By the Numbers: Miggy's astronomical dropoff

When Moneyball was published five years ago, we learned a lot of interesting things, like how Scott Hatteberg learned to be a "pickin' machine" at first base or how Chad Bradford learned to throw sidearm. Perhaps most memorably, we learned that Billy Beane had an endearing nickname for Miguel Tejada: "Mr. Swing-at-Everything." Maybe it was having his impatient ways exposed in print, but for whatever reason, Tejada found a way to improve his walk rate to more respectable levels in the years following Moneyball's release, even as he saw fewer pitches per plate appearance. Over the last two seasons, those extra walks and -- more important -- an increased ground ball-to-flyball ratio, have helped Tejada to maintain his Fantasy value while his power was rapidly declining.

Tejada has continued to uphold his Fantasy value this year, but the foundation rests not on power, walks or ground balls, but mainly luck. It looks strange to have a player owned in 99 percent of CBSSports.com leagues on the "Poor Stats, Poor Skills" list, but especially in the second half, Tejada has shown neither the stats nor the skills of a player who should be universally owned. He has just two home runs, 11 RBI, three walks and no steals in 32 games since the All-Star Break. He does own a .323 batting average during that span, but he has an inflated 35 percent H/BIP to thank for that. Tejada could get away with his free-swinging tendencies when he possessed a combination of power and contact skills, but with his post-break sub-.100 Isolated Power, he is really no more useful than Cristian Guzman at this point.

Josh Beckett's performance this year has been enigmatic, though in the opposite way. His mediocre 4.34 ERA just doesn't jibe with his excellent skill ratios, and in fact, his ERC of 3.64 is much closer to what we would expect. If that seems even a little high given Beckett’s eye-popping 4.8 K-to-BB ratio, take into account that he has had some bad luck in the form of a 32 percent H/BIP. Assuming he can return soon from his mysterious arm numbness, make sure to get Beckett back into your rotation. He should be posting an ERA and WHIP going forward that is more in line with what he did last year.

It looks like I was too hasty to give Josh Banks the "Good Stats, Good Skills" label several weeks back. Encouraged by his recent improvements in his minor league numbers, I took Banks' impressive start with the Padres as a sign that he was for real and his improvement was continuing. Overall, his Fantasy and skill stats have been terrible since late June, but for the most part, he has been able to at least maintain his trademark control. That's gone out the window in his last three starts, as Banks has walked 14 batters in 11 1/3 innings. It goes to show that you can't trust a player's minor league progress, especially when that player is repeating Triple-A at age 25. Banks is struggling mightily as he tries to figure things out at the major league level, and he should be avoided except in the deepest of NL-only leagues.

All statistics below are for season-to-date performances through Saturday, August 23.

Al Melchior was recently a Fantasy columnist and data analyst for Baseball HQ and will be providing advice columns for CBSSports.com. Click here to send him a question. Please put "Melchior" in the subject field.