Jose Bautista (RF)

Published by :

Sometimes you just get a queasy feeling about a ballplayer in fantasy sports, and this season in baseball mine seems to be about Jose Bautista.

Sometimes you just get a queasy feeling about a ballplayer in fantasy sports, and this season in baseball mine seems to be about Jose Bautista. Someone sent me a trade offer with him and Matt Moore, and asking for Joey Votto. While I did my research, I realized that Votto is posed to be a Triple Crown threat these next few years as he enters 2012 at age 29 and with a bill of good health. Not so Mr. Bautista. Whereas Mr. Votto’s numbers in his career are consistently good, if not great, the same is not true for Jose. In fact, if you take out his incredible break-out year of 2010 and his follow-up of 2011, there isn’t much to get excited about. Include in those concerns a wrist injury last year, entering 2013 at age 32, no longer 3B eligible, and you probably can see why I turned down the trade. Don’t get me wrong, he can still have a good season, but I’m guessing the numbers of ’10 and ’11 won’t be revisited.

Related Tags » • • • • •

2 Comments

Published by cmayodng :

I am not going to say that Bautista is better than Votto. He isn't. I will say that they aren't too far off though. 1st-You make a case that Bautista injured his wrist but negate to mention Votto and his 2 knee surgeries. Votto didn't hit a HR over his final 100 AB's last year. Mind you, he was supposedly pretty healthy at that point. 2nd-Bautista "figured" it out at age 29. Some guys are late bloomers. He is still in his prime and hit 27 HR last year in 92 games. That equates to 41 HR in 140 games. Votto has 1 year where he hit over 30 HR, let alone has never reached 40. Joey Bats has reached that in 2 of the past 3 years. 3rd-Both players are capable of 100 R/100 RBI year-in-year-out. No discernible difference in those 2 categories. The area that Votto is clearly ahead is AVG and OBP. Votto is good for .320/.410 while Bautista is a .265/.375 guy. Bautista started slow last year, which skewed his average. If you take out his April, he had a .265/.371 line. That is more consistent with what is expected with him. Overall, it depends on the way your league is set up and your team as a whole. If you are weak at pitcher and could use Moore, he has great value this year. If Votto is saving your team average, then you sacrifice the power for a great average. I guess you may want to look into overall numbers before you make assumptions from the surface. Plus no need for me to add insult to injury and bring up the lineup that Bautista will be hitting in the middle of. Good Luck Buddy

Edit

Published by Bones : Article Author

Hey Chris, Insult to injury? I don't count intellectual reasoning based on facts and figures insulting. Actually appreciate your insights; I would invite you to post on the forums and get good conversations going! Unfortunately, spotlights are not full articles; they have to be short and sweet. So you are right about how it depends on the league set-up, which I did not get into. Maybe I should have. It is a Dynasty league, and so that is why I stressed the two players ages in the spotlight. I'd rather have Votto's Triple Crown capacities in the sweet years between age 29 and 32, than the possible slow down with Bautista between ages 32 and 36. And yes, some guys figure it out "later", but not that many. That is another thing in Votto's favor; he figured it out a while ago. The other part is the fact that I inherited a middling team from another owner last year, and have gone about the business of rebuilding with an eye towards youth and the future. Granted, that is where Moore would of come in handy (I love his upside), but as I've shared with every owner who's made me an offer for Votto, I have to get younger, not older. Plus, I have been able to assemble quite a prospective starting rotation for the future, which includes Strasburg, Jose Fernandez, Jameson Taillon, Michael Wacha, and Danny Hultzen. Oh, and I have 29 year Scherzer to boot. So Moore wasn't too critical. You see how I can't get everything into a spotlight, lol? The only other thing is the "queasy" statement. The reason I am feeling that way is because the injury was to his wrist. Yes, Votto had a knee problem last year, and it did seem to sap his power. But with a full off-season to heal up, I trust a knee to improve with a hitter more than a wrist. This maybe is just a personal preference, but with so much that goes into hitting with the wrists, and at the major league level, it makes me uncomfortable to trust a 1st or 2nd round pick to that situation. But you're right, he could be fine. I was watching the MLB channel a little while ago and he was the 3rd guy listed on the experts list of possible MVP candidates in the American League. It wouldn't be the first time I made a dumb statement here! Anyways, thanks for the comments, and again, feel free to come back and post some forum topics. We could use about 10 more guys to jump in and make this a much more interesting site. God knows it won't happen if it's just me posting!! And good luck to you too this season. John aka Bones

Edit

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.