Jamie Calandro provides the fantasy impact of Hunter Pence’s injury.
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The fantasy baseball community was dealt a rather sizeable blow yesterday when Giants outfielder Hunter Pence was diagnosed with a non-displaced fracture of his left forearm after being hit by a fastball from Cubs’ prospect Corey Black. Pence has never had the upside to warrant a first- or second-round pick, but he has been a model of consistency over the years and his absence will be felt by his owners who already drafted him, and also the ones who stash him going forward. Over the last three seasons, Pence has averaged a .271/24/91 line along with 95 runs and 13 stolen bases, which is right about where I had him projected this year as well. His 6-8 week recovery timetable means that he should easily miss all of April and possibly a bit of May, which stifles those stats considerably. This is the first major injury Pence has had to deal with, evidenced by the fact that he has not missed more than eight games in any season since his rookie year of 2007.
OK, enough moping. We need to examine the burning question on everyone’s mind of “how do we handle this for the first month of the season?” If you have not yet drafted, you obviously have to downgrade Pence considerably. Our new projection at Fantasy Team Advice has Pence with a .295/16/71 line along with 82 runs and eight stolen bases. Those kind of numbers should be enough to warrant dropping Pence’s consensus ADP of 56 (fifth round in 12-team leagues) to somewhere around 120-130 (tenth round or so) due to the lost month of production. I’m sure that Pence will make a full recovery in time to be very productive for your team (and for the Giants), but this is a forearm injury and those types of breaks (wrist, forearm, hand) can often suppress a hitter’s power significantly (as we’ve seen in the past with sluggers like Jose Bautista and Mark Teixiera).
So who will replace Pence in right field for the first month of the season, and will he be fantasy relevant? The Giants are already a bit thin at the outfield position with Pence joining Angel Pagan in the dugout, as the oft-injured Pagan is still recovering from off-season back surgery. The biggest beneficiaries should be Norichika Aoki and Gregor Blanco, who are both capable of manning the right field spot until Pence returns. Blanco now becomes draftable as a late source of speed, as he has stolen 56 bases over the last three years while averaging only 469 ABs in that time frame. Aoki pretty much falls under the same category, as he has averaged 22 SB per season in his first three years in the bigs. Neither hitter will help you in any power departments, but both are worth drafting as a fifth OF if you are a bit lacking in the speed department. My preference toward the two would most likely be the one with a more favorable batting spot for stealing bases (early indications in that department would push me towards Aoki). So don’t panic, Pence owners. This is but a blip on the radar, and I’m confident Mr. Pence will be doing his thing as soon as the calendar turns to May.
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Jamie is the Lead Baseball Writer for Fantasy Team Advice. You can follow him on Twitter @jac3600.
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