 | June 13, 2007 Coach Danko |  |
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Mike Lowell, Bos 3BI'm going to add a new wrinkle with today's feature player. In all of my previous spotlights, I've focused on a player that you should think about adding to your fantasy baseball team. Today, I'm going to change directions and talk about a player that I fully expect to fall off of his current All-Star pace. Mike Lowell, third baseman for the Boston Red Sox currently has a stat line that reads: .311 BA, 30 R, 11 HR, 47 RBI, and 2 SB. Now don't get me wrong, these are tremendous numbers and leading one of the best teams in baseball in RBIs and homeruns (he's currently tied with Big Papi with 11 bombs) is no small feat, but history is not on Lowell's side to keep up the current pace.
If Mike Lowell was a 25 year old rookie with big minor league numbers who just got called up to the bigs, and just got moved into the three, four, or five hole for a high-powered offense after a big first two months of the year, like G.Atkins last year or JJ Hardy this year, then I would say that there is a reasonable expectation that Lowell could theoretically produce like Carlos Lee, for example. However, based on his 10-year history, his recent 3-year history, and last year’s performance, his high level of production is simply unsustainable and in no circumstance can be shown to be in the same tier of value as a guy like Carlos Lee. If you own Mike Lowell and you somehow believe him to be capable of maintaining his 90 Run, 33 HR, 135 RBI, 6 SB, .330 BA pace, then I would certainly suggest feverishly fending off all suitors, dropping any other third basemen on your roster, and watching your team coast to an easy fantasy league victory. Ringggggg.....there's your alarm clock! Lowell's a perfect sell-high candidate. Unload him now while you still can! |
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Lets take a deeper look into Lowell's history. On June 12, 2006 Mike Lowell was batting .318, slugging .532, with an .898 OPS in the powerful Boston lineup, strikingly similar to this year's numbers wouldn't you say? By the end of the season he was batting .284, slugging .475, with an .814 OPS. Old timer Mike Lowell’s career averages are .276 BA .468 slugging and .810 OPS. Furthermore, in a 10-year career Lowell has never finished with a BA above .293, he's only hit 30+ HRs once, and 100+ RBIs twice. Over the past three seasons (playing no less than 150 games) he’s put up averages of 74 Runs, 18.3 HR, 74.3 RBIs, and 3.6 Steals, with an average BA of .271.