The Haves and the Have-Nots

By Robby Wellington – Staff Writer

Chances are, if you drafted a hitter in the first three rounds of your draft, you’re either quite satisfied with their performance, or incredibly disappointed. That’s because a quick look back at Yahoo’s original top 25 hitters shows a remarkable disparity between the players who have performed up to (or exceeded) expectations and those who have not.

Sixteen of those original top 25 hitters crack Yahoo’s top 40 overall player rankings for this year. In fact, with the notable exception of Ian Rever-Kinsler, all of the top 7 batters so far were likely taken in the first two rounds. It is a rarity this early in the season for most of the top guys to actually come through and perform like top draft picks.

The other side of the coin are the nine guys who range from rankings of 107 (Derek Jeter) up to a simply horrific 576, 699 and 742 (Manny Ramirez, Alfonso Soriano and Mark Teixeira, respectively). While most of these studs should come around and finish up among the elite, a few legitimately worry me:

Mark Teixeira – Much like me, it’s starting to look like Teixeira peaked a couple of years ago. Look for him to barely surpass his down totals from last season.

Ryan Howard – Speaking of over the hill, 2006 may very well go down as the best season of Howard’s career. Even his prorated 2005 stats might be somewhat lofty expectations. Look for 100/120/40/0 with an average in the .270s when all is said and done.

Alfonso Soriano – As much as it pains me to do this, it is looking more and more like Soriano is going to be a 2nd round guy next year. He should still be able to get close to 30/30 this year, but those are Grady Sizemore numbers. I’m sure someone in your league still feels like he is a top 10 talent, so go ahead and see if you can move him to that team (note: If anyone in my league wants Soriano for some serious talent, let me know).


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3 responses to “The Haves and the Have-Nots”

  1. maddendude Avatar

    Yea I’m feeling the pain, I have Howard and Atkins. When I go back and look at the draft, I just imagine how good my team could have been. I took Howard over Beltran, Tejada over Rollins or Hanley Ramirez, Atkins over Wells, Abreu, Lee, ARam. My team was being carried by freaking Eric Byrnes.

  2. Greg Avatar
    Greg

    “Much like me, it’s starting to look like Teixeira peaked a couple of years ago.” Funny shit!

  3. sir boss hog outlaw III Avatar
    sir boss hog outlaw III

    teixieira went yardwork in back to back games after this post

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