I’m not a huge fan of Dustin Ackley. Way to sell the reader on this keeper out of the gate! Why don’t you just tell me he slept with my Random Italicized mother too? Sorry, Random Italicized Voice, just being up front. The real world is already harsh enough with the truth and non-slanted letters. Lie to me! I love Dustin Ackley. Oh, forget it now. In Ackley’s first full three-quarters of a major league season (maybe that’s not full), he hit 6 homers and stole 6 bases in 333 ABs. Yikes, his ABs are half of the devil, a dwarf devil! Prior to his call-up, he hit 9 homers and stole 7 bases in 66 games at Triple-A. Not one of these numbers jumps out at me as being unlikely from Ackley (say that fast 117 times!). He Ks a bit, walks a bit, steals a bit, badonkadonks a bit. He’s like a young Crapolanco. Yikes, let me get out of the intro paragraph before I drain all of my enthusiasm for him. So what can we expect of Dustin Ackley in 2012 fantasy baseball and what makes him a keeper?
Okay, here’s the thing, and there’s always a thing unless you live in a vacuum pack. I don’t think Ackley is gonna necessarily crawl up into a ball and be terrible next year. I also don’t think he’s gonna make clay action figures and sell them under the name Sucklord. He’s more or less a teen-ish power and speed guy. It’s just a’ight. On a scale of a’ight, “just a’ight” is below a’ight and a’ight a’ight, but he gets a boost to a’ight and nearly a’ight a’ight with how cheap he should be for people next year. Safeco didn’t play terrible for homers last year, but, as the French say, that was an outlier. It’s a hideous place for power. Last year to get to .273 on his average, he needed a .339 BABIP. That average shouldn’t drop into the toilet like Lawrence Taylor’s post-football life, but he’s gonna be hard-pressed to hit over .270. I’ll give him the line of 80/12/55/.265/12. So the prognosis may not be so Ackadocious, and I may not draft Ackley for my 2012 fantasy baseball team, but I would keep him in the right situation.
