Fantasy Baseball's Dirty Half-Dozen: Ice in Their Veins, Bats, and Arms

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We keep talking about how to improve your team through additions, guys who are just chilling on the wire waiting for you. But what if you don't have anyone on your team you want to drop?

That sixth-round Garrett Atkins pickup in the midst of that run on third basemen seemed like the right call at the time. You needed a masher, and David Ortiz still being around at the top of the fourth round for you seemed to good too be true. You drafted them so high, and they've been so good until this year; why would you give up on them?

But there they are: the guys who are hurting your team while you wait for them to catch fire and become themselves.

The bad news is that owners of these guys might have waited too long at this point, and suitable replacements may be difficult to find. The good news is, the season is still only about a quarter over, so there's plenty of time for someone else to get hot and qualify to fill their shoes on your squad (I'm looking at you, Adam LaRoche).

All the same, you should be looking for replacements for the following six guys who have fallen, and may not be able to get back up.

Garrett Atkins, Colorado Rockies (41 G, .190 AVG, .571 OPS, 3 HR, 14 RBI)

Atkins has been tailing off a little bit for each of the last couple years, but nothing like this. Something has happened to Garrett's swing.

He's been behind on fastballs all year, and his ground ball rate is up from 2008, too. Rotowire.com may have put it best when, in their latest fantasy notes on Atkins, they claimed that he "seems to be most helpful to the Rockies when he's getting beaned by opposing pitchers".

Look, we get it, players go through slumps. But there's no excuse for this from Atkins, especially given that he plays in hitter-friendly Coors Field. It's been almost 150 at-bats, and his replacement, Ian Stewart (.189, 7 HR, 20 RBI), is already in play, so at season's end, it's probably safest to assume whichever third baseman has passed the Mendoza Line will have a job--and the other will have either been dealt, sent back to AAA, or both.

David Ortiz, Boston Red Sox (40 G,  .195 AVG, .599 OPS, 1 HR, 18 RBI)

I shouldn't even have to put him here, but there's an awful lot of owners clinging to Papi. But like Derrek Lee (below), Ortiz had a major wrist injury hit him last year, and then he lost Manny Ramirez's presence in the lineup at the deadline. Between the two, Papi's power has disappeared; he's hit only ten home runs since Ramirez was traded, and eleven since last May.

It's not even just that his power swing has left him. His strikeout percentage is up seven percent from last year, so that now he's striking out in almost one out of every four at-bats. And in his last two years, we've seen a positively mammoth spike in his pop-up percentage. In previous years, seven or eight percent of fly balls Ortiz has hit were pop-ups; last year, it shot up to 14 percent, and this year it's 18 percent.

Perhaps one of the saddest on-field moments we'll see this year was when Ortiz went 0-for-7, and sadly told reporters very simply that "I don't feel like talking. Just put down, 'Papi stinks'." It's a reminder that the players are human, too, and deal with failure as hard or harder than the rest of us.

I'm not going to say Papi's done at 33—I'm hoping he's not—but he's no longer a help to your fantasy team. Look for a new DH, maybe Hank Blalock from Texas.

Stephen Drew, Arizona Diamondbacks (25 G, .190 AVG, .613 OPS, 2 HR, 13 RBI)

Drew was going to be a star, the next big-name shortstop in the NL. He could hit, he could field, he could run, and he might even be more talented than big brother J.D., assuming either could stay healthy. So what happened?

Good question. While you're asking, ask Conor Jackson, Chad Tracy, and Chris Young, too. Drew might actually the best of this bunch this year (and is owned in more leagues than the others, which is why he's listed here and they're not), but none of them are hitting higher than .190, and they were all tabbed as gifted hitters by scouts, management, and peers alike. The four have combined to hit nine home runs between them, on pace for 40 for the year combined.

This core tore up the league for the first 40 games of last year, and now seem to have absolutely fallen apart. It might be possible that all four of these hitters just need a change of scenery, but they're all in their late 20's now, and were expected to have had breakout seasons well before now.

All of these hitters should probably be left on the wire until they prove the scouts right.

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