Observations - undervalued players

[Mookie4ever]

So far this year I am in the midst of 3 auctions and 2 straight snake drafts and these are the 3 players so far that are IMO being really undervalued this year

Juan Pierre
So he is pretty much a one dimensional player but according to rototimes, using a straight 5x5 roto league with standard settings and a $260 cap, he earned $20.09 last year. The tenth most valuable OF in the majors last year, just ahead of Vlad. Last year he pretty much hit his 3-yr average in stats. So why is he so undervalued this year? No way that he is losing playing time to Kemp or Ethier. The Dodgers are not paying this ugly mutt $44 Mill to sit on the bench. The Dodgers were the 4th worst in baseball for homers last year but 8th best for BA so he will probably spend a lot of time running the bases. And I don't believe this talk about Torre not liking to steal, smart vets like Jeter and Damon were allowed to steal whenever they wanted to.


Mark Teixeira
An off year last year and good years but almost every other 1B in the league has significantly devalued Teix. He tore it up after the trade hitting .317 and more than an RBI/game. He's my pick to lead the league in RBI this year and should be a first rounder.

Jon Rauch
6'11" with a mid 90s fastball and 8K/9. The reliever most likely to get a closer job this year is not even being drafted in some leagues. He's a must in keeper leagues.

[jlm53089]

Pierre- I heard he might not get as many starts or ABs as possible so that does hit his value.
Teixeria- He is solid and ATL is good but there are better options in the first round,late 2nd is good value for him.
Rauch- he will help you in 2 categories, ERA and WHIP while good for a keeper, he is only good value for a very late round pick in a re-draft.

[KronJon]

Juan Pierre might be hitting 9th (with Russell Martin hitting 2nd)...so yeah, if that is true then I don't see him as undervalued.

[Field]

Juan Pierre might be hitting 9th (with Russell Martin hitting 2nd)...so yeah, if that is true then I don't see him as undervalued.

So what you're saying is that they have so much confidence in Pierre that they will be batting a pitcher ahead of him in the 8th slot? LaRussa would be proud .

Pierre is definitely going to have PT issues this year.

[KronJon]

Ahhh my bad, I actually remembered reading 9th somewhere else but it must be 8th.

[Matthias]

So what you're saying is that they have so much confidence in Pierre that they will be batting a pitcher ahead of him in the 8th slot? LaRussa would be proud .

Hey, sometimes you have to show all these Ivy League stat geeks that real games are managed by guts and intuition.

[CadensDad]

I just wont take a risk on Pierre in that OF, not at the price they are asking for him at.

[Ender]

I don't think Pierre will start full time this year unless he is traded. We are talking 3/4 time at best and maybe 1/2 time. He is also hitting the age where speed tends to start going down and speed is his only real strong point so when his SB go down his entire value goes down. If he bats 8th he'll give you below avg runs, horrible HR's, horrible RBI, a decent average and SB's, that just isn't exciting to me.

[Inukchuk]

Not necessarily commenting on your guys (although I think Teix's 05 year was more the exception than the rule, which would lead me to think he's not too undervalued as an early 3rd rounder), but I was curious as to how you came up with the amount of money Pierre earned last year. I have a very difficult time coming up with accurate auction values on my own and I usually just use AAV's from Fantasy Auctioneer. Any tips would be great, and don't worry about trying to dumb it down. I have a degree in math and teach it at the high school level. In other words, I'm a tremendous nerd

[Pirates4Life]

Two of the most undervalued players I've seen are Nick Swisher and Kelly Johnson.

Swisher hit 35 HRs in Oakland a couple years ago and had a down year last year. But now he's in one of the best HR parks in baseball and he'll be protected by Thome, Konerko, and Dye in a much, MUCH better lineup. Better pitches to hit, more runs being scored, and lots of potential to be a huge steal for where he's being drafted. I won't be suprised when he ends up with a batting average around .275 with an OBP over .400, and I'll be shocked if his power doesn't at least return to where it was in 2006.

And I love Kelly Johnson too. With full-time duty, he's got a shot to be a top 5 2B hitting leadoff in that lineup. 20+ HRs, double digit steals, a batting average near .280 and an OBP 100 points higher. And he's only going to get better now that he doesn't have to learn how to play 2B anymore.