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Deep league advice -- We're a go for LoMo

Logan Morrison is finally healthy, finally playing first base, finally worthy of consideration. Don't let his Twitter account blind you to his playing ability.

Thearon W. Henderson

Baseball players are for the most part famous for being baseball players. Like, a guy doesn't usually become famous for his blogging ability and then go on to play third base for the Mariners (darn it). And a guy who plays third base for the Mariners doesn't often do that at the same time that he is on world tour with Maroon 5 or whatever.

People who do get famous in one thing and still do another thing don't always get their just due in one of the disciplines. Snooki and Lauren Conrad only got book deals because of reality TV. Bernie Williams and Peter Gammons might be excellent musicians, but I expect we wouldn't know much about their skills if not for baseball.

That's not necessarily a problem. If it turns out that Bernie and Gammons are crappy musicians (I've never really listened), well heck, being involved baseball let them do something they wanted to do that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to. Yay them. Snooki got to make extra money, her awful fans got to buy a book they for some reason wanted even though there is zero chance they will ever read it. Everybody wins, really.

No, the only time the whole thing becomes an issue is when someone's fame in one discipline causes them to be underrated in the other. If Bernie Williams is the next Eric Clapton (again, no idea), then yeah, that kind of stinks for him. It looks like a vanity project, so we don't expect much of him.

The weirdest one, though, is Logan Morrison. LoMo wouldn't be famous if not for baseball, but be honest, the first thing you think of when I said Logan Morrison, or when you saw his picture at the top of the page, is his Twitter account. Even if you don't have an account of your own or don't follow him, you thought of his Twitter first. Don't lie. And as a result, LoMo has somehow gotten underrated in his primary discipline. It's an interesting twist on a common story.

Now, it doesn't help that he has had some issues with his baseball half. Being stuck in left field (where he is about as useful as the win stat to Brian Kenny), playing in front of nobody in Miami, injuries, all of that combined to give LoMo a "not gonna make it" tag among a lot of baseball folk.

Last year, when he was 24, that prediction didn't look so bad. A .707 OPS combined with abysmal defense and a lost second half of the year all combined to kill any positive momentum he had gained in his first season-and-a-half, with a combined .811 OPS in 2010 and 2011. Much of his struggles can likely be ascribed to his career-low .248 BABIP combined with those maladies.

This year, through only a couple weeks, Morrison is smacking the ball around again. But, again, it's only a couple weeks. If we were down on him in April, there is nothing at all he could have done so far that should have changed our opinion of him (hear that, Yasiel Puig fans? It's still early). So I have no intention of discussing Morrison's 2013 stats.

What I do have intention of discussing is that, even with his rough 2012, he entered this year with a career OPS of .781, a career OPS+ of 110. With a K:BB ratio of 1.65, there is little reason to think LoMo can't hit at least reasonably well. Heck, Keith Law's top 100 prospects in 2009 had him at 23rd, and phrases like "Morrison is strong, very strong..." and "...whoever fills (first base) in 2009 may miss a few throws because he's too busy looking over his shoulder" are about as glowing a review as you're likely to get from Law.

Morrison's Yahoo ownership stands at 7%, despite being eligible at both first base and outfield. He's not in the upper tier at either position, not top-ten at first or top-30 in the outfield. But for deep and/or NL-only leagues, he's likely to be a cheap option that is flying under the radar.

Yes, Logan Morrison is "that Twitter ballplayer." Short of hitting like Paul Goldschmidt, he probably always will be. But if that's all you think when you hear his name, you don't have the complete picture. Because there are two key words in "that Twitter ballplayer." One is "Twitter," sure. But the other is "ballplayer."

Follow me on Twitter @danieltkelley