This week has been another slow week for news around baseball. The Goose finally got into the Hall, a slew of insignificant fantasy players signed with teams, and Roger Clemens denies steroid use. I don’t know much about Goose so I’ll leave it to the professionals to work that one out, from all accounts though, sounds like he was deserving, I am happy for him. The players signing contracts this week, as I mentioned above basically were not significant enough to worry about. Although, Marcus Giles signed a deal with the Rockies and if he wins the starting job he could be a useful player simply because he will be playing half of his games in Coors. However, do not get your expectations too high, because he still is not much of a fantasy player at this point. Clemens: Not much he can do to convince me he didn’t take steroids or HGH. Logically it just makes sense. Nobody gets better as they reach 40 years old.

With so little to talk about this week in the news world, I am going to take this opportunity to give you guys a player at each position which is my favorite sleeper for this up coming season. This week I will cover the infield, next week I will finish up with the outfield and pitching positions.

I’ll start it off with the catcher position. John Buck is the guy for me. I’ve always been a guy who says having a great catcher is overrated. There are so few good catchers that having one is a luxury and you should only worry about grabbing one of those top catchers if you have great players filling up the rest of your lineup. The average catcher doesn’t do much and will generally hurt your team’s batting average. John Buck is another one of those guys that will likely hurt your batting average, as he will likely hit between .220 and .230. However, this guy is going to provide some power to your team. He hit 18 HR last season which was good for a 4th place tie in HR totals for a catcher. He will not contribute much in the RBI category either but he will provide you with power, which is generally one more category than most other catchers.

At first base I’m going to go with Billy Butler. He is more likely to play the majority of his games at DH this year but he played enough last year at first base to qualify for this year. This kid can hit, and Kansas City has improved their lineup over last season. Alex Gordon came around and had a respectable 2nd half after being a first half bust, they signed a proven 25 HR hitting outfielder in Jose Guillen, and Butler himself should improve. I’ve got to figure Butler will be hitting somewhere in the middle of this lineup which should put him in a good position to hit in RBIs. Id say this season Butler has a good chance at 25 HR and 90 RBI with a very solid .300+ batting average.

Howie Kendrick fills my sleeper spot at second base. I know this isn’t a sleeper guy in the natural sense as most people know about Kendrick. However due to last season’s injuries and lack of production people have soured on him to the point where they may not consider him one of the elite second basemen. Don’t make that mistake. This guy will hit above .310 this year, and he has the power and speed to get 15 HR and 15 SB. These are modest projections, as he could steal around 25 bases on an aggressive Angels’ team. Don’t forget, he was the centerpiece of the Miguel Cabrera talks, and there is a reason the Marlins wanted this guy.

Stephen Drew slides in at short stop. This guy had a horrible year last year for a guy with his talent. This year he will get back on track. He is surrounded by talent at basically every spot in the lineup in Arizona. I do not think the odds are good that he ends up with an average as low as he had last year. Ultimately I feel this guy will be a .300 hitter, however this year he should end up around .280. Also a 15/15 season with 70 RBI isn’t a stretch.

At third base I’ve got to go with Alex Gordon. The guy finished last year with basically a 15/15 season. In the first half he carried a .232 average, a .321 on base percentage and a .358 slugging percentage. In the second half he improved to a .264 average, .305 on base percentage and a .472 slugging percentage. This led to more HR and RBI in the second half of the season, in less at bats. I would say a 20/20 season is close to a lock, with a 25/20 season possible. His batting average finished the year last year at .247 and id say he’ll be in the .275 range this season. Most people are not as near as high as they were last year on this guy, but this could be his breakout season.

Well thanks for reading, comeback next week for the rest of my sleepers and the fantasy impact of any major transactions in the next week.