It was a good year to be a Howie Kendrick owner. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim second baseman hit for a quality batting average (.293), as usual. That rate stat has kind of come to define him, though. The fact that he accumulated a career-high 617 plate appearances in 2014 is basically why he delighted fantasy baseball players as the sixth-most valuable man at the keystone sack. He belted only seven home runs and stole a modest 14 bases, but those sums and the playing time resulted in 85 runs scored and a career-high-tying 75 RBIs. Kendrick was, practically, an across-the-board money earner, and that was good enough for him to turn a tidy profit for his owners in most leagues.

Mixed-leagued earnings of nearly $20 and a spot in the top six at any position in a particular campaign don’t mean that a player is one of the best options at that position, of course. Kendrick’s 2014 value was a byproduct of auxiliary attrition coupled with his somewhat greater reliability than normal. The depth, perhaps growing, at second base should plant the Halos’ hard hitter right back into the mix of solid middle-infield options, as the RotoGraphs consensus pegged him this past March, next draft season. The 31-year-old has a tried and true skill set, but it’s limited and in decline.

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Episode 175

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

Zach Sanders and Nicholas Minnix talk end-of-season second basemen rankings, which went up on Monday, as well as what they think of 2015 prospects for some of those second basemen, including: Kolten Wong, Dee Gordon, Jose Altuve, Ben Zobrist, Rougned Odor, Jonathan Schoop, and Scooter Gennett. The analysts also break into some discussion about some general auction and draft strategy related to the position.

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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What will the fantasy baseball market look like for Jose Altuve in 2015? The Houston Astros’ second baseman, as a top-five commodity overall who wasn’t, on average, drafted as a top-five player at his position and barely within the top 100, according to Fantasy Pros’ ADP data, certainly helped some fantasy baseball players win this year. What did Zach Sanders know that all his haters in the comments didn’t?! It’s safe to say that Altuve has changed perception and will cost more next season.

There’ll also be folks who’ll avoid and/or recommend to avoid him because of the scary regression monster. Any player who hits .341 thanks to a .360 BABIP and steals 56 bases in 65 attempts after he finished his previous two seasons nowhere near those marks is due to fall hard, the reasoning might basically go. It’s a pretty simple and safe approach, since regression to mean performance is the smart bet.

But how much will his future performance actually regress? Altuve did some potentially significant things differently in 2014. It seems pretty plausible that he’s begun to establish an entirely new mean performance level. And if that’s true, then there might still be room to profit on a purchase of Altuve next year.

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The case of Jedd Gyorko, 2014, is a curious one. It’s an ugly one, too, with that .210 batting average and 10 home runs he put up in 443 plate appearances this past season. The San Diego Padres certainly hoped for more given that they signed him to a five-year contract extension, which came with a club option for 2020, in mid-April. Perhaps soon afterward, they began to regret it.

Is this past campaign more of a reflection of Gyorko’s true talent? His production (.249/.301/.444, with 23 home runs, in 525 PAs) in his rookie season more of a fluke? Will more or fewer of his prospective owners in rotisserie, head-to-head, and whatever other types of leagues view them that way? He may be a popular rebound candidate. But how popular?

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Episode 174

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

Eno Sarris and Nicholas Minnix talk end-of-season first basemen rankings, which went up last week, and what they think of the 2015 prospects for some first basemen, including: Steve Pearce, Chris Davis, Chris Carter, Lucas Duda, and Matt Adams. The analysts also break into some discussion about some general auction and draft strategy related to the position.

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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Mike Napoli didn’t have quite the campaign in 2014 fantasy baseball players hoped he would. But, given the mid-round price they paid in mixed leagues, they were clearly prepared for some downside. He batted .248 with a .370 OBP in 500 plate appearances, but it’s the 17 home runs (and largely resultant 55 RBIs) that were a bit disappointing and largely the reason he was basically a replacement-level asset in roto leagues this season.

There aren’t any glaring signs of an immediate rebound, either. Napoli will be 33 next year. He has a bad body type. He’s already dealt with various health issues for the past few seasons. He has platoon-split issues. He strikes out pretty frequently. If he isn’t going to hit 25 bombs, then he’s probably not going to be much good in the fake baseball game.

Perhaps there’s some salvageable value, though. Those negatives could drive down his cost significantly. Fantasy owners tend to steer clear of hitters like Napoli. Will he fall, and how much will he, if he does?

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Adrian Gonzalez was pretty fantasy baseball valuable this year. The Los Angeles Dodgers’ first baseman wasn’t, in the preseason, expected to be quite so fantasy baseball valuable. That made him a good deal. He was 11^th on the RotoGraphs consensus rankings list at first base coming into the 2014 campaign and finished as a top-five commodity after it.

A-Gon is kind of boring, to many fantasy baseball players. I recall conversations prior to the season in which folks basically said as much. He had the look of a reasonable consolation prize if you missed out on the sexier first basemen. A big reason was that he’d seemed to have lost the ability to contribute significant power production, which made the evaluation understandable, but which also seemed a little premature. Mike Podhorzer acknowledged that he had no notable explanations for his “bullish” ranking of Gonzalez but that folks just seemed to be undervaluing him, and Pod was right.

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Wilson Ramos did enough in 2014 to tease fantasy baseball players again. He batted .267/.299/.399, with 11 home runs, in 361 plate appearances (88 games). He missed time, of course, wasting little of it to achieve his first injury: a hamate bone fracture in his left wrist on opening day that required surgery. He didn’t do anything to inspire in his five weeks or so back from that absence before a mild hamstring strain sidelined him again. At least he sat out for only the minimum 15 days.

Not too long afterward, Ramos began to matter in rotisserie and head-to-head leagues again. He hit six of his round-trippers in August and totaled eight in 200 at-bats after the All-Star break. The Washington Nationals’ catcher wasn’t a money earner this season, according to Zach Sanders’ end-of-season catcher rankings, but he again gave rise to hope that next year will be the one in which he plays 130 games and thus delivers the kind of production his loyal buyers desire.

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Episode 173

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

RotoGraphs writer Zach Sanders and Nicholas Minnix discuss:

Alex Rios; Adam Wainwright; Yasiel Puig; Bryce Harper; Shelby Miller; and, right in Zach’s wheelhouse, the end-of-season catcher rankings, which went up at the beginning of this week.

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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The Oakland Athletics are undoubtedly quite pleased with the breakout at the plate of Derek Norris in 2014. He batted .270/.361/.403 in 442 plate appearances, posting obvious career bests in AVG and playing time, both of which proved useful to fantasy baseball players.

Two aspects of Norris’ production in his supposed breakthrough season seem to warn his owners not to get too far ahead of the backstop’s train, however. He hit 10 home runs, but eight of them came before the All-Star break, in only 28 more PAs than he accrued after the season’s faux midpoint. His uptick in PT could be traced to team need as well as some notable gains in his splits versus right-handed pitchers early in the year, especially in terms of strikeouts, something I chronicled in June, but that discipline against same-handed pitchers faded as the season wore on.

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