Phew, we’re almost at the end of my 2015 reviews. Remember when I assured you that I would review all that I predicted, projected, ranked, and said from the 2015 preseason? I wasn’t joking! So today I return to recapping the list of players us RotoGrapher rankers disagreed on the most. This time we check in on the hitters we ranked outside the top 100 that had us baffled. Actual ranks based on Zach Sanders’ top 300. Let’s see who was right…if any of us were.

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Some might have you believe we just finished the most wonderful time of the year, but it’s actually coming up. Sleeper season is about to kick off for the 2016 fantasy baseball season and it promises to be another fun year of debating what actually constitutes a sleeper, who’s asleep and who’s just going at-cost, and whether or not you should include injury comebacks on your list. Another fascinating feature of Sleeper season is the group of guys who appear on virtually every list thereby negating their sleeper status by the time Draft season actually gets here: the wide-awake sleepers.

Examples from last year include Carlos Carrasco, Marcus Stroman before his injury, Michael Wacha, and Matt Harvey (especially by mid-Spring Training). They were all in 40s or later among starters in the winter magazines (which are written in the fall), but all were early-30s or higher by March. Stroman obviously fell off once he suffered the torn ACL, but Harvey surged all the way through draft season, winding up 14th among starters and top-50 overall. Being a part of this list isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

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There isn’t a top 75 pitcher that is as overrated by his ADP against his projections as Sonny Gray, it turns out. There’s almost 120 spots between where he’s being taken and where he “should” go, at least for now. You can see how that sort of thing happens.

He was 40th in strikeouts minus walks last season. 40th in strikeout rate. 26th in FIP. And ninth in ERA. And the ‘answer’ to that disparity is the worst in the business: he’s fifth in batting average on balls in play since he came into the league. 491 innings isn’t enough to believe that sort of things, so we all just whimper into our hats and wonder what to do about him.

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At last, we have reached our final 2015 Pod Projection review! All pitcher projections were based on the methodology laid out in my just released eBook, Projecting X 2.0. Yes, it’s the follow up to the original Projecting X, and is chock full of new research, new metrics, new ideas, and new methods for projecting baseball player performance.

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Not long ago, I wrote about Carlos Carrasco as a potential (but probably not) top five pitcher. The comments section of that article unexpectedly turned into a keepers quiz. Should I keep Luis Severino or Steven Matz? Which two of Carrasco, Danny Salazar, and Cole Hamels should I hang onto? If an article about Carrasco bubbled over into keeper questions, then surely there is demand for third party input.

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RotoGraphs writers get invited to be in some way-too-early drafts for various industry sources. I have been lucky enough to be included in a 12-team mock drafts for both Lindy’s and RotoWorld. While I have agreed to not release my full results until the sources are available to the public, I can talk about smaller aspects of the drafts. In this case, I ended up with Masahiro Tanaka in each draft. The doubling up on a risky pick has me wondering if I am overvaluing him. For the formats I was drafting in, I don’t think so. As the league depth increases, I could see his value drop.

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Welcome to the annual series: ‘A Minor (League) Review of 2015.” This series is a great way to receive a quick recap of the ’15 minor league season for your favorite club(s), while also receiving a brief look toward the 2016 season and beyond. It can also be a handy feature for fantasy baseball players in keeper and Dynasty leagues.

The Graduate: Kris Bryant, 3B: When you look at Bryant’s rookie season and see 199 strikeouts in 151 games, you might think it was a disaster. Nothing could be further from the truth, though. The rookie third baseman finished 10th in WAR in all of baseball. Looking at just his offensive contributions, he was in a three-way tie with Arizona’s A.J. Pollock and Colorado’s Nolan Arenado for the 17th-best wOBA. Bryant has some work to do making more consistent contact but he also didn’t tap into his full power potential (A scary thought!). And if the young, promising Cubs hitters around Bryant continue to develop, he’ll be even more valuable to fantasy managers in the years to come.

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Let’s continue where I left off before Christmas when I reviewed the hitters that baffled the rankers in the top 100 and switch things up to the starting pitcher side of the ledger. Since we had five rankers for our preseason consensus, it was only natural that there would be some players we disagreed on. Sure, we didn’t rank everyone exactly the same, but most were in the general vicinity. For these players that were part of our preseason top 100, our opinions were all over the map. Let’s find out who got it right. The original writeup is here and here is the top 300 the “Actual” ranking is pulled from.

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Happy holidays and especially a New Year! I just wanted to swing by quickly and drop some thoughts on a back-end arm I’ve been keeping an eye on for fantasy drafts next season.

I did write this player up for numberFire recently, though circumstances around him have changed a little bit. That is, his rotation spot has become a bit murkier. That pitcher is Diamondbacks left-hander Robbie Ray. On the surface, Ray’s numbers aren’t overwhelmingly impressive for 2015: 5-12, 3.52 ERA, 8.4 K/9 and a 1.33 WHIP. There are a couple stats individually that provide a bit of hope, but still maybe nothing more than a possible pop-up guy with little evidence he’ll actually get that chance. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time to stop singing slaying songs about smelly batmen and egg laying robins. It’s time to throw out the cookies Johan Santa Claus left behind. It’s time…to resolve.

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