Fantasy Baseball: Buy-low players worth grabbing

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Albert Pujols is starting to show signs of life after a woeful start to his career with the L.A. Angels.

A Series of Unfortunate Events. For those that don?t know, it?s a quite popular children?s book series that, frankly, I never liked. So popular, they made a movie starring Jim Carrey after the books? success. The premise is quite reflective of the title ? it circles around three siblings, who can?t catch a break. Not once. Nothing goes their way.

But as I said, I didn?t like the books. I only read a couple of them, but I distinctly remember having no desire to continue on with the series. It just seemed preposterous that everything could go wrong for them. I know it?s fiction and that?s the point ? but I?m too stubborn to believe that that can happen.

It?s not that an unfortunate event makes the next one more likely to be fortunate, but that each event has an equal chance of going either way, and for hundreds to break in a single direction is against all odds.

I feel the same way about baseball players and their fantasy prospects. It can?t all go wrong. And since the only stats we pursue in fantasy are those from this day forward, ignoring the short term past is often one of the best ways to predict the long term future. That is precisely why the following list are all buy-low players I am currently looking to snag. Without further ado, A Series of Unfortunate Players:

Albert Pujols, 1B

Why not start with the best of the best? His .232 BABIP doesn?t look the slightest bit legitimate against a .309 career average and a 21.3% line drive rate. Fools will say Pujols is old and washed up, but in reality, he?s a top-10 fantasy option with a top-20 price tag. Hitting three homers in his last four games through Friday doesn?t hurt, either.

Josh Johnson, SP

I refuse to give up on this one. Completely and utterly refuse. In his latest start as of this writing (5/20 at Cleveland) he displayed his highest average velocity yet. He has the third-highest difference between his ERA and FIP, and nothing suggests he should be giving up as many runs as he has.

Jemile Weeks, 2B

A preseason sleeper for quite a few, Weeks has quickly fallen out of favor with fantasy owners. His ownership has dropped substantially (56% ESPN, 50% Yahoo!) and yet his skills may be just the same. His .226 BABIP should be close to .300 based on his line drive/ground ball/fly ball rates, and perhaps higher given his speed (he has just two infield hits so far this season). He?s proven himself in the stolen base department (10 of 13) so I believe his stock should be exactly where it started ? as a second basemen ranked in the low to mid-teens.

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