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Closing Time: Cheap speed, Jonathan Villar and Danny Santana

Closing Time: Cheap speed, Jonathan Villar and Danny Santana

One of my goals during the baseball preseason was to stop you from drafting Billy Hamilton. He’s a speedster with almost no power, he’s a player with batting average risk, and heck, you can always find a commodity similar to Hamilton down the road — late in the draft, or perhaps in-season, for free.

Today, we talk about a couple of those guys. Come on down, Danny Santana and Jonathan Villar.

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Villar is one of the most-added bats in the Yahoo game, though he’s still unowned in about three-quarters of the land. He’s stolen bases in his last three starts (giving him eight in all), and is off to a respectable .265 start (with a .378 on-base percentage). He’s always going to be a contact concern, though his strikeout rate is a little lower this year. And you love seeing the walk rate spike up to 14 percent.

Villar qualifies at shortstop and third base, if you’re so inclined. He opened the year at the bottom of the lineup, but he’s been hitting first or second over the last week. Given the depressed state of stolen bases these days, just rostering Villar alone gives you a fighting chance in that column.

Santana was one of our favorite out-of-nowhere stories in 2014. The BABIP gods smiled kindly on him, en route to a .301/.353/.472 slash. He hit seven homers and stole 20 bases in 101 games, probably deserved a Wiggy.

Reality set in last year, when Santana crashed to .215 and lost his job. But now he’s back with the Twins and is going to play, at least while Byron Buxton is in the minors. The Twins have used Santana at leadoff for seven straight games, with this return: .323/.344/.484, one homer, three steals (in five attempts). He’s only walked once — and he’s struck out seven times — but category juice is category juice.

Santana qualifies at shortstop and the outfield, and is owned in just three percent of Yahoo leagues. He had a homer and a steal Tuesday night at Houston. When we see plausible upside, it’s time to act.

The bottom line with any rabbit: there's a very low barrier to fantasy relevance. So long as they hit enough to stay in the lineup and they continue to show interest in running, they are likely to have fantasy value. We don't necessarily need the rabbits to be complete, multiple-category contributors. This is one instance where I am completely open-minded to a specialist, someone basically good at one thing.

Anything past that is gravy.

If Villar and Santana don’t do it for you, or aren’t available for pickup, here are some other speed guys you might be able to use, short-term or long term: Rajai Davis (13 percent owned in Yahoo), Alcides Escobar (49 percent), Eduardo Nunez (27 percent), Chris Owings (17 percent), Jarrod Dyson (25 percent). And the moment Trea Turner joins the Nationals, I’ll be in on that story, too.

• For those that own Hamilton this year, I wish I had some good news. He’s slashing an ugly .215/.271/.354 through his opening 23 games, with five steals. A thumb injury forced him from Tuesday’s lineup, and he’s not going to play Wednesday. The rebuilding Reds don’t have any great reason to move on from Hamilton, and he does offer strong defense in center field. But one of the best days of your fantasy season will be the day you unload Hamilton.

Knocked out in Cleveland (AP)
Knocked out in Cleveland (AP)

• Which way are we spinning Justin Verlander? There’s a pro and con case. His ERA swelled to 6.49 after the Indians kicked him around Tuesday.

Verlander still has a decent strikeout clip at 8.6/9, and although he’s walking too many batters, his K/BB is still on the borderline of fantasy ownership. The fastball velocity (91.9) is the lowest of his career, almost a full tick down from last year. Swinging strikes are down, hard-hit balls are up. Homers are at an all-time high. While xFIP will absolve Verlander some of his sins, it only takes his ERA down to 4.49.

I own some Verlander shares, so I don’t really have a choice here, it’s a forced hold. He has a mediocre career record against Cleveland, if that matters to you (though he did pitch well against them last month). The Pirates game, they’re clearly a bad draw for Verlander. His next three starts come against Texas, at Baltimore, and against Minnesota. Maybe I’m stubborn, but I’m not benching him yet.

• If you can figure out Justin Smoak, you’re a better man than I am. Last year he gave us 18 home runs and a .470 slugging percentage, though his OBP was under .300. His first month of 2016 was basically a walk show without any power, until Tuesday night. Queue up a couple of Smoak bombs (opposite field, no less), and the Jays had their most dramatic victory of the year.

Smoak was a big deal in the prospect community at the beginning of the decade, though he hasn’t shown sustained production in the majors (.225/.310/.392). He’s been in the 18-20 range in home runs, three different seasons. Toronto needs to play him for a while, and although the Jays are just 15th in runs scored through five weeks, we can’t forget how dynamic this offense was the last two years. Kicking some tires is a reasonable play. Smoak is owned in just two percent of Yahoo leagues.