The base off-season has officially begun and that means it is time to start looking forward to the 2012 season and projecting player performance. One of the most difficult categories to project any significant change in is stolen bases. Steals are as much of a result of speed and base stealing ability as it is opportunity and the mere willingness to run. I decided to sort all qualified hitters by Spd Score, which was originally created by Bill James and includes stolen base percentage, frequency of stolen base attempts, percentage of triples, and runs scored percentage. Although I am not a big fan of the metric since runs scored percentage is too team dependent to be included in the statistic, Spd Score is pretty much the best speed metric available by default. I compared the top Spd Score hitters to their stolen base totals to determine who may see a spike next year.

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Welcome back to the second tier edition of the 2012 American League starting pitcher keeper rankings. To avoid any confusion in the comments (and boy has this series caused massive bewilderment):

-These are American League pitchers only. No, I did not forgot to rank Roy Halladay in the first or second tier.
-The dollar values listed are what the pitcher earned in 2011, not my projected 2012 value.
-Rankings are solely based on my projection for next season (this is not a ranking of what already happened in 2011), with some small extra weight given to future seasons beyond next to factor in the keeper aspect.
-Rankings are unscientific with no math behind them. Once I project every player and calculate resulting dollar values, these rankings will change, and some players may rise or fall significantly.

Now that we are on the same boat, here is a look back at tier one, which includes:

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A week ago I analyzed David Freese’s big postseason and speculated that it would inflate his cost in 2012 drafts. C.J. Wilson, on the other hand, has likely seen his 2012 draft cost move in the opposite direction. Yesterday, Chris Cwik analyzed Wilson’s playoff struggles from a free-agent market standpoint, and today I will examine the impact it may have in fantasy leagues.

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On Saturday, I examined the five pitchers whose SwStk% increased the most from 2010. Today, I will look at the opposite: the five pitchers whose SwStk% declined the most this season.

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It is hard for me to go very long without writing an article that focuses on SwStk%. It is like the equivalent of having a man-crush, but the object of my affection is actually a statistical metric. Maybe I have a metric-crush? Below are the five pitchers who experienced the biggest increases in their SwStk% from 2010 to 2011.

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As you have no doubt noticed, being the regular reader of RotoGraphs that you are, we have been rolling out position by position keeper rankings all week, beginning with the top tier. The biggest question I had was how exactly I was going to handle these rankings. Given the numerous format and rule differences from league to league, I thought it would be unwise to make any reference to draft cost. We simply cannot assume a player’s cost from 2011 drafts, yet cost is one of the main factors you must consider when making keeper decisions. So, cost will be ignored in my tiers, and the job is up to you to compare projected value with the keeper cost.

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In most years, there is an unlikely postseason hero, a non-elite player who has a big series or two, maybe wins an MVP, and gets people talking. Since the playoffs are on the biggest stage where games could be watched by all, these surprise performances carry great weight for more casual fantasy owners heading into the following season’s drafts. This postseason we have seen David Freese illustrate this concept perfectly, as he posted an AVG/OBP/SLG line of .545/.600/.1091 in the NLCS, bringing his total 2011 postseason performance to .425/.465/.850 over 43 plate appearances.

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On Saturday, I took a look at the five hitters whose HR/FB ratios increased the most from 2010 to 2011. This time I switch it up to check out the bottom of the list, those hitters who experienced the largest declines.

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Trying to decipher which breakouts are for real, or at least repeatable the following year, and which are mostly a fluke is one of the more enjoyable tasks during the off-season. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to be truly confident in our guesses, no matter how much supporting data we could find that validates our side. Of course, the easiest thing to do is just predict that every surger will regress. And more times than not, you will be right. But where’s the fun in that? Below are the 5 hitters who experienced the largest HR/FB ratio jumps from 2010. Note that only qualified hitters each year were looked at.

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In the short period I was able to watch last night’s Rangers-Tigers game, I unfortunately chose the time when the announcers reminded us Braves fan of the trade several years ago. The trade being the one that sent Mark Teixeira for half a season to Atlanta and brought back Neftali Feliz, Elvis Andrus and Matt Harrison, amongst others (including one catcher whose name I don’t feel like spelling at the moment). Andrus and Feliz have already been contributed good value to the Rangers and Harrison decided that in 2011, it would be his turn to make the Braves look foolish.

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