Wow. We sure as heck didn’t see this one coming. If your computer crashed/you lost power/aliens abducted you for a day, and this is the first article you’re reading since, you missed one head scratching signing by the Oakland Athletics. That, of course, was Billy Butler. He figures to be the team’s every day designated hitter, and perhaps play a couple of games here and there at first base. For future Butler owners, hopefully those games at first come as starts in National League parks. Let’s take a gander at how departing Kauffman Stadium for the awesomely named O.co Coliseum may affect his performance.

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At a glance the 2014 season for Rajai Davis is mostly interchangeable with many of his previous years. He ranked as the 32nd best outfielder in Zach Sanders’ End of Season rankings, a nice surprise for his owners given his preseason rating of 81st. Davis stole a good number of bases, 36 on 47 attempts a 76.5% success rate, and posted a .320 on-base percentage, similar to his .317 career OBP. One outlier was his .282 batting average — Davis’ best since 2010 and what really drove up his value — this past season against his .270 lifetime average. While 12 points of batting average isn’t astronomical by any means, when placed against his recent seasons rather than career, .282 represents a massive jump.
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I don’t think that there’s much to analyze about Leonys Martin the player. The Texas Rangers’ center fielder isn’t a great player. On offense, he’s not even a good player, at least in terms of his weighted value as a hitter. He’s just a player, one who happened to be, based on his ADP (according to Fantasy Pros and his RotoGraphs preseason rank) compared to Zach Sanders’ end-of-season standings at the position, properly “valued” this past season.

Martin the fantasy baseball asset is a slightly different case. He batted .274 with seven home runs and 31 stolen bases. He earned about $12 this season in a typical 12-team mixed league. Judging from his typical cost in CBS leagues and the NFBC as well as the rankings of a couple of folks on the RotoGraphs preseason rankings panel (see here), some fantasy baseball players had hoped for a bit more, it seems.

This is the type of player who’d be on my secondary or tertiary target list next season. Here’s why.

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In many ways, Yasiel Puig was sensational this season. His .296/.382/.480 line in 640 plate appearances marked him as one of the best hitters in the game. He posted a 92/16/69/11/.296 fantasy line worth $22 per Good Man Sanders. Puig averaged a $26 draft price according to FantasyPros, so he did represent a slight loss. That’s fine, you’re usually going to lose a few dollars when you purchase top talent.

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Free-agent outfielder Torii Hunter has aged pretty gracefully. At an age where most players find themselves out of the league, Hunter has managed to put up decent offensive numbers. While he’s clearly fallen out of his prime, he can still be a useful piece for clubs. Teams will have to debate how useful Hunter can be this offseason, as the 39-year-old is freely available. Given his offensive numbers, and reputation as a strong clubhouse guy, it seems certain Hunter will get another deal despite his age. The real question is whether he can continue to defy the odds as he approaches 40.

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It’s hard to believe it, but Yoenis Cespedes just completed his age 28 season. Because he was a Cuban defector and came to the States later than others who have come here, he’s much older than one might expect given that he has just three full seasons under his belt. So the question is certainly valid as to whether Cespedes has peaked. His trends don’t paint a very pretty picture.

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I wanted to go with a title that likened Matt Holliday to the smokin’ Diane Lane. But I don’t really look at Holliday the way I do the smokin’ Diane Lane.

Anyway, that Holliday ended up as the 18^th-ranked outfielder in Zach Sanders’ end-of-season rankings for the position might surprise some fantasy baseball players. The St. Louis Cardinals’ regular left fielder hit .272 with 20 home runs and four stolen bases in 667 plate appearances. OK, not bad, those marks seem good enough to place him 18^th. But he hit a mere six home runs in 339 at-bats (400 PAs) prior to the All-Star break, so he appeared to be on course to fall short of 20 bombs for the first time since 2005, his second year in the majors. It might just surprise some folks to find out that he recovered so well.

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If I had my way, I would field a team of hitters who can play a variety of positions and contribute steadily across all five fantasy categories. Carlos Gomez meets the second of those conditions. His 95/23/73/34/.284 line made him the seventh most valuable outfielder and 12th ranked player overall per Zach Sanders’ accounting. FantasyPros says he cost $24 on draft day, and Sanders’ method has him returning $30 of value. That’s a nice profit on a high value player.

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So, he didn’t exactly launch the 30 homers I boldly predicted he would or lead the American League in the category, but Oswaldo Arcia’s power did spike as I expected. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to result in a particularly useful fantasy season, as Arcia barely earned positive value and finished just 64th among outfielders.

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He got paid. Now it’s time to figure out how much fantasy owners should pay for Giancarlo Stantons’ services in 2015. The third-best outfielder and sixth-best overall player last season has even been mentioned as a threat to the number one pick that would otherwise be owned by Mike Trout. Expectations are high.

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