Crooked Pitch

Seattle Mariners prospect Wladimir Balentien was called up from Triple-A Tacoma and got his first at-bat’s of the 2008 season last night in an 8-3 loss to Cleveland. Balentien had an impressive start going 2-4 with 3 RBI and a run scored, with one of those hits being a 7th inning three-run home run off of Cliff Lee.

Balentien was called up after 63 Triple-A at bats where he batted .254/.329/.619 with 6 home runs, 20 RBI, and a stolen base. The 23-year-old rookie has played three solid years in the minor leagues hitting more than 20 home runs in each of the three seasons. In 2007, Balentien made a huge stride in his plate discipline reducing his strikeouts from 140 in 2006 to 105 in 544 plate appearances in 2007.

Balentien is also a stolen base threat. He stole 15 bases in 19 attempts last season, and had 14 and 9 stolen bases in 2006 and 2005 respectively.

Since Balentien should be the every day right fielder for the Mariners, he’s a must add in AL-only leagues. He also should be added in deep mixed-leagues and keeper leagues. If you’re in a shallow mixed-league you may want to wait and see if Balentien’s strikeouts continue to drop. If not, his batting average may hurt you more than his home runs will help.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 8:54 am and is filed under Fantasy Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.