THT Fantasy Focus

Posted by Paul Singman at 1:01am

Monday, November 24, 2008

Breakout party: Delmon Young

Is 2009 the year Delmon Young's raw athletic ability translates into a top-notch fantasy performance? (Icon/SMI)

Delmon Young is a guy who has seemingly been around for years (at least in my mind) and always seems to disappoint the fantasy owner who drafts him. Looking at the records, though, Young has only played two full seasons, was still just 22 years old this past year, and doesn't actually post numbers that are all that terrible:

+------+-----+------------+-----+-------+----+-----+----+----+
| YEAR | AGE | TEAM       | AB  | BA    | HR | RBI | R  | SB |
+------+-----+------------+-----+-------+----+-----+----+----+
| 2007 |  21 | Devil Rays | 645 | 0.288 | 13 |  93 | 65 | 10 |
| 2008 |  22 | Twins      | 575 | 0.290 | 10 |  69 | 80 | 14 |
+------+-----+------------+-----+-------+----+-----+----+----+

He's actually been pretty consistent, but fantasy owners always seem to be looking for more. He has been hyped as such a fantastic raw talent, I doubt it would surprise some people to see him explode for 30 homers and 30 steals one of these years. While some owners have soured on him, almost every league will have at least one owner willing to draft Young hoping for that explosion. Will 2009 be the year we finally see it, though?

Power

+------+-----+------------+-----+----+-----+-------+--------+--------+-----+--------+
| YEAR | AGE | TEAM       | AB  | HR | tHR | HR/FB | tHR/FB | nHR/FB | RAW | OF FB% |
+------+-----+------------+-----+----+-----+-------+--------+--------+-----+--------+
| 2006 |  20 | Devil Rays | 126 |  3 |   3 |    11 |     11 |     11 | 3.7 |     26 |
| 2007 |  21 | Devil Rays | 645 | 13 |  16 |     8 |     10 |     10 | 1.3 |     30 |
| 2008 |  22 | Twins      | 575 | 10 |  10 |     8 |      8 |      6 | 0.8 |     27 |
+------+-----+------------+-----+----+-----+-------+--------+--------+-----+--------+

[Young] is one of the finest power hitters our scouts have evaluated, not only this year but over the years. He’s the kind of guy that you don’t get out of your seat and go buy a hot dog when you know he’s coming to the plate. You want to stay there and watch him hit. He lights up your eyes.”

Young went on to hit 25 homers in Low-A, and then followed up with 20 homers (in just 330 at-bats) in Double-A as a 19 year-old. That's incredible stuff, but Young has never been able to duplicate that success as he has been promoted to the higher levels. He has always been young for his level, though (and honestly, still is), so it remains entirely possible that he finally catches up with his potential as he moves up the age curve.

True Home Runs, though, thinks Young's power numbers have been right about where they should be. In fact, this past year, his Park Neutral HR/FB (nHR/FB) was actually two points below his actual HR/FB and down four points from his 2007 nHR/FB. The Metrodome seemed to help him, as he might have only hit 6 or 7 home runs as a Ray this year. Simply put, it's not as if Young has lots of power and he's just been getting unlucky.

That isn't to say, however, that he won't finally have that breakout. True Home Runs doesn't factor in age or progression; it simply attempts to neutralize luck. So if Young adds some muscle, improves his swing, or simply ages "quickly," he very well could see a breakout next year. It would also help if he started hitting more fly balls. He'll never become an elite power hitter without doing that.

So while Young's 2009 tHR projection should be higher than his 2008 level, it won't be incredibly higher since he really hasn't been unlucky. What you've seen of Young up until now is all him. This differs from a player like James Loney who was both unlucky and is on the upswing age-wise. Young only has the latter working for him.

Contact

+------+-----+------------+-----+-------+-------+-----+-------+--------+-----+--------+---------+
| YEAR | AGE | TEAM       | AB  | BA    | tBA   | CT% | BABIP | mBABIP | LD% | BIP/HR | BIP/tHR |
+------+-----+------------+-----+-------+-------+-----+-------+--------+-----+--------+---------+
| 2006 |  20 | Devil Rays | 126 | 0.317 | 0.294 |  81 | 0.374 |  0.344 |  26 |     34 |      34 |
| 2007 |  21 | Devil Rays | 645 | 0.288 | 0.297 |  80 | 0.343 |  0.348 |  21 |     40 |      32 |
| 2008 |  22 | Twins      | 575 | 0.290 | 0.293 |  82 | 0.341 |  0.344 |  17 |     47 |      47 |
+------+-----+------------+-----+-------+-------+-----+-------+--------+-----+--------+---------+

Young has a very unique blend of contact skills. Before I make too many comments, though, check out his plate discipline stats as well:

+------+-----+------------+-----+-----+------------+------+-------------+----------+
| YEAR | AGE | TEAM       | AB  | CT% | JUDGMENT X | A/P  | BAT CONTROL | BAD BALL |
+------+-----+------------+-----+-----+------------+------+-------------+----------+
| 2006 |  20 | Devil Rays | 126 |  81 |         91 | 2.32 |          88 |       54 |
| 2007 |  21 | Devil Rays | 645 |  80 |        100 | 1.79 |          85 |       51 |
| 2008 |  22 | Twins      | 575 |  82 |        101 | 1.41 |          86 |       57 |
+------+-----+------------+-----+-----+------------+------+-------------+----------+

His Aggressiveness/Passivity is reminiscent of Vladimir Guerrero, who likes to swing at essentially everything. Unlike Vlad, though, Young makes more mistakes in judgment to begin with and can't make up for it with an outstanding ability to hit balls out the zone (Bad Ball). In fact, he only reached a league average level this year.

Still, he manages to keep his contact rate at a respectable (league average) level due to being solid (though unspectacular) with his Judgment, Bat Control, and Bad Ball hitting, in addition to the fact that being too aggressive is better than too passive (as far as contact rate goes, anyway).

Added to this rare mix of super aggressive, moderate contact skill is an excellent ability to hit the ball with authority when he does make contact. His BABIP is consistently over .340, and being so young, Marcel only sees improvement. A repeat of the 17 percent line drive rate could hurt him, though, so keep an eye on that in the early going. Luckily, a bounce-back is more likely than a repeat.

Overall, Young's true batting average talent seems to be right around .295. His True Batting Averages have matched his actual batting averages over the past two years, and more of the same should be expected in 2009. Of course, Young has significant upside here if he can ever become more like Vlad in some plate discipline category, be it Judgment, Bat Control, or Bad Ball Hitting.

Speed

+------+-----+------------+-----+----+-----+-------+------+-----+-----------+-------------+
| YEAR | AGE | TEAM       | AB  | SB | SBA | SBO%  | SBA% | SB% | FAN SPEED | FAN BALLOTS |
+------+-----+------------+-----+----+-----+-------+------+-----+-----------+-------------+
| 2006 |  20 | Devil Rays | 126 |  2 |   4 | 0.237 |   13 |  50 |       N/A |         N/A |
| 2007 |  21 | Devil Rays | 645 | 10 |  13 | 0.238 |    8 |  77 |        57 |          31 |
| 2008 |  22 | Twins      | 575 | 14 |  19 | 0.257 |   12 |  74 |        57 |          29 |
+------+-----+------------+-----+----+-----+-------+------+-----+-----------+-------------+

While Young has always been praised for his athleticism, scouts rarely claimed he had much better than average speed. Tango's Fan Scouting Report grades seem to confirm this. While Young positively contributes with steals, he isn't a beast by any means and probably never will be.

He attempts to steal often enough that pitchers have to watch him, but he isn't any Carlos Beltran when it comes to how successful those attempts are. He stays a little above average and is successful enough not to hurt his team, but unless his speed improves as he ages or his instincts somehow get a little better (or the sample size we're looking at isn't indicative of his actual talent level), I don't see too much stolen base upside for Young. I see him topping out at 20 one of these years.

Concluding thoughts

To recap, while Young does have breakout potential, I'd much prefer a guy like Loney whose "breakout" is more certain because his true talent level was masked in 2008.

Young is a young guy who is a good athlete and a scout favorite—and has breakout potential on this basis—but improved numbers in 2009 will have to come from legitimate skill growth or good fortune. A guy like Loney may only need to see some regression for his 2009 numbers to top those from 2008. As a pure percentage play—holding all else constant—I'm taking the "Loney" group over the "Delmon" group on Draft Day.

Posted by Derek Carty at 1:51am

Finding the Next Breakout Pitcher part 2

In my previous piece, I found 21 pitchers who showed a marked, sustained improvement between 2003 and 2008. These pitchers had a big jump in their FIP, and they sustained this new level of performance after their breakout year.

In order to find players who put up similar numbers in 2008 to the averages of our breakout pitchers just before they made the leap, I'm going to look at standard deviations. In 2008, there were 142 pitchers who threw for 100 or more innings. Using the Excel function =STDEV, I can find the standard deviation of the key statistics across the sample. What I will then do is add up each player's total standard deviations from the mean of our breakout pitchers in the stats K/9, BB/9, K/BB, and GB%, and see who totals the smallest deviation from the means.

As I had mentioned, there were essentially two types of pitchers who were on that list: ground ball specialists and power pitchers with low walk rates. Looking at the ground ball specialists, we have the following stats:

Year	Name	K/9	BB/9	K/BB	GB%
2004	Brandon Webb	7.10	5.15	1.38	0.64
2005	Chien-Ming Wang	3.63	2.50	1.45	0.64
2004	Chris Carpenter	7.52	1.88	4.00	0.52
2006	Tim Hudson	5.81	3.26	1.78	0.58
-	AVERAGE	6.02	3.20	2.15	0.60

The pitcher most similar in 2008 to our ground ball breakout stars: Paul Maholm. Ouch. This is one of those times where I wish I could just make something up, and pretend someone else bubbled to the top. Surely, if I were picking my own favorite breakout candidate for 2009, I'd probably steer clear of a guy on the Pirates. But let's give him a chance and take a look at his numbers. In 2008, he averaged 6.1 K/9, 2.8 BB/9, and a 54 percent GB%. Really his whole career, he's been incredibly stable in terms of strikeouts and ground ball rate. He did have a nice little epiphany in 2007 where he learned to bring down his walk rate a bit. And he's pretty young, only 26 years old. Still, the only way I could rationally see him becoming a star groundballer next year is if he develops a new pitch, or throws a lot more breaking balls.

Below are the stats for the power pitchers who broke out to become stars over the past five seasons:

Year	Name	K/9	BB/9	K/BB	GB%
2004	Aaron Harang	6.99	2.96	2.36	0.42
2003	Ben Sheets	6.40	1.75	3.65	0.44
2002	Brad Penny	6.47	3.48	1.86	0.46
2002	Carl Pavano	6.04	3.14	1.93	0.47
2005	CC Sabathia	7.37	2.84	2.60	0.50
2006	Dan Haren	7.10	1.82	3.91	0.45
2003	Doug Davis	5.04	4.21	1.20	0.40
2004	Erik Bedard	8.03	4.72	1.70	0.38
2003	Jake Peavy	7.21	3.79	1.90	0.39
2006	James Shields	7.51	2.74	2.74	0.43
2004	Jeremy Bonderman	8.18	3.60	2.27	0.48
2003	Johan Santana	8.89	2.20	4.04	0.30
2004	John Lackey	6.52	2.74	2.38	0.44
2006	Josh Beckett	6.95	3.25	2.14	0.45
2003	Roger Clemens	8.08	2.47	3.28	0.44
2003	Roy Oswalt	7.63	2.05	3.72	0.46
2005	Scott Kazmir	8.42	4.84	1.74	0.42
-	AVERAGE	7.22	3.09	2.55	0.43

Four pitchers quickly bubble to the top as being quite similar to those lines: Shaun Marcum, Bronson Arroyo, Dustin McGowan, and John Danks. Arroyo is probably too old to have a breakout season—we've seen so much of him in this decade that it's hard to imagine him breaking away from any of his past numbers. McGowan is an interesting case, because he had great 2007 numbers, including a 53 percent ground ball rate. Following it up with 41 percent in 2008, along with almost a full strikeout fewer per nine innings pitched, makes me less optimistic about him. Marcum and Danks are my two favorites here, because in their cases the numbers back up intuition and observation. Except in Marcum's case, he's due for season-ending surgery, forcing him to sit out 2009 while he recovers.

Still, Marcum has had a stable couple of years. His strikeout rate improved a bit last year, while his walk rate remained the same. What interests me about him is the low percentage of fastballs that he throws; in 2008 they only represented 39 percent of his pitches. He's also shown improvements each year in the rate at which batters swing at pitches outside the zone. Clearly his pitch selection is beginning to baffle hitters a bit more. If the surgery leads to a drop in velocity though, I'd guess he's finished. We've seen how Pedro Martinez, one of the most dominating pitchers in the history of baseball, has fared after a drop in velocity forced him to rely on junkballing. He had a few good years in the National League, but is toast at this point.

Danks is pretty clearly my favorite of the four. The youngest of the group, he's only 23 years old. In 2008—his second season in the majors—he improved his K/9 by about .3 and his BB/9 by almost a full 1.0. His GB% went from 35 to 43 percent, and batters against him swung at pitches outside the zone 28 percent of the time (up from 18 percent in his rookie season). The biggest warning sign I can find in his 2008 stats is a slight increase in the rate at which he gives up line drives. Still, all other signs point to him becoming a star pitcher in the near future, so look to pick him up maybe a round earlier than you normally would—he may be one of the big draft-day bargains of 2009.

Posted by Michael Lerra at 1:07am

Friday, November 21, 2008

Chase Utley out 4-6 months: fantasy fallout

Fantasy baseball managers everywhere were likely found gasping for breath today when news broke that Chase Utley is going to undergo surgery on his right hip. This will probably be the biggest question heading into the 2009 fantasy baseball drafting season. This is a similar situation to last season, when many were debating where to select Albert Pujols due to questions about his elbow. The difference in this case is that we know that Utley will be having surgery, so the questions are when he will return, and how effective he will be going forward.

Injury in review

It had been known throughout the midway part of the season that he was dealing with some hip pain, but it had apparently worsened in the waning months of the year. When exactly the hip pain began is not certain, but there has been word that he had irritated the joint during offseason workouts.

His decline in slugging percentage in the last three months of the season was notable (SLG% of .443, .477 and .443 in July, August, and September, respectively), though his monthly batting average splits actually held steady (.278, .294, .284). His .220 postseason batting average was a glaring downturn, however, despite smacking three home runs and totaling nine RBI. His .292 season average, though excellent, was significantly lower than the .332 average of 2007 and .309 in 2006. Whether this slide was due to his hip pain is anyone’s guess.

The issue with Utley’s hip is with the integrity of the acetabular labrum, which is a rim of cartilage that lines the outer aspect of the hip joint. It is often torn when the hip is repetitively forced into flexion (knee towards chest motion) and rotation—especially during weight bearing activities where the head of the femur (ball) approximates against the acetabulum (socket). When the cartilage tears, it either needs to be excised (removed) or repaired, depending on the size and location of the tear.

Clouding the situation is that it is not known if any additional damage is present to the bone or ligament structure of the hip joint. The more structures involved, the more sensitive the joint will be postoperatively, and the slower the progress will have to be, so as to not irritate the tissue during rehab. Bone trimming is a commonly-performed aspect of a hip labrum surgery because it increases the chances of a successful outcome. If a simple debridement of the labrum is needed, the recovery time would also be shorter than if a repair is performed. Keep in mind that Mike Lowell has a similar problem with the hip labrum, but he is only expected to miss two to three months, which means that the doctors probably know that his situation is worse than Lowell’s. The surgery is set for some time next week, so we should know more then.

Second base has historically been a fairly thin position in fantasy—though it has been a deeper position in recent years—but owners are probably wondering what this means for the 2009 season.

Where do I draft him?

For keeper league owners, this hip surgery is a huge point of interest. If you had/have the luxury of keeping Utley, there is no way you can leave him off your roster due to this...right? You have one of two options in keeper leagues:

1. Keep him, stash him, and draft a stopgap for the interim.
2. Release him, and hope that you can get him at a discounted price.

If it were my team, I would simply keep him. If you have budget issues, or really don’t want to gamble with an average second baseman, you might consider No. 2.

In yearly re-draft leagues, the immediate question is: Where do I select Utley? This is a very difficult question, mainly because of the cloudy prognosis for recovery. Depending on the damage within the joint, he could be out for as little as four months, or as long as six—we just don’t know yet. What we do know is that Utley apparently has an excellent pain threshold, and that he is young and extremely well-conditioned. His work ethic is well-known to be outstanding, so we have no need to worry about him slacking in his rehabilitation.

If he is out for only four or five months, that would put his return sometime in the end of March or April. With a four-month return, I would still draft him in the late first round or sometime in the second round—even despite any lingering questions about his health. A five-month return might force you to wait until the late second round or early third round.

If he has a more serious procedure, or if there are setbacks in his recovery, the six-month time frame would push his return into late-May or early June. In this scenario, you would be forced to bypass Utley in the first three rounds altogether, unless you are the gambling type (depending on who is being selected), or unless you have a very deep bench/DL roster and are comfortable with drafting an additional second baseman later in the draft.

If he is out until June, nobody would chastise you for bypassing Utley altogether and targeting a player like Ian Kinsler, Dustin Pedroia, Brian Roberts or Dan Uggla. Another point to remember is that many second basemen seem likely to slip far in drafts this year – Robinson Cano, Brandon Phillips and Yunel Escobar come to mind.

Not that this is any guarantee of his return date, but Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro, Jr. expects Utley to be back on time, or close to it: “Our feeling is that he’s going to be fairly close to ready, if not be ready, by Opening Day.”

What to expect production-wise

If no setbacks or major issues arise in the rehab process, I would expect Utley to return fully and without gross limitations. It is not uncommon for patients who undergo this type of surgery to have residual discomfort in the anterior (front) of the hip or groin region. Soreness is a common occurrence, and is usually alleviated by rehabilitative modalities, range of motion activities, manual therapy, and exercise.

Most of his limitations would likely be apparent with his defense and/or base running—if at all. In particular, getting into a low crouch to field a ground ball combined with pivoting to throw would be an activity that could create discomfort. Turning and exploding out of a lead from first base may also be difficult in the presence of an uncomfortable hip, so his stolen base totals could suffer early in the year. His ability to pull his hits to right field for power may initially be hindered, as he gets acclimated to rotating rapidly and forcefully over his front hip.

Once again, I am banking on a fairly quick recovery from Utley, so my projections are based on what I am anticipating. I would also figure the Phillies would give him some extra days off over the course of the season in any event:

Projections: 138 games, 514 AB, .292/.374/.520, 23 HR, 96 RBI, 9 SB

Posted by Chris Neault at 10:44am

Consistency meter: Nick Markakis

Markakis rounding the bases after a home run. Can we expect more of this in '09? (Icon/SMI)

In the first edition of Consistency Meter I looked at consistent producer Aramis Ramirez last week and concluded that he might undergo a regression in 2009 after five consecutive seasons of high production. That conclusion was unforeseen by most everybody (including me), showing that you can never be sure of any player regardless of how consistent he has been in the past.

In that vein, we will examine another "consistent producer" today. This time it will be... Nick Markakis.

Background

+------+-----+---------+-----+-------+----+-----+-----+----+
| YEAR | AGE | TEAM    | AB  | AVG   | HR | RBI | R   |	SB |
+------+-----+---------+-----+-------+----+-----+-----+----+
| 2006 |  22 | Orioles | 491 | 0.291 | 16 |  62 |  72 |  2 |
| 2007 |  23 | Orioles | 637 | 0.300 | 23 | 112 |  97 |	18 |
| 2008 |  24 | Orioles | 595 | 0.306 | 20 |  87 | 106 |	10 |
+------+-----+---------+-----+-------+----+-----+-----+----+

Markakis will be 25 at the start of the 2009 season, so there is no reason to believe he will fall off because of his age. If anything, you would boost his stats slightly as he nears his prime years with more major league experience. Markakis has also never experienced a major injury.

Looking at his surface stats for the last three years, you see that from his rookie season in 2006 to 2008 he has basically put up the same numbers. His averages over those years: .299 batting average, 20 home runs, 87 RBI, 92 runs and 10 stolen bases

Markakis can hit for average, his bat has decent pop, and he can wreck some havoc on the base paths. Let's see if we can expect him to increase his production in any of those areas. We will start with the pop.

Power skills

+------+-----+---------+-----+----+-----+-------+--------+--------+-----+--------+
| YEAR | AGE | TEAM    | AB  | HR | tHR | HR/FB | tHR_FB | nHR/FB | RAW | OF/FB% |
+------+-----+---------+-----+----+-----+-------+--------+--------+-----+--------+
| 2006 |  22 | Orioles | 491 | 16 |  11 |    14 |     10 |     11 | 3.6 |     27 |
| 2007 |  23 | Orioles | 637 | 23 |  18 |    12 |     10 |     10 | 0.5 |     35 |
| 2008 |  24 | Orioles | 595 | 20 |  20 |    13 |     13 |     13 | 0.7 |     31 |
+------+-----+---------+-----+----+-----+-------+--------+--------+-----+--------+

If you're new to THT Fantasy Focus and are unfamiliar with True Home Runs (tHR) or any of the other stats I'm using, check out our quick reference guide. These stats provide a much clearer picture of a player's talent, so it's well worth a couple of minutes to learn them.

Markakis' home run totals have been pretty much aligned with what his True Home Run (tHR) numbers predict. In fact in 2008, tHRs predicted 20 home runs and Markakis hit exactly that! If you read my Aramis Ramirez article, you probably remember my "food metaphor'" that classified the two types of home run hitters. Namely, either a hitter hits a lot of fly balls, or a high percentage of his fly balls go over the wall. Looking at the above chart, we see that Markakis does not hit a lot of fly balls and only an average percentage of his fly balls go for home runs. Markakis, therefore, should not be classified as a home run hitter.

Unless he alters his approach at the plate to a more fly ball oriented one, Markakis will never become that slugger some expect him to develop into.

+----------+-------+------+-----+--------+-----+-----+--------+-----+
| LAST     | FIRST | YEAR | AB  | OF/FB% | FL% | LD% | IF/FB% | GB% |
+----------+-------+------+-----+--------+-----+-----+--------+-----+
| Markakis | Nick  | 2006 | 491 |     25 |   5 |  16 |      2 |  51 |
| Markakis | Nick  | 2007 | 637 |     29 |  10 |  14 |      2 |  45 |
| Markakis | Nick  | 2008 | 595 |     24 |  16 |  12 |      2 |  46 |
+----------+-------+------+-----+--------+-----+-----+--------+-----+

Looking at the breakdown of his batted ball types further, we see he is not going in the slugger direction. He is still primarily a groundball hitter with a high percentage of "fliners." (A fliner is a mix of a fly ball and line drive, the kind of ball that either falls in the gap for a single or double or goes right to the outfielder and you say the hitter got robbed.) League average fliner rate is 11 percent, so Markakis has become above average in that department. As a result, he is now below average in outfield fly ball percentage (OF/FB%).

So while all of these fliners are good for his batting average, they do not ~~do much~~ do anything for his home run numbers. It would take a conscious effort on Markakis' part to hit more fly balls to get his home run numbers up. The result of hitting more fly balls would a be a decreased batting average, so every approach has its drawbacks.

The bottom line is that unless Markakis can increase his home run per fly ball percentage (HR/FB), he is never going to become a 30 home run hitter. The possibility of that happening remains open, though, because he has still not reached his prime power years. Looking at his Raw Power (RAW) and True HR/FB percentage (tHR/FB) in the first table, we see a slight increase in both, which is promising. If those stats continue to climb in 2009 and in subsequent years as I expect them to—albeit not by much—Markakis can potentially hit about 25 home runs in 2009 and possibly more in years beyond.

Contact skills

+------+-----+---------+-----+-------+-------+-----+-------+--------+-----+--------+---------+
| YEAR | AGE | TEAM    | AB  | BA    | tBA   | CT% | BABIP | mBABIP | LD% | BIP/HR | BIP/tHR |
+------+-----+---------+-----+-------+-------+-----+-------+--------+-----+--------+---------+
| 2006 |  22 | Orioles | 491 | 0.291 | 0.287 |  85 | 0.315 |  0.322 |  20 |     26 |      38 |
| 2007 |  23 | Orioles | 637 | 0.300 | 0.288 |  82 | 0.335 |  0.330 |  18 |     23 |      29 |
| 2008 |  24 | Orioles | 595 | 0.306 | 0.290 |  81 | 0.351 |  0.330 |  21 |     24 |      24 |
+------+-----+---------+-----+-------+-------+-----+-------+--------+-----+--------+---------

Markakis' True Batting Averages (tBA) have been fairly close to his actual batting average and very consistent on a year-to-year basis. The .10 disparity between the two—tBA and actual BA—can be attributed to the slight difference in his Marcels BABIP (mBABIP) and his actual BABIP. Not much going on there. Maybe Markakis' batting average will come down a few points in 2009. No big deal.

Speed skills

+------+-----+---------+-----+----+-----+-------+------+------+-----------+-------------+
| YEAR | AGE | TEAM    | AB  | SB | SBA | SBO%  | SBA% | SB%  | FAN_SPEED | FAN_BALLOTS |
+------+-----+---------+-----+----+-----+-------+------+------+-----------+-------------+
| 2006 |  22 | Orioles | 491 |  2 |   2 | 0.264 |    1 |  100 |        70 |          25 |
| 2007 |  23 | Orioles | 637 | 18 |  24 | 0.258 |   13 |   75 |        68 |          57 |
| 2008 |  24 | Orioles | 595 | 10 |  17 | 0.297 |    8 |   59 |        69 |          72 |
+------+-----+---------+-----+----+-----+-------+------+------+-----------+-------------+

Markakis has never ran wild on the base paths, but has put up double-digit steals the past two seasons. He has been ranked about the same by the fans who voted for Tangotiger's Fan Scout Report, but in reality has had varied success stealing. In 2007 Markakis stole bases at a somewhat disappointing 75 percent clip. Then in 2008 he was successful on only 59 percent of his attempts. That is atrocious!

Rightfully so, Markakis attempted to steal at a lesser rate last year than in 2007, probably when manager Dave Trembley saw he was getting thrown out at about the same rate he was stealing successfully. Markakis did get into more stealing opportunities in 2008, mostly because of his increased walk rate (8.7 percent in 2007, 14.3 percent in 2008) which kept his steals total in double digits, barely.

Markakis is still young and reasonably fast (assumed from his great fielding numbers), so I am expecting him to be more successful at stealing bases in 2009. I am concerned, though, that he will be seeing the green light less. A total of about 10 steals again seems right; anything from 10 to 13 would not surprise me. Just don't think Markakis is good at stealing because, surprisingly, he is not.

Final thoughts

To sum things up, I expect much of the same from Markakis in 2009. Perhaps a couple more home runs are on the way, but I do not expect any sweeping changes to occur. The stats I predict are a .292 batting average with 24 home runs and 11 stolen bases. Draft accordingly!

Posted by Paul Singman at 1:06am

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Tuesday, November 25, 2008

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