It’s outfield week here at RotoGraphs, so I’ll begin the festivities by reviewing my preseason Pod’s Picks at the position. Every year after the RotoGraphs consensus positional rankings are published, I compare my column of ranks to a recalculated consensus after excluding mine. It’s a fun little activity and it allows me to figure out why I might be more bullish or bearish on a particular player than the rest of the crew.
The little brother of Mariners third baseman Kyle, Corey Seager enjoyed a delicious cup of coffee with the Dodgers after being recalled in early September. He BABIPed his way to a .421 wOBA over 113 plate appearances after heading into the season ranked as the team’s second best prospect.
Troy Tulowitzki managed to stay healthy enough to accumulate the most plate appearances he has since 2011. Surely that would have resulted in an excellent fantasy season, and perhaps some profit for those owners who were willing to take on such an injury risk. But that’s not what happened. Though he still finished third among shortstops in fantasy value, he earned just below $10 and posted the second worst wOBA of his career. If that wasn’t bad enough, he was then traded out of the cozy confines of Coors Field, making forecasting his near-term future difficult.
You have to scroll all the way down to the 24th ranked shortstop, Eugenio Suarez, to find a hitter who recorded fewer at-bats than Carlos Correa did this season. And yet, Correa still managed to finish second in dollar value among all shortstops. He did it in just 387 at-bats and 432 plate appearances.
Every year after the RotoGraphs consensus positional rankings are published, I compare my column of ranks to a recalculated consensus after excluding mine. It’s a fun little activity and it allows me to figure out why I might be more bullish or bearish on a particular player than the rest of the crew. I published all infielders in one post in the preseason, but have already recapped the catchers and first basemen. So today I’ll finish up with the infield, reviewing the second basemen, shortstops and third basemen.
2015 was a wonderful year for rookies. In fact, it was the best offensive seasons in aggregate for the freshman class over the last five years:
And this year’s group looks like it may have introduced us to several future superstars. Amazingly, three of them play third base.
This is what a breakout looks like:
The third overall pick in the 2010 Amateur Draft, Manny Machado made his MLB debut at the tender age of 20 and took baby steps to gradually increase his offensive performance heading into 2015. The power remained ho-hum, he was a poor base stealer, and he was a bit too much of a free swinger, routinely posting below average walk rates. Furthermore, he dealt with major knee issues that required surgery in both 2013 and 2014. But then 2015 happened and he loudly announced his good health and validated why he was a former top prospect.
I wrote a lot about Mike Moustakas heading into the 2015 season. First, I asked whether there was any hope for the man affectionately known as Moose Tacos. Although if you stared closely enough at his statistical trends, you could see a tiny seed blooming painfully slowly, it seemed obvious that there were too many flaws to make him worth a roster spot outside of AL-Only leagues. I then took another, perhaps closer look, three months later and proclaimed that the Moustakas breakout was upon us.
Every year after the RotoGraphs consensus positional rankings are published, I compare my column of ranks to a recalculated consensus after excluding mine. It’s a fun little activity and it allows me to figure out why I might be more bullish or bearish on a particular player than the rest of the crew. Although I published all infielders in one post in the preseason, I’ll only look at a couple of positions at a time for the recaps. We’ll start with the catchers and first basemen.
Yesterday, I reviewed my short list of pitchers that my xBB% equation suggested had significant room for improvement. Today I check in on those pitchers I identified as having downside, as this group posted xBB% marks well above their actual walk rates in 2014.
