THT Fantasy Focus

Posted by Nick Fleder at 5:13am

The catcher and the why

First of all a special thanks goes out to Fantasy Pros and our own Nick Fleder for putting together our positional rankings. As far as I know, this will be the first time THT has released any form of consensus rankings. It’s a proud day for me, and I know you all will appreciate the painstaking work it takes to get this done. As I’m sure Nick will agree, our rankings weren’t necessarily a draft cheat sheet but a reflection of where we feel these players’ stats will measure up against each other at season’s end.

For day one, we rank the catchers. It's the most undervalued position in fantasy baseball, so it’s generally difficult to get too excited about backstops. I see my catcher as little more than a seat warmer. Most years, I peg a certain catcher or tier of catchers I think the room is undervaluing, and I make sure I get my guy. I hardly ever draft the number one catcher or even a top five catcher for that matter.

Last year, I targeted Wilson Ramos and Miguel Montero, and that worked out quite well. In leagues with deeper benches, I will usually draft a lower level catcher and pair him with a top prospect. This tag-team method would probably be my favorite strategy in addressing the catcher position. However, all drafts are different, and you can never tell how a draft is going to play out until you are already well into the battle.

I have concluded that Mike Napoli is the number one catcher in 2012. Upon finally getting his chance to shine in Texas, Napoli built a second half that was nothing short of magical.

I didn’t see his 2011 breakout coming. I knew Napoli had prodigious power unrivaled by any other catcher, but I never thought he would hit as consistently as he did. To think he put up 30 HR/75 RBI/.320 AVG in only 439 plate appearances is astonishing. The fact that he continued that success well into the playoffs further solidifies his elite status.

At 32 years old, Napoli isn’t getting any younger, so being “elite” could be a very short experience for him, but his 2011 season wasn’t so different from his 2008 season. The only real difference was plate appearances, batting eye, and some luck, all of which are trending upwards. Obviously he will face some extreme batting average regression; I’ll bet my house he doesn’t hit .320 again. If he’s your guy, I totally understand, but I won’t reach for him in the first three rounds, which is where he will undoubtedly be selected.

Like Napoli, Carlos Santana has caught the imaginations of experts and fans alike.

First, getting 658 plate appearances from your catcher is unfair. No other catcher was within a hundred plate appearances of Santana in 2011. That in itself should drive the value of a catcher, but Santana offers so much more. He’ll be only 25 at the beginning of the season, and he’s also a switch-hitter. He has 30+ home run potential, and I think most scouts see him as a higher batting average guy than he was last season.

The Indians have already saidthat Santana is the face and future of their franchise. so look for them to continue to shelter him more at first base. We all love catchers who spend significant time at other positions. I don’t think any catcher profiles as a better source for RBIs and runs. His awesome potential will cost an owner roughly the same as Napoli, which drives me out of the bidding. I’ll stand on the sidelines and admire Santana, but he probably won’t be my catcher in 2012.

Never, and I will repeat this, never have I ever seen so many viable catchers for a basic 5X5, 12-team standard league. After Napoli and Santana, at least eight catchers could all have the same value as the other. In my rankings you’ll see that I have Brian McCann as my No. 3 catcher, but my No. 8, Yadier Molina, could easily put up comparable numbers.

So, if you are like me, this conundrum really gets your engines thumping. As soon as Santana and Napoli, jump off the board, I will immediately go into value mode. I have McCann ranked as No. 3 for a variety of reasons. I am a fan of the Braves so I have seen enough of McCann to know what he’s capable of producing. Before his injuries, 2011 was shaping up to be the finest year of his career. He should be healthy and firmly set in the middle of a lineup that will produce better than it did last year, surely. McCann offers generally the same skill set as Santana but should be had two or three rounds later. I have him drafted in the fiffh round. Anything beyond that, and I’m drafting McCann.

After McCann, I struggled among Joe Mauer, Buster Posey, Matt Wieters and Miguel Montero for the fourth spot in my rankings. I love the potential of every one for different reasons.

With much angst, I chose Mauer. The reason I like Mauer isn’t because he’s safe. He’s not. It’s not because he’s coming off some sort of breakout season. That’s already happened. When Mauer is healthy he is a great source of runs and RBIs for a catcher. He averaged around 93 runs and 85 RBIs in the three seasons before last year. I think he still had double digit power even though the 28 home runs of 2009 are conclusively an aberration at this point. Target Field will also squander any future power potential.

The No. 1 reason I love Mauer is because he improves your batting average so much that it allows you to draft a Mark Reynolds or Ryan Howard-like player without fear of what those players will do to your batting average. Mauer is still an elite hitter, and he won’t come much cheaper than he will in 2012. If there’s any catcher who has the best chance of finding a way onto all my fantasy teams, it’s Mauer.

Picking Posey over Wieters will be considered blasphemy by my colleagues I’m sure, but I’m don’t care. I’m not as sold on Wieters as everybody else, apparently. He batted only .235 against right-handed pitching in 2011, which is the worst of his career. His career batting average rates have been directly tied to his BABIP successes and failures. I worry that he may constantly struggle with a certain level of volatility.

I also understand that Wieters fits the profile of a guy I typically like, but I’m not convinced that he’s ready yet. I need to see more, and I’m not willing to pay the price to find out. In our THT mock draft, Wieters was selected third overall among catchers. He may warrant such consideration when the season is over, but I’ll play it a little safer. Last tidbit on Wieters: power seems legit, and there’s no reason to think he can’t hit more than 20 home runs again 2012.

Posey is a poor man’s Mauer. Scouts love the term “Mauer with power,” and I have seen that said about both Wieters and Posey. Where I see Wieters as diet Mauer with power, I see Posey as just Mauer. Posey is obviously less proven than Maue,r but can’t be considered as big an injury risk. One freak play can’t label a player as an injury risk. I’d say he has an injury "mark." I assume that Posey will be healthy, and the Giants seem ready to play him more at first base this year to preserve that health. I secretly want Posey more than Mauer, but I don’t know if I have the guts to show that in my rankings.

When I entered 2011, I was ready to proceed with Montero as my catcher. He was so cheap, and no one believed he could improve on his successful 2009 season. I would point to his disappointing 2010 season as the reason. I like Montero because Arizona likes Montero. He isn’t going anywhere, and with ISOs much like all the more beloved catchers ranked ahead of him, he has a very underrated power stroke. If he continues to put up solid, across-the-board numbers and sees some increase in his power, Montero should still be a bargain in 2012, but this may be the last year to get him on the cheap. I doubt I will invest in Montero in any leagues other than my N- only leagues. He’s stable, but his ceiling isn’t quite as high as the others ranked ahead of him.

Speaking of stability, Yadier Molina took an impressive leap forward in 2011. He finally established himself as something more than the best defensive catcher and a solid source of batting average. He hit 14 home runs and didn’t compromise his other stats.

If he maintains power somewhere in the same level as last year, there really isn’t a catcher you can consider more stable than Molina. According to Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Molina looks “buff.” I don’t know how to properly handle these kinds of news tidbits, but if he’s stronger than last year, why not think he can hit a few more home runs? Molina is a pick for guys looking to play it safe. For example, if you’ve already added some riskier selections or unreliables, then Molina is a perfect catcher to use for balance.

I often will draft from a lower tier of catchers, Nos. 9 through 15. If your bench is deep enough, I strongly encourage you to draft one of these lower-tier catchers preferably Wilson Ramos, Geovanny Soto or Kurt Suzuki, then grab the top prospect, which is Devin Mesoraco.

I don’t think there is enough difference among all these catchers to go into too much depth. Soto is power and experience. Suzuki is the RBIs and runs guy of the bunch. Ramos is the head of this group. If not for his kidnapping this winter, I would probably have him in the tier with the more valuable catchers, but I worry about his mind. Stress can be a powerful thing and could affect his performance. So even though he broke out in his first season as a starter, I’m not ready to pronounce him a star.

He is far from a slam-dunk but I could definitely see myself grabbing Mesoraco as his counterpart. That could be a dynamic duo especially in deep, two-catcher or NL-only leagues. I love the up-and-coming prospects, and none is more heralded than Mesoraco. Don’t be surprised if he unseats Ryan Hanigan as the Reds' primary catcher by the All-Star break. He is every bit as good as his hype.

What is amazing is the number of catchers lying in wait. Salvador Perez seems like he could have some promise, but expectations for him should be tempered. Wilin Rosario is a future star, but he still has some growing to do. Yasmani Grandal, now with the San Diego Padres, could be impressive if given the opportunity. Ryan Lavarnway is the reigning Boston Red Sox minor league player of the year and could be ready to expand on his late season successes.

Basically, there’s a lot to get excited about for the future of fantasy catchers. This list may look very different in 2013.

Posted by Ben Pritchett at 2:19am

Golden dollar: A.J. the Bucco

As a Yankee blood, A.J. Burnett is not a welcome name in my household. I don’t enjoy watching him play baseball—he’s made it easy to hate him, with a 5.26 ERA in 2010, a 5.15 in 2011, and a bad attitude for the whole ride—but he may well end up on several of my teams this year if (when) he becomes a Pirate. You might ask why. I might even ask why.

Not long ago, Burnett was a valuable commodity in all baseball spheres. He had a World Championship under his belt in 2003, an 18-win season in 2008, a sick strikeout rate along the way, and two five WAR seasons to his name (2005 and 2008). As such, he was signed to a (cringe-worthy) five-year, $85 million contract in 2009. He’s tumbled and fumbled since then, though, and fantasy owners and Yankees fans alike have come to hate the man.

In a 12-team, AL-only league, he was, in his first Yankee season, worth a rock-solid but unsexy $12 as the 23rd ranked pitcher. The subsequent year, he clocked in as the 118th most valuable American League starter, worthless on fantasy rosters in every sense of the word. A slight rebound made him the 72nd starter in the AL last season, worth less than Rich Harden (82.2 innings pitched with nearly identical ratio stats: 5.15 ERA and 1.43 WHIP), Matt Moore (who started two games), and Fautino de los Santos (who was wrongly classified as a starter but pitched only 33.1 underwhelming innings). Burnett, in other words, was fantasy kryptonite.

Throughout his demise, though, he’s remained well above league average in strikeout values and wins. According to Baseball Monster, his strikeouts had a value of 2.02 in his first Yankee year, 2009 (rated as very good), and maintained a 0.85 value and a 1.33 value in the following two years, respectively. Additionally, he won only 10 and 11 games in 2010 and 2011, both rated as above average in a standard 12-team AL-only league.

Let’s look at his Yankees years and dissect, as well as we can, his fantasy value.

Year      2009      2010      2011   3-Yr. Avg   Career
ERA       4.04      5.26      5.15      4.79      4.10
BABIP     0.295     0.319     0.294     0.302     0.290
WHIP      1.4       1.51      1.430     1.44      1.33
HR/FB%    10.8      11.6       17       12.8      11.3
K/9       8.48      6.99      8.18      7.88      8.22

The problem with Burnett, clearly, lies in his inability to limit base runners and his sky-high ERA. He still possesses some semblance of his former ability. In the past three years, his high-water marks (found in bold above, mostly in the 2009 category) make for a pretty valuable $12 season. A quick look at his rate stats might lead one to believe that Burnett has become a vastly inferior pitcher to his former self. Not so quick…

ERA problems

His home run to fly ball ratio will surely go down, as his rate was 17 percent last year while the league average clocks in around 10.5 percent. Burnett’s 2011 might not have looked so ugly with a league-average ratio, as his xFIP was more than respectable at 3.86. PNC Park will have a lot to do with the regression to the mean, as Yankee Stadium had a 1.267 HR factor in 2011 while Burnett’s (likely) home park had a HR factor of 0.799. The difference, for illustrative purposes, is nearly the same as that between Coors Field and PETCO Park in 2011.

WHIP problems

These are likely here to stay, but shouldn’t ever look so bad as they did in 2011. Burnett’s walk rate has hovered around his career mark for the past several years (which never produced great WHIP numbers), but the difference in his recent performance is that he’s simply much more hittable (204 hits in 186-plus 2010 innings paints the picture pretty well). Perhaps there’s a little luck involved, though. His three-year BABIP was .302 in pinstripes, while his career mark is .290.

Golden dollar?

If Burnett can channel his 2009 version and find himself on the right side of the luck equation, he might be a golden dollar. You know, the one found in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? His home run to fly ball percentage will surely go down, we’ve concluded. If his BABIP can stay as low as it did in 2011, then the HR/FB tumble will bring his ERA down to respectable levels and his WHIP won’t ever touch the mid-ones again.

Bad luck in several forms—BABIP in 2010 and home run rate in 2011—has kept Burnett in the fantasy dumpster, but I’ll bet my final dollar he returns to respectability (or better).

Even if he leads me to a championship or two, though, I’ll never love him.

Posted by Nick Fleder at 1:20am

This week in (fantasy) baseball

It’s hard enough following one’s own fantasy team without having to keep track of an entire sport’s daily transactions.

So here’s a column dedicated to recapping the most notable trades, signings, promotions, demotions and role changes across the majors over the past week as they relate to fantasy. We'll do this on a regular basis. If you feel I've missed anything important, please don't hesitate to keep the conversation going in the comments below.

Orioles trade Jeremy Guthrie to Rockies for Jason Hammel and Matt Lindstrom

With less than a week to go before pitchers and catchers report, Colorado and Baltimore shored up their starting rotations by swapping pitchers who can eat up innings.

Guthrie, who turns 33 in April, has averaged more than 30 starts over the past five years but has never realized the potential the Indians saw when they made him a first-round draft pick 10 years ago. Last year, he finished 9-17 with a 4.33 ERA and 1.341 WHIP and allowed more hits than innings pitched.

For a guy who’s surrendered an average of more than 26 home runs a season since 2007, moving to Coors Field won’t exactly help his fantasy value next year. But at least he enters spring training with a guaranteed spot in the rotation, and could benefit from facing National League lineups for the first time in his career.

Hammel is a similar case, a guy with a career 4.99 ERA who should at least hold down a steady rotation job but offer fantasy owners little else on a team headed toward another 90-loss season. Entering his age-29 season, Hammel comes off the highest BB/9 and HR/9— and lowest K/9—of his career since becoming a full-time starter, and was shuttled between the rotation and the bullpen during the season’s final two months.

By far the most interesting variable to come out of the deal is Lindstrom, a guy with closing experience who could give current ninth-inning man Jim Johnson a possible challenge in the season’s early months. Manager Buck Showalter expressed interest late last year in moving Johnson to the rotation, but that was before the team acquired Tsuyoshi Wada and Wei-Yin Chen, fleshing out a top five that should include Zach Britton and Jake Arrieta. If things fall apart, a pile of warm bodies, including Brian Matusz, Chris Tillman, Dana Eveland and Tommy Hunter could step in to eat up innings.

That means Johnson will likely stay at the back end of the bullpen, where he posted decent numbers last year after taking over for Kevin Gregg. But Lindstrom’s presence—along with that of newly signed Luis Ayala—gives Showalter backup options, and could make for an interesting position battle next month.

Rangers sign Conor Jackson to minor league deal

Jackson’s stock has fallen sharply since he posted three straight .800-plus OPS seasons several years ago. Last year, in 390 plate appearances split between the A’s and the Red Sox, Jackson, 29, posted a .244/.310/.341 line with just five home runs and 43 RBIs. But he can play at all four corner infield and outfield positions, and could provide Mitch Moreland with a right-handed-hitting platoon partner if the Rangers so desire. Jackson might be far from an exciting fantasy candidate, but while his prospects for a steady job are less than clear, any slugger calling Arlington home could have some fantasy value, so keep an eye on how his spring training unfolds.

Russell Branyan receives spring training invitation from Yankees

Although the Yankees are still looking for a left-handed designated hitter to complement Andruw Jones, the team agreed to terms Wednesday with the 36-year-old Branyan. Obviously, there’s little guarantee Branyan will make the team, let alone hold down a regular job, but it’s worth remembering he swatted 31 and 25 home runs in 2009 and 2010, respectively. Last year, Branyan compiled a .197/.295/.370 line in 146 plate appearances between the D-backs and Angels, and never earned a full-time job with either club. He’s strictly an afterthought as far as fantasy is concerned, though anyone wearing pinstripes in a premier hitters’ park retains the potential to make an impact, so he might be worth keeping an eye on in spring training.

Posted by Karl de Vries at 1:11am

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Staff rankings: Catchers