American League Outfield Stock Watch
Today brings another round of bullish reports. If you’re looking for cheap and readily available outfield help, today is your lucky day.
Brandon Moss
Over the past 14 days, Brandon Moss is 11-for-35 — with five of those hits going for home runs. He also drove in 10 and scored seven runs over that time frame. Following last season’s breakout performance was going to be a difficult task, though he came out swinging in April, May saw him struggle. Many owners on the fence about Moss ditched him during his May slump, and given his .153/.262/.333 line in 84 plate appearances, we shouldn’t be quick to judge those that were quick to drop him. Of course months — and seasons, for that matter — are all arbitrary end points and we can’t get too caught up in them.
But for now, let us get caught up in them. Between his very good April, terrible May, and thus far excellent June, Moss has brought his line up to .240/.328/.480 and now has 13 home runs, four doubles, and (somehow) three triples. Moss has just 49 hits on the year, so seeing 20 of them go for extra-bases has boosted his ISO to the top 15 of qualified hitters. He’ll still struggle against left-handed pitchers, career 93 wRC+, though this year the league as a whole has a mere 94 wRC+ against lefties. Basically Moss has been a tick below average against fellow southpaws this year. One can live with that as he rakes right-handed pitching. He is Matt Joyce 2.0, someone who will demolish opposite handed pitching and isn’t helpless against lefties. Whereas Joyce is owned in 64% of Yahoo! leagues and over 85% of ESPN and CBS formats, Moss is owned in just 27% of Yahoo! leagues and 50% of ESPN and CBS leagues. Moss is one year older and will strikeout a lot more than Joyce, however they will put up comparable counting stats and their RoS batting average should be within 10 points.
Mike Carp
The first thing people see when looking at Mike Carp’s season to date is his .400 BABIP. The next thing people look at is themselves in the mirror, asking why on earth did they think about picking up Mike Carp. That BABIP is totally unsustainable! And they’e right, to certain extent. What many people are discounting is what Carp has done before coming to Fenway. Previously with the Seattle Mariners, the soon to be 27-year-old Carp had 608 PA’s spread across parts of four seasons. Despite being yanked around from the minors and majors, Carp managed a .255/.327/.413 line that equated to a .327 wOBA and 109 wRC+. Carp’s only prolonged stay in the majors was in 2011 where he hit for a .345 wOBA and socked 12 dingers in 313 PA’s. Last year was an immediate uphill climb, as he hit the DL with a shoulder sprain on March 28 and didn’t make it back to the majors until May first. Even after his DL stint, Carp was shuttled between Tacoma and Seattle too often to get into a decent rhythm.
What we’ve seen from his snippets of MLB action is that Carp has some power, he’ll have a solid batting average, but he will strikeout about a quarter of time. He’ll also take his share of walks though — career 8.6% walk rate — and if he continues to get regular playing time, he should settle in as a decent option in deeper leagues. Carp isn’t an illusion of park factors, though the move to Fenway is certainly a better hitters environment than Safeco.
For the time being, Daniel Nava is still listed as the left field starter, though he has started several games at first base. Partly to give Mike Napoli a rest, partly to continue to get Carp’s bat in the lineup. With Jacoby Ellsbury being a constant injury worry and Shane Victorino already having spent time on the DL this season, Carp should continue to see solid amounts of playing time. Carp projects to hit .275 with about 10 home runs and 40 runs and RBIs, but it wouldn’t shock to see him surpass all of those numbers. Carp is currently available in 75% of Yahoo! leagues, 60% of ESPN formats, and 45% of ESPN leagues.
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Matt Joyce also gives you double-digit steals. Moss doesn’t.
A good point that I overlooked. But still, I see an awful lot of Joyce in Moss, at least from a counting number point.
This is wayyyy persnickety and fannish. Joyce did this once — in 2011. Since then – 10 steals and caught four times. And he’s a full-time player. Moss is a platoon 1B.
+1 on the word choice of persnickety. I enjoyed that.
(1) Joyce played his first full season in 2011 so it would hardly be fair to expect him to habitually steal 10 before then,
(2) Joyce was 13 for 14 in 2011.
(3) Joyce is 6 for 7 this year and on pace to match his 2011 total.
(4) In 2012 Joyce was 2 for 2 until sidelined by an oblique injury. When he returned after a lengthy DL stint he was caught stealing twice in the 9 days after activation and had nearly no attempts afterwards.
(5) Other than that 9-days post-injury, Joyce has been 22 for 25 as a base stealer since 2012, an 88% success rate.
(6)JMH’s comment was made in the context of suggested pickups for fantasy leagues, most of which count SBs but not caught stolen bases. His point was valid.
Re: Sher
Not the point buddy. The point is that “Matt Joyce will get you double digit steals” is a bad statement because he’s done it once in 5 1/2 years. He may get 10 steals this year but it’s still a bad statement even in that case.
Still wrong.
Um, no, we’re talking about this year … so not wrong.
In the AL OF genre I just completed a trade for Desmond Jennings with a large part of his value being SB (not surprisingly.) Afterwards I realized with his 8 SB he has 6 CS. Looks like has the green light for now but if this continues i can’t imagine he will (especially with SABR friendly Rays). Any thoughts on why his CS% is so high? think he can still get 25-30?
I saw some debate in your AL OF ranking article about having him too high. Do you still stand by that ranking?
Thanks for the insight.
Yeah, his SB:CS ratio has been poor, but I’m not too worried about it.
As for me ranking him so aggressively, yeah, I stand by that. He hit atop the lineup again yesterday, and whether or not that continues for the long haul will of course have a strong impact on his runs and value. For now, I like his growing power and his steals should be there at the end of the year. IF only he hit .275 instead of .250!
I hope you are right! In my league OBP is my strongest category while SB is my weakest so this seemed like a good move. Thanks again.
Both of these reports seem more bullish.
Damn, I typed bearish and meant bullish, thanks, that’s my bad.
As you mention, Carp is a good hitter getting some playing time, but he’s maybe a 75% time player at best. He’s also godawful defensively, which doesn’t effect fantasy much but will effect his playing time. If you’re looking at Carp, you must be in a deep league or have tons of roster flexibility.
yeah, i like carp, but as long as all of ellsbury, victorino, napoli, nava and ortiz are healthy he’s basically a bench player. that’s a lot of guys, of course, which increases the odds of one of them being hurt at any given time. but even when they’ve got a spot open for him he probably maxes out as strong-side platoon guy with gomes also in the mix. a league has to be fairly deep before you start messing around with that kind of guy.
i do think a pretty good hitter is in there, and i’d definitely sneakily target him next spring depending on what happens over the winter
Yeah, his defensive prowess, or lack thereof, hurts him a bit, but he isn’t too different than other outfielders who can’t play anywhere else.
As for how much playing time he gets, yeah, that is the key question. I tried to qualify this with “he should settle in as a decent option in deeper leagues.”
Wily mo, I agree, I think next year will be a very good year for him.
I picked up Carp in a deep 16 team league earlier this year as a back-up because I have always liked his bat .Then he got only one start in the next two weeks and I dropped him .With all of the OF/1b/DH guys Boston has,I think it will take several injuries or prolonged slumps for him to get much playing time .
HOW BOUT MY BOY NATE DOGG MCCLOTH
24 STEALS
Caps lock is cruise control to awesome.
Brandon Moss has a 31% K% and hasn’t taken a walk since June 1st. That kind of scares me. It makes me think his .153/.262/.333 May was no fluke, that he’s prone to slumps just like that at any point.
Speaking of walks, regarding the Joyce comp – Moss’ career .319 OBP is a significant drop from Joyce’s .345 mark. I think the poll earlier this year showed something like 80% of FanGraphs readers play in OBP leagues.
Moss still has an almost 10% BB% on the year. I’m not at all concerned about him drawing walks. Moss’ OBP is relatively low, but his current .340 mark against right-handed pitchers, who you should only be using him against anyways, looks good.
Mr. Wiers — is that an A’s hat? If so, glad to see East Bay representin’ on FG.
Indeed it is! A Barton shirsey too. I’m a big A’s fan, one just two at FG.
Would you rather have mclouth or coco crisp? How close is it?
Crisp. Not especially close, but it isn’t a mile. He’s show this speed before, McLouth hasn’t.
McClouth’s SwStr% this year: 2.9%.