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Monday, April 06, 2009Final off-season thoughtsPosted by Derek Carty at 2:25pmOpening Day has come and gone and most all fantasy drafts are now completed. I thought I'd give a few final thoughts before the season gets into full swing for those either still drafting, exploring the trade market, or scouring the waiver wire. Common playersFirst, here is an updated list of the players appearing most frequently on my teams. The same warnings apply as last time. The FOX Sports Experts League (10-team mixed) is the new addition to the list of leagues, joining LABR NL (NL-only), FSIC (NL-only), FantasyPros911 (AL-only), and KFFL (Mixed). Hitters — 3 teams Raul Ibanez: LABR, FSIC, KFFL Matt Wieters: FP911, KFFL, FOX Cody Ross: LABR, FSIC, KFFL Nyjer Morgan: LABR, FSIC, KFFL Hitters — 2 teams Jose Reyes: FSIC, FOX Matt Kemp: KFFL, FOX Nate McLouth: FSIC, FOX Nelson Cruz: KFFL, FOX James Loney: LABR, FSIC, FOX Kelly Johnson: LABR, KFFL Chris Dickerson: FSIC, KFFL Kosuke Fukudome: LABR, FSIC Pitchers — 3 teams Javier Vazquez: LABR, FSIC, KFFL Rich Harden: LABR, KFFL, FOX Kenshin Kawakami: LABR, FSIC, KFFL Pitchers — 2 teams Derek Lowe: FSIC, KFFL Mike Gonzalez: LABR, FOX Chad Qualls: KFFL, FOX Joel Hanrahan: FSIC, FOX Jorge de la Rosa: LABR, FSIC Ross Ohlendorf: LABR, FSIC Power bargainsHere is a list of players who could be in for a power boost in 2009. These are players who had a True Home Runs (tHR) total at least 80% higher than their actual home run outputs in 2008. Keep in mind, however, that this does not guarantee that these players will take such a big leap forward in 2009. First, we are dealing with a single season, so this is not a reflection of a hitter's absolute talent level, only a sample of it (and some of these players didn't even get a full season of at-bats). Plus, for there to be such a big tHR/HR disparity, the actual home run total needs to be relatively small to begin with, further decreasing our sample size. I didn't get to run nearly as many tests as I had hoped this off-season, but (very) preliminary tests on 2006-2008 data showed that a good portion of these guys do indeed see surface power spikes the following year. For some guys it might be a blip, but for others it should be legitimate. Picking out which is which is difficult, but in a few drafts this year I made it a point to grab at least two or three of these guys late, especially if they had some other valuable skill (speed, batting average, etc). Many make great AL or NL-only targets. There is great potential upside here since the investment is small and since many of these players will justify the pick even if their power doesn't skyrocket. And the best part is that a lot of these guys can still be found on many waiver wires, so if you have drafted, it's not too late to either pick someone up (depending on league depth, of course) or at least monitor them through April and May. Here's the list: Akinori Iwamura Jimmy Rollins Coco Crisp Bobby Crosby Ichiro Suzuki Carl Crawford Carlos Gomez Ryan Sweeney Yuniesky Betancourt Juan Uribe Mark Kotsay Brian Giles Concluding thoughtsWe at THT Fantasy are looking forward to a great season with you guys. We have some very cool stuff planned, the first of which you should be seeing this Friday as John Burnson begins writing regularly for THT Fantasy. You may recognize John's name from the work he's previously done at Baseball HQ, from his annual Graphical Player book, or from Heater Magazine. We're thrilled to have John on the team. As always, if you guys have any questions, feel free to comment or e-mail me. Derek Carty is a 22-year old fantasy baseball analyst residing in New Jersey. In addition to writing for THTF, his work has appeared at Rotoworld (NBC), Sports Illustrated, FOX Sports, and Heater Magazine. In his two years competing in expert leagues, he has won 2 titles with 4 top three finishes, including a LABR NL title in 2009, making him the youngest person to ever win a major expert league title. Derek is a proud graduate of the MLB Scouting Bureau's Scout Development Program and is a firm believer in the importance of combining stats and scouting. He welcomes questions via e-mail. Comments
Derek Carty said...
Yeah, Andrew, I don’t see any way it could be anything other than a coincidence. tHR doesn’t consider any elements of speed or anything that is even correlated well with speed. Does make things nice, though, as these players already have value in one area, and a bump in power would provide a very nice return. Posted 04/07 at 12:37 AM
Derek Carty said...
I should note, Andrew, that there may be some bias at play. 1) High power numbers almost automatically disqualifies a player from inclusion Posted 04/07 at 10:54 AM |
Odd that so many of the power bargains are speedsters. Coincidence, I guess. Thanks for the True Home Run data, Derek.