Archives For Projections

Mythical Rookies and the Magical Hype Machine

Clave Jones —  May 14, 2013 — Leave a comment

Jose Fernandez

At the risk of sounding like a grandpa, today’s fantasy baseball’s expectations just aren’t as reasonable as they used to be. Mike Trout and Bryce Harper have done mythical things on the baseball field at an absurdly early age. A side effect has been that they have perhaps skewed the expectations of what should be expected for a rookie on your fantasy baseball team.

The hype machine raises the roof on what a rookie can accomplish, meaning the ceilings we’re placing on several rookies are entirely unrealistic. For the next 450 words I’ll talk about 2 highly hyped rookies of myth and legend, one pitcher and one hitter, but give you are realistic comparison for the production of the rookie in their prime.

Jackie Bradley

Let’s start with Jackie Bradley, the 20-year-old outfielder for the Boston Red Sox who hit the cover off the ball in Spring Training, only to struggle in the Majors and get shipped back to Triple A. He was a trendy pickup to begin the season and I heard for gaudy expectations thrown around. But what can we expect from Bradley when he rights the ship and is eventually called back to The Show for good.

The first comp that pops to mind is Norichika Aoki. Despite his slow start, I’m a fan of Aoki and have written about him before. He’ll strike about right around the same rate that he walks which is something we’ll ultimately see out of Bradley. That’s makes them great for OBP leagues.

Second, Aoki will swipe 20+ bases, which is a fair over/under for Bradley. Not blazers, but smart on the basepaths. Bradley might have a bit more upside in the power department, but is you bank on 12 you won’t be disappointed.

Over a full season of at bats from the leadoff position and you are looking at a 80 12 50 22 .280 line. Both player’s best seasons will see an uptick in a couple of the categories, but on average you are looking at a fine 3rd or 4th fantasy outfielder, also known as Denard Span. Helpful, but nothing to build a team around, so reset those expectations accordingly.

Jose Fernandez

Jose Fernandez is a 20-year-old Cuban defector who once jumped off a raft to save his mom from drowning is being hyped and compared to Doc Gooden. I should be clear that the comparison is not Cuban raft hopping, but the fact that Doc pitched a 24 W / 3 L, 1.53 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, 268 K line in 276 innings as a 20-year-old. Dear Lord, I really sound like a grandpa, but they simply don’t make pitchers like they used to.

Step back from Doc Gooden comparison as it won’t happen this year for Fernandez. But what is a reasonable expectation in Jose’s prime? First, no pitcher in baseball will get 276 innings this season, much less the Miami Marlins youngster. But other 20-year-olds have pitched nearly 200, including CC Sabathia, Fernando Valenzuela, Felix Hernandez, Rick Ankiel (remember that, kids?), and Rick Porcello. Drop to around 150 innings and you get Bret Saberhagen and Zack Greinke, lofty company.

A quick peek at that list and you can see why Jose Fernandez is as hyped as he is! Well, he’ll be better than Rick Porcello even this season. Based upon strikeout and walk rates and I think Fernandez will put up numbers similar to Sabathia, minus the Wins. But that’s two years from now, assuming he doesn’t develop Sabathia’s body type (he won’t). Fernandez is a star in the making.

 

So there you have a realistic comparable for two hyped rookies. One is a player to stash because his prime years could make him one of fantasy baseball’s best pitchers, while the other could make a fine 3rd outfielder. Sorry neither will reach mythic status this season.

Are you interested in comparables for other rookies? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter.

 

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Kyle Lohse Brewers: Fantasy Spin on Pitcher’s Signing

Nash —  March 25, 2013 — Leave a comment
Photo courtesy of Adam Fagen.

Photo courtesy of Adam Fagen.

Kyle Lohse appears ready to sign for the 2013 season. Reports are that he’s staying in the NL Central with the Milwaukee Brewers. Lohse joins a motley crew in Wisconsin, and is most likely going to slot in as the number 2 man in the rotation behind Yovani Gallardo. 

 In our Draft Kit we had Lohse projected for:

IP

Ks

BBs

Ws

ERA

WHIP

K:9

K:BB

199

121

46

14

3.57

1.19

5.5

2.6

Now, for three reasons, none of this is likely to change much with the change of scenery.

  1. The change of ballpark is not a huge “park factor” change,
  2. The teams are about the same level for competitive purposes and
  3. His K:9 and K:BB rates aren’t going anywhere.

Unfortunately, my spin on Lohse is somewhat of a negative one as I am skeptical of his career year at the age of 33 last season. It seems a bit odd to me that a pitcher who had his career ERA well over 4 for most of his career all of the sudden could churn out a dominant season like he did in 2012 (2.86 ERA/1.09 WHIP).

I know his 2011 season totals (3.39 ERA/1.168 WHIP) were nothing to scoff at, and perhaps I am just being overly critical, but the fact remains, most pitchers do not all of the sudden blossom well into their 30′s. Unless of course they are a knuckleballer like R.A. Dickey or Tim Wakefield, and even Wakefield went back to his norm after one really magical season.

I do not want to start throwing out PED accusations or anything, I am just saying that I am very skeptical of Lohse’s recent success and am very doubtful that he will continue his production from the last 2 seasons. (To lighten the mood, I once had a league mate name his team the Lohse Bags. That one’s free.)

I wouldn’t go right out and pick up Lohse at the cost of a legit starter or evening rising young arm, say Tommy Milone or Adam Wainwright types. Now if you are short on starting pitching, you may want to take a flier on Lohse but depending on who you have to drop to make room for him. If you have an abundance of bats and there are not many options at pitcher then I like the move a little more. I might even drop guys like Jayson Werth, Adam Dunn or Coco Crisp who were going at the end of most drafts I was in and fall into the one-trick pony heading.  However I would struggle to drop guys like, Angel Pagan, Cameron Maybin or Lohse’s new teammate Norichika Aoki to pick up Kyle.

As far as arms, if I have guys like Clay Buchholz, James McDonald or Wandy Rodriguez I might take a flier on Lohse, hoping that as maybe he will have enough stuff to really prove last year wasn’t a fluke. But by the same token, if I have guys like Alexi Ogando, A.J. Burnett or Jaime Garcia, I would not be dropping them to go after Lohse.

Yes, there are always risks with any guy, and no I do not have any insider information into Lohse and how he achieved his success last year. I am just a guy sitting at a computer trusting his gut, which says to be careful with Lohse. It’s also telling me it’s time for lunch. 

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Fantasy Baseball Player Profiles 2013: Ryan Howard

Michael Dixon —  March 25, 2013 — 1 Comment
Photo courtesy of Matthew Straubmuller

Photo courtesy of Matthew Straubmuller

Ryan Howard has certainly brought fantasy owners a lot of frustration over his career. While his power will rival any first basemen, he’s hit .262 in the six seasons since winning the MVP in 2006, bottoming out at .219 in an injury plagued 2012.

Okay, so Howard is a masher now. That’s all well and good, but the man who once slugged 58 homers in a season and who hit 45 or more every year between 2006 and 2009 hasn’t topped 33 since. So, what can we expect from the Philadelphia slugger moving forward? Let’s take a look at some things

 

How concerned should you be with his 2011 injury?

While a torn Achilles is nothing to overlook, I want you to take a look at his power numbers from 2012.

GP AB HR RBI
71 260 14 56

So, let’s bump him up to his 2011 at-bats (557) and see what his numbers would have been, if he stayed close to 2012′s rate/

GP AB HR RBI
150 550 30 118

Granted, we’re not looking at advanced stats there, not yet, anyway. But those numbers are well within Howard’s averages between 2010 and 2011 (32 HR/112 RBI), so it’s safe to say that with a full year in 2012, he could have produced the power that we saw in the previous two seasons.

So, he recovered from the injury fine. It stands to reason that now that he’s even more removed from the injury, his Achilles is no longer a concern. But while Howard’s Achilles isn’t a concern, plenty of other things are.

 

What should you be concerned with?

Plenty. For starters, let’s look Howard’s strikeout rates since 2006, his first full Major League season.

Year K AB/K
2006 181 3.2
2007 199 2.6
2008 199 3.1
2009 186 3.3
2010 157 3.5
2011 172 3.2
2012 99 2.6

Howard has always been a big strikeout guy and honestly, I think people make a big deal about strikeout rates at times. But striking out more than once for every three at-bats is excessive. Striking out 99 times in 71 games can be attributed to a player recovering from an injury a bit slowly, but the rest of his numbers do indicate that a player is on the decline, especially when that player is 33.

Let’s start with a very simple one, batting average. Again, Howard has not hit over .300 since his MVP campaign of 2006. Actually, he hasn’t cracked .280, topping out at .279 in 2009. Now, if we knew he’d .279 with those power numbers (even if they are declining), it wouldn’t be a big problem, especially if you couldn’t get your hands on an Albert Pujols or Joey Votto. The problem is that we don’t know that Howard will hit .279. Actually, if recent trends continue, he won’t be close.

Year AVG
2010 .276
2011 .253
2012 .219

His cumulative average over that time was .256, which is problematic from a position that should be one of your fantasy team’s most productive. Also remember that Howard generally bats after Chase Utley in the order, meaning teams can play matchups in the late innings with lefties. Howard’s a .227 career hitter against lefties, going .224 in 2011 and .173 in 2012.

Again, I can cut some slack for 2012, and I don’t expect Howard to continue his downward spiral and fail to reach .219 in 2013. looking at that .253 average from 2011, I can’t say that I have much confidence that Howard will top that.

While I’ll never be mistaken for Brad Pitt or Jonah Hill, let’s take a more sabermetric approach here, even on a pretty basic level.

Year OBP SLG OPS
2010 .353 .505 .859 (rounding differences account for the OBP and SLG not adding up)
2011 .346 .488 .835
2012 .295 .423 .718

Not exactly a trend in the right direction, especially when you consider that 2010 was his Age 30 season. Again, even if we go back to 2011′s slugging percentage and apply that to Howard for 2012, there were still 10 first basemen with 500 or more at-bats who had a higher slugging percentage.

 

Is there hope?

Yes, there is some hope. How much hope depends on how much you value Spring Training stats, though. But take a look at what Howard did through his first 20 Grapefruit League games.

H/AB R HR RBI AVG OBP SLG OPS
19/60 11 5 14 .317 .338 .633 .972

Again, how much stock do you put in Spring Training for established vets? Personally, I won’t say that I’m overly enthused about those numbers because he’s either facing minor leaguers or major leaguers trying to work their stuff out, but this is a step in the right direction, for sure.

 

What can we expect for 2013?

We spent a lot more time on negatives than positives here and there’s a reason for that. Howard is on the decline and has no value in keeper leagues anymore. But take a look at our Draft Kit Projections for 2013.

H/AB R HR RBI AVG
126/521 76 31 94 .242

Not bad and if the hitters in front of Howard (Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins) can stay healthy, Howard can go over 100 RBI again, pushing the 115 or so that we saw in the years before 2012. He is declining and while he won’t push 40 again, his recent rates have been pretty consistent. Remember, Citizen’s Bank Park is very friendly to left handed power hitters. Assuming there’s no injuries, or at least limited injuries, a guy with Howard’s strength should be around 30 HR/100 RBI.

Personally, I’m right on board with our projections. I am not calling them overly optimistic in any way. If you’re going to start Howard full time, it’s probably in one of four types of leagues.

  • NL only
  • 2 UT spot leagues
  • A league with a CI spot
  • A league with more than 12 teams

Having said that, if you have a deep bench, he’s worth a late round pick, no questions asked. You can ride his hot streaks and bench him when he’s cold. He’s not one of the game’s elite players anymore but if you’re an active owner and carry realistic expectations and, Ryan Howard is still a valuable fantasy baseball player.

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Who’d you Rather: Josh Willingham or Mark Trumbo?

Michael Dixon —  March 20, 2013 — Leave a comment
Photo courtesy of loririlling.

Photo courtesy of loririlling.

At a glance, Josh Willingham and Mark Trumbo would appear to be similar players. If they come up with men on base, they can easily put up a crooked number against your team with one swing of the bat, and do so in spectacular fashion. Another similarity is that if they don’t hit the long ball, there’s a pretty good chance that they’ll be heading back to the bench with a K to their name.

Take a look at what these guys have done on average over the last two seasons.

R HR RBI SB AVG K
Willingham 77 32 104 7 .253 146
Trumbo 66 30 91 6 .261 136

There are a few gaps there, but it’s not hard to see why we have these two ranked pretty close in our Draft Kit. Trumbo is the 28th ranked outfielder, while Willingham comes in at 32. In the Top 251, Trumbo is 94, while Willingham is 104. Our projections for each are more of the same.

R HR RBI SB AVG
Willingham 80 32 90 2 .261
Trumbo 69 32 89 4 .260

They look pretty similar, but if I could only have one for 2013, who would I be?


Where Willingham’s better

Some do, but standard leagues don’t count OBP. Still, Willingham is far better there. Over the last two years, his OBP is .350, while Trumbo’s is .305. That’s a huge gap, especially when the slight batting average advantage goes to Trumbo. Even if your league doesn’t count OBP or walks, that does matter.

It’s pretty simple, but what’s the first thing that needs to happen if you’re going to score a run in a baseball game? Well, you need to get on base. So, while their numbers are pretty similar across the board, Willingham has averaged 11 runs per year more than Trumbo has over the last two seasons. How much of a difference that can make depends on your league. In the two roto leagues I was in last year, 11 runs meant much different things. But know that it could conceivably be about two points.

The RBI gap can be more attributed to chances. Their home run totals and batting averages are similar, as are their slugging percentages (Willingham – .501, Trumbo – .484). I’d venture a guess that with Trumbo hitting behind the likes of Mike Trout for a full season, Albert Pujols, and Josh Hamilton, he’ll close that gap this year, although Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau aren’t slouches.

But while Trumbo did improve his OBP in 2012 (.291 to .317), he’s still well below average in that category. That’s really going to hurt is runs scored in comparison to Willingham. Certainly, more leagues are counting stats like walks or OBP and if you’re in a league like that, Willingham is a lot better in those areas. Trumbo needs to close the gap elsewhere to be as valuable.

 

Where Trumbo’s better

Trumbo’s younger, significantly younger. While I know that I said this is a comparison for 2013 and not a keeper league, that is a factor. It’s a factor because Willingham has never been a model of durability. In 2012, his age 33 season, he played 145 games, his career high. That’s not exactly something that gets better with age.

To be fair, Trumbo himself has never played 150 games in a season, but with the exception of being a 2010 September call-up, he’s only had two chances. He’s also never played fewer than 144 games, a number Willingham has only hit twice. When one player is 34 with a history of missing time, it’s hard to give him the nod over a 27-year-old who doesn’t have the same problems.

Photo courtesy of Keith Allison.

Photo courtesy of Keith Allison.

Trumbo also has better teammates. While he won’t get the benefit of being driven in by Pujols or Hamilton, the Angels lineup is a lot better top to bottom than the Twins.

The other advantage Trumbo has is position eligibility. Willingham is just an outfielder (left field if your league does individual positions), while Tumbo is an outfielder (both corner positions) and first baseman, and could possibly pick up eligibility at third, as he played eight games there in 2012. To be fair, first isn’t really a position that needs much depth and third isn’t as shallow as some people seem to think, but being able to play a few extra positions is always an edge.

 

 

Who’d you rather

There’s not much separating these guys, When we were ranking these guys, it was really hard to find any separation. It wasn’t random by any means, but the 10-spot difference in their overall ranking isn’t than monumental, which it is between our No. 1 (Ryan Braun) and No. 11 (Giancarlo Stanton). The difference between 94 and 104 can easily be shaken up if literally a few swings of the bat go different than we expect.

With that, I am going to go off of the Draft Kit a little and go with Willingham.

Trumbo’s struggles at the end of 2012 really concern me, as he had an AVG./OBP of .204/.264 in August, and .214/.233 in September/October, after a solid first four months. That tells me that the league figured something out about him and he couldn’t really adjust back. That’s a concern, especially if we’re looking at one year.

Would you want to know what else worries me? Over the last two years, Trumbo has played in 293 games while Willingham has played in 281.

Now, six games per season isn’t a massive difference, but you’d think that that would give Trumbo an edge in the counted stats, wouldn’t you? Well, Willingham was better in every single counted stat. He did strike out a few more times, but that means very little when he’s better everywhere else, even if your league counts strikeouts against.

Ultimately, I do think Trumbo will become a bit more well rounded and he certainly has prodigious power right now, but I trust Willingham more in 2013.

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Why I’m Staying Away from Josh Hamilton

Eric Pleiss —  March 19, 2013 — 1 Comment
Is the injury risk reason to stay away from Hamilton? Photo courtesy of Aggie.

Is the injury risk reason to stay away from Hamilton? Photo courtesy of Aggie.

A friend of mine was prepping for a draft of his own and asked me, “What is the thinking on taking multiple guys from the same team? I ask because I see Josh Hamilton is a Free Agent.”* I did not bother to answer that question (which probably deserves a post of its own), instead I gave him a reason why I would stay away from Hamilton.

Anaheim is a pretty tough place to hit, and with Hamilton’s history of injuries, you will need to not only watch your lineup everyday because he will get a lot of off days, but you will need to have a pretty decent replacement player for him that is going to get one-sixth of Jamilton’s starts. Risky for a guy that’s going in the high rounds of most drafts.

Now, if you are going to watch your lineup closely, and you think you can find someone to get value in those once a week spots, then he is worth taking because he will provide a ton of value while he is on the field, and the extra value you gain by swapping in the other player once a week essentially increases the value of your roster spot. But I figure I usually have enough to worry about that I do not want to try and predict and find his off days every week, so I avoid that kind of stuff.

Plus when games start at noon there are days I have not even thought about lineups and then you just lose plate appearances because you did not pay enough attention to your roster. Sometimes those off days are surprises, so unless you are checking rosters an hour before first pitch, you are out of luck.

What is more, if Hamilton goes down with a big injury or misses extended time, now you have drafted a guy with a top pick and are getting only mid-round returns.

Hamilton is all talent, but a ton of risk and a lot of work for a fantasy owner.

R HR RBI SB AVG
Josh Hamilton 93 37 111 6 0.286

 

*He already has Albert Pujols has one of his keepers, and was a little leery of having two players from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

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Simple Sabermetrics: OBP and SLG

Clave Jones —  March 15, 2013 — Leave a comment
Country Breakfast will spend a lot of time on base the this year.

Country Breakfast will spend a lot of time on base the this year.

Sometimes it’s OK to talk about the basics. I’m playing in a league this year with the a few of the writers from ESPN and in lieu of home runs and batting average as scoring categories, both on base percentage and slugging percentage are used. Let’s use this as an opportunity to talk about both on base (OBP) and slugging (SLG) percentages, and how understanding these two statistics can help you build better fantasy baseball teams.

OBP

OBP has been an official MLB statistic since 1984, so it’s odd to talk about it in context of sabermetrics, but again, we’re keeping things simple and you’d be surprised at how many people haven’t really thought about how it’s calculated or why it’s useful to understand. (I promise in the future we’ll graduate up to wOBP, a great statistic focus on linear weights).

On-base percentage is calculated using this formula:

OBP = H + BB + HBP  /  AB + BB + HBP + SF

  • H = Hits
  • BB = Bases on Balls (Walks)
  • HBP = times Hit By a Pitch
  • AB = At bats
  • SF = Sacrifice Flies

This is how often a player gets on base, not counting errors, a fielder’s choice, or anything like that. A team only gets 27 outs in a game, so needless to say, getting on base is vitally important, and the reason that this may be used in your league as a scoring category.

I’m a fan of back of the napkin math, so don’t hesitate to assign a simple constant for sacrifice flies or the number of times a player is hit by a pitch. Sure it’s not exact, but it’s gets you in the ballpark so to speak, and allows you to quickly scan walks to get an idea of the leagues best performers.

The league average has fluctuated over the years. It’s gone from a dead ball .300 to around .340 in our modern area. (The Simple SabermetricsSplendid Splinter Ted Williams is the all time career leader at .482, meaning for his career he made an out barely half the time, while the single season best was Barry Bonds‘ 2004 season, which ended with him having a .610 OBP. Let that sink in.)

So guys adept at getting on base will come in above .340, while your no walk knuckleheads will often time be below .300 even.  Set your fantasy baseline at the .340 league average, knowing that drafting guys above that gives your best chance to compete in the category.

Joey Votto will lead the Majors in 2013 at or around a .420 and it really won’t be close, but Prince Fielder, Miguel Cabrera, Joe Mauer and Buster Posey will give you a strong showing. Billy Butler, A.J. Ellis, Shin-Soo Choo, Dexter Fowler, Carlos Santana, Miguel Montero, and Alex Gordon are some lesser names that will also give you a strong showing in the category.

SLG

Slugging is a measure of hitting the crap out of the ball. Slap bunting singles hitters need not apply. It’s calculated by:

SLG = (1 x 1B) + (2 x 2B) + (3 x 3B) + (4 x HR) / AB

Walks are excluded and you can see that a player is rewarded for their total bases. In fact, it can be simplified to TB (total bases) / AB.

Babe Ruth retired with a .6898 slugging percentage. Ted Williams and Lou Gehrig followed with a .6338 and .6324, respectively. The highest active career SLG is Albert Pujols at .6079, which barely nudges Barry Bonds‘ career .6069.

Miguel Cabrera is likely to lead the Majors in 2013, but Ryan Braun, Giancarlo Stanton, Jose Bautista, and Josh Hamilton will be near the top of the leader board. Sneaky good with be Mike Napoli, Ike Davis, Josh Willingham, and Allen Craig. Again, these aren’t singles hitters. They hit the ball over the fences or drive it into the gaps, meaning there is a strong correlation with RBI as well.

On day we’ll talk about ISO, which pulls singles out of the equation and is a even better measure of a player’s true power, but I hope this basis primer was helpful for those who may play in a SLG league.

 

Here are other some other posts in the Simple Sabermetrics series: Command Ratio, FIP

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Finding Outfield Value

Eric Pleiss —  March 11, 2013 — Leave a comment
Adam Jones is Baltimore's fantasy star. Photo by Keith Allison.

Adam Jones is Baltimore’s fantasy star. Photo by Keith Allison.

At the tail end of last week I recorded a fantasy baseball podcast segment for The Phil Naessens Show.  We talked exclusively about outfielders: who are the elite players, is this guy better than this guy, who might rebound or fall, etc.  It was mostly a fly-by look at fantasy outfielders.  Maybe not the kind of hardcore insight frequent Crackerjack readers might be looking for, but if you are just looking for some basic outfield pointers, give it a listen.

After I finished podcasting with Phil I could not get outfielders off of my brain.  With 90 outfielders starting in Major League Baseball on any given day, it should not be hard to find value at the back end of this 90 players.  Certainly there are going to be $1 players and players taken in the 15th round that turn out to be regular contributors for winning ball clubs.  But, I wondered, how can I find value at the top of that list, especially in the top 20 players?  So I pulled out the Draft Kit and got to work.

The draft kit lists two players topping the $40 threshold, and six more players valued above $30.  It will be hard for any of these eight players to perform so well that they will be providing value above and beyond their purchase price.  With Ryan Braun and Mike Trout, the $40 players, they’re likely going 1-2 in a regular draft, and the other six (Matt Kemp, Andrew McCutchen, Carlos Gonzalez, Giancarlo Stanton, Josh Hamilton and Justin Upton) are all likely to be gone before you make your third pick, and you won’t find a lot of surplus value in the first two rounds of a draft, you have to just be hoping that the player you draft lives up to his expectations.

So that leaves twelve more players on the Top 20 list from the Draft Kit.  That’s everyone between Jason Heyward and Alex Gordon.  What I want to find in this range is a player that can still fill all five of the standard scoring categories (Runs, Home Runs, Runs Batted In, Stolen Bases, and Batting Average).  If I can find a five category player hanging around after the first few rounds, and for around $25, I feel pretty good.

For the purposes of this exercise, let’s say that 85 R, 15 HR, 75 RBI, 12 SB, and a .270 AVG are the minimums for each scoring category.  That takes out Jason Heyward (AVG), Jose Bautista (SB, AVG), Bryce Harper (RBI), Matt Holliday (SB), Jay Bruce (SB, AVG), Curtis Granderson (SB, AVG), Jacoby Ellsbury (RBI), Austin Jackson (RBI), Shin-Soo Choo (RBI), and Alex Gordon (RBI).  Leaving only Adam Jones.

Our Draft Kit projects a healthy 2013 season for Adam Jones (93 R, 26 HR, 85 RBI, 16 SB, 271 AVG), meaning that not only do the Crackerjack minds believe that Jones will continue his run of good health (149+ games played last three seasons) but also that the increased power and stolen base totals he put up with a year ago are more indicative of his true talent rather than blips on the radar.

The runs and RBIs might be a little high for my tastes for two reasons.  First, Jones played 162 games last year so all of his counting stats are artificially inflated by his 697 plate appearances (10th best in MLB last year) and I do not expect him to be on the field that much in 2013.  Second, and more importantly, I do not believe that the Orioles did enough this winter to make their team any better.  In fact, the 2013 Orioles are probably a little worse just from the improvements made by the Toronto Blue Jays and Boston Red Sox (the Rays are essentially the same team, and despite the early injuries from the Yankees, they should be the Yankees everyone expects by the middle of June).

But even if you ding Jones a little bit with the runs and RBIs he’s still a five category player, and I think you can grab him for about $25 in an auction draft, or at the tail end of the 3rd, beginning of the fourth round in most fantasy drafts.

Happy hunting.

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What to do with #1 (or even #2)?

Eric Pleiss —  February 27, 2013 — 2 Comments
If only Trout's defense mattered in fantasy baseball. Image courtesy of Joy R. Absalon

If only Trout’s defense mattered in fantasy baseball. Image courtesy of Joy R. Absalon

The 2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit is finally here, which means that your fantasy draft day is quickly approaching.  The three players at the top of the Crackerjack’s Top 251 list are Ryan Braun, Miguel Cabrera, and Mike Trout.  Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Rotoworld, and just about every other reliable fantasy draft rankings will have those three men lined up at the top.  So if you have the number 1 pick (or the number 2 pick), who should you take?*

If you like projections, ZiPS** has Trout projected at 8.0 WAR, Cabrera at 7.0 and Braun with 5.8.  But that is not the whole story, ZiPS factors in defensive value, which will be largely ignored in all but the most complex fantasy leagues.  Removing defensive value from the equation and Cabrera’s value goes up, as ZiPS has Cabrera as a -6, Braun as a 0, and Trout as an 8.  So Trout’s value is tied to his defensive skills far more than the other two, Braun’s value essentially all comes at the plate, and Cabrera’s value is even higher as his defensive ability hurts his real-life value.

Braun and Cabrera are predicted to hit 33 and 34 home runs, respectively, but Trout is just behind them with 29, and his base running more than makes up for his lack of power.  We can continue to pick apart their ZiPS projections, but I do not know if that will get us any closer to knowing which guy is best for your team.

If you are in a league that gives you generic Outfield positions, I would lean towards taking Cabrera as there is a bigger drop off between Cabrera and the rest of the 3B crowd than there is between Braun and Trout and guys like Matt Kemp, Andrew McCuthen Carlos Gonzalez and Giancarlo Stanton.  So positional scarcity might push you towards Cabrera.

If your league uses specific player positions for outfielders, then I probably like Braun the most, Cabrera next, and Trout third.  Only because I think that Left Field is a little thinner than Third Base and Centerfield.  Again, position scarcity drives this decision, but only because these three players have almost identical fantasy value.

If you are still not sure who you like best, consider the types of teams you usually end up with when your drafts are over.  Are you the kind of GM that chases home runs late in the draft so you have a bunch of guys who might hit 15 home runs (129 players hit 15 or more home runs in 2012)?  If so, then you might want to take a more versatile base runner like Mike Trout and the 49 bases he stole in 2012.  The 129th best stolen base season in 2012?  Scott Hairston, with 8.  So those stolen bases become a lot more valuable than home runs later in the draft.

One of the downsides with taking Trout with the top pick in the draft is that he is a lead-off hitter, so his RBI totals are not projected to be close to what Braun and Cabrera might put up.  But if you are a smart GM you know that with Trout’s on-base skills and high batting average that you can afford to roster a batting average sink-hole like Delmon Young, a $1 player in the Crackerjack Draft Kit who is projected to have 80 RBIs. So do not be afraid of taking Trout at the top, just understand what you are getting.

One final thing to consider is the other GMs in your fantasy league who hold the other two top-three choices.  If you know that one of those two GMs really wants Ryan Braun, and you are still undecided, I would encourage you to draft Braun if you think that you can then turn around and trade Braun to that owner for either Trout or Cabrera plus another play, maybe a late round pick.  Then you have not only come out with one of the three best players in the league, but you created some extra value out of nothing.

So draft whoever you want, but understand the weaknesses of whoever you draft, build your team with that in mind, and always look for extra value.

*If you are in one of those leagues where you get to select your draft position and you have the first pick, I would suggest you drop plop yourself into the #3 spot, grabbing whichever of those three guys is left, but setting you up for a better pick at the tail end of Round 2, where you can hopefully grab your pitching Ace (Felix Hernandez, David Price, Stephen Strasburg) and start off your team with a big bat and power arm in the first two rounds.

**ZiPS projections courtesy of Fangraphs.

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2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit

Clave Jones —  February 17, 2013 — Leave a comment

Here it is, our 2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit, available as a FREE download.

Here’s what you’ll get:

  • Position-by-position rankings, including top 75 outfielders and starting pitchers.
  • Full player projections for standard 5×5 stats, plus a few extra for those leagues that dig a little deeper.
  • Top 251 rankings.
  • Tiers, sleepers, and health risk players.
  • Extra draft worksheets.
  • Formatted to be easy to read, print, and mark all over.
  • Risk / Reward Graphing
  • Over 25 pages, completely free!

Before you download, I’ll give you a few links if you’d like to read about how it was prepared. (How to… make projections, choose rankings, choose projections.)

I also want to tell you our philosophy concerning Draft Kits. I typically draft with a single sheet of paper, but I realize most people have at least a few sheets of paper with them or perhaps create their own spreadsheet(s). But if you take a magazine with you to your draft you aren’t prepared. If you take a 200 page draft kit to your draft you aren’t prepared. (Here’s how to tell if you are prepared to draft.) If you can step into your draft with a clear strategy and a simple cheat sheet you’ll own the draft room.

Therefore, our draft kit is intentionally lean. It’s rankings, projections, some risk/reward graphing, and a few handy worksheets to help you prepare. It’s designed to be easy to read and quick to print. We’ve already done our team previews and we have over 500 posts of strategy, advice, and analysis and in the next few weeks we’ll be releasing tons of new player profile and strategy posts. That’s already covered.2013 Crackerjack Draft Kit

In other words, we didn’t simply repackage our website and call it a draft kit. Everyone knows how to search a website and click through to categories that interest them. This website is loaded with strategy to make you a better fantasy baseball player. Peek around and stay a while. There is a search bar to the right and in the footer.

I used last year’s kit for my own drafts and I won all three leagues I participated in. We stand behind this year’s as well.

 

It’s 100% free, no strings attached. If you like it and have enjoyed reading our site we simply ask that you give a a quick follow, like, or +1. If you love us, please do all three (we have widgets to the right to make it simple). We realize it’s really needy to be begging for a like, but we simply want to extend our reach and audience. You guys helping us out on social media is a big help in that, so thank you.

Thanks for reading Fantasy Baseball Crackerjacks. We appreciate it! We love fantasy baseball as you do and we’ll keep cranking out the posts, hoping that we’re offering practical advice to help folks win their fantasy baseball championships. This website is our bread and butter, so please keep coming back, and we hope that you’ll give us some feedback on this year’s kit.

 

CLICK HERE for the draft kit and best of luck in all your 2013 fantasy baseball leagues!

 

 

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3. The AL and NL triple crown category winners

Michael Dixon —  February 15, 2013 — Leave a comment
Miggy may not win a Triple Crown again, but it's hard to see him not winning at least one of the categories. Photo by Flickr user Chuck Welch

Miggy may not win a Triple Crown again, but it’s hard to see him not winning at least one of the categories. Photo by Flickr user Chuck Welch.

We learned something in 2012. Despite many sabermatricians not being terribly impressed by the Triple Crown stats, they still matter in baseball. (Side Note: My computer spellchecker doesn’t recognize the word “sabermatricians”. The only suggestion it gave me was geriatricians. Take that for what it’s worth.)

Regardless of how much those stats impress you, they carry great relevance in fantasy baseball, as they make up three of the five standard categories. When you consider that these stats reflect runs and even steals sometimes, the Triple Crown matters in fantasy baseball. So, let’s take a look at the three players in the American and National Leagues that should win those categories. 

Before I go on, you may feel free to disagree with me and voice those disagreements, but I know that I am intentionally not going to name a player twice here. I’m not saying that can’t happen, there are 3-4 players I could see winning a Triple Crown, but that would defeat the purpose of this list. Let’s take a look.

 

American League

Home Runs: Miguel Cabrera

This was really close between Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols, but Miggy gets the nod for a few reasons.

  1. Comerica Park is better for hitters than Angel Stadium.
  2. On the same note, the pitching in the AL Central isn’t as strong as it is in the AL West.
  3. Both men should be protected by feared hitters, but Pujols’ protector, Josh Hamilton, is more erratic. In 2012, he hit .223 in June, .177 in July, and .245 in September/October. He’s dangerous, but I don’t think good pitchers fear him when things are going bad. That means a lot of walks and corner pitches for Albert. Prince Fielder, who bats behind Cabrera is a bit more consistent, as his worth 2012 month was .247. Sure, he’ll slump at times, but the slumps won’t be as prolonged. That will get Miggy better pitches to hit.
  4. Pujols has been great, but he’s shown more cracks over the last few seasons than Cabrera.

Cabrera’s strength is just scary. Even in big parks, he doesn’t even need to get a great amount of the ball to hit it out, and that’s tough to pitch against. Maybe more, Countdown 13 Graphiche can hit the ball out to all fields, and you don’t see that too often in baseball, even with the great hitters.

It’s just hard to look at this season and not see Cabrera around 40 (or more) homers. In our Tigers’ preview, I predicted that Cabrera would hit 39, and think I might have shorted him a little. When you have a guy that strong, who can hit to all fields, and has a guy like Fielder protecting him, it’s hard to see anyone leaving the yard more than your reigning AL Triple Crown winner.

 

RBI: Albert Pujols

Hey. What do you know? Another category that came down to Pujols and Cabrera. In addition to not wanting to repeat any players, Pujols gets the honor here for a few reasons.

  1. As good as Austin Jackson and Torii Hunter are, both missed some time last year. Hunter isn’t getting any younger, so thinking he’ll get 145 or more games is very optimistic. Meanwhile, Pujols will have the luxury of driving in Mike Trout, as well any number of good players who could be the Angels’ second hitter.
  2. In the first season Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder were together, they went 3-4 in that order and made the World Series, with both players having great years. I think it’s safe to say that those two will stay 3-4, in that order. Now, Pujols and Hamilton are in their first season as teammates. Both have put up good numbers, but have scuffled at times in recent years and if they do, I could see Mike Scioscia shuffling those two to kick-start things. That opens the door for Pujols to have Trout, whoever the number two hitter ends up being, and Hamilton available to drive in. Even if that happens, he still gets a dangerous Mark Trumbo protecting him.

Looking at last season, Pujols drove in an impressive 105 runs. Four of those came before the beginning of May. That is not a typo. That means he drove in 101 runs from May on. Two things happened to Pujols there. One, he finally got settled in to Anaheim, and never underestimate how important it is to get comfortable in your surroundings. Two, Trout got called up at the end of April. Now, he’ll be in a comfortable situation with Mike Trout in front of him in the order all year.

That looks like about 130 RBI to me.

 

Average: Robinson Cano

A lot jumps out at me when trying to justify this pick. But what I really like is that a guy with the power of Robinson Cano has never had 100 strikeouts in a season. So, when he swings the bat, the ball is put in play. That, along with a good walk rate (which Cano has), is a great start to a great batting average.

Something else that’s important for someone who’s going to lead the league in hitting is that he sees good pitches to hit. This won’t be the best Yankees team to ever go through The Bronx, but you really can’t pitch around anyone, because they do have hitters up and down the order.

Taking a look at his average over the last four years, he’s always been over .300 and has hit a total of .314 in that time. Any time you can say that a .302 average drags down the production, you’re talking about a great hitter. That’s what happened to Cano in 2011. In 2012, he matured a lot, drawing more walks and bumping his average 11 points. I look for that to continue in 2013, making him very hard to beat for the American League batting title.

National League

Home Runs: Ryan Braun

If you had asked me this question last October, the answer would have been Giancarlo Stanton. The guy has averaged 31 homers a year while playing an average of 124 games. But then the Miami Marlins went ahead and decided to trade away pretty much all of the protection he had in the lineup to Toronto, and I can’t see any team giving Stanton a pitch to hit in a meaningful spot. Stanton will likely be protected by Logan Morrison and while I like LoMo, he’s A.) Not that good of a hitter and B.) Injury prone, to say the least.

Another candidate was Jay Bruce, but I don’t like his placement in the Cincinnati order, as most of the feared hitters there bat in front of him. So, again, I see him getting pitched around. This is especially true with Bruce, as he will chase bad pitches.

That leaves Ryan Braun, the NL’s reigning home run champ. The man who plays in a big time hitter’s yard, and has plenty of protection around him in a potent Milwaukee lineup. Braun has failed to hit 30 homers once in his career. Say what you want about him, but he can slug the ball out of any park in the country, and Miller Park isn’t exactly Yellowstone.

This is sort of a process of elimination pick, but it’s also out of great respect for how good Braun is. In case you were wondering, nothing that’s been revealed this offseason scares me away from Braun, either.

RBI: Matt Kemp

Matt Kemp didn’t get the nod at home runs because he doesn’t play in as good of a hitter’s park as Braun, and I also imagine that most of the feared hitters in the Los Angeles lineup will bat in front of him. That means that he might not see fat pitches to hit, but he’ll have plenty of men on base.

If Kemp hadn’t been hurt, he would have driven in about 105 runs in 2012, assuming he stayed at the same pace. He was beaten up so much in 2012 that it may be easy to forget what a tear he was on before going down, which came before Adrian Gonzalez and Hanley Ramirez got to town.

The lineup could be shuffled a few ways, but the most sense would be Ramirez second, Gonzalez third, Kemp fourth, and Andre Ethier fifth. That staggers the lefties and righties, and also puts Kemp up with men on base an awful lot. A guy as dangerous as him should go well beyond 115 RBI.

On an interesting side note, I made comment joke to Nash about Stanton: He may hit 40 homers in 2013 and drive in 50 runs. I was only half kidding. Obviously 40/50 is a gigantic stretch, but it’s hard to see him even approaching 100 RBI in that lineup unless he tops 50 homers.

Average: Andrew McCutchen

You might be wondering how I am predicting that guy who had never broken .300 before 2012 isn’t going to regress a little bit. That would be a fair question, but the answer is simple. Andrew McCutchen is really good, and we haven’t even seen the best yet.

I love Buster Posey, but it’s hard to imagine a catcher repeating as batting champion. I know that Joe Mauer did that not too long ago, but he had the luxury of the DH. Posey doesn’t have that. I am not expecting a regression season from Buster, I just don’t see him repeating as batting champ.

McCutchen is just scary. It’s unfortunate that Pittsburgh’s team doesn’t win enough to get him the spotlight he deserves, although getting the cover of MLB 13 is a nice sign that people know about him.

If you want to point out that the .327 average last year came out of nowhere, I’d like to say that it’s no more of an anomaly than the .259 average in 2011 was. Take away those two years, and we’re looking at a .286 career hitter.

Again, maybe that isn’t batting title worthy, but remember that he’s only 26. Young players often struggle with average, as they don’t really know how to rely on anything more than their talent. When you get a few years under your belt, you pick up on other things. That’s where McCutchen is.

Also, even from the right side, McCutchen will get plenty of infield singles with his speed, and that always helps. You’re not going to get a line drive every at bat.

Following up on a .327 average won’t be easy, but McCutchen is the man to do it. With that, he’ll be very hard to beat for the NL batting title.

 

We’re near the end of our Countdown to our February 18th Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit:

13 Dollar Players Who’ll Triple Your Money
12 Bargain Bin Outfielders
11 Pitchers You Shouldn’t Touch With a 60’6″ Pole
10 Spot Starters Who’ll Jump to the Next Level
9 Guys to Give You a Complete LIneup
8 Geezers Over 35 Who Still Have Their Giddy Up
7 Sleepers
6 Hitters with Plate Skills
5 Prospects with 2013 Fantasy Baseball Value
4 Middle Infield Late Rounders

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