Ramiro Pena $5.
Out of context, this is an extremely silly bid. In context, Pena's new owner had just dumped, needed a 3B to replace Mike Cuddyer, and Pena and Andres Blanco were the only ones available. He needed to make sure he got one or the other to ensure that the trade went through. Pena offers next to nothing in Roto, and can stay in your free agent pool.
Cristian Guzman $3.
Guzman was a contingency plan for a lot of owners this week...except for the owner who bought him at $3. Guzman will play almost every day with Ian Kinsler out, but Guzman is more of a move-the-chains kind of guy than anything else. His double digit speed is long gone, his double digit power never was, and the best you can hope for here is a neutral BA with some RBI/runs and a few SB.
Josh Tomlin $2.
I'll admit I don't know much about Tomlin, so I'll crib from Let's Go Tribe and their description of his Major League debut.
Tomlin's stuff is decent: his fastball topped out at 93, but generally sat at 90 mph tonight, and has a nice low-80s changeup, along with a slider and a curve. His pitches weren't straight (his fastball looked like it moved into left-handers), which is actually more of an asset than an extra mph or two on the fastball. But what separates the prospects from the major-league pitchers is location, and Tomlin lived on the corners all night. He's a fly-ball pitcher, so those corners tended to be the upper two corners in the strike zone, though he kept hitters from sitting on the waist-high fastball with a grounder-inducing change. More importantly, he was almost always pitching from ahead; New York's veteran lineup eats nibblers for lunch, but tonight they seemed on their heels swinging against Tomlin all night. And he didn't just look good the first or second times through the lineup; he was getting the same kind of easy outs in the seventh inning that he got when the Yankees first saw him.I was going to try and truncate their description, but all of the information up there is important. Tomlin sounds like he has good but not great stuff, thrives on location, and is more mature than his years. He sounds like a back end of the rotation guy to me, but he's definitely worth playing while he's hot. The problem with the eyeball analysis is that it ignores Tomlin's 92.1% strand rate and .178 BABIP in his first two games. Even if he's better than advertised heading into this season, those numbers aren't going to maintain.
Chad Qualls $1. Other bids $1, $1.
Qualls started the year closing for the Diamondbacks but was simply awful most of the year. He finally got bumped from the job and then traded out of Dodge to the Rays dirt cheap. Qualls might bounce back, but I wouldn't place the bet that he will if I'm contending, and there's almost no chance that he bumps Rafael Soriano from the 9th inning gig.
Boof Bonser $1.
I keep mistakenly thinking of Bonser as a prospect even though he's now 28 years old. His best shot at a sustainable MLB gig is as a middle reliever, and Bonser was hardly tearing up AAA prior to his call-up. He'll wind up at the back of what is a very deep A's bullpen.
Francisco Rodriguez $1.
Thus far, Rodriguez has been a solid middle reliever for the Angels. He throws mostly hard stuff, mixing a true fastball with a cutter for most of his offerings. He's fine as long as he's pitching well, but I wouldn't count on any saves here.
Shawn Camp. Claimed by 7th and 5th place teams.
I wrote about Camp on July 5, claiming that a "moderate to extreme Post All-Star regression coming for Camp." Well, sure enough, Camp was beaten around in July to the tune of a .368 batting average against. Camp is still potentially useful in deep A.L.-only leagues, but there are probably better options out there as well.
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