108 Stitches

There are many fantasy owners who are unable to secure the high priced talent at the top of the first base rankings and either by choice or forced necessity, look towards sleeper candidates at one of the deepest positions for talent in fantasy baseball. We continue our Sleeper Showdown series with a look at a couple first baseman who certainly qualify as sleepers this season, the Indians’ Ryan Garko and Dodgers James Loney.

1B Ryan Garko, Indians (Last Two Years)

1B James Loney, Dodgers (Last Two Years)

The Tribe is long removed from employing slugger Jim Thome at first base and last year they finally moved past the Ben Broussard experiment–something that was long overdue. That gave Garko an opportunity for a full plate of at bats for the first time in his career, and he was fairly productive with those plate appearances, hitting .289 with 21 dingers, 62 runs, and 61 RBI in 484 at bats.

Meanwhile out West, Loney has been a highly regarded prospect for what seems like forever, and the Dodgers have gone out of their way to block his path to the majors with a washed up Nomar Garciaparra and mediocre prospects like Hee Seop Choi over the last three seasons. He got multiple tastes of the bigs last season, but when the Dodgers finally took off the training wheels and let him ride, they were rewarded with a .382 average, nine homers, and 32 RBI in 118 September at bats. Nobody in major league baseball drove in more runs that month. Not even Alex Rodriguez (who had 31 RBI) or Matt Holliday (who had 30 RBI).

So who justifies fantasy owners investment more in 2008? Both players are expected to be the starting first basemen for their respective teams when they break camp. Both are surrounded by other offensive threats in their respective lineups. In Garko’s case, reasons for optimism include a solid contact rate and an increasing fly ball rate that, combined with a significant number of doubles (his 29 was tied for 18th among 1b with slugger Carlos Pena) suggests further growth in the power department. On Loney’s side of the argument you have the fact that throughout his professional career he’s hit for a good-to-great average at almost every stop and while his upside in the power department probably isn’t as high as Garko’s, he has a more consistent approach at the plate as seen by his steady contact rate (over 80 in each of the last four combined major/minor league seasons).

This is a VERY close showdown and I’ll honestly admit that when I started writing it I was hoping the evidence would point to Garko. I think he’s the guy with potential to club 30 bombs and I’m a little worried that Loney’s not so quiet finish to the 2007 season has resulted in the hype this spring driving up his price at draft or auction tables everywhere. Assuming the bidding for his services doesn’t get out of hand, I FAVOR LONEY IN THIS SHOWDOWN for the simple fact that he’s less likely to fail and at this point seems to be the favorite between this talented tandem to have a higher average, RBI total, and stolen base total all while clubbing nearly as many long balls and scoring almost as many runs as his Cleveland counterpart.