Fantasy Baseball 2011: ESPN +/- Review - April 22, 2011

ESPN +/-

An under-utilized tool I always find interesting is the add/drop trends of what owners across the database of ESPN leagues are doing.  Much more than simple % owned (or the completely worthless % started in Yahoo! Leagues), it can often illustrate a guy that is garnering buzz as the next big thing or a guy that everyone is suddenly selling.  So let's take a look at the most noteworthy trends of the past couple days:

Hitters

+81.8 Jed Lowrie - Credit where credit is due as Jed has put together a week where he's hit .429 with 3 home runs and an astounding 11 rbi's, but it's obviously easy to say that level of production won't continue.  The fun part is always seeing someone on the Red Sox or Yankees get their value inflated, while a guy with more positional flexibility and a full-time job in Maicer Izturis sits at half that mark (+41.5).

+71.1 Jeff Francoeur - Frenchy has been mashing for the Royals the past week and owners are starting to take notice, but the natural question is will he keep it up and finally deliver on the promise he showed in 2006?  Surprisingly I'm tempted to say yes, his above-average arm in the outfield should keep him in the lineup for the foreseeable future, and while his .339 BABIP is due to regress, he has cut down on his notorious K% woes since his days in Atlanta.  Conservative estimate would be around his 2009 production of .280/.309/.423, but the pedigree is still there for him to excel.

More after the jump:

+51.9 Jonny Gomes - This is where things get really fun, Gomes has been a solid fantasy contributor through the first 2 and a half weeks of the season, but the preponderance of owners adding him are quickly about to have to look elsewhere.  Gomes' popular start has been aided by a walk percentage almost three times his normal career mark.  So while his adorable 28.1 K% looks alright when he's reaching base 40% of the time, only one of those trends is the actual Jonny we have known for 6 years.  And as evidenced by his .167 average the past week, it's very possible that numbers are catching up to him already.  But hey, Dusty loves a good vet.

+34.1 Brennan Boesch - Boesch is a guy who seems to have already lost his luster after being such a fair-haired boy in the first half last year.  A miserable second half had people writing him off, but for once I think it was an apt description to say that it was a guy who got worn down with the pressures of playing everyday in the big leagues. He's a guy who hit with power in the minors, hit with power in stretches in the bigs, and now that he has a better understanding of what is expected of him, it's possible he puts it all together for an under-the-radar breakout campaign.

-28.3 Sean Rodriguez - What in the world can explain how both Rodriguez and Brandon Wood could have such ungodly power production in the Angels minor league system, seduce countless owners into buying in every year, only to never come close to their expected production.  People seem to be catching on that despite Sean's ability to best Brandon by at least putting bat on ball enough to hold down a big league job, he's probably never going to be the 29-homer guy he was in Triple-A.

-23.7 Edwin Encarnacion - This one makes me happy, because I had to hear Matthew Berry gleefully proclaim that E5 would hit FORTY home runs this year.  For those keeping score at home, he has zero.  His K% is way down from his career mark so things only look to go downhill from here and it appears owners are willing to take a chance on some other options that won't hurt them.