Starlin Castro’s 2013 season was such a disappointment our own Howard Bender has already stated Castro was the least value player for the 2013 season. I am not sure how much his owners paid for him, but I am guessing it was more than the -$4 he returned this season. The main problem with Castro’s declining production can be traced back to changes his approach at the plate which may continue into 2014.
Every player is risky, and paranoia usually serves you well in fantasy. So even when you look at a player like Ian Desmond, who has gone 20/20 with a .280+ batting average in two straight years at a tough position — it’s worth checking under the hood and identifying where the 27-year-old could regress in the coming season.
A plea was recently posted on the message board of one of my ottoneu leagues:
To the 4 owners who allocated a total of $9 to my team, keep in mind that it’s strategically sub-optimal to spend more than $1 on a non-contending roster.
Posted by the last place team, this argument seems perfectly logical and in most leagues the chances are the top 2-3 teams will get hit by close to $30 in allocations, while last place teams will be closer to $15-$20 (we’ll confirm this once allocations are done). But in reality this is an overly simplistic way to look at allocations.
We have made it to shortstop week here in beautiful RotoGraphs country. So that means it’s once again time to check out the results of my Pod’s Picks at the position.
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 shortstops.
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 »
Note: Trevor Plouffe ranked as the No. 28 third baseman on Zach Sanders’ 2013 rankings.
Let’s first dish out some indisputable truth: the entire premise of owning Trevor Plouffe centers around a ridiculous stretch he had in the early summer nights of 2012.
Plouffe hit half of his home runs that season between June 8 and July 3, a span of about three-and-a-half weeks. In that time frame, he hit .330/.398/.791, with 18 of his 30 hits over that span going for extra bases. Read the rest of this entry »
Wouldn’t it be better if every rookie debuted like Mike Trout or Bryce Harper? Major League Baseball would always have this exciting new crop of game-breaking superstars and we fantasy baseball owners would never have to worry about whether a strong debut was just a fluke performance. Unfortunately, that’s not the way it works and when we look at some youngster’s successful rookie campaign, we still have to sift through a variety of things to determine whether he’s worth the attention next year or not. So goes life for those whose interest has been piqued by Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado. On the surface, there’s not much that excites a fantasy owner about a .267-10-52 batting line for a corner infielder, especially coming from someone playing half his games in Coors Field. But considering the 22-year old produced that line after basically making the jump straight from Double-A ball (he played just 18 games at Triple-A to open 2013), he deserves another look as he enters 2014 with the job in-hand. Read the rest of this entry »
David Freese, a fantasy darling from a year ago, failed to replicate his breakout season in both real-life and fantasy terms. On the diamond, he declined offensively and defensively and dropped from a four-win player in 2012 to roughly replacement-level in 2013. And more importantly for fantasy baseball purposes, he essentially took a face-first plunge into the ocean this year with an anchor firmly tied to his waist, as he was barely a top-30 option at third base.
When guys like D.J. LeMahieu, Mike Aviles and merely 350 plate appearances of Aramis Ramirez proved more valuable, it’s abundantly clear that the fantasy production was sub-par. What makes his disappointing performance sting even more for fantasy owners is that he was drafted (on average) ahead of guys like Kyle Seager, Pedro Alvarez, Manny Machado and Matt Carpenter.
Value is paramount in fantasy baseball, and while David Freese wasn’t the worst value of the season — hello, Starlin Castro, Matt Kemp and B.J. Upton — he certainly performed well below expectations this season. His power dropped, his average barely eclipsed .260 and his overall counting statistics were underwhelming. Fantasy owners thought they were getting a high-average third baseman with 20+ homer power, and they received a crappy average and nine home runs. Brutal.
So, let’s not only figure out what happened, but also attempt to determine what this disappointing 2013 season means for David Freese going forward. Because, realistically, if this was merely a blip on the radar, he could be an intriguing sleeper on draft day this upcoming spring.
When we were divvying up guys for third base week, I selected Brett Lawrie assuming I could take the angle that he was poised to be a post-hype sleeper. When he came up in 2011 as a 21 year old and hit .293 with nine homers and seven steals in just 171 PA, I assumed we were looking at a kid that was going to be a top fantasy option at third base for a decade or so. And that opinion was bolstered by the fact that he also displayed the power/speed combo in the minors. But in the almost 1000 PA he’s had since, Lawrie hasn’t looked anything like he did in 2011. But because I had long ago decided that he was going to be a stud, I assumed I would find evidence of his likely return to stud-dom. Alas, that wasn’t the case.
To find evidence of the rebound I expected to portend, I had to first figure out what it was that Lawrie did so well during his inital call up. Essentially, Lawrie did two things well: he hit the ball in the air a lot and he stole bases efficiently. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s probably hard to overstate just how hyped Chase Headley was after his massive 2012, isn’t it? Were it not for the presence of Miguel Cabrera at the hot corner, Headley would have been the best hitting third baseman that season, thanks to his 31 homers, 115 RBI, and 17 steals. While there was something to be said for the fact that a ridiculous second-half hot streak was unsustainable and that he’d hit just 4 homers the year before, it was hard to see him not continuing to be very good in 2013, especially since the fences were coming in at Petco.
And then… *thwomp.* Headley’s home runs fell from 31 to 13. His RBI dropped by more than half, to just 50, his batting average fell to a career-low .250, and for the first time in a full season, he stole fewer than 10 bases. Read the rest of this entry »