brad hawpe????

[pat1999]

whats the wordo n this guy...he is off to a solid start and plays for colorado...i never heard of him...anyone have some info on him???

[johnnie2130]

If I heard right, one of the ESPN analysts called him the NL MVP so far. Certainly the biggest surprise. He's an LSU guy.

[benjapage]

dropped giambi for him a couple weeks ago.

b

[FlawedReasoning]

People are hesitant to pick him up because they think he might get sent down to the minors once Mohr comes back. I think that's highly unlikely at this point, especially considering Hawpe's performance in the last two games.

Of course Hawpe's getting sent down is still a possibility, so don't hate me if it happens, but I would guess that Colorado will go with more of a platoon situation; probably Hawpe will hit against righties and Mohr will hit against lefties, that sort of thing. Or at least to begin with.

Anyway, I just picked him up yesterday. He's playing awesome, and the week after this one he'll have a full 7 home games at Coors!

[Rookies]

From the Baseball Prospectus:

"Lefty flail-and-mash guy who's been learning how to play the outfield since he's been in the system. He has improved, and looks pretty decent in the field compared to many others who've tried that conversion. Offensively, he's shown all the skills except stealing bases, so it's resonable to assume that he's going to be able to consolidate some or all of them."

[Ny YaNkS 2590]

He's definitely worth it, he went 2/3 tonight with 1 RBI.

He will be starting at OF for me until he cools down.

[stepsinsc]

Who's a better play (at Coors): Preston Wilson or Hawpe?

[Dmville]

Heard he stiill an odd man out with Mohr returning as the everday RF and they still have Restovich and Sullivan as extrra OF. Probably not sent down, but playing time will be limited.

[BigLebowski]

Kid has talent and deserves a job, but the OF is crowded in Colorado so even if he sticks with the big league team, he won't get a ton of ab's.

[bdrotoronto]

I just picked this guy up off waivers yesterday, I've been a P. Wilson owner since the draft and following the Rockies OF situation, this guy Hawpe just keeps getting more impressive.

There's a lot of opinions out there re: what the Col OF situation is, best I can piece together is P. Wilson pretty much doesn't play day games after night games (with rare exceptions), so that sometimes opens up the CF spot. P. Wilson you don't really want to start on the road anyway, he does all his mashing at Coors, his splits are really quite ridiculous. What I've heard re: the RF situation is that it's pretty much a lefty-righty platoon between Hawpe and Mohr, and it's actually relatively predicatable who will play. (of course, today they both played b/c it was a Preston off-day..) As the lefty in the platoon, Hawpe will actually get more playing time than Mohr. The way he's hitting it's hard to justify taking him out of the lineup anyway. Not only that, but this weekend proved that Hawpe is capable of hitting on the road, which a lot of the Colo. players are not very good at. Holliday, Sullivan and Restovich will also get playing time scattered about in LF/CF in some way. I think Hawpe is definitely worth taking a flyer on in a deep league, if you're willing to to spend a couple of days figuring out the platoon system they use in Colo. My experience with Wilson is that their situation is more predictable than people think, though.

edited to add: I just went back and looked through the Rockies box scores and Sullivan and Restovich are really only bit players in this whole equation, they have one combined start between them in the last week. The situation (de facto) actually appears to be pretty easy--Holliday is the regular starter in LF, P. Wilson the regular starter in CF, and Hawpe and Mohr platoon in RF based on lefty-righty, and sometimes they will both play if P. Wilson is on an off-day. I know this situation might be subject to change, but until I see something that deviates from this I am assuming that is basically the situation, and it just makes me more confident that Hawpe is a really good pickup right now.