“I’m glad I’m getting some company.” Easy there, Brett Lawrie. Oswaldo Arcia is only up to post-post-hype status. Still has a long way until he has nine posts before his hype. “Are you sure he didn’t have post-op surgery?” No, Lawrie, now run along and into a wall. Arcia you later! Thanks, pun punch and your floating fruit! I’d run away with you and get married, but I cantaloupe. Last year, Arcia had 20 homers, one steal and a .231 average. Someone hit the snooze button, I’m gonna take a power nap. *claps hands* Couldn’t sleep, but I had an idea to look deeper at his numbers. Well, not that much deeper, just slightly deeper. He had 20 homers in only 103 games and 372 ABs. In that few ABs, the only ones with 20 homers are George Springer, Steve Pearce, Tulowitzki and Evan Gattis. Pearce? Well, let’s throw him out for, um, ever. Springer, Tulo and Gattis all have big-time power. They’re thirty homer guys if healthy and chalking up 500+ ABs. Don’t believe Arcia belongs in that company? Arcia, wouldn’t want to be ya! Anyway, what can we expect of Oswaldo Arcia in 2015 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
Let’s get out of the way early the one thing Oswaldo has going against him that can’t be fixed: he plays for the Twins and his home games are in the Hubert H. Homerfree Retrodome. Sure, you can turn the TV to the Twins only when Arcia is batting if you own him. There’s an app for that! But he’s still surrounded by a team that doesn’t look great on paper. Unless, of course, that paper lists the top teams with runs scored from last year. On that paper, the Twins don’t look awful. I still don’t think they’re going to be one of the top producing teams, which should limit his runs and RBIs to around 70 at best and 60 at worst. Let’s also get out of the way my least favorite aspect of Arcia’s game: his splits give me the shakes, which sounds like a tagline for Friendly’s, but isn’t. Last year, he hit .198 vs. lefties with 3 homers. I just threw up in my mouth, spit it on my window and it formed the word, “Yuck.” With Gardy gone, Molitor may opt to make Arcia a platoon player and at that point, his sleeperness and value will have went kerboom. Another negative (I swear there will be positives at some point), Arcia now has back-to-back seasons with a 31% K-rate in the major leagues. Another negative– I keed, I keed. That’s it with the negatives. Oswaldo is only 23 years old, has 30+ homer power and other lefties couldn’t hit lefties either when they first came up. Former Twin, Justin Morneau, was one, even Big Papi had his share of troubles vs. lefties. If Oswaldo can hit in the .260’s vs. lefties as he did in the minors, he’s a .280+ hitter with 30 homers and some 3-5 steal speed. Whew, finally, there’s Oswaldo! Lost him for a second with his stupid striped matchy-matchy outfit. For 2015, I’ll conservatively give him the projections of 65/27/68/.242/3 with room for upside. At his age and what will be his draft range, I’d definitely take a flyer on him.
