Fantasy Fallout: Alex Gordon Goes Down

Jul 8, 2015; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals left fielder

(4) is carted off the field after an injury against the Tampa Bay Rays in the fourth inning at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports

As we approach the All-Star break, all owners have a good idea of how good or bad their teams are at this point. Whether you have a solid team or barely staying above the .500 mark, the beauty of baseball is that we still have a ton of baseball left.

If you have read any of my other articles, I often like to label certain players as “stabilizers” in terms of their fantasy value. A prime example of a “stabilizer”, would be Alex Gordon. Gordon was surrounded by incredible hype as a prospect for the Royals, and even though his career did not start off as planned, he has evolved into a hell of a player.

Since 2011, Gordon has entrenched himself as an OF that will post a .260-.280 AVG, 15-20 HR, 70-80 RBI, and about 10 SB’s. All signs this season pointed to Gordon repeating this, outside of the steals which he only had 1 of at the time of his injury, so fantasy owners know the value Gordon brings.

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Unfortunately, the injury bug takes no mercy on anyone and Alex Gordon went down this week with a pretty bad groin strain that will sideline him for nearly two months. Thus leaving fantasy owners scrambling to find a replacement to slide in and to hopefully temper the loss Gordon’s injury has.

In terms of replacements, no one on the waiver wire will be able to repeat Gordon’s statline, but there are some intriguing guys that bring their own certain skill sets to the table. To begin, we do not even have to look very far, as there are two Royals outfielders that could bring value.

Alex Rios and Jarrod Dyson, are two guys that we should be aware of, but offer two different types of fantasy value. Rios clearly has the longest track record and most fantasy owners already have an opinion on his roller coaster career.

If we were to ignore his career and look at his line this year, he does not seem to offer much. He did come out of the gates hot, before going down with a thumb injury, but his .237 AVG and 1 HR, do not inspire much confidence. This is where fantasy owners have to take a leap of faith on him.

Most guys that are on the waiver wire do not have the illustrious seasons that Rios has posted, even though he will not get back to that level this season nor for the two months Gordon is out, but if there was a guy to do it, Rios would be my bet. He certainly has the talent and it has usually been a matter of staying healthy. Gordon’s value comes from his ability to just about everything well, and Rios has showed that he can supply the average/power/speed combo similar to Gordon.

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Over the last 7 games Rios, has a nice .368 AVG, a .903 OPS and 2 SB. He is starting to heat up again and I think once the break ends he will start to produce some quality stats at least until Gordon returns.

When talking Dyson’s value it is simple, speed, speed and more speed. Dyson is truly a track star that happens to also be not too bad at this whole baseball thing. I truly think that if he and Billy Hamilton were race, I would not be surprised to see Dyson win.

With Lorenzo Cain now being the only Royals OF with the everyday job, Dyson should find enough at bats to supply value. I cannot stress enough to those fantasy owners looking for speed, to pounce on Dyson ASAP. As long as Dyson can maintain an OBP north of .300, he will have no issue reaching the 30+ SB mark, which he has done the last three years. He will not offer much else in the other categories, but he should be able to lead your team in SB’s on a weekly basis.

If you do not want to dabble in the Royals options, there are a couple more intriguing players. Preston Tucker certainly fits the Astor’s mold of being a power threat every time he gets to the plate. Tucker does strike out more than you would want him to, but he certainly has the young potential and upside that owners could be targeting to hopefully make up for the HR’s that Gordon would have posted if healthy.

Tucker does only have 5 HR on the year, but he currently is in the midst of current hot streak where Tucker is really squaring the ball up. Over the last 14 games Tucker posted a, solid .300/1 HR/5 RBI line. Hopefully signaling that Tucker is becoming more and more comfortable at the plate. He will not offer much AVG wise, but I think that at over the next two months he can supply enough stats in the power categories to fill the void.

If there are some owners that are looking for speed, but do not necessarily want to buy in on a player in a platooned type of role, I’d offer Anthony Gose as a nice speed pickup. For most of the season Gose had the enviable spot of hitting in front of Miggy and V-Mart, which offered him the chance to supply great counting stats.

He came out of the gates hot, but cooled off and eventually found himself stuck batting eight limiting the counting stats that could have propelled him even further up the ranks. Gose is absolutely on fire as of late too and has posted a .364/1HR/2RBI/3SB line that certainly should place him on owner’s radar.

Gose does not have the world-class speed that Dyson has, but he is not afraid to run and the Tigers have not been scared to give him the green light so far, as Gose is 14 out of 20 so far in SB opportunities. Gose should have no problem reaching the 20-30 SB mark and if the Tigers will finally move him back atop the order, the counting stats will come back increasing his value.