TACOM is on somewhat of a roll. Outside of injuries to Jake Westbrook and Elijah Dukes, TACOM has managed to pick out some free agents that could help a fantasy roster, if at least for the short term. Each of the players previously mentioned in TACOM are still all highly advocated, with Luke Scott being one possible exception. This week, TACOM will take a look at a closer in waiting as well as a first basemen who is being dropped in bunches.

Santiago Casilla

Born Jario Garcia, the 27 year old right handed reliever finally appears to be harnessing his stuff. Armed with a mid 90’s fastball and the courage to throw it at will, Casilla has been absolutely dominant to this point. Owned in under 30% of ESPN leagues, Casilla is pitching too well to ignore in all but the most shallow leagues.

As I mentioned, Casilla is a closer in waiting. That is not a knock on Houston Street, rather it is following the caution from Will Carroll who suggested one not ignore the elbow issues from a year ago. However, even if Street remains healthy (his fastball is currently 1.5mph slower then his career average velocity), Casilla is an excellent pitcher to own.

Consider what Casilla has provided to this point in the season as the 7th and now 8th inning reliever for the Athletics: 14.1IP, 20 strikeouts, 0.00 ERA and a 0.77 WHIP.

This has been done in about 16% of the baseball season. Prorated over the course of a full season, Casilla is sitting with 120 strikeouts and unfathomable rate stats. Obviously the ERA and WHIP will rise as Casilla is certain to allow some runs and home runs, dropping his 100% Left on Base rate. However, the current 12.56 K/9 is far from unreasonable to expect when one considers Casilla’s 11.24 rate in the minors.

So even if Casilla does not inherit the closer job in Oakland, what would 100 strikeouts and a couple of saves and wins mean to a fantasy team? Jonathan Broxton is a nice comparable player. Broxton is currently owned in over 65% of ESPN leagues and was draft, on average in the 17th round. In 2007 he ranked as the 95th most valuable pitcher (according to 2007 VORP figures). This is no slight however, as Broxton ranked ahead of super closers Frankie Rodriguez, Mariano Rivera, and Billy Wagner. Yahoo! ranked Broxton as the 30th most valuable relief pitcher and in the top 75 among all pitchers.

On the surface these numbers do not seem overly impressive. But consider rankings take into account pressure situations, win probability and counting stats such as wins or saves. That is, was Aaron Heilman or Hideki Okajima? Both of whom ranked ahead of Broxton according to Yahoo! But as a fantasy owner of Broxton in numerous leagues, I can vouch for his value in his ability to average out a mediocre closers numbers, to above average.

Take a chance on Santiago Casilla, and keep the voodoo chant on Houston Street alive!

Ryan Garko

Admittedly, Garko is my favorite major league ballplayer. He is also off to an absolutely terrible start, however, it is not so terrible and Garko’s track record is enough, that he should still be owned in more then the 69% of leagues he is owned in. Note, this is down 31% from the 100% he was owned in just two weeks ago.

What has changed? Essentially, Garko has been getting unlucky. Although there is a word of caution-Garko has been hitting a fair amount of balls in the air, compromising his ground ball rate. The issue with this is the fact that fly balls are transformed into outs more frequently then ground balls. I, however, do not consider the 16% of the season to date, to be fact and figure Garko to return to form in that regard.

Thus, expecting Garko’s BABIP to re-align with his career (and highly sustainable) numbers is not a reach. Further expectations can also be added to Garko’s HR/FB rate, which sits at a terrible 4.9%.

By simply returning to form and league averages would place Garko at about 2007 numbers. Considering Garko was not at all lucky in 2007, those numbers are very sustainable and definitely likely to occur.

But something else has happened with Garko which has me believing 2007 will be the minimum of what to expect for the coming season. That is, the ever improving Garko has increased his walk percentage (nearly doubling it) and decreased his strike out rate (by 4.3%). Similar to Garko’s slow start, we are talking a small sample size, but considering Gark’s youth, his minor league rates and my borderline man-crush, there is a good chance the continually improvements remain.

Another factor to consider is Garko’s place in the batting order. While he has recently been demoted, Manager Eric Wedge had started Gark’s in the 5 hole of the batting order. This was a position Garko played a third of his games at in 2007, and is definitely a position fantasy owners would prefer him to be in.

If you own a struggling Paul Konerko, or simply have a UTIL/CI spot you would like to improve, take a chance on Ryan Garko, and be pleasantly surprised with the results.