My colleague Matt Snyder either has a very tuned in crystal ball or knows more about baseball then the rest of us. In this morning's Roto Rush he spouted off that Brandon Wood would force the Angels to promote him soon.
The Angels shouldn't be able to keep Brandon Wood down in the minors for long, not if they want to find a way to improve their anemic offense (only the A's have scored less runs in the American League). The 24-year-old Wood is absolutely raking right now. In 30 plate appearances, Wood already has 4 home runs and 8 RBI. He's hitting .346 with a .433 on-base percentage and a .923 slugging percentage. It's true he didn't adapt well to the transition in the past, but we can always hold out hope his first 190 plate appearances in the majors were a learning experience. He's still awfully young. When Wood does get the call, look for the Angels to use Chone Figgins both at second and in the outfield a bit, where Figgins, Gary Matthews and Howie Kendrick would all lose at-bats.If you had today in the office pool, you win. The Angels announced today that they are promoting Wood from Triple-A Salt Lake as they place Kevin Jepsen on the disabled list.
Wood has proven that he can conquer Minor League pitching. He's averaged a little more than 26 home runs per season over the past three years and he's logged double digit stolen bases in three of the last five seasons. His .200 batting average in 150 Major League at-bats last season showed that he wasn't ready for "big league' pitchers.
It will be very interesting to see where the Angels play Wood. In fantasy circles, he's eligible to play shortstop and third base. With Aybar hitting .226, Izturis hitting .143 and Figgins hitting .256, you can see that Wood will get many opportunities to play. I've seen everything from Wood starting at shortstop while Izturis and Aybar sit to Wood playing at 3B while Figgins moves to the outfield (a bonus to you Figgins owners).
Wherever Wood gets playing time he has to hope that the third time will be the charm when it comes to his promotion. In his first two call-ups Wood is a combined .191 with six home runs and has a ghastly 55 strikeouts with only four walks. In his seven Minor League games this season he's only struck out six times while walking four. That's a much better strikeout to walk ratio then in year's past.
If Wood catches on and stays in the Angels lineup for the duration of the season he's got 20-plus home run potential. Add that to double-digit stolen base potential and you have yourself a nice waiver-wire pickup. He's only owned in 2% of fantasy leagues now, but that number will surely grow as soon as he hits the lineup.
