Going into my high stakes league auction I was enamored, as were many others, at the potential of the Arizona young players. I traded a $13 Ervin Santana for a $7 Stephen Drew, I kept a $7 Carlos Quentin, traded a $4 Reed Johnson for Jose Valverde, auctioned Miguel Montero for $5, Edgar Gonzalez for $2 and Juan Cruz for $1. After my auction I “invested” in a Diamondbacks hat, and have watched a good portion of their games on Extra Innings. Have they rewarded my faith?? In a word, no. Here is how they all look so far:

1. Stephen Drew–I talked about him in a prior post, namely that he was overrated, most likely, based on his actual performance. I took a chance on him, and figured that I would be able to dump him if he didn’t pan out. But going into the auction I must admit that I was swayed off of my opinion by all the stuff I read (so much for the “independence” prong of expertise). To date, he still hasn’t improved much, if at all, since my trade. He is at .240/.302/.346. At least there appears to be a good explanation for his failures so far; he wasn’t as good as the hype.

2. Carlos Quentin–He has really surprised me so far. Could his slow start be blamed on his labrum problem?? He recently said that it wasn’t bothering him, but his performance is a total washout: .217/.305/.375. Ugh. I have to hope that he will turn it around and that he really is bothered by the labrum issue. On the positive side, his hit rate is a lowly 25% so that has to improve (doesn’t it??). On the bad side he isn’t making much contact, only 76%. Overall the outlook is mixed.

3. Jose Valverde–He has been everything one could expect. In my league i was roundly lambasted for the Reed Johnson trade, which I have discussed previously. Reed was very lucky last year, and Valverde clearly had the right skill set for the job: in 2006 he had 12.6 K/9 IP and has never been below 10. The control is a bit of an issue, as it is for many closers (4.0 BB/9 IP) but I was prepared to live with it and hope for the best. Even if Reed doesn’t get hurt this trade is a win for me I think.

4. Miguel Montero–He was a player that didn’t stand out until I was close to auction day, and since I was targeting many Diamondbacks I was obligated to take a closer look. I thought that Iannetta would be the main target allowing me to get Montero cheap. So i jumped in early and snagged him for $5. Iannetta went for $5 about 45 minutes later, and I thought I had made a huge blunder. Thankfully Iannetta hasn’t exactly been afire. To date there is nothing positive to say about Montero other than that he has 4 HR in 89 AB. He has been a disaster. His hit rate is an absolutely dreadful 21%. Normally I would expect a turnaround, but it is definitely possible that he is just overmatched.

I will admit to being snookered. His only two excellent seasons in the minors were at Lancaster and Tucson, two hitter’s paradises. Lancaster did, after all, host a 30-0 game this year (!) He has never batted above .260 aside from those two stops. Well, at least the owner of Iannetta isn’t happy either.

On the pitching side of the ledger things are a lot brighter. I had hoped to get at least one league average starter out of the Gonzalez/Cruz duo, and one above average reliever.

5. Juan Cruz–He was a hidden gem. On skills, he has a 3.29 xERA, 11 K/9 IP and a 4.1 BB/9 IP rate. Drop his walk rate by one (and this can be said about a LOT of pitchers I suppose) and he would be an all star talent. He has actually been a bit unlucky, allowing a 35% hit rate. If only every cheap pitcher worked out like this.

6. Edgar Gonzalez–Here was the guy I hoped would be a league average starter. I felt that he would pitch well enough to win a regular rotation gig. Doug Davis and Micah Owings have kept him out so far, despite, in Davis’ case, inferior skills. Well, I admit defeat here. He is still a solid pitcher but probably won’t be a rotation regular this year. His 5.06 ERA looks ugly on the surface, but on skills it should be 3.82. The 7.6 K rate and 1.9 BB rate are stellar. He would be the Yankees best pitcher if he were in their rotation. (OK maybe this is a bit of hyperbole, but he is still worthy of being in most team’s rotations. His HR rate is due to luck.

Overall this is poor and borders on the disastrous. Aside from Jose Valverde, who only helps in one category, they are all having either no impact or worse, mostly worse unfortunately. The hitters all have low hit rates, aside from Drew who I no longer own, so at least there is some hope. Thankfully, I also have Garrett Atkins and Ryan Zimmerman to pick up the slack.

Despite my current first place position in the high stakes league (AL and NL teams calculated separately and then summed) overall, my NL offense is middle of the pack, and it is easy to see why. Including Atkins and Zimmerman, half of my offensive players are well below projections. I will check back in a few weeks and see if anything has changed.