He didn’t accumulate enough plate appearances to qualify for the end of season rankings, but Wilson Ramos still finished 16th in overall fantasy value according to CBS, despite just 287 at-bats. Because of time spent on the disabled list once again, it’s easy to miss the fact that he hit 16 home runs with a 27.6% HR/FB rate. That mark would have ranked second in baseball behind Chris Davis if he had qualified and easily led all catchers.
The only major injury news is on Manny Machado’s knee surgery. Besides looking at his return timetable, I examined the end of season PAIN rankings.
• Manny Machado decided to have surgery on his knee today after he consulted several different doctors. It looks like he may not be be ready by opening day.
The first-time All-Star faces four to six months of rehab after the procedure, according to MLB.com. Dodgers orthopedic surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache will perform the surgery Monday.
Look backwards at the catchers this year, and you’ll notice that two of the top catchers will lose their catching eligibility this offseason. So move everyone up two slots before you even begin to project next year’s crop. Down in the teens, you’ll find a couple that are approaching 40, and a couple that struggle to hit at the Mendoza Line in a good year. And then, at number twenty despite only 428 plate appearances, you’ll find the Cubs’ catcher: Welington Castillo. He’s on the fringe, but he’s capable of moving up and the table is set for him.
Back in the preseason, my crystal ball was put to work nonstop. Aside from sharing with me what wacky events might occur and who may league the league in the various fantasy categories, it also suggested which players were undervalued and overvalued heading into the season. I published Pod’s Picks articles for every position, comparing my rank within the position to the RotoGraphs consensus. Let’s see how I did, starting with the catchers. Actual rank will be based on Zach Sanders’ value calculator; if the player did not meet the minimum plate appearance requirement (400) to be included in his values, then I will reference the player’s CBS rank.
The 2013 fantasy baseball season has come to a close, so it is time to look back at the season past and determine which players were the most valuable at each position. This week focuses on catchers.
The players were ranked based on their 2013 production, using the evaluation system explained and updated on this site some time ago. To keep things manageable and avoid skewing the numbers, players were only considered if they amassed 400 plate appearances over the course of the year. The replacement level was also adjusted to account for players eligible at multiples positions. The valuations are built for $260 budgets and traditional 5×5 roto fantasy leagues, where only one catcher is started.
One important thing to note is the premium (or lack thereof) placed on the position a player occupies in your lineup. For example, while a first baseman may be able to accumulate superior overall numbers, the availability of such production lower in the rankings severely dampers the amount the player was worth.
These rankings are meant to reflect a player’s value should he have occupied this spot in your lineup for the entire year. So, a player who missed time due to injury but put up great numbers during his time on the field would be worth less.
With all this in mind, here are your rankings. Read the rest of this entry »
With another regular season fully in arrears, now is a good time to look back on the season that was for 2xSP.
This was the second season I covered two-start guys for Rotographs, and this year I kept meticulous records on a Google Drive spreadsheet for all to behold.
I think that was a pretty solid upgrade, but if there are things you think can be done better, I’m all ears. Please leave suggestions below.
Here’s a breakdown of the season:
41-47 record
The record was obviously not idea, as I was hoping for a .500 mark. But even though we as analysts don’t really care much about the win for starting pitchers, it’s still something we have to seek out as fantasy writers.
Ultimately, I’ll look for pitchers that will be put in good situations to win, but I’ll admit it’s not going to be the first qualification I look at. Read the rest of this entry »
When discussing a fantasy baseball ‘Least Valuable Player,’ we’re looking at a few different things to factor in. Obviously, an under-performing stat line is one. But we’re also looking at the relative cost of the player in relation to other players at his position. If he didn’t cost you more than a 15th round draft pick or $2 in your auction and he didn’t perform well, then so be it. Very little harm done. But when you’ve used a third or a fourth round pick on him and he doesn’t meet expectations, it’s a much bigger deal. We’re also taking into account that player’s in-season trade value. Some guys who are in a slump, you can still trade them on name and reputation, but when the performance is so bad that no one wants to trade for them, an LVP award is just begging to be won. For me, this season, no one epitomizes the LVP award more than Cubs shortstop Starlin Castro.
A large swath of the sabermetric community had been waiting a severe decline for Matt Cain. He was someone who annually outpitched his peripheral numbers and frustrated some with his success. After all, a guy can’t sustain a .260 BABIP over the course of multiple seasons, and he certainly can’t continue to compile below-average home run rates with such a penchant for allowing fly balls, even if we’re talking about the cavernous AT&T Park.
With a 4.00 ERA in 184.1 innings this season, it appeared the “good luck” had finally expired. His fantasy value experienced a massive decline, going from the 5th-ranked starting pitcher in ESPN leagues (and according to our own Zach Sanders) last year to the 64th-ranked starter in 2013. Even the folks who expected a dropoff probably didn’t expect anything so dramatic. Last winter, anyone who posited that Jose Quintana, Tony Cingrani and Luke Hochevar would be more valuable pitchers at the end of the season would’ve been laughed out of the room.
But here we are. Quintana (56), Cingrani (60) and Hochevar (53) provided more fantasy value than Matt Cain, who was on average drafted amongst the top-ten pitchers in the spring. That’s obviously a season-killer for owners, and it’s a given that his value heading into the 2014 season will be severely depressed.
Should that be a signal to buy low and expect a bounce-back season in 2014, or should his 2013 campaign be viewed as the inevitable dropoff that many have expected for the past half-decade?
When tasked with choosing an MVP and an LVP, I decided to look at my own teams to see if there were any players in common on my good teams and any players in common on my bad teams. Of the six mixed leagues I played in, I had finishes of first, third, fourth, fourth, seventh and ninth. The only player that was on all four of my top four teams was Anibal Sanchez. While my two crappy teams had some similarities in terms of roster construction, one of the only players that was on both teams was Jarrod Parker. But it wouldn’t be fair if I failed to point out that my first round picks in those bad leagues were Matt Kemp and Albert Pujols. That definitely hurt me more than Parker did. Read the rest of this entry »
Headed into the season in my main league, I was pretty excited about the prospect of my outfield. In left field, there was Mike Trout, probably the most valuable player in fantasy. In right field, Domonic Brown, about to break out. They’d be flanking my center fielder, someone who not all that long ago was one of the most valuable fantasy player himself.
Sadly, it didn’t work out that way for Matt Kemp, who ended up being one of fantasy’s biggest busts. (Fortunately for me, I could easily move Trout to center and spot in left with, at various points, Evan Gattis, Norichika Aoki, and Alfonso Soriano.)
I feel a little bad listing Kemp with someone who was simply atrocious like B.J. Upton, because there was obviously a lot more to it than that. Really, there were three different Kemps this year: Read the rest of this entry »