THT Fantasy Focus

Posted by Matt Hagen at 2:12am (1) Comments

Friday, September 25, 2009

Waiver Wire: NL

Juan Francisco | Cincinnati | OF
YTD: .429/.500/.857
True Talent: N/A
Next Week Forecast: N/A
Francisco succeeds with a hack-and-slash approach, like Vlad Guerrero or Pablo Sandoval, but without their mad contact skills (he's got a 75% rate in the minors, vs. 86-87% for Vlad and Kung Fu Panda). When Francisco does make contact, however, the ball goes a long, long way. The Reds want to see if the 22-year-old can maintain the momentum he started when he hit .359/.384/.598 with five 2B, one 3B and five HR in 99 ABs for Triple-A Louisville. NL keeper league owners will want to watch him carefully in the last few weeks, and he makes the perfect power gamble for non-keeper owners. At this point in the season, those ratios are awfully hard to budge, so his BA won't hurt you much, but those extra HRs and RBIs could be the thing to put you over the top. If nothing else, you can watch him knock some tape-measure shots like the 423-foot jack he launched in his second career AB.

J.D. Martin | Washington | SP
YTD: 4.5 K/9, 1.6 K/BB, 4.21 ERA
True Talent: 6.6 K/9, 2.2 K/BB, 4.48 ERA
Next Week Forecast: 12.1 IP, 0.7 Wins, 9 K, 4.27 ERA
Martin's given up two ER in each of four September starts, winning three of them, no small feat given the team that's behind him (he won the three games by a total of four runs). He's also given up at least one home run in all but one 2009 start of more than 4.0 IP, giving him an ugly 1.7 HR/9 on the season. That plus his low K and K/BB ratios shows you that Martin's been walking a tightrope and could plunge off at any moment. His start last night against the Dodgers may be those stats catching up with him: five ER in three IP. It's the 26-year-old's first season in the bigs, despite a good minor league career (61-31, 3.40 ERA, 1.17 WHIP), a testament to his problems with durability and health. You've got to be pretty hard up to want to start him, so we'd advise a healthy dose of caution, even if his last start should come against the hapless Mets.

Mike Fontenot | Chicago | 2B
YTD: .242/.308/.389
True Talent: .267/.341/.423
Next Week Forecast: 0.2 HR, 1 Runs, 1 RBI, .271 BA, 0.1 SB
Fontenot's True Talent line would have made him the No. 8 2B in the NL, but he's clearly not getting there this season. Since Jeff Baker supplanted him as the starting 2B, he's gotten a handful of September starts, hitting .440/.483/.560 for the month. It's likely too little, too late to get the keystone spot back from Baker this year, just as it won't be enough to reach those TT levels. But those in NL-only leagues 14 teams and deeper can take the chance on him picking up a few more starts, or perhaps a pinch hit or two, in the next week. Most of us, however, can just leave him out on the wire.

Chris Narveson | Milwaukee | SP
YTD: 8.8 K/9, 3.1 K/BB, 3.82 ERA
True Talent: 7.4 K/9, 1.9 K/BB, 4.85 ERA
Next Week Forecast: 11.1 IP, 0.6 Wins, 9 K, 4.98 ERA
Technically a rookie, Narveson has been a pro for 10 seasons, and in his last start, he put up one strikeout for each of those seasons, becoming the first Brewer rookie to do that in ten years. He struggled in the beginning of 2009, was demoted to Triple-A, and has looked good since returning, with a 2.00 ERA in 27 IP, though only three of his 10 appearances have been starts. He could get two more starts down the stretch as Milwaukee wants to look at him for 2010, and True Talent tells you he's got the stuff to succeed. The Brewers' rotation isn't set, but he's most likely to see his next start in Coors Field, which may be a good reason to steer clear of him. He's a good gamble for Ks and a possible win, but a gamble that's better in an NL-only league 10 teams or deeper.

Oscar Salazar | San Diego | UT
YTD: .294/.378/.518
True Talent: .269/.321/.437
Next Week Forecast: 0.2 HR, 1 Runs, 1 RBI, .256 BA, 0.1 SB
In spite of those glowing 2009 numbers, Salazar's done it mostly off the bench since being traded from the Orioles. Now that Kouzmanoff is battling back and calf injuries, and with Edgar Gonzalez done for the year, Salazar's gotten more PT in September. He's responded by hitting .256/.396/.512 for the month, a pace he's largely sustained, so he might be for real. He sports a 84% contact rate this year, consistent with his career MLB numbers, as is his .77 BB/K ratio. While he's probably not a late bloomer, he's been hot enough thus far that there's no reason he can't sustain this for another week. Worth a shot in nearly all leagues, especially those where he's got multi-position eligibility, since he's played at least one game at every position but CF and C.

Hong-Chih Kuo | Los Angeles | RP
YTD: 10.4 K/9, 2.9 K/BB, 2.28 ERA
True Talent: 9.9 K/9, 2.9 K/BB, 3.19 ERA
Next Week Forecast: 0.0 Saves, 3.08 ERA
What's that? You're all out of starts in your leagues, or up against the IP cap? Might I suggest the Hong-Chih Kuo? It's excellent this season. Actually, Kuo has been excellent whenever he's been healthy, and 2009 is no exception. The "healthy" part, as ever, is the problem. He's right where True Talent says he should be, and is sure to bring you some Ks without much damage to your ratios. He's got an outside chance at a save, if LA decides to rest Broxton for the playoffs, but he's got value regardless. Good for NL leagues of any size, as well as most mixed leagues.

John Maine | New York | SP
YTD: 5.8 K/9, 1.3 K/BB, 4.13 ERA
True Talent: 7.4 K/9, 1.8 K/BB, 4.16 ERA
Next Week Forecast: 6.2 IP, 0.4 Wins, 5 K, 3.70 ERA
Since coming off the DL with a weak shoulder, Maine has pitched fairly well, most recently putting up five shutout innings against Washington on Sunday. His strikeouts are down, and his walk rates have climbed each of the past four seasons, making him a fringy pitcher even when he's healthy, as True Talent shows you. Given the team behind him and the restrictive pitch count he's on, don't expect much from Maine. But he's scheduled to face the Marlins on Saturday, and their roster hits .187 against him, so he's not a bad gamble as far as spot starts go. He's a worthy gamble in NL-only leagues deeper than 10 teams, or anyone who's desperate for one more win.

Tyler Colvin | Chicago | OF
YTD: .200/.308/.200
True Talent: N/A
Next Week Forecast: N/A
The Cubbies have said they'll take a long look at Colvin, once one of their top CF prospects, in the last week of the season. A first-round pick in 2006, he's developed slower than hoped, and getting Tommy John surgery last November didn't help. But he bounced back strong in 2009, hitting .300/.334/.524 in Double-A—his third season at Double-A. Hence the "slow development" label. He's a good hitter but needs to work on his batting eye—he slipped to .36 BB/K his season after .44 last year, neither of which is that great, but his 80% contact rate shows he knows how to put the barrel on the ball. Chicago's had trouble with a certain cantankerous RF of late, and Colvin projects as a possible lefty-hitting corner OF, which explains why he'll be getting so much PT down the stretch. He's someone to watch for keeper leagues, but not likely to bring much value, given that he skipped a level and doesn't possess any one dominant, "must-have" skill.

True Talent and Next Week Forecasts courtesy of Heater Magazine.

Posted by Michael Street at 2:00am (2) Comments

Waiver Wire: AL

Michael Aubrey | Baltimore | 1B
YTD: .308/.345/.462
True Talent: .247/.298/.385
Next Week Forecast: 0.2 HR, 1 R, 1 RBI, .247 BA, 0.0 SB
We hopped into our Wayback Machine to dig up the goods on Michael Aubrey. Back to the days when he was considered a “can't miss” prospect ... back to the days when he was healthy! He was the 11th pick in the 2003 draft, ahead of notables such as Aaron Hill, Carlos Quentin, and Chad Billingsley. He started his pro career in full-season Single-A ball the same year, making such a mockery of the Sally League that he started his first full season of pro ball in High-A in 2004. He also destroyed that level, earning a quick promotion to Double-A. That's when the injuries began. He missed about 360 games between the second half of 2004 and 2007. He missed time again in 2008 but finally made it to Triple-A. In 2009, he was hitting .290/.323/.436 before his call-up, and he even managed to play in 101 games. Though slow, he's a good defender and Trembley likes him. He's going to play the rest of this year and might be a good deep sleeper pick in AL-only leagues for next year—there's no telling when “hidden” talent will re-emerge on a guy who's missed so much time.

Fausto Carmona | Cleveland | SP
YTD: 5.5 K/9, 1.0 K/BB, 6.89 ERA
True Talent: 5.4 K/9, 1.4 K/BB, 4.90 ERA
Next Week Forecast: 5.2 IP, 0.3 Wins, 3 K, 4.82 ERA
Time for another round of, “How Desperate Are YOU?” The Indians expected to contend but quickly saw their season fall apart, and expected No. 2 starter Fausto Carmona's a big part of the reason why. He's not throwing 95 mph any more, but his fastball still averages about 93 mph this year. And he's inducing 54.2% grounders. But that's about it for any good news ... his control has deserted him entirely, and there's no reason to think it will come back this season, if ever. He's walked 5.4 batters/9 IP, and when he's thrown strikes, he's allowed a career-high 18.6% LD%, and just a 2.8% infield fly%, indicating that batters are teeing off. Anyway, TT projects him to have a sub-5.00 ERA, and getting to pitch at home against the O's could help him tonight. But, really, picking him up is a last-ditch effort to get someone who was once good, and is assured of getting his starts.

Brett Gardner | New York | OF
YTD: .279/.354/.397
True Talent: .261/.340/.361
Next Week Forecast: 0.1 HR, 1 Runs, 0 RBI, .264 BA, 0.4 SB
Two months ago, we anticipated that Gardner's OBP would stay above the TT level (which was .341 at the time), and it has. Expect him to see a LOT of playing time as the Yankees make sure that their starting outfielders are as healthy and rested as possible for the playoffs. The Yankees will face some good catchers (KC and TB), but Gardner is fast enough to steal anyway, and could make a difference in that category.

Alex Gonzalez | Boston | SS
YTD: .239/.276/.354
True Talent: .248/.300/.391
Next Week Forecast: 0.6 HR, 2 Runs, 3 RBI, .255 BA, 0.1 SB
Gonzalez has hit .321/.333/.607 in 60 PA at Fenway this year, and Boston plays 6 of 9 at home, with the other three being at New York. For his career, he's shown no preference for facing LH or RH pitching, but everyone's shown a preference for Cleveland's pitching this season, and the Indians and Blue Jays are the two home series. Don't expect miracles, but he'll play every day, and could hit a couple more HR.

Mark Hendrickson | Baltimore | SP/RP
YTD: 5.3 K/9, 1.9 K/BB, 4.37 ERA
True Talent: 5.7 K/9, 1.9 K/BB, 4.60 ERA
Next Week Forecast: 11.2 IP, 0.7 Wins, 7 K, 4.92 ERA
Moved into the rotation to replace Matusz, Hendrickson can be expected to start for the rest of this year, as the team faces Cleveland, TB, and Toronto. His True Talent projection looks promising, but only pick him up in a pinch (and hope for the best!), as he's been much better in relief due to his L/R splits (.268/.311/.397 against as RP, .317/.378/.596 as an SP; tOPS+ splits of 75/113 vsL/R).

Daniel Hudson | Chicago | SP
YTD: 6.8 K/9, 2.0 K/BB, 3.38 ERA
True Talent: n/a
Next Week Forecast: 6.2 IP, 0.5 Wins
Daniel Hudson “blew up” the True Talent projections, his minor-league stats were so awesome this year (147.1 IP, 105 H, 166:34 K:BB, just five HR at four levels). Entering the 2008 college season, Hudson was all the buzz, expected to be a high-round pick, but he had an off year, and slipped to the White Sox in the fifth round. You could say he's rebounded nicely in '09. He reaches 94 pretty effortlessly now, and his slider should become devastating, as it was in the minors. He's typical in terms of GB% and FB%, and should be considered a prime Rookie of the Year candidate for 2010, even if the Sox delay his call-up two months to avoid arbitration, which is a possibility.

Ryan Raburn | Detroit | OF
YTD: .281/.345/.517
True Talent: .264/.331/.456
Next Week Forecast: 0.5 HR, 2 Runs, 2 RBI, .266 BA, 0.2 SB
Lost in the shuffle of the Detroit outfield has been former utilityman Ryan Raburn, who has blasted 14 HR and stolen five bases in about half a season's worth of PA. He's used in a pinch sometimes but has appeared in all but three Tigers games in September. A nice source of homers in AL-only leagues, and he's good enough to play against LHP in any format, if you have daily moves.

Matt Thornton | Chicago | RP
YTD: 10.7 K/9, 4.5 K/BB, 2.65 ERA
True Talent: 9.5 K/9, 3.2 K/BB, 3.19 ERA
Next Week Forecast: n/a Saves, 3.25 ERA
Matt Thornton is the White Sox closer, and he should be great at it. There's even some talk that Jenks won't be brought back in 2010, though it's premature for that. Thornton is arguably the best lefty reliever in the game now and one of the hardest-throwing—clocking in with an average fastball velocity well over 95 mph. He should be immediately considered a top closer down the stretch, even with the typical caveats about the last three outs being harder to get. Trading Joe Borchard for this guy was highway robbery by Kenny Williams.

Posted by Rob McQuown at 4:00am (5) Comments

Nothing adds up

Last week, we described a new method for deriving fantasy values. First, some loose ends:

Readers will note that we spoke of “the last drafted player” and “the pool of draft-worthy players” without saying how we knew who these players were. The approach we favor is running thousands of Monte Carlo simulations of fantasy leagues—simply casting players onto rosters with no care for balance or value. Our base metric is something that we call Weight on Winners (WOW)—the frequency with which a player appears on the winning club. The higher the frequency, the greater the value. Note that, because our simulated leagues do not enforce a budget, we cannot turn these frequencies into dollar values; however, the frequencies should reveal the rankings of our players, so that we can pluck out the top 108 players or the 10th-best player or whomever.

Here were the steps for this study. We simulated a 12-team, standard-5x5, mixed-league contest. There are 108 total pitching slots. The average price of a slot (given a $260 budget and 23 slots on both sides of the roster) is $11.30.

1. Find the pool of potentially valuable pitchers.

For best results, the competition between our simulated teams should approximate the true level. We don’t want to consider every player who threw at least one pitch. On the other hand, we also do not want to unfairly exclude someone who, even in limited play, can have an impact.

We resolve this dilemma by tossing every pitcher into a simulation of a couple thousand leagues and finding the lowest IP total among the top 108 players. Every pitcher below this threshold is essentially given a grade of “Incomplete” and ignored in later steps. It is not fair—either to the player or to owners—to treat ultra-short seasons as if they are on the table. Nobody is weighing Chris Carpenter versus Andrew Carpenter.

At this point in the season, the threshold is 30 IP. Pitchers with slightly higher workloads who look to have a crack at the top 108 include Claudio Vargas (1.93 ERA in 37 IP), Randy Choate (3.62 ERA in 32 IP, 5 Saves), and Sergio Romo (3.94 ERA in 32 IP but 2 Saves and 5 Wins). A notable miss is Neftali Feliz, who has only 28.1 IP, but he is bound to top 30 IP by season’s end.

You can see from the above trio that our method appreciates value in a variety of configurations: low ERA; moderate ERA but Saves; unremarkable ERA but Saves plus Wins. These choices fall out of the simulation naturally; we didn’t have to “do” anything other than set up the parameters.

2. Find the top 108 pitchers.

We take all pitchers who survived the cut in Step 1 and simulate another couple thousand leagues to get the true top 108. Recall that our $11 slot is one that can freely float among any of these players.

Not surprisingly, Zach Greinke took the top spot; simulated teams with Greinke won 35% of their leagues. Tied for second place at 30% were Dan Haren and Tim Lincecum. Chris Carpenter, Felix Hernandez, and Javier Vazquez formed a 3rd tier at 27.5%, followed at 26% by the first closer on the list, Jonathan Broxton.

3. Identify the $1 pitchers.

Recall that we are going to be introducing $1 players onto our rosters. Now, we don’t want to put too much weight on the particular player in the 108th position—he might happen to be a beast in one area, which would bias our findings. Moreover, we may need to swap in multiple $1 players, and it would be better not to re-use one guy.

So we’ll draw our $1 players from a pool of 12—the last six draftable (#103-108), plus the first six non-draftable (#109-114). In alphabetical order, here are the $1 players for this study:

             IP   W  Sv   ERA  WHIP    K
Bergesen    123   7   0  3.43  1.28   65
Breslow      65   7   0  3.46  1.09   50
Condrey      39   6   1  3.20  1.17   23
Johnson Ji   67   4   8  4.05  1.32   49
Kawakami    152   7   1  3.92  1.33  102
Masset       70   5   0  2.56  1.04   65
Morales F    38   3   7  3.05  1.30   40
O’Day        55   2   2  1.80  1.00   53
Palmer      114  10   0  4.03  1.34   65
Peavy        87   7   0  4.05  1.18   97
Troncoso     79   4   5  2.75  1.39   52
Zambrano    154   8   0  3.91  1.43  138

Again, there’s a good mix of players there.

So we’ve defined our $11 slot (the pool of the top 108 pitchers) and our $1 slot (the pool of 12 end-rounders). All that’s left is to run the experiment that we outlined last week. We’ll start with a straight version of Roster #1 (Halladay plus eight free-floating slots) and then replace one, two, and three of the floating slots with $1 players. Roster #2 is fixed with nine free-floating slots.

We submitted each two-team league (four versions) through 2,000 runs of our program and tracked the winning percentage of Halladay’s team at each stage.

Did we obtain Halladay’s value? No. Or, we don’t think so. Here’s the graph:

Nice curve, but you can see that it crosses the 50% mark well before we would expect it to. Based on this graph, Halladay’s roster would meet Roster #2 after replacing only 1-3/4 of Halladay’s $11 slots with $1 slots. This equality puts Halladay’s projected value at about $18. For a guy with 15 Wins, 193 K, and a 3.01 ERA in 221 IP.

We can get a slightly more customary valuation for Halladay if we extrapolate from only the first two points on the graph—that is, from a state with zero forced $1 slots to a state with one. Doing so raises Halladay’s estimated value by $3, to $21. Still probably $6-$10 below his real value, if standard valuation methods are to be believed.

What gives? We glean a clue from the line’s curved nature. By our hypothesis, each substitution of an $11 slot with a $1 slot should have led to the same $10 drop in Halladay’s value. But the slide here is not linear but exponential. Each added end-rounder degrades Halladay’s roster ever faster.

The notion of synergy among roster picks is not new. We know, for example, that once you get one super-speedster, additional super-speedsters have declining worth to you because you need only so many SB to seal the category. Ditto for anything that you’ve already bought enough of.

This study suggests that you can also have too much of nothing. Recall that the price of a player is $1 + the marginal price of his marginal worth. A pure $1 player, then, has no marginal worth. When you add a $1 player, you are giving up a chance to gain ground on the leader.

That wouldn’t be such a bad thing—if you had an infinite number of slots. But slots are precious. In fact, a case can be made that not all slots are created equal. For example, if you had a roster of Roy Halladay by himself, there would be a tremendous amount of value in simply adding a second slot. On the other hand, if you had a roster with 19 slots, the 20th would barely raise your interest.

Have we mislabeled our slots? For Halladay to merit a higher price, either the $11 slot needs to be re-priced upward or the $1 slot needs to be re-priced downward, so that the wage gap between the two slots is more than its current $10. Can we justify that? We'll keep you posted.

Posted by John Burnson at 5:00am (1) Comments

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Gonzo managing

One of the greatest ironies of fantasy baseball is that regardless of how much attention is paid to drafting the best team, making shrewd and opportunistic trades, and aiming praise and vitriol and your studs and busts, many close races wind up in the hands of retreads, unknowns and disappointments. Occasionally, draft savvy and the stars will align to enable an owner to coast to the finish line. More often, however, an owner’s team puts that owner in contention down the stretch, and then the final month is governed by an entirely different paradigm, one where interests are narrowed and long-term goals take a backseat to short-term gains. The last week of the season is the epitome of this bizzaro world.

Perhaps the single most skewed dynamic of the season’s end is the drastic spike in the amount of spot starting that goes on. Owners who need to make up counting stats will aggressively stream starters in leagues with daily roster rotation. For owners who are chasing, one of the goals should be to force those ahead of you to react to your strategies. He who initiates engagement often has the advantage, as one always aims to act as opposed to react. For those trying to fend off challengers, it is wise to be judicious and prudent about the extent to which they alter their strategy to counter their opponents’. I spoke a bit more about this in the comments section to Eriq Gardner’s article earlier this week.

By now the battle lines have likely been drawn. Many owners have either initiated or have been pulled into spot-starting wars, leaving many of our seasons on the shoulders of the Francisco Lirianos of the world. Seeing as how (in non-keeper leagues) just about all pitchers are dropable, it’s important for owners to make the most of their roster spots and remaining innings. Even the studliest pitchers on playoff-bound teams are dropable, as the lack of pennant races imply that the final starts for many of these hurlers will be of the “tune-up” variety.

In some leagues, spot-starting runs so rampant that teams that are slowest to act are left to either choose from the worst among the possible options or pick up their better options more than 24 hours in advance. It is important to have as many active pitcher slots as possible if wins or strikeouts are what you are invested in at this point. If you can’t find palatable starting options, load up with relievers. If you aren’t in it, you can’t win it.

To the extent that there can be any long-term thinking at all going into the final week, let’s take a look at teams who face all below-league-average offenses in the last week of the season, and teams that face only above-league-average offenses. Obviously, all of the usual caveats apply including, park factor, handedness, and incentive.

Facing below-lg-avg offenses
Cubs
Giants
Mets
Twins
White Sox

Facing above-lg-avg offenses
Brewers
Marlins
Orioles
Rockies
Royals

At this point, strategy fully trumps player evaluation. Best of luck to all!

Posted by Derek Ambrosino at 2:05am (0) Comments

Monday, September 28, 2009

Clone Wars: Chase Utley and Ben Zobrist

Chase Utley became a boarder linefirst rounder in 2009 when he had hip surgery in the offseason. His hip was fine though this year and he even set a career high in steals. Down in Tampa Bay, though, Ben Zobrist had seen limited time in three years. This year he took off and forced himself into the lineup. He has split time between second base and outfield with one game at third and 13 at shortstop, so far. The question is can he be compared to the best second baseman in the game?

              PA   K%     BB%    AVG   OBP   SLG   HR  R   RBI SB  BABIP  HR/FB%
Chase Utley   664  19.4%  13.6%  .289  .405  .519  31  110 91  23  .310   14.6%
Ben Zobrist   565  21.3%  15.9%  .286  .399  .518  24  84  79  16  .319   16.6%

Chase Utley

I've tried to own Utley every season since 2004. Even as he sat behind Placido Polanco to start 2005, I stuck with him and he hasn't let us down yet. Sure 2007 was a bit tough as his homers fell and 2008 left concerns with the hip injury, but he's never really hard to own any season. Up until this year, there hasn't been anyone who can claim to be his positional equal, and after this year that should still be the case.

Utley has been solid in all five categories and has averaged the stat line of 29 HR, 11 R, 107 RBI, 15 SB and .297 AVG since 2005, when he became the regular starter. This year he has continued to put up this line, but added to his speed. Put another way, the best second baseman got even better.

Even Hit Tracker thinks things are getting better as his "just enough" homers stands at 16%, which is far below the league average. Could Utley not only continue this next year, but even get better? If everything looks so nice for Utley next year then how might anyone catch him as the top second baseman?

Ben Zobrist

MLB: JUN 23 Phillies at Rays
23 JUN 2009: Rays second baseman Ben Zobrist lines this ball to the outfield during the game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla.(Icon/SMI)

Entering 2009 Zobrist had uncertain playing time and was not expected to get any shortstop playing time. He was coming into a crowded outfield, but had made a great showing to end 2008 and was a solid sleeper. The big question was whether his newfound power was for real.

With an injury to Akinori Iwamura early this year, Zobrist found himself playing at second base. The new position eligibility completely changed his value and made him an immediate pickup. The surprising part was he got even better than his strong finish from a year ago. His walk rate was a very welcome addition this year as his OBP stayed around .400 almost all year.

His value to the Rays has been almost as much as to fantasy teams this year. Just looking at WAR right now among positional players, he ranks behind only Joe Mauer in the AL. That takes into account his very good defensive ability, but still his .397 wOBA shows how good his offense has been.

There is always an amount of skepticism when players break out like Zobrist has, but other than an addition of some power he has shown these skills before. His walk and contact rates all look good and he is currently averaging 22 homers every 162 games played for his career. This should be viewed as a basement for next year, but he has definitely improved his power and next year he looks like he could push for 30 homers.

Conclusion

Zobrist has matched Utley this year in his AVG, OBP and SLG. He hasn't quite gotten the 30 home run power yet, but he is also 100 PA short of Utley. He will be entering 2010 with a lot more expected value than he did this year, but he still has some more to add next year. Perhaps comparing him to Utley is a bit over eager at this point, but the stat line shows how close they have been in the playing time they have gotten.

Looking over the draft done by Eriq Gardner at his site you can see Zobrist went in the 5th round while Utley was the 4th overall pick. I think it's clear we have another case of value to be found and a solid pick in 2010.

Posted by Troy Patterson at 2:05am (11) Comments

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Admiring Adam Lind

Looking back

As of yesterday, Adam Lind's 2009 season numbers look like this: .302 average, 90 runs, 32 home runs, 109 RBI, and one lonely stolen base. Lind has reached some remarkable totals this season, all the more impressive as this was his first full season in the majors.

Any player would say he's had a great season if he reaches the following plateaus: 30 home runs, 100 RBI and a .300-plus batting average. Right now only six players in the major leagues meet all three criteria and they are:

+----------------+----+-----+-------+
| Name           | HR | RBI | AVG   |
+----------------+----+-----+-------+
| Miguel Cabrera | 32 | 100 | 0.331 |
| Albert Pujols  | 47 | 129 | 0.329 |
| Ryan Braun     | 30 | 106 | 0.314 |
| Derrek Lee     | 35 | 109 | 0.306 |
| Kendry Morales | 33 | 104 | 0.304 |
| Adam Lind      | 32 | 109 | 0.302 |
+----------------+----+-----+-------+

That is an intimidating grouping of players, all big-name hitters except for Lind and Morales. Cabrera, Pujols, Braun, and Lee combine to have 16 All-Star appearances, two MVP awards, and two ROY trophies amongst them. At this stage in Lind's career he has none of those things, but that may change in the future.

Generally I'm a pretty humble guy but after re-reading my predictions of Lind at the beginning of the season, I am compelled to share their preciseness in hindsight. Here was my estimation of his power ability:

...we can expect Lind to hit outfield flyballs (OF FB%) at about a 30 percent rate, and have about 18 percent of those flyballs go for home runs. Over a season's worth of at-bats, hitting at those ratios Lind would knock about 30 home runs.

Spot on with the home runs, he is currently at 32 dingers. And here's what I said about his batting average potential:

Overall Lind does not have the best plate discipline but with his tendencies to hit lots of grounders and line drives, and fly balls that go over the fence, Lind is able to keep his BABIP relatively high, inflating his batting average. An average in the high .280s seems reasonable given his skill set, although he has the potential to push a .300 average.

I said Lind could push a .300 average and impressively he has done exactly that, currently sitting at .302. OK, enough bragging on my part. Either you owned Lind this season and enjoyed his production or you did not. That cannot be changed, so what matters is what will happen in the future.

Looking forward

It is hard to say this early where Lind will fall in 2010 drafts, but my prediction is he will be selected in rounds 5-7 in most standard, 12-team league drafts—in between where Curtis Granderson and Bobby Abreu were taken last year for some perspective.

Looking at Eriq Gardner's ridiculously premature mock 2010 draft back in August, we see Lind was taken with the 69th overall pick, which in a 12-team league would equate to an early sixth-round selection so that agrees with my initial feeling.

Whether Lind will justify that selection remains to be seen, though entering his age 26-27 season in 2010 there is little reason for pessimism. Simply put, Lind offers a power, batting average, and RBI combination that is boasted only by the elite hitters in baseball. Although it is too early to tell, I would not be surprised if Adam Lind found his way onto my fantasy teams next year, again.

Posted by Paul Singman at 1:18am (4) Comments

How much is your fantasy team worth?

It’s the last week of the season. Are you fighting for first place in a money league? If you are, how much percentage of your winnings would you give to lock up first place?

Maybe the answer holds some clues toward how we should begin to approach fantasy team valuations.

In past decade, there’s been tremendous advancements in sabermetrics, forecasting services like PECOTA, and player evaluation punditry. We’re even getting close to figuring out the worth of individual players to fantasy teams using value-above-replacement metrics or the parallax method that THT’s John Burnson described this month.

But how about a fantasy team? How much is your team worth?

If you play in a money league, obviously it’s not worth the same as it was the first day of the season. If you invested $100 in a 12-team team league and you’re close to winning $1000, maybe your team is worth several multiples of what you first invested. Conversely, if you invested $100 and your team is languishing in last place, maybe it’s worth nothing.

Allow me to get fanciful for a moment.

Imagine a derivatives market where buyers and sellers of fantasy teams got together during the course of a season to sell futures contracts. Successful teams might look to hedge against unpredictable bad luck and injuries by selling a stake in their team. Unsuccessful teams might look to recover any investment by selling a share in their sinking team to speculators.

Maybe just as importantly, during the course of a season, a team’s fluctuating share price could be an indication of whether a fantasy owner needs to become more active making moves or sit back and let luck normalize.

Who knows whether an idea like this is actually feasible. Would there be enough liquidity in the market to actually get it off the ground? What sorts of information would an owner need to report about his teams so that others could properly analyze the team's financial prospects?

Those are just some questions:

But it’s an idea we think holds potential. Hell, if someone can offer fantasy sports insurance, a derivative market can't be that far away.

We’re curious to hear any innovation you’d like to see in the fantasy sports marketplace. Leave them in the comments section below.

Posted by Eriq Gardner at 2:24am (5) Comments

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Player Profile: Garrett Jones

Garrett Jones is among the most confusing players in all of fantasy baseball. Through 332 plate appearances in 2009, Jones has amassed 21 home runs with 37 walks, 72 strikeouts and a .305 batting average. But who is this player? At 28 years old, Jones is very far into his professional career, yet he lacks a definition as a hitter. Is he the late-blooming phenom he has portrayed this season, or will he be a future Quadruple-A flare-out?

Garrett Jones was drafted in the 14th round by the Atlanta Braves way back in the 1999 amateur draft. At 18 years old, the young, power-hungry lefty began his career in rookie ball in the Gulf Coast League. Jones underperformed that season, hitting just three home runs in 170 at-bats, with a .241/.309/.312 line with 47 strikeouts. Jones repeated the level in 2000, yet, somehow, he managed to underperform his 1999 season, posting a .174/.242/.254 line, with no home runs in 138 at-bats, including 55 strikeouts and just 13 walks. After two underwhelming seasons, Jones appeared to be cooked.

Though giving up is never a good thing, at some point, when its obvious things just aren't going to work out, it's OK to quit. Inexplicably, Jones decided to keep plugging away at this baseball thing, repeating rookie ball for a third time in 2001. Again, he underperformed. Though he put up his "best" line of the three seasons, posting a generous .289/.333/.423 share, his lack of power (three home runs in 149 at-bats) and poor approach at the plate (nine BBs vs. 58 Ks) were more indicative of his true skills. In terms of peripherals, this was arguably the worst year of his career, and the Braves released him in May 2002 before he played in a game above rookie ball for them. The Twins signed him three days later and put him in Low-A.

Fast forwarding a couple seasons, 2004 was Jones' first taste of real success, as he reestablished himself as a player with major league potential. His previous stints at A-ball were lackluster, as he struggled with his batting average and strikeouts, while developing power. However, his first taste of Double-A was sweet, as he posted 30 home runs, with 98 strikeouts in 478 plate appearances. His .311/.356/.593 line showed his potential, but his lack of walks (28) continued to frustrate.

Jones was promoted to Triple-A in '05, where he would stay through mid-2009. Jones had moderate success, with a .244/.297/.445 line that year, including 24 home runs in 524 plate appearances. His .280/.334/.473 line in 2007 finally rid him of his batting average woes, though his power suffered.

In 2008, he logged 577 plate appearances, with a .279/.337/.484 line, including 23 home runs and 50 walks, against 98 Ks. This season was great for Jones' plate discipline: He cut down his strikeout rate to less than one per five plate appearances. In addition, he posted good power numbers while also upping his walk total to nearly one per 11 plate appearances.

In 2009, prior to his torrid stretch in the majors, Jones started the season repeating Triple-A for the fifth time after signing with the Pirates as a minor league free agent. In 296 plate appearances, he posted a .307/.348/.502 line, with 12 home runs against just 47 Ks, but only 18 BBs. For most teams, this would be enough for an emergency fill-in or late-season call-up. For the Pirates, this meant a starting job.

Though Jones' career line consists mostly of minor league appearances, his five partial seasons at Triple-A give us a good idea of the type of hitter Jones is. He is a moderate free swinger with good power potential, who has improved his contact abilities over the last few seasons. While his minor league performance record says he does not have the makings of an OPS stud, it does posit that he has the makings of a solid hitter.

But that still does not answer the question of whether Jones has "figured it out" or if he's just the beneficiary of a well-timed hot streak.

For that, we'll have to dig into Jones' batted ball and plate discipline indicators, where, surprisingly, there is quite a lot to like.

As a hulking slugger, much of his success is tied to his ability to hit home runs. This is tied to his ability to hit fly balls, and to send them over the fence when he does. With a 40.1 percent fly ball rate, as well as a 23.6 percent HR/FB rate, he shouldn't have any problem hitting for power in the majors.

However, though his flyball percentage sits at a sustainable rate, it would be prudent to exercise caution when dealing with his 23.6 percent HR/FB rate. Only the most elite home run hitters possess rates this high. Among the names in the 23 percent range are Ryan Howard (25.1 percent), Carlos Pena (23.8 percent), Adrian Gonzalez (22.5 percent), and Prince Fielder (22.2 percent). Especially when considering that he was never an elite home run hitter in the minors, expect a drop-off in performance. It is more likely that he will hit in the high-20s home runs than the 30s. It is possible, however, especially considering his swing, his 2009 power numbers, and, especially, his size. It is not often that a 6-4, 245-pound hitter does not hit for good power. Still, considering Jones' age and past performance, 2009 is more likely the hot streak than the rule, so don't expect too much.

But there is more to Jones than just power. He is a much better hitter than he is often given credit for. When judging the prospects of a career minor leaguer, especially those who light it up for years in Triple-A, their contact rates and line drive rates are very important indicators. Fortunately for Jones, he has not yet been susceptible to their pitfalls.

First off, his line drive rate of 18.9 is very close to league average, which bodes very well for his future. A low line drive rate would be very concerning, yet, he has been able to drive the ball. With his power, he can have great success with his current rate. Also encouraging is his very low pop up rate of just 5.6 percent. While this is almost certain to rise, it means that he is not making weak contact, isn't late on pitches, and isn't getting jammed. This is a very good indicator for a power hitter, as the best ones can drive inside pitches. If Jones isn't popping up, he isn't late on inside pitches. Instead, he is driving them.

Jones' plate discipline characteristics also give cause for optimism. Though he chases pitches a little too often (29.5 O-Swing%), he does use some discretion, as he is not a "true" free swinger, swinging at 48.2 percent of pitches he sees, a rate closer to the bottom third of the league. His contact rate, while not ideal, sits at 77.2 percent. Fortunately for Jones, this shouldn't give him any problems in the future as long as his rates does not decline. Should he drop back near 72.5 percent, where he was during his first stint in the majors in 2007, all bets are off. Based on his contact rate, zone percentage, and swing rate, it seems that his BB rate (11.2 percent) and K rate (24.7 percent) are right in line with their expected totals. There is a chance these rates could improve, though his zone rate bears watching next season. If pitchers throw more pitches in the zone, he will likely see fewer walks. This should help out with the strikeouts, however, so its not such a bad thing.

Another encouraging aspect of Jones' performance is his overall success against the major pitch types, especially compared to his 2007 performance. In his first stint in the bigs, he struggled mightily against fastballs (-2.28 wFB/C), sliders (-2.89 wSL/C), and change ups (-2.25 wCH/C). These comprised 85.1 percent of the pitches he saw that season. Needless to say, he did not make a curtain call in '08.

2009 has been another story altogether. He has more than cured his ails against fastballs, as they are now his favorite pitch (2.37 wFB/C). His performance against changeups has seen a similar success, as he smokes them as well (1.63 wCH/C). Sliders are no longer a problem either, as he is now slightly above average against them (0.32 wSL/C). Jones' overall approach at the plate is much better than in 2007, as he can now adjust to changing speeds, while also excelling against breaking pitches. For a developing hitter, it is now up to the pitchers to adjust, though it is getting harder to find weaknesses.

Still, despite all the optimism, there are mitigating circumstances. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Jones' 2009 line has been his large platoon split. Against righties, Jones has posted a .352/.445/.663 line in 227 plate appearances, with 15 home runs and a 34:44 BB:K ratio. Against lefties, he has posted a .212/.233/.465 line, in 102 plate appearances. While he has shown good power (six home runs), he has had awful success working the count and making contact, as evidenced by his 28 Ks against just three walks. This is particularly troubling for his fantasy prospects, as players who can't play everyday take a hit in weekly leagues and daily leagues with small benches.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Jones' performance, and it's the reason why people have trouble believing in him, is that his success screams of a hot-streak. Although his rate indicators are great, it is not often that a player morphs into a superstar when he hits the majors, especially not one who was still putting his game together in Triple-A. For this, you can't reasonably expect a repeat performance, though you can hope for the best ... and get paid off when the gamble works out in your favor.

Going forward, Jones looks to be a good play over what remains of 2009, as well as being a great sleeper candidate for 2010. His prospects are tied predominantly to his home run rate, his contact rate, and his ability to hit lefties. Contact problems tend to sink Quadruple-A hopefuls, though Jones may be an exception. This is the critical point to his success: If he can keep his contact rate steady, or with minimal losses, he will put the ball in play enough to continue hitting home runs and continue helping fantasy teams. In addition, his performance against lefties can be managed and his small sample size may mean that he is not as bad as his 2009 line states—just don't stake your season on it.

A 2010 season with high-20s home runs, around 10 steals, and a batting average in the .265-.275 range seems about right for Jones. This line is consistent with his profile, which yields a slightly above-average outfielder for 12-team mixed leagues. While it's still early to project next year's draft, he could be an incredible value for the price he may go for. His 2010 will likely make or break his career, but there are a lot of reasons to believe he will come out on top. The ingredients are there for success and if you watch the contact percentage and line drive rate, you'll be fine.

VOTE ON NEXT WEEK'S PLAYER PROFILE

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Posted by Mike Silver at 1:58am (2) Comments

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Thursday, September 24, 2009

South Atlantic and Midwest League Awards

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