Brian Bixler is a player most fantasy owners do not know. I suspect many fantasy prospect mavens do not know either as he is not included in Baseball America's propsect handbook. (He is, however, in John Sickels' book.) Some fantasy players may have be recently made aware by a blurb that showed-up on Rotoworld yesterday with some hope that the Pirates may be willing to let go of Jack Wilson as a result.
Back in May, I had intended to include him in a post about the Pirates' minor leaguers. He ended-up on the cutting room floor, so to speak, as my fantasy muse took me in the direction of three former first round picks pitching in AAA for the team - Brian Bullington, John Van Benschoten and Sean Burnett.
At the time, Bixler was hitting a noteworthy 309/394/455 with 8 SBs. A week or so later, those numbers are 324/419/503 with 12 stolen bases, and he has still not been caught. With Jack Wilson struggling to recapture any semblance to a major league hitter and Jose Castillo doing the same, Bixler is the type of player that deep NL-only leagues need to keep an eye on. There really is no reason he can't take Castillo's job right now. Wilson is a organization favorite and may be harder to shake loose.
I was also lookig at Steven Pearce who had been promoted from High A following 11 HRs. He was a combined 296/373/615 at the time, but his slash stats had dropped off in the move upward. Currently, his combined numbers are 302/380/619. In AA, they are 272/359/459.
The Cuban signee,Yoslan Herrera, was another AA player I was going to mention as I had stashed him in the the deepest recesses of my sleeper bin. His stats at the time didn't merit mention - 45.2IP, 83 runners allowed and a 26:14 GB/FB ratio. He made an appearance on this week's "Prospect Hot Sheet" in the Not Hot section so things are getting worse than that!