Today's Fantasy Rx

Anaheim: Darin Erstad, 1B
135/451 for .299/.347/.404 with 6 HR, 61 RBI, 71 R, 16/17 SB%,
and a 31:62 BB:K.

Posting career-best marks of a 3.91 #P/PA and 94% SB success rate after turning 30 give Erstad an excellent chance to remain relatively valuable over the next few years. Of course, his .07 walk rate still fails to impress me, and a career-worst 2.07 G-F leaves him with unacceptable power production for a first baseman. Expecting more than an empty .300 BA and maybe two dozen steals from the perennially injured Erstad qualifies as an obvious mistake. Definitely shop him to see if his relative health this season might tempt another owner to believe Erstad at least could echo his .355/25/100/28 line from 2000.

We'll continue tomorrow with National League overachieving batters.

Today's Fantasy Rx: A few players who earned significant profit in most leagues this season shouldn't equal even half their current values in 2005 and thus rank as prime trade bait this winter. Eric Byrnes, Craig Monroe, David Newhan, Brandon Inge, and David Dellucci rank as the AL position players most likely to slump severely next year.