Welcome to Perception Vs. Reality, PVR for short. Not POV, you’re on the wrong type of website right now if that is what you’re looking for. Wait! Don’t leave! You have fantasy baseball teams, don’t you? The good news is that you won’t need to delete your browsing history after reading this. Now that I have your attention here is a little background. One of our DFS writers, VictoriaB, wrote this last season and Grey liked it. So, Grey emailed me and asked if I could ruin the concept this season. I, of course, obliged.
I’m going to be looking at the player rater and tossing out some names that you might have overlooked. This could help with your waiver wire and trade value decisions. Quick plug for one of our in-house geniuses, Rudy Gamble. Check out his trade analyzer creation. Not anal laser, again, wrong website. I got the chance to play around with it a little bit (the analyzer not the laser) and it is very easy to understand and use. It will be very useful to you if you like to make in season moves with your league mates. Teams have only played 1-3 games a piece so this will just a be a test run this week. Even though it will still be small, by next Sunday, we will have a bigger sample size. Samples! I love samples.
First Base/Outfield
Jose Martinez – He is off to a hot start, and if you’re a regular reader of Razzball, this is not a new name to you. ATOT (At time of typing lolz), Martinez is 6th on the per game player rater at $59.7/game and he is currently 2-3 with an RBI on Saturday. He is still available in half of ESPN leagues so take a peak at your waiver wire and see if he’s there. He is going to be a regular starter for the Cardinals and hit right in the middle of a lineup that was in the top half of run scoring teams in the NL last season.
Third Base
Matt Davidson– This is another guy who is available in about half of ESPN leagues. Davidson started the season with three home runs in his first game, not to shabby. He has a possibility of hurting you in the batting average category, he only hit .220 last season. There is room for improvement and it’s definitely possible. But, if you have your eye on cheap power, Davidson hit 26 home runs in under 450 at bats last season. We could be talking about a player with 30-35+ home run power with 100-150 more at bats. Sheeeeeeeeeit, he’s already 10% the way there.
Shortstop
Tim Anderson – Tim barely cracked the top 20 shortstops as far as ADP during the draft season but he started the season with a multi-HR game. We are already at two White Sox in this article and this is a team who is not going to score a ton of runs every game this season like they did in the first game. But, Tim Anderson has 20/20 potential if you are looking to trade for or pick up an undervalued player. It wasn’t too long ago that Anderson was a top prospect.
Second Base
Cesar Hernandez – Scott Kingery is the talk of the Phillies’ middle infield, and he should be, he’s going to be awesome. But, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be keeping an eye on Cesar Hernandez. Second base is pretty weak on the back end and Hernandez has double digit steal and home run potential. His home run and .444 average through 2 games has him at #24 on our player rater going into the first weekend and Kingery will be moving all over the field until he finds a home at whatever position, if that even happens this year. Hernandez will lose at bats but he still holds value in deep leagues.
Catcher
Chris Iannetta– He’s playing in the most hitter friendly park in baseball and he was able to collect a plethora of hits in the first couple of games on the road. Humidor? Iannetta scoffs at it. Iannetta has not been known as a hitting catcher throughout his career, but, he hit over .250 last season with 17 dongs and he was able to spank a couple during spring training as well. He’s currently inside the top 40 in our player rater.
Outfield
Gregory Polanco – Ellll COFFEEE. Did you know that our projections for Friday had Polanco inside of the top 10? Nailed that one. For an outfielder that wasn’t highly sought after during draft season (OF #46), Polanco has some decent potential batting 3rd in the Pirates lineup. Are the Pirates going to be world beaters? Hell no, but they aren’t the Marlins, either. After two out his first three seasons in the majors being pretty disappointing, Polanco is still potentially a 25/20 guy if not 25/25.
David Peralta – David Peralta is leading off for a damn good lineup. For a guy that hit .293 last season, there is a lot of run scoring potential there. Great production in 2 categories from my OF5? say no more, boss. Through 2 games, Peralta is ranked 15th on our player rater without going yard and stealing only one base. He’s never been a double digit base stealer, but he can swat double digit home runs.
That’s all for me this week. I’ll catch you in the comment section. You can also catch me on Twitter for awful puns at best.
