I wanted to go with a title that likened Matt Holliday to the smokin’ Diane Lane. But I don’t really look at Holliday the way I do the smokin’ Diane Lane.

Anyway, that Holliday ended up as the 18^th-ranked outfielder in Zach Sanders’ end-of-season rankings for the position might surprise some fantasy baseball players. The St. Louis Cardinals’ regular left fielder hit .272 with 20 home runs and four stolen bases in 667 plate appearances. OK, not bad, those marks seem good enough to place him 18^th. But he hit a mere six home runs in 339 at-bats (400 PAs) prior to the All-Star break, so he appeared to be on course to fall short of 20 bombs for the first time since 2005, his second year in the majors. It might just surprise some folks to find out that he recovered so well.

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Episode 178

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

Eno Sarris and Nicholas Minnix talk strategy; the re-signing of Victor Martinez; the Devon Travis–Anthony Gose trade; Yoan Moncada; Kwang-Hyun Kim; a Twitter question about head-to-head leagues; and, of course, outfielders! The end-of-season OF rankings went up this past Monday. Under discussion: Michael Brantley; Charlie Blackmon and Corey Dickerson; and Matt Kemp, for starters.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions so that we may answer them in our next episode.

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Allen Craig stunk in 2014. We all saw it. He stunk for the St. Louis Cardinals. He stunk even more for the Boston Red Sox. He stunk all season for fantasy baseball players, for whom he lost money, and ended up in the hundreds among outfielders. A regular. The only guy who accumulated 500-plus plate appearances this past season and finished ranked in the hundreds.

Is that it, then? Does he just stink now? It’s possible. Maybe even likely. Perhaps close to definite. But we don’t know. I don’t think that we can know. At least not yet.

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This past season was a pretty productive one for Brandon Moss. The Oakland Athletics’ outfielder-first baseman hit a subpar .234, but his 25 dingers helped to place him in the top 40 outfielders by Zach Sanders’ standards. His $12-plus in earnings would make him a top-15 first baseman, in case he went that way for fantasy baseball players. The recession on offense made Moss’ numbers more valuable in rotisserie leagues.

The 2014 campaign could have been better, perhaps notably so, for Moss, in fact. The slugger went yard for the 23^rd time this season on July 24, yet he finished with a total that tied him for 21^st in the majors in that category. He much more resembled the hitter he was in 2013 (.267 ISO) prior to the All-Star break this year (.268/.349/.530, 21 jacks, and a .262 ISO in 364 PAs) than he did after it (.173/.310/.274, 4 HR, and a .101 ISO in 216 PAs). Moss wasn’t the same by the end of July.

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Episode 177

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

Eno Sarris and Nicholas Minnix discuss end-of-season shortstop rankings, which went up this past Monday, as well as the 2015 outlooks for many of them, including: Starlin Castro, Xander Bogaerts, Jean Segura, Andrelton Simmons, Wilmer Flores, and Brad Miller, with plenty of comments about the bigger names thrown in there.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions so that we may answer them in our next episode.

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This probably wasn’t the type of year most fantasy baseball players who drafted or bought Andrelton Simmons expected from him. The Atlanta Braves’ shortstop finished with a .244 average, a mere seven home runs, and a measly four stolen bases. Even in a year of depressed offense and especially at a position starving for some of it, the third-year player failed to be replacement-level in the average mixed league, according to Sr. Zach Sanders’ shortstop standings.

Simmons seemed to have the makings of an underrated fantasy asset coming into this year. He hit .248 in the previous season yet struck out in only 8.4% of his plate appearances and hit .247 on balls in play, so he appeared to be destined to be a plus – or at least not a minus – in batting average. He swatted 17 long balls, demonstrating that he could be a power player. And he’d stolen as many as 26 bases in a season on the farm, so the possibility of more speed tantalized. None of those things materialized, unfortunately.

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There’s nothing terribly sexy about Alexei Ramirez as a fantasy baseball player, despite his 2014 line. He batted .273 with 15 home runs and 21 stolen bases this past season, but we know that power isn’t a big part of his game anymore. This year’s homer total clearly pushed some of that volume in RBIs and runs scored.

Come to think of it, there’s nothing terribly sexy about Ramirez, period. He’s listed at 6-foot-2, 180 pounds (incidentally, also my dimensions). Look at him. He’s a stick. Granted, some people find men like him extremely attractive. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I’m confident that folks in that demographic don’t make up the majority. He doesn’t exactly fit the image of the prevailing notion of a hot slab of man beef.

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Episode 176

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

Eno Sarris and Nicholas Minnix discuss end-of-season third basemen rankings, which went up on Monday, as well as what they think of 2015 prospects for some of them, including: Anthony Rendon, Josh Donaldson, Todd Frazier, Trevor Plouffe, Nick Castellanos, and Brett Lawrie. The analysts also respond to a couple of holdover requests for some talk about Christian Yelich and Jorge Soler.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions so that we may answer them in our next episode.

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Fantasy baseball players can, at this point, feel pretty safe in making the judgment that the 2012 season represents an outlier in Chase Headley’s statistical ledger.

The switch hitter went yard 31 times and led the National League in RBIs with 115 that year. He tied a career best with 17 swipes, to boot. He also played in 161 games for the second time in his lifetime; that much playing time isn’t exactly baseline performance level, either, although it’s hardly the No. 1 factor in his limitations both before and after that career year. He posted extremely similar rates in each of the past two campaigns, and they aren’t much different from the three he produced before that legendary rotisserie line.

The object at RotoGraphs is to point out the obvious, so, case closed. Please surf the Interwebs safely. Don’t forget to tip your cloud.

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It figures. He’d entered the two seasons prior amid expectations that he’d emerge as his club’s regular third baseman, but he failed to lock down the position. Lonnie Chisenhall didn’t have a regular place to play for the Cleveland Indians in this past campaign, however, so, naturally, he produced early on and, thus, elbowed his way into the lineup. He finished with a .280/.343/.427 slash line and 13 bombs in 533 plate appearances.

Did Chisenhall truly experience a breakthrough? After a hot start to the 2014 season, his output declined pretty steadily. As a left-handed batter, he wouldn’t need much good fortune in order to exceed expectations. But he also made some gains which suggest that he began to establish a new baseline performance level. The magnitudes of those gains should be pretty telling.

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