THREE UP/THREE DOWN
Hitters
- Chris Davis, 1B—TEX (UP) I brought Chris Davis up in my Futures Market section a couple of months ago as a potential sleeper, but I surely was not expecting this big of an outburst. The 22-year-old rookie first baseman is hitting .295 with 11 home runs, 22 RBI, and 27 runs scored in just 33 games. He is hitting a home run once every 11.1 at-bats, just astounding. And for the season, he has already hit 34 home runs (one every 12.3 at-bats) between three levels of competition. The power is obvious, but can we expect the batting average to continue? To an extent, yes, we could see it hover around the .270-.275 range. A 76 percent contact rate will certainly make it hard to sustain any average near .300, but Davis is hitting 22.5 percent line drives, which should give him a shot at keeping his average reasonable. Just understand that there is risk in that skill with Davis as the league adjusts.
- Kelly Shoppach, C—CLE (UP) Shoppach is another fantasy breakout player. All he had to do to really become recognized was go five for six with five extra-base hits in a game last week. This was just the second-time in American League history that such an event occurred, the last being Lou Boudreau in 1946. But all that really happened to make Shoppach a valuable player was to actually get playing time. When Victor Martinez went down, the astute fantasy player should have been grabbing Shoppach up. His average will be tough to maintain while striking out 34 percent of the time, a la Mike Napoli, but Shoppach’s power is just the same. Shoppach hits a very good 19.7 percent of flyballs over the fence. Since taking over for Victor Martinez about six weeks ago, Shoppach is hitting .308, with 10 home runs and 27 RBI. Too bad for him that Martinez will likely be back in two weeks, but even so, manager Eric Wedge stated that Martinez will split time with Shoppach behind the plate.
- Mark Teixeira, 1B—LAA (UP)
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