3/1/18

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The ADP movers over the past two weeks can generally be group into several specific categories. Others are off on an island. I’ll examine the outliers and place others into their obvious groups (full top 245 at the article’s end).

Billy Hamilton (60 to 62)

I’m not sure why Hamilton has fallen a bit as the draft season has moved on. One theory I can make up is that owners are drafting with a more balanced approach and they don’t need to reach for Hamilton. The problem with Hamilton is he is a complete sink on your team in every other category besides steals. I have him as the 61st ranked hitter so he’d be lower with pitchers added so I can understand the drop.

Justin Turner (85 to 83)

I don’t think he’s moved as much as everyone else around him started moving. The talent curve begins to flatten at this point and small value changes can lead to bigger jumps.

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We now complete our lucky/unlucky trilogy by looking at hitters. For those of you just joining the symposium: we ‘ve had some success identifying players who have, we posit, been unduly favored or disfavored by fortune, and for whom the wheel accordingly figures to make a 180-degree turn. With pitchers, we look for (1) lucky guys who’ve been hit hard (as measured by, duh, Hard-Hit Percentage) but have managed to contain the damage, as measured by Batting Average on Balls in Play and Home Run Percentage, and (2) unlucky guys who’ve done the opposite.

We’ve already reviewed the results of this exercise for both starters and relievers. With hitters, we do essentially the same thing. We find guys who hit the ball hard but didn’t get hits, and guys who didn’t but did. Last year this approach would have pointed you towards Marcell Ozuna and Chris Iannetta and away from Ian Desmond. Of course, it would also have steered you away from Jonathan Schoop, who, in what is not among our finest moments, we suggested would be outperformed by Ben Zobrist and Logan Forsythe. So how do you tell the Schoops from the goats? Beats us. Read the rest of this entry »

As you may have heard from Justin Mason and Jeff Zimmerman, The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational (#TGFBI) slow draft begins today. Jeff recently wrote about the conundrum of picking third overall. I’m also picking third. While he took Charlie Blackmon, I selected the chic Trea Turner. I’m not too happy about it.

Blackmon made my list for the third pick, but he was the first name I crossed off. For a very simple reason. I’m in a lot of leagues. Too many leagues. They’re all either a keeper or dynasty format. In fact, TGFBI may be my only redraft league this season. The point is this – I’ve been sitting on multiple Blackmon shares since he broke out. I got them cheap, and I’ve kept them cheap. He’s treated me well, but one bad season could sink nearly ALL of my teams. I opted to diversify. I’ve never owned Turner before.

They say to zig when others zag. Or vice versa. I’ve always thought that the others would be zigging, thus encouraging me to zag. Never mind. The point of this article is to discuss weird incentives.

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Today we continue our comparison of my Pod Projections with Steamer projections. This time I’m going to check in on stolen bases and begin by identifying nine hitters that I’m projecting for a lower PA/SB rate. Stolen bases totals are primarily fueled by three factors — on base percentage (which itself is driven by a variety of components), how often the player attempts a steal once he reaches base, and how successful he is when attempting a theft. With so many moving parts, it’s sometimes very difficult to forecast stolen bases, especially for certain types of players, like the big sluggers who suddenly decide to run (Manny Machado in 2015 and Bryce Harper in 2016).

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