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!
We’re moving on to our recap of the first basemen this week, so let’s begin by reviewing my Pod’s Picks for the position.
Chris Davis, the 2014 bust, was obviously a massive disappointment to fantasy owners. But did you know that he was also a catcher, playing for the Seattle Mariners? Check out these two cherry-picked batting lines:
| K% | ISO | wOBA | BABIP | AVG | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player A | 33.0% | 0.209 | 0.308 | 0.242 | 0.196 |
| Player B | 33.2% | 0.205 | 0.290 | 0.248 | 0.199 |
Without looking, are you sure you know which one is Mike Zunino and which is Davis?
Each season you nabbed him as a sleeper. You expected him to deliver on his top prospect promise. But he kept disappointing, or simply didn’t earn the playing time you had hoped for. So you gave up. And then he broke out. Sound familiar? It happens a lot. It’s when the former top prospect sheds all the hype, everyone forgets about him, and then he goes off. Everyone then remember that perhaps they hadn’t given that player enough of a chance, jumping off the train far too soon.
It was another productive season from Salvador Perez, at least from a fantasy baseball perspective. He earned the fifth most value among catchers and set a new career high in plate appearances and homers. But all is not well.
After a ho-hum small sample performance in 2012, Jason Castro enjoyed a big breakout in 2013, driven by a power outburst and inflated BABIP. With nothing in his performance history supporting the offensive surge as being real, it was an open question whether he could repeat. Personally, I was a believer, and actually drafted or bought him in each of my three leagues. But alas, he was a bust, ranking just 20th in catcher value. So what happened?
I made a lot of predictions this year, all of which were enjoyable to make. But they were all shared for the same reason — to point out players I believe to be undervalued or overvalued. Aside from the assortment of bold predictions, I also annually compare my personal rankings to the rest of the RotoGraphs ranking crew and dub the series Pod’s Picks. So let’s see if my rankings proved more accurate for the players we differed on most. We’ll start with the catchers, of which you could check out the original picks here. Actual ranks are taken from the soon-to-be published dollar values by Zach Sanders.
