Normally I don’t write about bad players. It’s more of a truism than anything: writers like to analyze the breakout or peak-performance potential of top prospects or, alternatively, red flags associated with the game’s premier talents. Rarely do we write about objectively bad players.

Through 120 Major League innings (and change), Robert Stephenson has been an objectively bad starting pitcher, having compiled a 5.10 ERA, an anemic 1.63 strikeout-to-walk ratio (K/BB), and 0.1 WAR. A former 1st-round pick and a consensus top-100 prospect for four consecutive years, Stephenson quickly fell from grace after a catastrophic small-sample debut in 2016. Entering his age-25 season, though, he still has plenty of time to turn things around.

That’s the beauty of baseball: an objectively bad player can become an objectively good one, sometimes overnight. 2017 was a banner year for post-hype prospects, all of whom seemed, at one point or another, destined for eternal mediocrity and former-prospect bustitude. I think Stephenson can become an objectively good pitcher, but it’ll take work.

Here’s a top-10 list, presented ordinally and without the statistic by which I’ve ordered it, of pitchers who accomplished something in 2017, from a list of hundreds of other data points:

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The third in an ongoing series (Pt. 1) (Pt. 2), I’ll continue to compare hitters using blind résumés to highlight “generic-brand” players who could be drafted as substitutes for “name-brand” players in later rounds of your draft. This entry will differ slightly in substance; I’ll focus on 2018 projections to identify similarly skilled players rather than use hindsight to rationalize (or poke holes in) how we’ve valued past performance.

I will use National Fantasy Baseball Championship average draft position (NFBC ADP). Reminder: we host them here on FanGraphs, too. It’s worth noting I pulled these projections this past weekend, so the numbers will likely differ slightly but not unconscionably. The ADPs are current as of yesterday.

Comparison #1: Power-Speed Outfielders, Mostly

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A few weeks ago, I took a deep dive on Luke Weaver, budding Cardinals No. 2 and Adam Wainwright torch-taker. I came out of it reluctant to invest in him at his hefty asking price: per National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) average draft position (ADP) data, 27th among starting pitchers and 105th overall. His lackluster swinging strike rate (SwStr%) indicated to me he could not sustain his lofty 28% strikeout rate (K%) when pitchers of similar SwStr% caliber had strikeout rates ranging from 18% at worst to 25% at best. The best, in that instance, was Aaron Nola. I doubted Weaver could compare so favorably, primarily because Nola steals strikes in a way few others can.

What I failed to do — what I should’ve done — is check. Duh! I should’ve checked how often Weaver earns called strikes. So I did, and I came away feeling even more scared than before. Turns out, I’m an idiot who botched some simple arithmetic: Weaver falls just outside the top quartile of pitchers in stealing strikes, as opposed to literally 3rd-worst like I claimed in the previously linked Tweet. That would’ve been really bad. Still, this miscalculation and subsequent mischaracterization of Weaver’s ability sent me on a quest of ultimately marginal value.

The more I looked at Weaver’s plate discipline peripherals, the more I realized Weaver doesn’t coerce many swings-and-misses out of the zone. He’s actually pretty bad at it. That means he generates most of his success in the zone, which, to me, seemed unusual. I was nervous that thriving by threading the needle — i.e., pounding the zone (assuming some semblance of command) and hoping for whiffs — might be a dangerous way to live, or that, at the very least, a young pitcher for whom the proverbial book on him isn’t out yet might be subject to regression in this particular area. The freshly FanGraphs-retired Eno Sarris thought thriving in the zone is better than thriving outside the zone:

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In case you missed the announcement in Paul Sporer’s latest post:

FanGraphs now has NFBC ADP data!

NFBC ADP data used to be hosted at Stats, Inc. Prior to last week, 2018 data had only been available to NFBC contestants.

Anticipated FAQs:

Where can I find the data?

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The impetus for this post arises from a Tweet by our very own Al Melchior:

Holy BABIP, Willie Calhoun pops out a lot! pic.twitter.com/BDyHtfJsZJ

— Al Melchior (@almelchiorBB) January 3, 2018

This is, in no way, meant to shame Melchior; if anything, he has afforded us a valuable learning opportunity, especially because it became clear to me there likely exists a large swath of FanGraphs users who routinely misinterpret the relatively new Minor League batted ball data. (Through no fault of their own, by the way. The new data didn’t come with a user’s guide or anything. We have been left to our own devices, and it’s easy to assume such clean data comes without warts.)

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More often than not, I write to hype a player who has wowed me in one way or another. Sometimes, I have to put a damper on things. Through 20 National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) drafts, Luke Weaver’s average draft position (ADP) stands at a pearly 111th overall and 28th among starting pitchers.

Weaver’s 36-inning debut freaked me out a bit. It was evident he could capably prevent baserunners, or, through 20% of a season, he could at least fake it. His 3.34 xFIP suggested as much, even in spite of his abhorrent 31% ground ball rate (GB%). Everything else stunk — all the luck metrics broke the wrong way in a small sample — but it was enough to suggest a bright future for the former 1st-rounder was imminent.

I planned to avoid Weaver at all costs in 2017 because of his fly ball tendencies exclusively; I simply did not want to suffer the wrath of a juiced ball because some small-sample strikeout-to-walk ratio (K/BB) goodness seduced me. Turns out, batted ball metrics can also feel the wrath of randomness in small samples, as his ground ball rate spiked to an above-average 50%. Some of the luck metrics tempered a bit, and the result was a 29% strikeout rate (K%) and defense-independent metrics that suggested he should nearly have a flat 3.00 ERA. It’s almost like there’s a reason why this 24-year-old kid was drafted in the 1st round or something.

I’m here to pump the brakes. I’m not sold on Weaver’s peripherals. I’m willing to let you convince me otherwise, but allow me to explain.

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I wrote a feature for a forthcoming fantasy baseball magazine about players with the potential to make or break your season. Due to space constraints, some of the copy lay on the cutting room floor as the magazine shipped to print. Rather than let it go to waste, I figured someone may enjoy reading my leftover snippets for players with volatile outlooks for the 2018 seasons. (The rest you’ll find on physical and digital bookshelves sometime in spring.)

I’ll present each blurb as is and, afterward, provide links to relevant work I’ve written related to that player as well as any final thoughts I couldn’t originally fit into my word count limits. It’s worth noting the target audience includes fantasy baseball enthusiasts of all skill levels, some of which invariably fall short of those of typical RotoGraphs frequenters. Alas, I made my best effort to conduct worthwhile analysis without getting overly technical.

Ordered roughly by expected average draft position (ADP).

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A month ago, I compared “name-brand” and “generic-brand” players using blind résumés, an exercise we’ve reiterated across several authors and years at RotoGraphs. A few years ago, you’d never find me in a mock draft, let alone several in one preseason. (More a matter of blocking out three hours on a whim, but also I probably (very foolishly) thought I didn’t need to partake in such trivialities.)

I’m super, super into the whole slow draft mock thing, though; I’ve completed a few this preseason, and I think they have already helped me understand the kinds of market inefficiencies (i.e., differences between perceived and actual values) that will arise on draft day. One of the easiest ways to identify said inefficiencies is to compare similarly skilled players, then assess their other pros and cons — the intangibles, if you will, such as health and age — to determine who’s the better value.

Here are a couple more pairings:

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And it’s evident you should now pay attention to him. Jeff Sullivan wrote about Miles Mikolas here — Sullivan does a good job of summarizing Mikolas’ skill set and how he’ll succeed stateside. Which is helpful. But, for fantasy purposes, it doesn’t help us a whole lot in terms of exactly what we should expect. Not that that’s Sullivan’s fault. He doesn’t keep a cross-league projection system in his brain.

So when you see a Tweet like this — from NEIFI Analytics, which FanGraphs has featured previously — it’s hard to ignore:

Congrats, Cardinals. Per NEIFI, Mikolas handily outperforms Jake Arrieta over next three seasons. Massive bargain, fantastic bet to be the most underrated FA of 2017 class.

— NEIFI Analytics (@NEIFIco) December 5, 2017

Then again, there are Tweets like this from ZiPS’ own Dan Szymborski:

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I planned to include Rhys Hoskins in my blind résumés post from Monday, but I couldn’t find any realistic comps for him. Part of the problem is no one does for a full season what Hoskins did for 50 games. Part of the problem, also, is no one does for a full season what Hoskins would be expected to do for a full season, based on his peripherals. It’s a fairly unique skill set (although let’s not conflate “unique” with “the best” or any kind of superlative like that… yet).

Hoskins had himself a real, real nice debut. This isn’t the first time you’ve read about him in the last couple of months and it will be far from the last. Andrew Perpetua, for all intents and purposes, regressed his batted balls from 2017 and he still would’ve had an awesome season. In Eno Sarris’ heart, as well as mine, Hoskins was the runner-up National League Rookie of the Year to Cody Bellinger.

Hoskins had himself a real, real conveniently sized debut as well. His playing exactly 50 games prevents me from arbitrarily choosing a cutoff and having to justify it. A cutoff for what, you ask? Well, Hoskins, in exactly 50 games, posted a .359 isolated power (ISO) while swinging and missing only 7.1% of the time. He struck out a fair deal, but he also walked a ton. Take this snapshot of a season and, as aforementioned, you’ll be hard-pressed to find comps.

Which is exactly why I set out on a very pseudo-scientific quest to find any of Hoskins’ contemporaries who have done this — this, being the aforementioned 50 games of a .350-ish ISO and a 7%-ish swinging strike rate (SwStr%) — at any point in their careers (or within windows of their careers that I’ve curated). I’m winging it here, plucking names from my brain who have elite power and at least above-average plate discipline (assuming Hoskins might, but it’s not a foregone conclusion) and scouring their careers for similar streaks. Any omitted hitters are a product of my lack of memory or imagination, not of malice. Except for Giancarlo Stanton.

Mike Trout

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