Picked up Matt Diaz for $5. I need a UT for the second-half. Was this a good pickup?He should be owned in N.L.-only leagues. In mixed leagues, he's not much of an option right now.
Diaz has a couple of big problems. The biggest, obviously, is a left knee injury that will keep him out another month at least. He hasn't even resumed baseball activities.
The second problem is that he hasn't hit right-handers at all this year. It's an admittedly small sample size, but in 63 AB he has a horrid 357 OPS against them. This wasn't a problem for Diaz in 2006 or 2007. In '07, he was a weaker power option against righties but still managed to hit .318 against them in 170 AB. 2006 actually saw him rip righties with a .358 BA in 151 AB, although once again with limited HR power.
But the biggest problem I see for Diaz is that he's damned if the Braves do and damned if they don't.
With the Phillies recent swoon, there is talk of Atlanta upgrading their OF for the stretch run. Diaz would probably be the most likely victim of such an upgrade, moving to a bench role for a superior player. If the Braves decided to go the other way, it's possible Diaz would either get traded for a marginal prospect or benched while the team took a long look at Brandon Jones and other young outfielders.
Of course, this is all idle speculation on the part of media and bloggers like myself. It's entirely possible that Diaz plays in the final two months. His upside, though, isn't spectacular unless he's hitting .300, since he doesn't have a ton of power. And, coming off the knee injury, it's questionable the power will be there.
I'm not saying Diaz was a terrible pick-up. And I don't know what the rest of your free agent pool looks like. But I wouldn't count on Diaz for too much. Hopefully, you can spot start him until he shows he can hit righties again this year.
3 comments:
This is a pretty deep NL-only. To give you a sample of the FA pool, Corey Patterson at $13 is the best hitter (statistically) available.
Angel Pagan is also available for $5. Would he be a better pickup? I chose Diaz because I think I can use him in lefty matchups.
Thanks for all the great advice.
I know this is off the subject, but have you noticed that it seems more pitchers are taking come-backers off the head/face? Roy Halladay is the most recent example; Chris Young seems to be the worst case this season.
Is the number of facial injuries for pitchers up? Is there any kind of fantasy impact to this (outside of possible DL stints)?
I've noticed, but I'm not sure there's any corollary. With offense down in general this year, I would expect there to be slightly fewer hard hit balls and, thus, slightly fewer liners hitting the pitcher. I'd assume this is just random, though I could do wrong.
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