Fantasy Baseball Player Profile: Which Yadier Molina Will Show Up?

Yadier Molina was a tale of two players last year. In the first half of the season, he hit .223/.301/.294. In the second half, he hit .315/.368/.405. His end of the season splits ended up at .262/.329/.342. The big question arises. Which Molina will show up this year?

In the first half of last season, he was practically unusable. In the second half, he was a pretty solid option at catcher.

In 2008 and 2009, he was good for a .298/.353/.388 split. It’s pretty good numbers for a catcher, mesh that with the 55 RBI and six HR he produced, and he was a lower end starting catcher.

It only seemed fitting that he was going to put up similar numbers in 2010, right? Wrong.

The thing to remember about Molina is that he’s 28 years old, and he’s a perennial gold glover (won it last three years in a row), meaning he is not going to lose many at-bats to anybody even if he struggles. If last year’s any indication, wait out the cold streak and ride the hot one.

Molina seems poised for a rebound year and is not getting drafted in half of the standard ESPN fantasy leagues, making him a solid late-round draft pick or early waiver wire pickup.

Said with confidence, I will be adding Molina to my fantasy teams this year.

Check out our MLB Preview Series:

• NL East
• AL East
• NL Central
• AL Central
• NL West
• AL West
• MLB Postseason Prediction
• Player Profiles