 13 homers, .315 average in 251 ABs. Same amount of 2nd half homers as Robby Cano, Adrian Gonzalez and Hunter Pence. Raburn has the best average out of those three. Cherry picking names, you say. I say, yeah, so? You start a blog and you cherry pick the names you want. So what can we expect of Ryan Raburn next year and what makes him a 2011 fantasy baseball sleeper?
I think 15 homers is the absolute lowest homer total we’ll see. I think 20 homers is more likely. And 20+ homers is definitely a possibility. He just needs to put a full season together. Or better yet, the Tigers need to give him a full season of at-bats. Stop with this 4 or 5 days a week shizz. Put him out there for 500+ ABs. If he gets those ABs, I’d give him a line of 70/21/80/.275/3. It’s not scream at your neighbors, “I love Ryan Raburn!” type numbers, but, again, at 2nd base you can do much worse. Oh, and there’s some upside on those numbers. So, yeah, he’s a total MIF — Middle Infielder Flier.
