The Gab on Gaby

The hometown boy is making good (Miami U grad). Probably the only Marlin’s fan to ever be a Marlin is putting up numbers that cannot be ignored. As a permanent fixture at 1B, and the Marlins clean-up hitter, we need to start considering him as one of the top 1B in the league. With 1B as the strongest position in terms of Fantasy Baseball, Sanchez is making a case for respect league wide. To me he is the 2011 version of 2010 Konerko. Someone drafted in the 300s but has a top 40 value.

To date he is hitting .311 with 7 HR, 27 RBI and 25 Runs. One of his biggest assets is he plays every day and he has not missed a game all year. At 26 there is still room for improvement too.  Let’s take his current numbers and project them out over 600 at bats. That gives us 26 HR, 99 RBI and 92 Runs. That puts him in line for what last year’s top 20 1B averaged. That line looked like this .285 30HR 99 RBI and 85 Runs. Though he hasn’t stole a base this year he did swipe 17 one year in AA ball, so the potential is there. While hitting clean-up, he has no real need to run with Stanton hitting behind him.

Can his numbers improve this year? I say yes. The reason is; Hanley has not done much to get on base in front of him and Morrison is now coming back from injury where he missed 20+ games. With those two setting the table for Gaby look for improved RBI numbers. Sanchez possesses one of the best K-rates on the team. He is only striking out 16% of the time.

I checked out some recent trades made straight up for Sanchez. Those he was traded evenly for include: Choo, Stanton, Cain, Sabathia, and Brett Anderson. Those names are now or have been Fantasy studs. It looks like the secret in Miami is out. Sanchez is good, will continue to be good and must now be considered a top flight Fantasy player. His current Yahoo ranks are as follows: 4^th best NL 1B, 9^th overall 1B, 25^th best ranked hitter and 43^rd ranked overall player. Being ranked 43^rd overall is better than both Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Howard finished last year.  Good company to be around! Still he is only owned in 84% of yahoo leagues so if you are weak at 1B or CI go scoop him up today.