Ryan Braun Milwaukee Brewers comes alive
AP Photo Michael Dwyer
In one ESPN fantasy league I got pick #12 in a 12 team league, and picked Alfonso Soriano and Ryan Braun. Now this looked like an awful choice after about a month when Braun was not doing anything and neither was Soriano (Soriano was hurt even). This week both All stars and potential 30-30 candidates blew up with a ton of home runs (8 for Soriano 6 for Braun). Considering the quality hitting around them, they are probably not going to get close to stealing 30 bases.
Ryan Braun is fresh off his 8 year 45 million dollar deal, which looks like an absolute bargain for the Milwaukee Brewers. A player of this caliber should be getting more than 100 million for an 8 year contract, but the Brewers locked him up early before arbitration so got a great deal on the backend. This type of deal is a must for smaller market teams like Milwaukee. The deal will run out when Braun is 32 at the end of his prime, so the Brewers will be getting a lot of productive seasons out of a guy who had the most successful season of any player ever against left handed pitching. It's hard to believe, but Braun hit .450 with a 1.480 OPS against lefties last year. He could afford to walk a little bit more but his recent power surge (6 home runs in 6 games) brought his numbers back to where we thought they would be after his rookie campaign.
Alfonso Soriano played ineffectively until April 15th and was then on the DL for a few weeks. He continued to struggle early May when coming back but on May 10th he had a 4 / 5 day. Since then he has hit over .500 with 6 home runs, raising his average from .191 to .296. It goes to show you early on that you cannot take statistics too literally especially a player's average, because a hot streak can change things fast (or a cold streak, for that matter). Like Braun, Alfonso is not stealing bases (he has 3, Braun has 1), but in that powerful Chicago Cubs lineup he will not be asked to steal a base or two when Derek Lee, Aramis Ramirez or Geovany Soto are there behind him to knock him in.
In one league I traded for Soriano for dirt cheap early on when he batted in the .100's and was on the DL. Early on if a star has crappy numbers they are a buy low candidate unless the numbers are resulting from something that is not a fluke (like if a player is getting older or is chronically injured). David Ortiz is another example of this as his early season swoon seems to be passing with 3 home runs and nearly 10 RBI in 2 days.