THT Fantasy Focus

Posted by Troy Patterson at 4:23am (0) Comments

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Will Brett Gardner perform in pinstripes?

Gardner sporting a uniform that would make any owner proud, and, despite what the awkward angle of the photo might lead you to believe, he does have both of his legs. (Icon/SMI)

This offseason the Yankees did not sign Matt Holliday to a seven-year, $120 million contract, nor did they try to lure in Jason Bay with a four-year, $66 million deal. They would not even let incumbent left fielder Johnny Damon sniff at a deal more than one year that paid over $6 million per.

Forgoing the traditional Yankee way of paying the biggest name the most money, the Yankees seem content to let 2005 third-round pick Brett Gardner patrol their left field for somewhere in the neighborhood of $400,000. It is not my place to determine whether it is the right move from a team standpoint but since the Yankees are opting to give Gardner plenty of at-bats in 2010, as fantasy owners we might as well look at what Gardner can offer to fantasy teams with those at-bats.

First, a look at his past numbers:

+------+-------+-----+-----+----+----+-----+----+-------+
| Year | Level | Age | AB  | R  | HR | RBI | SB | AVG   |
+------+-------+-----+-----+----+----+-----+----+-------+
| 2007 |    AA |  23 | 197 | 41 |  0 |  17 | 17 | 0.294 |
| 2007 |   AAA |  23 | 181 | 37 |  1 |   9 | 21 | 0.260 |
| 2008 |   AAA |  24 | 341 | 68 |  3 |  32 | 37 | 0.296 |
| 2008 |   MLB |  24 | 127 | 18 |  0 |  16 | 13 | 0.228 |
| 2009 |   MLB |  25 | 248 | 48 |  3 |  23 | 26 | 0.270 |
+------+-------+-----+-----+----+----+-----+----+-------+

As you can see, Gardner has progressed nicely up to the major league level, never becoming too overmatched at any level along the way. Thanks to good plate discipline and contact ability (something we will look into further later), Gardner was able to maintain respectable batting averages, and after an uninspiring major league debut in 2008, Gardner showed he has the tools to stick around the majors with his 2009 performance.

Speed

+------+-------+------+
| Year | Level | SB%  |
+------+-------+------+
| 2007 |   AA  | 81.0 |
| 2007 |  AAA  | 87.5 |
| 2008 |  AAA  | 80.4 |
| 2008 |  MLB  | 92.9 |
| 2009 |  MLB  | 83.9 |
+------+-------+------+

Of course what sticks out the most are Gardner's stolen base totals—especially that 37-steal mark he posted in Triple-A in 2008. On the right is a chart of his stolen base success rates, showing he has the ability to steal bases efficiently and therefore accumulate steals quickly.

Also working in his favor are his tendencies to hit singles and draw a fair amount of walks. What these singles and walks do is put Gardner on first base often—as opposed to second base after a double or the dugout after a strikeout—which puts him in prime stealing position. The more opportunities you have to steal, the more stolen bases you'll be able to attempt, and the more successful you'll be.

Given almost a full season of at-bats, Gardner should have little problem breaking 30 steals and I feel most likely he will steal around 40 bases. Clearly Gardner is an elite base stealer, but without enough skill in the other aspects of baseball even the fastest of players begin to lose playing time (a la Scott Podsednik).

So how do Gardner's other skills stack up?

Power

In the power department Gardner is obviously lacking, even in gap power. And since no amount of short right-field porch can save him, Gardner's home run potential is capped at a measly six home runs. Even without any power game to speak of Gardner can still provide solid fantasy production, most easily if his batting average stays in the .270s or above. For that reason, let's take a look at his plate discipline stats.

Plate discipline

To learn these stats or for a refresher on them click here.

+------+-------+-----+----+----------+------+-------------+-----------+
| Year | Level | BB% | K% | Judgment | A/P  | Bat Control | Bad Ball  |
+------+-------+-----+----+----------+------+-------------+-----------+
| 2008 |  AAA  |  16 | 22 |     ---  | ---- |        --   |       --  |
| 2008 |  MLB  |   6 | 24 |      83  | 0.14 |        97   |       75  |
| 2009 |  MLB  |   9 | 16 |     102  | 0.06 |        92   |       76  |
+------+-------+-----+----+----------+------+-------------+-----------+

From the looks of this table, Gardner has the plate discipline of a polished hitter, one certainly capable of posting batting averages in the .270s and most likely even higher. Despite average judgment in deciding which pitches to swing at, Gardner is excellent at making contact with all pitches, both inside and out of the strike zone. With his generally passive approach at the plate he draws his fair share of walks and has done well at cutting back on the number of strikeouts pitchers get on him.

Coupling his good approach at the plate with his ability to hit the ball on the ground and run—a great recipe for BABIP success—I would expect his BABIP to rise from his 2009 mark of .311 to his CHONE-projected BABIP of .324. When you factor these things together, I see the picture of a .290 and possibly .300 hitter forming, and certainly not one below .270.

Final thoughts

Summing the parts together, Gardner is a player I see capable of posting a line of 85 runs, four home runs, 60 RBIs, 40 steals, and a .290 batting average. Call me optimistic, but looking at Gardner's skill set and also players he has aptly been compared to like Nyjer Morgan, I feel that line is within Gardner's limits.

Even with Randy Winn applying some pressure in terms of playing time, as long as Gardner does not stumble out of the gate I feel he will secure for himself the lion's share of starts in left field. And although he is slated to bat last in the Yankee lineup, with Nick Swisher or Robinson Cano in front of him and Derek Jeter behind him, batting ninth in that lineup will provide similar run and RBI opportunities to batting second in many other lineups.

Currently Gardner's ADP over at Mock Draft Central is 333 and he is going undrafted in most drafts. In Yahoo's preseason ranks he ranked as the 83rd outfielder, behind plenty of players I feel he will outproduce in 2010, including Jermaine Dye, Mark Teahen, and Conor Jackson to name a few. So at the moment he is flying under most people's radars.

Gardner probably won't find his way on teams in shallow mixed leagues, but in deeper mixed leagues and AL-only leagues he makes a solid late-round outfield option with elite stolen base potential.

Posted by Paul Singman at 5:14am (9) Comments

What to make of David Wright

I've read a couple interesting tidbits lately on David Wright—one of fantasy's biggest disappointments in 2009&mdash and wanted to put some of my thoughts out there on his 2010 value.

Don't write off Citi so quickly

David Wright goes the opposite way in 2009. But is this approach detrimental to his value? (Icon/SMI)

The first thing I read was from Ron Shandler in his weekly Baseball HQ e-mail:

Oddly, Wright is the only one of the three where there are questions about his underlying skill. What happened to the power? It wasn't CitiField—he hit as many HRs there as he did on the road. Was it the lack of lineup protection? Was something else going on?

I don't think we can write off CitiField so quickly, and especially not because he "hit as many HRs there as he did on the road." While we can use this line of reasoning as part of an argument that CitiField is a neutral HR park*, we can't use it for individual hitters. Here's what I mean:

+------+--------------+---------+---------+
| YEAR | HITTER       | HOME HR | AWAY HR |
+------+--------------+---------+---------+
| 2008 | David Wright |      21 |      12 |
| 2009 | David Wright |       5 |       5 |
+------+--------------+---------+---------+

Sure, Wright hit the same number of homers in Citi as he did on the road last year, but you have to have something to compare that to—namely the previous season—if your argument is that Wright lost power. And in 2008, Wright hit nine extra home runs at Shea Stadium than he did on the road. So if anything, it appears that Citi did indeed sap a good portion of Wright's power, relatively speaking.

*Citi Field, according to David Gassko's park factor methodology, shows a true HR/FB factor of 1.004 (after properly regressing to the mean). So, essentially, Citi Field is a neutral HR park on the aggregate level, although since we only have one year of data this can obviously change, and parks also affect individual hitters differently, so we can't use this as a blanket statement.

Opposite field hitting

The second thing that caught my attention popped up yesterday. Apparently, Mets hitters were instructed to hit the ball to the opposite field by former Assistant GM Tony Bernazard. The data backs this up, as the Mets went from fifth-lowest in the majors in Opposite Field Percentage in 2008 (17.7%) to the highest in the majors in 2009 (22.75%). The split is even more extreme for David Wright:

+------+--------------+--------------+
| YEAR | HITTER       | Opp. Field % |
+------+--------------+--------------+
| 2008 | David Wright |         17.7 |
| 2009 | David Wright |         26.0 |
+------+--------------+--------------+

While this looks condemning, let's go back even further:

+------+--------------+--------------+
| YEAR | HITTER       | Opp. Field % |
+------+--------------+--------------+
| 2005 | David Wright |         22.2 |
| 2006 | David Wright |         23.3 |
| 2007 | David Wright |         22.7 |
| 2008 | David Wright |         17.7 |
| 2009 | David Wright |         26.0 |
+------+--------------+--------------+

Now 2008 looks like the outlier (although 2009 is still quite a bit higher than any other season). You could make up any number of stories as to why Wright's numbers look like this, the easiest being random variation and regression—although perhaps that's too simplistic. Let's go a little deeper and break it down by just outfield flies:

+------+--------------+-----------------+
| YEAR | HITTER       | FB Opp. Field % |
+------+--------------+-----------------+
| 2007 | David Wright |            31.8 |
| 2008 | David Wright |            27.0 |
| 2009 | David Wright |            45.9 |
+------+--------------+-----------------+

Now it looks like maybe there is something to this whole Bernazard thing. Wright's 2009 rate is much, much higher than 2007 or 2008 (sorry, I don't have the 2005 or 2006 data). It's hard to say how much of all this is random and how much is real without running in-depth tests, but what we can say is that Wright was definitely hitting to the opposite field more in 2009 than in the past, particularly on his fly balls (which are really what matter when it comes to home runs). To me, those fly ball numbers look far too extreme to write off as predominantly luck, especially in light of yesterday's news.

Wright's approach and Citi Field

After researching this opposite field stuff, I e-mailed our good friend Greg Rybarczyk of HitTracker to see if he could validate a theory of mine. Earlier in the offseason, Greg had said that Wright would have hit nine extra home runs in Shea Stadium that were robbed by Citi Field.

As you can see in this image (constructed by Greg for an article by our friend Tristan Cockcroft at ESPN),

the biggest difference in dimensions between Citi Field and Shea Stadium is in right field. So if David Wright (a right-handed hitter who hits most of his HRs to LF) is hitting more balls to opposite field (RF) than ever before, it makes sense that he's losing home runs. Right field in Citi is cavernous!

Not only is it more difficult (generally speaking) to hit home runs to the opposite field (you get more of your body weight and power behind balls you pull), but for Wright, this is compounded by the fact that the opposite field fences are deeper than the pull field fences!

Greg was kind enough to provide us data on Wright's nine lost home runs, and sure enough, right field was a big culprit.

+-------+--------+
| FIELD | ROBBED |
+-------+--------+
| LF    |      1 |
| LCF   |      1 |
| CF    |     3* |
| RCF   |      3 |
| RF    |      1 |
+-------+--------+

*Important to note that of the three CF home runs, all struck the wall above the 8 foot level, and would have been homers in 2010 when the fences will be lowered.

So my question now becomes, David Wright, will you continue hitting all these balls to opposite field, or will you adjust your style to best take advantage of Citi Field (at least in terms of HRs) and start pulling the ball more? We can only hope for Wright's 2008 approach, but honestly, it's impossible to say with any kind of certainty which David Wright we'll see in 2010.

Call to action

If there are any beat writers or anyone attending Spring Training reading this, I'd be very interested in hearing what Wright makes of the whole opposite-field strategy, how it works in Citi Field, and (most importantly) what he plans on doing in 2010.

Concluding thoughts

Personally, I doubt I'll be taking David Wright in any drafts this year. Despite all the questions surrounding him (I didn't even mention his eight-point jump in strikeout rate!), he's still being drafted 14th overall according to Mock Draft Central. That just seems too high for me. Even if he changes his approach back to his 2008 style, Citi Field will still prevent him from getting back to his 2007-2008 HR levels, and his strikeout rate (and extremely inflated BABIP) is very worrisome.

Posted by Derek Carty at 5:41am (13) Comments

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

The mockery of mock drafts

I’m not an avid mock drafter, but this past weekend, my friend Andrew and I decided to kill a few hours late Sunday morning by participating in one. I was reminded why mock drafts frustrate me.

If you’re a THT Fantasy reader, and an astute and accomplished fantasy player, you know that the middle rounds are absolutely crucial to your draft. This is where many of your most difficult decisions will be made. This is where opinions begin to differ wildly about players who are expected to play a major role in the success of teams. This is where you feel out how far you can let some of your targets fall before you lose them to another team. For these reasons, it is especially frustrating that mock drafters often abandon drafts after the first few rounds and leave the remaining selections to autopick. This behavior is not only foolish, it undermines the integrity of the whole exercise. Additionally, it reinforces existing ADP as a function of its relation to pre-ranks. Frankly, ADP becomes less reliable as it gets deeper because a smaller percentage of drafters are manually selecting their own players deep into mock drafts. Therefore the pre-rank and ADP start to become an echo chamber.

Once several teams switch on the autopilot, the others know who is going to be coming off the board so they are less inclined to reach for a player with a lower pre-rank, knowing half the teams are not threats to take him. Meanwhile, had the ghost owners stuck around, one of them may have taken the plunge as well. The sum of the circumstances conspire against late round sleepers moving up in terms of ADP. But, on the day of your real draft, don’t be surprised to see the Adrian Beltres of the world going sooner than you had been primed to expect through your participation in mock drafts.

In essence, fantasy sports is like poker in the sense that it is meant to be played for stakes. Unlike, say, chess, you cannot accurately replicate the dynamic of a real fantasy baseball league if the participants don’t have anything invested in the game, and that’s why mock drafts are of limited utility. Apologies to all of those out there who play free leagues and/or take great pride in “winning” mock drafts, but you are not playing actual fantasy baseball any more than you would be playing Russian Roulette with an empty chamber. Only when there are consequences to poor decision making, indecision, and apathy does the decision-making process become genuine. And that’s basically what we’re measuring in fantasy baseball—who are the wisest decision makers?

Even if we ignore the integrity arguments and focus on the individual utility of participating in a mock draft, it is rather unwise, not to mention an inefficient means of skills-building, to participate in a mock draft and not make the round 7-15 picks.

In this mock draft, we had debated taking Carlos Beltran at one pick (we had the first pick, and therefore were picking back to back—the most difficult position to be in when it comes to deciding when to draft players around which there is considerable uncertainly) before ultimately passing at the last minute. I remarked that this could turn out be a nice experiment and was very curious to see whether Beltran would still be available more than 20 picks later. But it soon became clear that we’d get sniped by somebody on autopick, as Beltran approached the highest-ranked available player. Therefore, we weren’t able to conduct our experiment.

Would an actual owner have selected Beltran? Would Beltran have even been there when we passed during the previous round? Well, what’s the point of the mock draft if the Carlos Beltran experiment can’t be conducted? … To see whether Evan Longoria gets taken before Miguel Cabrera? Who cares?

I did take two things away from the mock draft though.

We had the first pick and agreed to take Hanley Ramirez instead of Albert Pujols. We both just felt that HanRam offered us a greater chance to be versatile in terms of what we would choose to do throughout the rest of the draft. However, in a 12-team league, the owner drafting from the 1 slot will likely be presented with more players that resemble Ramirez than Pujols in the second and third round back-to-back. Had we taken Pujols, we’d still have had the option of Jimmy Rollins, Jose Reyes or Brandon Phillips to fulfill the five-tool middle infielder archetype. Meanwhile, the biggest corners available were Adrian Gonzalez, Kevin Youkilis and Joey Votto. Knowing we wanted Grady Sizemore with one of our two picks, we chose to take Rollins anyway. Through three picks we were sitting on approximately 90 steals and 75 homers without having filled a corner outfielder and feeling relatively content.

As our next pick approached, our thinking was that we’d have to give serious consideration to whoever represented the best homer potential and I was prepared to select Mark Reynolds whether Andrew approved or not. (It’s kind of cool to have the back-to-back when you are using a co-manager approach because you can simply split the picks when you can’t agree on the players you want.) Reynolds went a few picks before our turn though, which caused something of a last-minute change of strategy. Neither of us were ready to take Adam Dunn at this point and none of the other “power” options really tickled our fancy at the time (Adam Lind, meh). Andrew proposed we postpone our power move and do something radical by taking two starters back-to-back. I normally would think this was a bad idea, though I was eyeing Johan Santana with one of these two picks. Basically because I didn’t find the offensive options all that appealing, I bought in and figured we’d try the pitching combo route. So, we took Johan Santana and Jon Lester and made it a priority to get either Adam Dunn on our next turn, or take Carlos Pena in the following set if Dunn didn’t make it to us.

That’s what mock drafts are for—you should be drafting to win, but willing to be experimental within that context. The results of this experiment weren’t bad. There were two reasons why I hesitated on the double pitcher move. The first is that pitching is so deep that I knew we’d be in round 12 and saying, “Wow, pitcher X is still here?” but we wouldn’t want to take that player because we already had two stud starters. That happened to be sure. But, the other reason was that I feared we might be digging ourselves too deep a power hole, having gone five picks without a “slugger.” This problem didn’t really come to fruition though. We wound up with Berkman (I like the bounceback potential) and Carlos Pena as 1B/CIs and continued to acquire 25/90 outfielders, making up ground in the power departments as other owners started drafting punch and judy R/SB middle infielders. By round 13, our offense looked no worse than just about anybody else’s, and only one other team had a 1-2 pitching combo as formidable as ours. All things considered, I think that experiment actually worked, even though I would prefer not having to have to employ that strategy.

So the two lessons here are, one, if you're picking first in a 12-team league, your options on the way back will be more attractive among the toolsy middle infielder type than the slugging corner type. This may or may not influence your initial decision between Ramirez and Pujols. And, two, double dipping on starting pitching may not put you too far behind the offensive eight ball if you've left yourself the deeper positions to fill later in the draft. Many owners are forced to cobble together cheap speed later in the draft and pass on players at deep positions with perfectly respectable HR and RBI totals. The tortoise and the hare approach to power accumulation is still possible when drafting a pitcher twice out of your first five picks—at least in a 12-team mixed set-up.

Finally, one general observation I have noticed over the years is that when it comes to snake drafts, the owners picking at the bookends are more likely than others to double dip at a position. There’s something appealing about skimming the top of the same talent pool twice before others have the chance to react to what you are doing. I’ve seen guys double dip on top closers, on catchers in two-catcher leagues, and here I double dipped on starting pitching, I’m not sure it’s any more advantageous to double dip as a bookend, but there’s something about that draft position that makes people more inclined to do it, anectdotally at least. Perhaps it’s as simple as the long string of picks in between turns causing the owner to surmise that the only way to get two top options at a position is to double dip.

Full disclosure and irony alert: Andrew and I didn’t finish the mock either, but I don’t consider us hypocrites. I was willing and motivated to participate in the draft for as long as I felt the exercise remained useful, which would have been until the end had three or fewer owners left. But by round 15 more than half the teams were on autodraft, so we logged off too. I just didn’t see the point in continuing a fruitless activity through completion for the sake of a principle that wouldn’t be effectively communicated to anybody. So, I chose to do something productive and take a walk to grab some beer for the gold medal hockey game.

Posted by Derek Ambrosino at 5:21am (16) Comments

MLB 2K10 Fathead Jr. Giveaway

2K Sports has offered the chance to win an Evan Longoria Fathead Jr. to THT Fantasy readers to promote the release of MLB 2K10. In case you have never heard of a Fathead it is a wall "sticker" that can be placed on and removed from a wall easily. For a look at the Longoria one you can check here: http://2ksports.com/whats_hot/mlb2k10/375

I figured why not give it to the person with the quickest Google search since that's all modern trivia online is. There are two questions, so please answer both and the first correct pair in the comments below will win the Fathead Jr. Both questions are Evan Longoria related since he is the MLB 2K10 cover athlete and on the winning Fathead Jr. (make sure to include your email in the comment so I can contact you).

Question #1: Evan Longoria attended St. John Bosco High School and graduated in 2003. What former ROY winner also attended that school and graduated 12 years before?

Question #2: Longoria transfered to Long Beach State after his freshman year, but was blocked from continuing to play shortstop by what current MLB shortstop?

The game is released this week and for those who don't have the quickest Google skills, you can order the game through this link before April 2 and also receive a free Fathead Jr. of Longoria. http://2ksports.com/whats_hot/mlb2k10/375

Here are a couple of screen shots to whet your appetite for the game. I will be giving my thoughts on the game in a short time once I have played it, but this year the game has upped the ante by offering $1 million to the first player to pitch a perfect game. You can get more details from the 2K Sports site about how to enter the contest, but it needs to be a video recorded game and with certain matchups and settings.

MLB 2K10

This year also includes the "My Player Mode" which lets you create your own player and pick your team (not on all systems). You then play only as that player and attempt to create the next Hall of Famer.

MLB 2K10

MLB 2K10

You can also get more details about the game by following @2KSports and their Facebook page.

Posted by Troy Patterson at 11:45am (6) Comments

Thursday, March 04, 2010

First worry about yourself

Last year, during my home league draft, I punted shortstop and catcher. Or rather, I deliberately held off drafting them for a long time. I had two players in mind for these positions, Elvis Andrus and A.J. Pierzynski, and was fairly confident after the first 15 rounds that I had them all to myself. The rules in my league were such that drafting two catchers or extra middle infielders over corner infielders before the reserve draft made little sense, at least to me. Of course, other teams had something else in mind and grabbed these players before I was ready to pull the trigger. In the end, I found Ben Zobrist early in the season and all was well at shortstop. At catcher, though, I suffered through Jarrod Saltalamacchia and then worse when he went down. (Eventually I traded with the guy who drafted Pierzynski for the catcher he had drafted early—Geovany Soto. That didn't work out too well either.)

The moral here, as both Derek Ambrosino and I have written about, is to not let your strategies be too dependent on guessing what other owners are going to do. Of course, a little guessing or empathy is necessary; just don't go overboard. There's a bigger reward in better valuations of players than there is in hoping that low-hanging fruit is left undisturbed by the other owners in your league. Here's a rule of thumb:

1. Get your valuations down pat. If you're in a draft league, calculate/find out where you think the player should be drafted. If you're in an auction league, get a dollar value. Glance at average draft positions or some site's projected dollar values. If you're way off the consensus, try to find out why. Maybe this will help improve your valuations. DO NOT earmark players that are projected to go much lower (or for less) than you project as players that you can wait long on. These differences may be a result of differences in your league from the average league or recent changes in information about players that stale rankings are likely not to reflect.

2. On draft/auction day, let your valuations guide you. In a draft, if you think you can wait a round more for a player than where you have him projected at, go for it—as long as you don't absolutely need him. I wouldn't wait more than a round or so, though. If you pick up a round or two of value (a.k.a. expected profits) on even just four or five players (in addition to any good luck/bad luck profits or losses you might get in the course of the season), you should be in great shape to compete throughout the season. That's all you can really hope for from a draft. There's the saying that you can't win a draft in the first couple of rounds, but you can lose it—I think this applies to much more than the first couple of rounds. Sure, you are more likely to get upside luck with a player that you've drafted later (how much good luck could you really get from Albert Pujols, after all). But luck like that is (almost by definition) mostly random, whereas getting squeezed on a position because you waited too long to draft a player can leave lingering holes in your lineup.

In an auction league, matters are slightly different. In auctions, you get expected profits when you draft a player for cheaper than what you had him valued at. Here, the equivalent of waiting too long in a draft league is not bidding (and winning) $11 on Evereth Cabrera even though you had him valued at $15 because you expected to earn even more on Andrus only to see Andrus go later in the draft for much more than you expected. In an auction, the downside to waiting is rather less, assuming you have the budget, since you can always win Andrus if you really need a shortstop.

However, this brings me to a point about auctions: Don't think too much about when to nominate a player for bidding. That is, don't waste effort and brainpower, particularly while the auction is going, on if/when to nominate a player. There might be a slight bit of value to be gained by timing a nomination well, particularly if you know your leaguemates well. But an extremely good approximation of the best nominating strategy is acting randomly: sometimes nominating players that you value relatively highly, sometimes nominating players that you don't care about. This way, you won't give your opponents any information about how you value the players.

Posted by Jonathan Halket at 4:20am (2) Comments

Top 200 MLB prospects for 2010

I couldn't help myself, and I definitely couldn't stop at 100. My top 200 prospects for 2010 are up and ready now.

I will be updating the top 100 throughout the season, keeping you up to date on baseball's risers and fallers. Look for 2010 expectations and updated statistical projections throughout the season as well. Below is the list of players that were retired from the list during the offseason, in order of keeper value. Enjoy.

Matt Wieters / C / Baltimore
Tommy Hanson / SP / Atlanta
Matt LaPorta / OF/1B / Cleveland
David Price / SP / Tampa Bay
Chris Tillman / SP / Baltimore
Mat Gamel / 3B/OF / Milwaukee
Brett Anderson / SP / Oakland
Travis Snider / OF / Toronto
Mat Latos / SP / San Diego
Gordon Beckham / 3B/2B/SS / Chicago White Sox
Colby Rasmus / OF / St. Louis
Elvis Andrus / SS / Texas
Dexter Fowler / OF / Colorado
Rick Porcello / SP / Detroit
Andrew McCutchen / OF / Pittsburgh
Trevor Cahill / SP / Oakland
Nolan Reimold / OF / Baltimore
Kyle Blanks / 1B/OF / San Diego
Cameron Maybin / OF / Florida
Brett Cecil / SP / Toronto
Bud Norris / SP / Houston
Julio Borbon / OF / Texas
Derek Holland / SP / Texas
Vincent Mazzaro / SP / Oakland
Chris Coghlan / OF/2B/3B / Florida
Gerardo Parra / OF / Arizona
Kris Medlen / SP/RP / Atlanta
David Hernandez / SP / Baltimore
Jeff Niemann / SP / Tampa Bay
Ross Detwiler / SP / Washington
Daniel Bard / RP / Boston
Aaron Cunningham / OF / San Diego
James McDonald / SP / LA Dodgers
Sean West / SP / Florida
Jordan Schafer / OF / Atlanta
Gio Gonzalez / SP / Oakland
Josh Outman / SP/RP / Oakland
David Huff / SP / Cleveland
Shairon Martis / SP / Washington

Posted by Matt Hagen at 4:10am (3) Comments

Introducing THT Forecasts

Just in time for the start of Spring Training, I’m excited to present to you the newest Hardball Times offering—THT Forecasts.

In a partnership with Brian Cartwright, the brilliant inventor of the Oliver projection system, we have produced forecasts for over 7,000 major and minor league players. For each player, Brian has provided us with detailed projections for the next six years, along with raw statistics and major league equivalencies for each of the past three seasons. This includes hitting, pitching, and fielding statistics, and coming soon, base running as well.

Our fielding data is based on Brian’s own play-by-play system, and we’re also adding together all of this data to give you both actual (for past seasons) and projected wins above replacement (WAR), so that you can see just how valuable each player has been in the past, and how much value we expect him to have in the future. All of these are things you won’t find anywhere else.

Most importantly, these are not just some static forecasts that will lose all value once season the starts. Instead, we will be providing complete updates of our projections every week, taking into account every single thing that has happened on the field until that point. Wondering if a player will keep up his hot start or bust out of his slump? There’ll be no need to play guessing games anymore. We’re not implementing any shortcuts, either: Each update will use the same projection engine that we use in the off-season.

And to give our projections context, we’ve also partnered with the fabulous THT Fantasy staff to provide weekly updated depth chart projections. So you not only get a computer-generated projection for each player but also a forecast that incorporates the player’s actual expected playing time to tell you how much he’ll actually be contributing at the major league level. And again, the depth charts will be updated every week to make sure you have the freshest information possible.

We’re still not done, though. We’ve recruited 30 of the best bloggers (list below) from around the internet to provide us with commentary on over 1,300 players—and once the season starts, they’ll be providing fresh remarks so that you not only get our objective forecast, but the kind of subjective knowledge you can only get from people who watch these players day-in and day-out.

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Baltimore Orioles, Stacey Long, Camden Chat
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Atlanta Braves, John Beamer, The Hardball Times
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Philadelphia Phillies, Corey Seidman, Phillies Nation
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Chicago Cubs, Harry Pavlidis, Cubs f/x
Cincinnati Reds, Justin Inaz, Red Reporter
Houston Astros, Lisa Gray, The Astros Dugout
Milwaukee Brewers, Eric Johnson, Brew Crew Ball
Pittsburgh Pirates, Pat Lackey, Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke
St. Louis Cardinals, Larry Borowsky, Viva El Birdos

Arizona Diamondbacks, Jim McLennan, Arizona Snake Pit
Colorado Rockies, Brandi Griffin, Purple Row
Los Angeles Dodgers, Eric Stephen, True Blue LA
San Diego Padres, Geoff Young, Ducksnorts
San Francisco Giants, Steve Treder, The Hardball Times

Posted by David Gassko at 9:34am (9) Comments

Friday, March 05, 2010

Waiver Wire Offseason: NL

Lastings Milledge | Pittsburgh | OF
2009 Final Stats: .279/.323/.373

2009 started out horribly for Milledge, who began as the leadoff hitter for the Washington Nationals but quickly rubbed management the wrong way and earned a demotion to Triple-A Syracuse to straighten out his attitude. A few weeks later, hitting just .253/.277/.316, he broke his finger trying to lay down a bunt, an injury that required surgery and knocked him out of action for six to eight weeks. Then, a few weeks after that, he found himself traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates as part of a package with Joel Hanrahan, for Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett.

With the Pirates, however, Milledge started to turn it around. After a few weeks of minor-league rehab, he came back up and Pittsburgh quickly inserted him in the starting lineup, hitting in the middle of the order. Milledge responded by hitting .291/.333/.395, including a three-week stretch between August and September when he hit .406/.458/.578 in 19 games. He's now saying that the finger injury held his power back, something that's always been part of the Milledge package (.470 minor-league SLG, with 100 2B and 38 HR over 1559 PAs), along with speed (90 SBs in 131 chances and eight 3Bs in that same time).

Unfortunately, attitude is also part of the Milledge package, which is why he's already with his third organization, in spite of the hype about him. Another part of the Milledge Package (it's got a nice ring, doesn't it?) is a strikeout rate over 20% and a 6% walk rate—not awful, but not predictive of a great BA, particularly not with his career contact rate of 78%. He's improved in each of those statistical areas over the past four seasons, however, except for his walk rate, which has held steady. The attitude is a bit harder to measure, but there weren't reports of problems with the Pirates after he joined them; whether that's a honeymoon or not remains to be seen.

These rising trends are good signs, and no doubt why GP is cautiously optimistic for next season, even if a .767 OPS isn't terribly impressive for a corner OF. Milledge's value comes from his multi-category contributions; those same GP predictions have him making adequate (if not overwhelming) contributions in HR, SB, R and RBI. Most owners will focus on those hard-to-collect steals, which are, as ever, a function of opportunity, both in his own ability to get on base and how often the manager cuts him loose.

The latter part of the equation depends on manager John Russell, who brought Pittsburgh from a team with one of the lowest steal totals in 2008 to the middle of the NL pack in 2009. That could have been a function of new talent like Milledge and Andrew McCutchen as much as anything else, but it looks like he'll allow Milledge to steal in the right situation. The situation may not come up as often if he's hitting fifth or lower in the lineup, where he's currently expected to hit. And the ultimate question is whether a guy with a frozen walk rate and a below-average contact will get on base; if he does, it's likely to be behind either Garrett Jones or Ryan Doumit, who could jam up the bases (Jones has some speed, but I don't see too many Jones-Milledge double steals coming). This all makes those 21 SB projected by GP seem a bit elevated.

So fantasy owners should consider Milledge a mid-round choice—that $19 value is nice, but it's tied to those swipes, so I wouldn't speculate too high above that. Your fellow owners may be bearish, as indicated by that negative Sentiment number in his mini-browser, so he could come at a discount. Keeper owners will like the fact that he's only 24, and a breakout is possible—but so is a reemergence of his attitude problems. Bid with caution.

Felipe Lopez | St. Louis | 2B
2009 Final Stats: .310/.383/.427

Among his sleeve tatoos, which are all baseball-related, Lopez ought to fit one in of Rodney Dangerfield, since he sure doesn't seem to get much respect. He's played for nine teams in as many seasons, and sat at home during much of this past offseason, waiting for teams to come calling. He finally came to terms with St. Louis last week on a one-year, $2M deal, as one of the last big-name free agents to find a home. (That lack of respect could have come from being a client of Scott "Show Me More Money" Boras, whom Lopez fired about a week before inking that Cards deal.)

While he hasn't been amazing in his career, Lopez has been steady, and steadily improving. His career line is just .269/.338/.400, but it's gotten better since becoming a full-timer in 2005, rising to .280/.349/.407, while averaging 12 HR and 19 SB per season. His BB/K is only .50 for his career, but in those same five seasons, it's grown to .57, averaging .63 over the last two years. He's also been dependable, appearing in 140+ games in each of those four seasons.

Really, the one bad spot in that four-year span is his time with the Nationals, where he averaged .250/.320/.344. Everywhere else, he had an OPS 100 points or more higher. It's worthwhile to note that his 43 games with St. Louis in 2008 were his best; he clobbered .385/.426/.538 over 169 PAs. 2009 seemed awfully solid, too, but the mini-browser shows you some of the reasons: a rise in his walk rate and a 37 H%, helped further by a career-low 17% strikeout rate. That's why he's predicted for a line somewhere in between 2008 and 2009—nobody sees him cracking .800 OPS again, not even with the Cards.

But that prediction is also a very good bet; everyone sees him with an OPS in the .730-.760 range, a good place for a MIF to be. It's a good bet because of his very nice 80+ contact percentage, including 92% inside the zone, both of which he's maintained steadily since that promotion to the starting lineup in 2005. And when he connects, he only hits about 30% fly balls, helping his BA but reducing his HR output. Though his breakout 2005 season featured 23 longballs, that had more to do with a ridiculous 18.1% HR/FB than any underlying skill. Double-digit dingers is an accomplishment for Lopez these days.

His modest power, speed and batting eye combine with his contact rate to create a solid leadoff guy, where he's hit for Washington, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Arizona, and where he should hit once again with St. Louis. The Cards didn't have a good leadoff guy in 2009, and Lopez should score plenty of runs ahead of Pujols and Holliday. Though the ratios look good, his GP values were calculated as if he'd remained in Milwaukee, splitting time with Rickie Weeks (the only assumption we could make at presstime).

This PT situation, as well as the lineup he's sitting on top of, means you can double those PAs and all his counting stats to make him worth at least twice as much as that $5 projection—I'd put him closer to $13. His veteran experience and good peripherals make him a very nice MIF option for mixed leagues and an excellent NL-only option. Like Milledge, he's one of those guys who gives a bit in every category, particularly BA, and should get more respect in your fantasy draft than he did in the 2009-10 offseason.

Homer Bailey | Cincinnati | SP
2009 Final Stats: 6.8 K/9, 1.7 K/BB, 4.53 ERA

Among all the promising young starting pitchers for the Reds, Bailey has been the disappointment. The No. 7 overall pick in 2004, he became the Reds' top prospect for the next three seasons (at least according to Baseball America), but he's consistently failed to live up to expectations. Other than a groin pull that set him back in 2007, the problem has been his own, though it's typical for a power pitcher: finding the strike zone, at least in the majors. Featuring a fastball that touches the high 90s and a baffling curve, Bailey's minor-league K/BB ratio sits at a respectable 2.37. But he's only averaged 1.36 K/BB in MLB, thanks to a strikeout rate that sits a shade over 6 K/9, combined with a 4.5 BB/9.

In 2009, this trend continued. He started the year in Triple-A, earning a call-up after Edinson Volquez went down. But he was thrashed soundly in his one appearance, a 6 ER, 4.1 IP outing against Cleveland when he walked six and struck out only three, needing 95 pitches to get even that far. And so back down he went, dominating Triple-A hitting so thoroughly that he won 4 of 5 starts with a 0.47 ERA, reportedly developing a splitter in the process.

When he returned to the bigs in late June, he again lost the strike zone for his first 10 starts, striking out 1.4 batters for each one that he walked, thanks to a 5.3 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9. He also gave up 1.6 HR/9, all en route to a 7.11 ERA and a 1.60 WHIP, and a predictably poor 3-7 record. Then he found himself—and the strike zone—over his final nine starts of the season, reflected by his 2.2 K/BB, 8.2 K/9, and tiny 0.3 HR/9 rates, though he still walked batters at a nearly identical 3.7 BB/9 clip. Unsurprisingly, he went 6-3 over that stretch, with a 1.70 ERA and 1.33 WHIP.

It certainly looks like Bailey turned a corner in those final nine starts, and his xFIP shows that Bailey's been getting marginally better each year. 2008 was so awful in part due to an anomalous 18.6% HR/FB rate, as well as a .376 BABIP. That's bad luck, possibly combined with a tendency to groove his fastball—when you're walking 4.2 per 9 while striking out only 4.5 per 9, you're gonna have to throw a lot more down the pipe. Sure enough, batters had a 94% contact rate against Bailey's pitches in the zone, a sure sign that he was awfully hittable.

This year reversed many of those trends, with a much more normal 9.4 HR/FB% and a .306 BABIP. With Bailey working ahead in more counts, he dropped that Z-contact rate to 89%, while the contact rate on outside the zone fell 10 points from 2008 to 2009. That could have a lot to do with his splitter, which Fangraphs' pitch breakdown shows he threw anywhere from 7-19% of the time (there's a mystery pitch that gets thrown 11%, which seems to me most likely to be his splitter); it's also his least effective pitch (-2.75 wSF/C). But even if it's getting hit, it could be setting up his fastball, which also picked up a few mph since 2008; these increased the effectiveness of his heater by nearly 2 runs per 100 pitches. His slider and curve also showed dramatic improvement, picking up nearly 10 runs between them (also per 100 pitches).

This does suggest that Bailey should build on that second-half step forward he took in 2009, but there's plenty to suggest caution, too. Taking nine starts as evidence of a pitcher suddenly putting it all together is betting on an awfully small sample space, especially considering his youth and his MLB history. His walk rates are still too high for him to be completely effective, even in that short stint of success. GP reflects this caution in its particularly bearish outlook, though it's not that much more pessimistic than other systems. He remains a talent to watch early in the season, but I'm not yet convinced enough to take him on more than a flyer, even in keeper leagues. He's got a lot of upside, particularly in strikeouts, but he remains a risk to your ratios—consider other Cincinnati arms before this one.

Rickie Weeks | Milwaukee | 2B
2009 Final Stats: .272/.340/.517

You have to like Weeks' swagger at the plate, his aggressive posture, his defiant, Sheffield-like bat waggle ... but that same waggle may be responsible for the multiple wrist surgeries that have derailed Weeks' young career, and the aggressiveness has made him a difficult fit as leadoff hitter in front of Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun. The health question isn't one that can be definitively answered, but the aggressiveness could make the difference in whether he reaches his power-speed potential or not.

Last season's numbers looked awfully good, but a glance at the mini-browser shows they were held up by a 37% hit rate, and that SLG comes from career highs in fly ball rate (43.5%) and HR/FB (19.1%). Had his wrist sheath not sent him to the DL after just 162 PAs, his year would have looked a lot different. How different is hard to say, but his 7.4% walk rate was his lowest since 2006, and his strikeout rate had regressed two points to 26.5%, falling somewhere between his 2007 and 2008 numbers. Both of these combined for his worst BB/K ratio since his 14-PA first season, not a good indicator, especially for a leadoff guy.

He continues to be a great fastball hitter, and his 2.39 wFB/C was his best ever, but he struggles against the offspeed stuff—both changes (-5.86 wCH/C) and splitters (-5.22 wSF/C) befuddled him in 2009 more than ever. The changeup trend continues a drop from 2008, while his futility against the splitter was his second-worst season, performing worse against them only during that 2003 cup of coffee. Those aren't encouraging trends, and he's not really dominant enough against fastballs to offset those problems.

So for every favorable glimpse we see of Weeks in 2009, there's another trend that's equally disturbing. Either one can be written off to the relatively brief season he had, another trend that's been all too familiar to Brewers fans. Weeks has yet to play 130 games or more in his five MLB seasons, only twice playing more than 100 games. He's missed time in each of the last four seasons to various dings and dents, and three of those times have been to his troublesome wrists.

The bright side is that he's recovered from this exact same wrist surgery before, in 2007. He missed a bit of time during that season to tendinitis in the same wrist he'd had surgery on, then went on to a good, if not great, season, as you can see from the mini-browser, with a much better second half than first. He's had more time to recover this time around, and has had no wrist issues reported from camp so far. Nobody knows whether (or where) he might be injured again, and he has refused to stop that Sheffield waggle, even if it's been the source of his wrist problems.

Weeks offers speed as well as power, and he can steal bases with no wrists (or arms, for that matter). Even if he only delivers modest power, those SBs should help keep his value up, assuming he continues to get on base at a moderate clip. His middling contact rate means he'll drag at your BA, but his OBP puts him on at a decent 34-35% rate, so long as the worrisome K and BB trends he exhibited at the start of last season don't continue.

Another aspect that may affect Weeks' SB total is Alcides Escobar, the speedy shortstop for the Brewers. Escobar is expected to hit eighth—or possibly ninth, as Macha has said he'll try hitting the pitcher eighth in Spring Training—but Escobar should eventually hit first. That would presumably push Weeks to second in the lineup, ahead of Ryan Braun, which could allow him to see more fastballs, his favorite pitch. He might not steal as many bases for you in the two-hole, but he'll more than compensate in other areas, like driving Escobar home (something he could still do, of course, if Macha bats Escobar ninth).

GP's predictions were based on a half-season (see the Lopez writeup above for an explanation for that), so there's no reason Weeks can't reach at least the 20-20 club, if not better, if he can stay healthy. His projected value will, of course, increase along with his PT, and only more injuries will keep him from doubling that $7 projection. You'd be wise to have a backup plan if you draft Weeks, who slips to the second tier of 2B mainly due to the BA and health risk. Brewers fans and fantasy owners would love to see him beat that projection and rise into the first tier, but the 27-year-old still needs to prove himself, despite being in the league since 2003.

Jason Hammel | Colorado | SP
2009 Final Stats: 6.8 K/9, 3.2 K/BB, 4.33 ERA

How many pitchers can say that it took getting traded to Colorado for them to solidify their skills? Not many, and Hammel is one of those select few. Three years with Tampa Bay weren't enough for him to put it together, and so the Rays swapped him to the Rockies early in the 2009 season when he looked like someone they couldn't use in their rotation. Colorado didn't think they could use him as a starter, either, but then Franklin Morales went down with a strained shoulder. Hammel got into the rotation on May 3, pitched six shutout innings against San Francisco, and never left it.

That doesn't mean Hammel had an easy ride on the mound. He lost his next three starts, and didn't have another shutout outing until the last game of the season, when he threw two scoreless innings of relief. He gave up four or more ER in seven starts during the season, and failed to get out of the fourth inning in three starts, one of them a 1.1 IP, 5 ER thrashing at the hands of the lowly Mets in Shea Stadium. But Colorado was no sanctuary for him, either; his home ERA was 5.73 and he gave up 12 of his 17 home runs there.

Still, despite the bumps, Hammel definitely showed improvement last season. He doesn't have an overpowering repertoire, but it is broad, with several arm angles and four pitches he throws with regularity. He found his success as a groundballer, increasing his GB% each year in the minors, until he topped off at an impressive 51.2% his final year in Durham. He hasn't done quite as well getting major-leaguers to pound the ball into the ground, but he still managed a 46.2 GB% and the very nice GB/FB ratios you see in his mini-browser.

He also controlled his walks better than ever in 2009, slicing his walk rate in half. And he got better as the season progressed; though he struggled in July, from July 1 onward, he walked just 1.9 per 9 IP. Walks mean a bit less to a groundballer, who can induce more double plays than your average bear, but it's still a good thing to keep runners off the bases in a park like Colorado. Hammel also ramped up the K rate over that same three-month span, striking out 7.1 per 9.

Even better, 2009 reflects a bit of bad luck, as you can see from both his 3.71 FIP and the .327 BABIP against him. That's a bit of a surprise, because most of the Colorado infield (so important to a groundball pitcher) was well above average in UZR/150, even if the team as a whole is below average in defensive efficiency. The 2010 Rockies will have a very similar infield defense, with Ian Stewart (8.3 UAR/150 in 2010) getting a crack at 3B and Clint Barmes (7.5 UZR/150 in 2009) in the early lead for the 2B slot. That would portend the ball bouncing Hammel's way a bit more in 2010, and a corresponding ERA drop. The other bad luck area for Hammel was in strand rate, which was a subpar 69.5% last season, also portending a downward correction in ERA, albeit a slight one.

He'll be Colorado's fifth starter, a further incentive to greatness, at least from a matchup perspective. It will diminish his IP and Wins, and his Coors splits and narrow margin for error are also a concern, amid all the other good news. Along with other projection systems, GP is pessimistic overall, largely because this was his first good season, but he's got a really good shot to beat those projections. He's well worth a late-round flier and a bid of $1 or $2, and could fill the back end of your fantasy rotation nicely.

Graphical Player 2010 is SOLD OUT, so I hope you got yours! But you can still get an edge up on your fantasy league with a subscription to HEATER magazine, with detailed stats and predictions like this twice a week!

Posted by Michael Street at 2:00am (6) Comments

Waiver Wire Offseason: AL

Waiver Wire Offseason

Derek Holland | Texas | SP
2009 Final Stats: 7.0 K/9, 2.3 K/BB, 6.12 ERA
LIPS ERAs (2009): 4.81

In analyzing pitchers, especially ones who are coming off bad years, there is almost always conflicting data. Holland was downright miserable from Aug. 14 onward: 3-6, 8.18 ERA, 31 K, 17 BB, 12 (yes, 12) HR in 47.1 IP. Batting line against was .321/.382/.592. Anyone who saw him during that stretch would take some convincing to believe he actually has a future as a good fantasy pitcher. Then again, before the 2009 season, BA's Prospect Handbook had him ranked No. 2, behind the amazing Neftali Feliz and ahead of guys like Andrus and Smoak. On Aug. 14, he was coming off some spectacular wins against some bad offensive teams, and we were convinced that he was for real, and ready to be at least a “solid” starting pitcher.

Worse still, the various “stuff” (or “peripherals”) metrics don't agree at all about how well Holland actually pitched in 2009. The gun had him at 92.5 average for his fastballs. That much is known with some certainty. And his “velo” wasn't down in September, as he averaged 92.7 mph on Sept. 6, nearly touching 95 (94.9) on one pitch. His changeup and slider (his 2a and 2b pitches) have good separation, coming in about 8-11 mph slower. Neither scouting nor Pitch F/X have indicated that his fastball has become “flat,” rather that it's still showing good movement. Many experts are predicting a good year for him. And xFIP agrees with them, normalizing the BABIP and HR/FB% to indicate that he should have had a fine 4.34 ERA in 2009. BUT ... Fangraphs.com's preferred pitching metric, tERA, is closer to his real ERA, at 5.46. And LIPS, which we like at THT for it's strong historical correlations to reality, splits the difference at 4.81.

We love the left side of the Rangers' defense (where many balls should go with Holland pitching), and believe in the Rangers' vision for their pitching. We think that it's very likely that Holland will grow in confidence as he watches hard-hit balls routinely turned into outs by Andrus, Young, and whoever plays left field (Hamilton, Murphy, Cruz can all pick it). We also like the idea of facing the other three teams in the AL West frequently. The Angels scored a lot in 2009, but with Chone in Seattle, Godzilla replacing Vlad, and some of the other guys having years which suggest some slippage in 2010, it seems possible that all three division rivals may be below average in run scoring. So, we'd trust the stuff to some extent. The worry points are that as badly as he was being hammered late in 2009, he could have been hiding an injury or tipping his pitches. For now, we're going with the “inexperience” theory; he only had 26 innings in Double-A before 2009. But he's still relatively inexperienced, so some bad (read: “ugly”) outings wouldn't be a shock, and Texas is still his home park, so we're not talking Cliff Lee here.

Alexei Ramirez | Chicago | SS
2009 Final Stats: .277/.333/.389

Off topic, but Eric Seidman Tweeted Thursday that “Tanner Scheppers threw one pitch 132 mph, and Chris Carter hit a 725-foot home run off of it. Only Heyward leapt 100 ft to snare it.” While this was commentary on the hyperbole frequently used in Spring Training reports, it brought to mind the sort of nonsense that has been spewed out of airwaves and all over print media in Chicagoland regarding Alexei Ramirez, starting from about the time he arrived in town. In 2008, he was this amazing young superstar, who, after a slow start, was tearing up the league—ending with 21 HR in 480 AB, and being clearly better at shortstop than the incumbent, Orlando Cabrera (at least according to many accounts, including all the announcers who weren't reluctant to point it out). That was 2008.

Alexei Ramirez - Sox Shortstop (Icon/SMI)

Then came 2009, and the slow start wasn't expected. After all, he'd proven himself in 2008. Then came “Golden” Gordon Beckham, who may have one scout convinced he can play shortstop at the MLB level ... provided, of course, that he has a dog named “Scout.” But he didn't make those stupid-looking plays on April 24; that was Alexei. And the way he's battering Double-A pitchers, it's clear that he'll out-hit Alexei too. Well, the last part was true, as Beckham truly is a phenomenal talent, but from June 4 (when Beckham debuted), Ramirez hit .290/.350/.419. For the season, his “awful defense” (seriously, you have to read/watch/listen to the “journalists” in this town to believe how often this mantra is repeated) resulted in a 2.4 UZR/150. That means that after having not played shortstop regularly for four years, Alexei Ramirez was better than an average MLB shortstop defensively (per UZR). GM Kenny Williams “had his back” in November, too, stating flat-out that he was staying at shortstop, "because Alexei is better than Gordon at short.” Like Kenny, we expect the throwing errors to drop in 2010, as he gains experience at the position. Frankly, given the sub-par defensive stats Alexei posted at second base in 2008, White Sox fans should have been outright exuberant about his defensive performance. It's not like anyone can tell the difference between a .969 fielding percentage (Alexei 2009) and a .972 fielding percentage (AL average).

That's a lot of talk about defense for a fantasy column, of course. We wanted to drive home the point that Alexei Ramirez is the White Sox shortstop, beyond any possibility of confusion, however. As a hitter, he evokes images of Shawon Dunston, and his age-26/age-27 seasons have resulted in OPS+ scores of 103 and 87, compared to 100 and 87 for Dunston at the same ages. He's still very undisciplined, but there's no reason he won't grow more in that area than Dunston did, so some growth can be expected, and a league-average hitter playing in U.S. Cellular as a shortstop is a nice fantasy asset, especially if he is a low-OBP guy (walks don't help in most fantasy leagues) and has a little speed—“The Cuban Missile” has more speed than his modest SB and triples totals indicate, which suggests that he should keep stealing about 15 bases per year. Given his limited U.S. experience, we expect more from him at age 28 than we would from other players, and think he's a very solid fantasy option for 2010.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia | Texas | C
2009 Final Stats: .233/.290/.371

This author made Jarrod Saltalamacchia a pick in the Baseball Daily Digest “Dream Draft” before the 2009 season, wherein 12 baseball experts from various sites drafted 10 players they wanted for 2009-2014 performance. Fast forward to Thursday, when he went 2-for-3 with a three-run homer to kick off the spring festivities, and all is on track for this young, up-and-coming star catcher, right?

Nice thought, except for this thing called “reality.” Thoracic Outlet Syndrome diagnoses can vary widely in terms of long-term effects. At any level, it's about as welcome in a catcher's medical report as a labrum tear for a pitcher. In some ways, the worse news for prospective Salty owners (and the Rangers) is that he wasn't showing nearly the hoped-for offensive growth even before the injury, though it has to be assumed that the shoulder was bothering him long before he went out.

We have cautious optimism about Salty at this point, even in the face of all the negative events. He is a gifted hitter, as catchers go. He plays in Texas, and they seem committed to making him the starter. He hits enough that he could pick up some AB at 1B or DH. But he does combine unproven offense with the playing time issues of a Mike Napoli (i.e., even less than the typical catcher). We wouldn't suggest passing on any good players to take him, but Saltalamacchia playing in Texas could probably provide more fantasy value than Rob Johnson in Seattle ... even if he batted one-handed.

Heater Magazine has begun publishing its daily report of box scores, The Rundown. Don't miss a box score today, this weekend, or any day for the rest of the season. Subscribers to Heater receive a nifty little PDF via email (in Spring Training, it's usually sent in the evening after the games). This perk lasts through the regular season and the playoffs. Get a free issue of The Rundown here.

Posted by Rob McQuown at 4:00am (3) Comments

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Monday, March 01, 2010

Clone Wars: Dexter Fowler and Carl Crawford

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Will Brett Gardner perform in pinstripes?

Speed

Power

Plate discipline

Final thoughts

What to make of David Wright

Don't write off Citi so quickly

Opposite field hitting

Wright's approach and Citi Field

Call to action

Concluding thoughts

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

The mockery of mock drafts

MLB 2K10 Fathead Jr. Giveaway

Thursday, March 04, 2010

First worry about yourself

Top 200 MLB prospects for 2010

Introducing THT Forecasts

Friday, March 05, 2010

Waiver Wire Offseason: NL

Waiver Wire Offseason: AL