The highlight of the year is the FanGraphs meetup in Arizona. Last weekend, around 22 of us from the Graphs family got together to share a house and a lot of beer. It’s hard to write while on the trip, but work gets done. With so many different baseball personalities together in one place, the information sharing can supply a season’s worth of unique insight. Today we’ll discuss a few of the topics from the trip.

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When injury strikes, opportunity arises. This time, Michael Taylor is the beneficiary. Initially expected to step in for Jayson Werth as he recovers from right shoulder surgery, Taylor is suddenly set to enjoy more guaranteed playing time in the wake of Denard Span’s expected absence. Yesterday, Span underwent core muscle surgery, which figures to sideline him for at least four to six weeks. That means that Taylor will now fill in at center field, possibly for the entire first month of the season.

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Episode 202

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette discuss some Spring Training injuries and then deep-dive into the AL and NL LABR auctions that took place this weekend in Phoenix:

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The following is what happens when I go a full week without a report. The injuries are rolling in and I have quite a few updates on spring training velocities.

• I guessing most people have heard that Yu Darvish has a tear in his ulnar collateral ligament. Here is Jon Daniels going through Darvish’s options:

“We got the MRI results yesterday evening. Dr. Meister met with Yu at that time and we just all got together this morning and talked through the options, effectively, that there are three options for Yu at this point,” Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said. “One is to attempt to pitch through it, which is not a great option. Two, would be an effort for rest and rehab. I think the sentiment is that is effectively what we did in the fall and in the winter and up until two days ago, we had very good results with it. He looked very good but obviously that did not pan out as desired. The third option would be Tommy John surgery.”

I don’t think he will immediately pitch though the pain. Instead, he will rest for few months with rehab which is what Tananka did. He may be able to pitch the last couple months of the season. If he decides to get Tommy John surgery, he will likely not be competing in the majors until May 2016. He may be a late round DL stash for this season, but nothing more.

• Hunter Pence will be out six to eight weeks with a fractured forearm. Arm related injuries for hitters seem to have the most lingering effects. His power could be down quite a bit once he returns.

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In doing prep for the only non-dynasty snake draft I will be participating in this year (I split another league but will be on vacation during the draft), I was a bit shocked at how Gregory Polanco is being priced. I am a big advocate of not taking risks on hitters and not paying for “potential breakouts.” There is a big lack of certainty we all take on the pitching end and I would much rather know what I am getting and paying for out of my bats.
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I’m a dweller in general. In slow drafts, I am the ultimate dweller. In the past, I would have ten+ tabs open at a given time when my draft slots were approaching: FanGraphs player profiles; RotoGraphs consensus rankings; Brooks Baseball Player Cards; BP’s PITCHf/x leaderboard; Rotoworld player news; the list goes on.

Then, prior to draft season, Jeff, Eno and I worked on these Arsenal Scores so that you can compare pitcher repertoires. You now have a go-to pitcher matrix if you’re dwelling on a cluster of pitchers.

Last week, Jeff Zimmerman furnished this glorious Hitter Analytics post, which provided us with a go-to hitter matrix when we’re dwelling on a cluster of hitters.

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It’s time for our Depth Chart Discussions to begin. In an effort to suss out every team, we’ve divided them into four parts (infield, outfield, bullpen, and rotation) and will begin breaking them down for you over the next few weeks. You can find them gathered here.

The Colorado Rockies infield has some enticing fantasy pieces, although there are certainly legitimate questions swirling about. Several of these guys will be nearly universally owned, but which ones do you want on your team? Let’s take a trip around the diamond to determine how these players should be valued.

CATCHER

Wilin Rosario
Nick Hundley

Wilin Rosario seems like a pretty trendy pick this year, as he will reportedly get some playing time at first and/or in a corner outfield spot to keep his bat in the lineup. This being fantasy baseball, people like to freak out about catcher-eligible guys playing the position of not-catcher, and rightfully so. I’m all-in on Evan Gattis this year, for example.

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For a different publication I have recently looked at the hitters that all three of Steamer, ZiPS, and Mike Podhorzer’s projections like more and like less than their current ADP. I like this little exercise as a tool to find value. It’s admittedly not a great way to identify sleepers in the sense of identifying breakout players. But it is a good way to identify sleepers in the sense of identifying guys who should give you good return on investment, even if the margins aren’t huge.

To do this little exercise, I simply ran the Pod and ZiPS projections through the old Zach Sanders z-score method, and I took the Steamer rankings from the Auction Calculator. I based the rankings on a 12-team mixed league with 25 roster slots (aka the standard ESPN setup). I then compared the rankings to the ESPN, Yahoo, and NFBC composite ADP from FantasyPros and found the 34 guys that all three projection systems like more than their ADP. Below I’ll discuss a few of the pitchers with the biggest gap between the rankings and ADP, and at the end of the post I’ll list all 34. On Wednesday I’ll look at the pitchers that all the rankings like less than their ADP. Read the rest of this entry »

As many of you in the ottoneu world know, the format which has been playable on FanGraphs for the past five years got its start with a single league. Originated by three high school friends and bringing in six of our college friends (yes, our first year had nine teams). Well, 2015 is our tenth year playing ottoneu and I recently discovered a treasure trove of emails from before, during and after that first season.

One of these emails included a spreadsheet of rosters from the last day of our first season. With everyone busy with auctions right now, I thought it might be fun to glance back at what the league looked like in year one.

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The Steamer and I series continues this week as I move onto starting pitcher comparisons. Today, I check in on two pitchers of whom the Steamer projections are significantly more bearish than my Pod Projections.

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