Now Available for 2012 THT Essentials: Now Available The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2012, an annual "must buy" for all baseball fans, is now shipping. Read this article to learn more about it. 
 Derek Ambrosino
Nick Fleder Jeffrey Gross Jonathan Halket Brad Johnson Ben Pritchett Josh Shepardson Dave Shovein Paul Singman Josh Smolow Michael Stein And here's the full roster. Most Recent Comments
Decision Making Based On Small Statistical Samples (2)
Making the leap up (9) Fun with numbers (9) Did you know we had a mock draft? (17) THT Projections and Fantasy Roundtable link (5) Dish TV Packages options for all televised baseball games. Monthly Archives
February, 2012
January, 2012 December, 2011 November, 2011 October, 2011 September, 2011 August, 2011 July, 2011 June, 2011 May, 2011 April, 2011 March, 2011 February, 2011 January, 2011 December, 2010 November, 2010 October, 2010 September, 2010 August, 2010 July, 2010 June, 2010 May, 2010 April, 2010 March, 2010 February, 2010 January, 2010 December, 2009 November, 2009 October, 2009 September, 2009 August, 2009 July, 2009 June, 2009 May, 2009 April, 2009 March, 2009 February, 2009 January, 2009 December, 2008 November, 2008 October, 2008 September, 2008 August, 2008 July, 2008 June, 2008 May, 2008 April, 2008 March, 2008 February, 2008 January, 2008 Gear up for baseball season with Chicago White Sox tickets and New York Yankees tickets. LA Angels tickets, Houston Astros tickets, and Atlanta Braves tickets are hot sellers! You can get Boston Red Sox tickets, San Diego Padres tickets or Chicago Cubs tickets for your favorite baseball fan. Coast to Coast Tickets has the best MLB tickets like Minnesota Twins tickets, LA Dodgers tickets, Milwaukee Brewers tickets, New York Met tickets and St. Louis Cardinals tickets.  All content on this site (including text, graphs, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Part of the USA Today Sports Media Group |
Wednesday, February 03, 2010The Fantastically Average Oakland A’s OutfieldPosted by Tommy Rancel at 6:00amI'm not quite sure of the fantasy impact this group may have overall, but excuse me for being smitten with the current outfield group of the Oakland Athletics. With the off-season additions of Coco Crisp and the newly signed Gabe Gross, the A's are all making a conservative effort to make sure a fly ball does not hit the ground at Coliseum. As offensive players, all four rank eerily similar overall. Going down the list the career wOBA leaderboard is: Rajai Davis .330, Gross and Crisp at .325, and Ryan Sweeney at .322. None of them flash much power with Gross having shown the most pop from the bat. In 2009, Davis had an above average .354 wOBA fueled by a .360 OBP. Buyer beware, his .366 BABIP and average walk totals suggest that is likely to regress. What likely won't regress is his speed; Davis is fast. According to speed score, he is like Carl Crawford/Michael Bourn fast. We all know fast doesn't necessarily lead to steals, but in Davis' case it does. He was just one of seven players to steal 40 or more bags in 2009 and did so with a 77% success rate. Crisp has the most experience of the group and also has the more attractive career slash line of .277/.331/.407. That said, he is far from an offensive machine. I wouldn't put to much stock in his .228 batting average of 2009 since he did have a torn labrum in his shoulder and his BABIP was just .247. Although he is creeping up in age, Crisp will give you 20+ steals should he get enough playing time. Ryan Sweeney opened eyes in 2009 with his 4.1 WAR season. Take a completely average bat (wOBA .330 in 2009) and add +20 defense and that's how you become a 4 WAR player. An above average defender in center field, Sweeney is likely to become one of the better defensive corner outfielders in the game. However, his bat, as mentioned above, is completely average and his speed is nowhere near Davis or even Crisp for that matter. In 282 games at the major league level he has just 22 stolen base attempts. Satchel covered Gross's value yesterday. Oh-so-average Gabe is the ideal fourth member of the Oakland quartet. Sightly more powerful than his new teammates, Gross is a .240 hitter who takes his walks; not very sexy to a fantasy player. He is adequate enough defensively in center field to fill in, but is a +10 defender in the corners. Should Oakland have an injury in the outfield, Gross can easily be inserted in the lineup, and with some defensive shuffling, the team wouldn't miss a beat. Of course this average offense plus very good defense sounds good in terms of real world value, but none of the above is really music to the fantasy crowd's ears. Because of his stolen base ability, Rajai Davis is clearly the best option of the group. If you trust Coco Crisp to remain heathly over the course of the season, he can give you some value as he'll rack-up some decent plate appearances and swipe a few bases. Sweeney is the most average of the group, and Gross is basically an older Sweeney on the bench. I wouldn't pay this group much fantasy attention in terms of drafting, however, their impact on defense to a team that has Ben Sheets, Mike Wuertz, Dallas Braden, Vince Mazzaro and Andrew Bailey (all career FB% around 40%) may prove to have a different kind of fantasy value. Tommy Rancel is the Editor-In-Chief of DRaysBay as well as a contributor at Beyond the Box Score
Tommy Rancel said...
An OF of Sweeney, Davis, Taylor is even better. Posted 02/03 at 09:24 PM
Page 1 of 1
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
Next Post: Kevin Gregg looking for rebound with Toronto Blue Jays>> <<Previous Post: Small outfield moves | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I would expect Michael Taylor to break into this group at some point this season, too.