Remember when Mike Moustakas tore it up during this year’s spring training? He batted .429, which ranked third among all spring trainers, reached based at a .522 clip, good for second place, and slugged .768, ranking him fifth. Combined, he finished third in OPS. Not surprisingly, that performance led fantasy owners to dream of what could be and fueled lots of sleeper talk.
How could a player be a bust, but at the same time not be a bust? Well let’s find out. Because that’s exactly how Evan Longoria’s 2014 performance could be described. Depending on which statistics you choose to focus on, and of course whether or not you’re a fantasy player (and since you’re reading this in late October, you’re most definitely a fantasy player), your perception of Longoria’s season could differ wildly.
It’s third base week here at beautiful RotoGraphs headquarters, so let’s move along to recapping my preseason Pod’s Picks at the position. As a reminder, I compared my preseason rankings with the consensus of the other three RotoGraphs rankings and discussed those whose rankings differed most. Refresh your memory by reading up on my initial thoughts.
Since his 2007 semi-breakout performance, Aaron Hill has been an enigma. In fact, he’s run the gamut from being really good, mediocre and bad from a fantasy perspective over those years. Unfortunately, Hill owners got the bad version this year, as he ranked just 17th in earnings among second basemen. Since it would be fun and it’s in the name of this site after all, let’s depict his various performance metrics in graphical form since his 2005 debut.
Since his 2009 breakout, Ben Zobrist has been a consistent all-around fantasy contributor, with his blend of power and speed. But the first chinks in the armor started to show in 2013. After hitting 20+ homers in three of his previous four seasons, he knocked just 12 out of the park. And after attempting at least 23 steals each season, he made just 14 attempts. Unfortunately, he failed to bounce back this year and posted a nearly identical season, just reaching double digits in both homers and steals. Does this mark the end of the Zorilla’s jungle rein or is there one last rebound in his future?
It’s not often that a player we failed to even rank in the preseason finishes third in overall value at his position. But that’s exactly what Dee Gordon did, earning the third highest dollar value among second basemen this year. If someone told you that Gordon would earn nearly $3 more than Robinson Cano this year before the season began, you would have laughed in his face. But maybe it shouldn’t have been so shocking.
And onward we move, this week to recapping the second basemen. It was a pretty crazy year, as the preseason consensus top choice finished 14th in value, while a player we didn’t even rank at all finished third. Let’s find out how I did with my Pod’s Picks.
Jose Abreu was the newest of a group of Cubans arriving in the Majors Leagues in the last couple of years. The most recent and notable of that group, Yoenis Cespedes and Yasiel Puig, made successful enough debuts that expectations were understandably high for the new kid on the block. Abreu certainly posted eye-popping stats in Cuba. And they were even better then the aforementioned pair. Even his translations were off the charts, but the difficulty in calculating those means we had to take those equivalents with a grain of salt. But now after the completion of the 2014 season, it is fair to say that any concerns scouts and fantasy owners may have had have officially been silenced.
You likely spent a late first round or early second round pick for him, paid $30+ to secure his services or were giddy about protecting him at a low cost in your keeper league. And then he made your heart sink. Chris Davis ranked 20th among first basemen and amazingly was outearned by the likes of teammate Steve Pearce and power-starved James Loney. This was not the follow-up we expected.
Like seemingly every Royals hitter at some point in the last couple of years, we have been waiting for a major Eric Hosmer breakout since he debuted in 2011. He teased us with his power potential by posting a .303 ISO over about a third of a season at Double-A back in 2010, all the while making excellent contact at most of his minor league stops and even showing some speed. A first baseman who might not only sock 20+ homers, but also swipe some bags and hit for a strong batting average? Fantasy gold!
