Fantasy 2011: Three Players to Watch – AL East

Here’s a few players to keep an eye on during your draft:

Rays GM Andrew Friedman is too smart to trade Shields for anything less than a big return.

James Shields, SP, Tampa Bay Rays
– He might be pitching for a different club next season, but he’s worth having regardless. Shields struck out more than 8 batters per nine last year, a career high, and his walk rate was basically the same as 2009. It also seems that the longball bit him far more often than it should, as 13.8% of fly balls left the park, a number that should come down a bit. If he returns to normalcy in 2011, expect him to perform like Dan Haren, picking up a solid number of wins and a healthy number of Ks. You can probably wait until the middle rounds to get him (think 8-10th). He’s at #102 on Mock Draft Central’s Average Draft Position leaderboard.

Luke Scott, OF/DH, Baltimore Orioles
– This guy seems to provide consistent, above-average production for the Orioles year in and year out. In 2010, he achieved new heights by posting a .387 wOBA. The best part is that his BABIP was a very normal .304, so his batting average should be pretty close to the .284 mark he put up. Home runs and walks are his calling card, though, so even if he loses a few base hits he’s still a threat, and likely the most underrated hitter of his caliber in all of baseball. Scott might finally start to gain respect from fans outside of the Mid-Atlantic, but there’s little reason for him to be drafted too early, and you’ll be able to grab him later than comparable guys like Adrian Gonzalez. Think about taking him around the 9th or 10th rounds if he’s still available. Mock Draft Central has him at #241, but assuming you’re playing in an ESPN or Yahoo! league, the default projections will cause him to go closer to #100 overall.

Aaron Hill, 2B, Toronto Blue Jays
– By far the most interesting of this trio, Hill was huge disappointment for the Blue Jays, hitting just .205/.271/.394 after posting a .357 wOBA in 2009. He notoriously posted the worst batting average on balls in play in the entire league (.196). What’s even more unusual is the fact that he has a .288 career mark in that category, and struck out only 16.1% of the time, and still Aaron barely kept his head above the Mendoza line. The best indicator of his bad season is the extremely low line drive percentage; just 10.6, compared to 18.5 for his career. He also hit more fly balls than ever before, leading me to believe that he got a little homer-happy after clubbing 36 home runs the year prior. Even still, his HR/FB rate was pretty low (10.8) for a power hitter, and no player in the game routinely posts BABIPs as low as .200, so Aaron likely got a little greedy and a lot unlucky in 2010, meaning that you should be able to draft him very late for a guy of his caliber, perhaps the 12th round or so. He has the potential to be the steal of the year; keep him in mind. Mock Draft Central’s board lists him at #46, which tells me that people are expecting him to bounce back big time. I like the other players in those rounds better (Uggla, Weeks, Kinsler), but if he drops much further than that, give him a serious look.