Coco Crisp, Hitting Again

The start of the season was rough for Coco Crisp, who dealt with inner-ear and sinus infections at the same time as a slump. He's been back in the lineup since the end of May, though, and consistently, and it's mostly meant production for him once more.

His season line is still awful, as he was at all of .158/.213/.175 through June 6. But since the following day, he's been a fantasy force, going at a .309/.391/.444 clip with nine steals in 10 chances. That's a bit more power than you can likely expect from Crisp going forward, especially with half of his games coming at pitcher-friendly O.co Coliseum, but it's certainly a good sign given how punch-less he looked early on.

Crisp is a seriously underrated fantasy asset, since he tends to miss some time with injuries, and is with the unsung A's. If he's going to be back to producing offensively, after a rough start to the season, then you should be paying attention to him. You might be asking why a name like Covelli Crisp would be mentioned here, as if it weren't obvious that he should be owned, but a look at his ownership rates suggests that the question isn't a valid one.

Crisp has seen an 11 percent jump in ownership in the last week at ESPN, but is still at just 57 percent. At CBS, he's owned in just 41 percent of leagues -- we're talking about a player who projected to be worth over $20 in mixed leagues at the start of the season, a player who won't make that projection because of his horrendous month at the plate, but one who can still produce that way from here on out.

Grab him before other people notice that he's back. His season line is so damaged that it will take awhile to register with everyone -- his ownership rates are evidence of this happening in real-time -- but all it takes is for someone in your league to check the rankings for the last two-to-four weeks for them to see that Crisp is doing Crisp things once more, as he was originally expected to back in the spring.