Alex Rios

Gypsy Soul wants to know my thoughts on Alex Rios. Sure.

I'm somewhat reluctant to go in this direction, but the simplest answer to this question might be the Alex Rios just isn't that good:

OPSs by Month since April 2010: 796, 1106, 761, 735, 712, 645, 480, 630, 678.

If you care to add 2009 to the mix, Rios has had only two months with an OPS over 800 since April 2009 (not including October 2009). He has only had four months over 750.

The other side of this coin is that Rios is not as horrible as his April would indicate. His BABIP of 224 screams fluke (his LD% is 19.1%). Rios is hitting the ball in the air less, though. His fly ball percentage of 35.9% is the lowest of his career since way back in 2005.

A bigger problem with Rios is that - like a lot of White Sox - he's not running. He's four-for-eight this year and is going to have to really turn on the jets to get to the 30 SB some were expecting. Even if there's a bounce back coming with the bat, you're probably going to have to temper your earnings expectations on Rios because of the lack of steals.

Would I buy on Rios? Probably not. There's some kind of bounce back coming, but it might be a .280/15/15 pace as opposed to the more robust numbers some of us were expecting. That's obviously not terrible, but if you were counting on $25+ earnings from Rios this year, that dream is probably dead.