With a blog dedicated to Rotisserie baseball, I tend to dislike players who get ABs and contribute nothing - Jose Vizcaino and Orlando Palmeiro types.
The Indians signed Todd Hollandsworth to apparently provide me with this season's frustration. With my eyes are pealed towards Brad Snyder's debut, I want the ABs given to the eventual platoon partner of Jason Michael to go to a player with some prospects of upside surprise.
Mr. Hollandsworth no longer possesses that (nor does he bat from the right side.) Franklin Gutierrez does!
Gutierrez's sleeper potential occurred to me while examining Brad Snyder's prospective opportunity. With Snyder and Michaels hitting from the left-side of the plate, a natural thought is who would hit from the right-side in the event a platoon situation arose. And if a platoon proved uncnnecessary, who fits the bill as a right-handed 4th OF backing up each once or twice a week (which comes to four potential starts per week!)
As a 4th OF, Gutierrez can have his ABs managed. This could protect him from overexposure and prevent his worse tendency from manifesting itself (lack of plate discipline). What could result is a player with decent counting stats (HR/RBI/SB).
I know he has fallen out of favor as a propsect - that 2004 power and SB outage would do that - but I am not ready to write him off as a helpful Roto player. His power rebounded slightly last season, but more importantly, his speed returned.
If he makes the team out of Spring training, spend a $1 and enjoy.
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