Today we will begin to roll out our preseason content in an effort to get you ready for all of your drafts. So that we can remain short and punchy yet also comprehensive, we’ve settled on a certain approach for these next few weeks.

We’re going to dedicate our time to attacking each position one by one. This week, we will cover catchers and first basemen. Those lumbering lumber-swingers will be our focus, and once we debut the combined RotoGraphs rankings, we’ll cover risers, fallers, divers, dippers, lungers and squatters.

In other words, each RG writer will take a different slant at the two positions. Some will talk about the old guys that are sliding down the rankings, others about young guys coming up. We’ll outline some $1 sleepers and some deep league options. We’ll handicap some position battles.

This way, you’ll get many different opinions about one position at a time and we’ll still be able to get you your rankings in time.

Let’s also take this moment to welcome Erik Hahmann (of DRaysBay), Justin Merry (of Basement-Dwellers), Michael Barr (of RotoHardball) and Howard Bender (of FantasyBaseballBuzz) to the RotoGraphs team. We’re excited about this year!

The upcoming season will be pretty exciting at RotoGraphs. We’re bringing on some new faces to mesh with the old and expanding our coverage. This post, however, is about what YOU want.

So, please use the comments section to tell us what you’d like to see more of at RotoGraphs. More in-depth pieces about single players? More rankings information? More mailbags? More work on leagues with different settings? More pro and con?

Less of any of this?

Let us know. We aim to please.

Derek Holland fell off of prospect lists in 2009 by pitching 138+ innings, but he’s still unproven and holds the excitement of unfulfilled potential. So far, the excuse has been the crowded house that has been the Rangers rotation, but this year, the Cliff-Lee-less front five could use a boost, especially from an exciting lefty with a power fastball and upside to boot. Could this be the year he finally busts out?

First, the rotation looks crowded again, but once you get past the top three, there are many question marks. Scott Feldman hasn’t put up a league-average FIP since his 41 1/3 relief innings in 2006, and Eric Hurley has 24 2/3 innings of poor major league work and much less potential on his resume. Brandon Webb is new in town, but given his injury situation, it’s not a stretch to say that a combination of Webb and Feldman might get the Rangers one more starter in total.

Which, of course, leaves a spot for Holland. Last year he was already above league average (4.02 FIP), so he’ll be a real-life boon to their rotation. His 8.48 K/9 is already impressive, and should he repeat the statistics he showed last year, he will be interesting in deeper leagues. How much can he do beyond?

Coming up through the minor league system, there was talk of Holland having a plus-plus fastball, but so far his linear weights on the pitch have been poor and his velocity has been closer to 92 than the mid-90s he showed. One thing that Holland could conceivably improve is his groundball rate. These things might even be related. Look at his heat maps for the fastball.

It looks like Holland tends to pitch up in the zone, which can lead to more fly balls. Fly balls in Texas are no good. It looks like this trend has held steady for Holland so far, which could mean that there’s something about his fastball that works better up in the zone, or that he’s entrenched. If not, he could add more groundballs with lower fastballs pretty easily.

Two other things bode well for Holland. So far, his walk rate in the majors (3.27) and last year (3.77) have only been okay. Not terrible, but okay. In the minor leagues, Holland routinely put up sub-three walk rates. If he can bring that walk rate back down, he could approach a three-to-one K/BB ratio, which is excellent.

The other piece of good news is that his changeup made progress last year, at least when judged by linear weights. It went from a strong negative to a scratch pitch. Given that he has a good fastball and slider, developing that changeup is tantamount to his success. He’s still throwing it 10% of the time, and if it’s a scratch-or-better pitch, then he’s got a strong mix – and he’s a lefty. That’s a combination that could lead to some fantasy success, so consider Holland late in your drafts when you are looking for upside for your bench in mixed leagues.

There’s a possibility that Tommy Hanson will be both over- and under-rated this year. There’s strong reasoning on both sides, but perhaps a recent tidbit of news can tip the scales in one direction.

Tommy Hanson is over-rated.
Though he’s now shown strong ERAs over the last two years, his xFIP has remained above four. He only gets ground balls at a league-average rate (41.2% career, 40% is about average), and yet somehow he has kept his home run rate below one per nine (.65 career HR/9).

This isn’t sustainable given the state of research on the subject, and is most likely an artifact of his home park. Except that he’s given up more home runs at home (.71 HR/9) than on the road (.59 HR/9). Still, he doesn’t show Matt Cain’s insane ability to rack up infield flies, and his deflated home run rate is almost all due to a tiny HR/FB rate (6.2% career). That number is closer to 10% across baseball, and he’s likely to give up more home runs in the future.

And, with a strikeout rate that is mostly meh (7.87 K/9), those home runs will hurt.

Tommy Hanson is underrated.
It’s funny that you should mention that strikeout rate, actually. Recent work at Beyond the Box Score showed that his strikeout rates fell late last year (5.17 and 5.84 K/9 in August and September, respectively, down from above one per inning across the rest of the year) – and then linked the fall in strikeout rates to his declining velocity. Though Mr. Apostoleris has some excellent graphs of his own, we can see that the FanGraphs’ pitch f/x charts show that Hanson has had this problem both years.

So, like many young pitchers before him, Hanson has had some issues with stamina in his short career to date. RotoWorld (quoting the Atlanta Journal and Constitution) provides us with a nugget of hope in this regard:

Tommy Hanson-S-Braves Feb. 1 – 9:33 am et
Tommy Hanson gained 10 pounds of muscle this offseason.
Hanson worked out at the Boras Sports Training Institute all winter with a team of trainers. “I felt like I did everything possible to get ready for the season,” he said Monday. “That gives me maybe a mental edge.” The 24-year-old finished with a cool 3.33 ERA and 1.17 WHIP over 34 starts last season for the Braves. He struck out 173 batters in 202 2/3 innings.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It’s bordering on a “Best Shape of His Life” update, but this one has concrete information. He gained 10 pounds of muscle, and perhaps that will help him retain velocity deep into the season. More velocity means more whiffs, which will allow him to mitigate the damage any added home runs might put on his ledger.

Conclusion.
Both the fans and Bil James project Hanson to improve his strikeout rate (8.51 K/9 for James, 8.42 for the fans) while putting up the worst home run rate of his career (.74 and .75 HR/9 respectively). Because his control is solid (2.78 BB/9 career), he will surely be a good pitcher next year.

In order for Hanson to be truly elite, though, he’ll have to show a strikeout rate closer to his minor league rate (10.7 K/9 carer MiLB), or at least over one per inning. Call me an optimist, but beefing up in order to maintain his early-season strikeout rates late into the summer seems like a good way to start. Call him “well-rated but with upside” if you need a moniker.

We’ve seen the move enough over the last two years that the math is clear: Struggling young fly-ball pitcher from a tough American League division + trade to Arizona = Fantasy relevance! So will that math magic work for Armando Galarraga?

Not so fast. The first difference is immediately obvious upon looking at the player cards of the respective trio. Galarraga has a career 5.7 strikeout rate with a peak of 6.35 in 2008 – Dan Hudson showed a 6.75 K/9 in Chicago and was consistently over one per inning in the minor league leagues, and Ian Kennedy had a 6.49 K/9 in New York and also had a strikeout rate over one per inning in the minors.

But, say you believe in Galarraga’s peak strikeout rate despite its precipitous drop (to 4.61 K/9 last year), there’s still the matter of his ground-ball rate. All of the three are fly-ballers (not fly ballers), but here Galarraga (40.4% ground balls career) comes out (incredibly) ahead of the pack when compared to Hudson (34.2% ground balls career) and Kennedy (36.9% ground balls career). So… he strikes out a few less but gets a few more grounders, maybe he should be included in the trio as interesting late-round picks in upcoming drafts?

Thta’s still a negative, Ghostrider. It’s a matter of age and proximity to their minor league records. When Hudson made the leap to Arizona, he’d only accrued 34 1/3 major-league innings and 23 years on this earth – Kennedy 59 2/3 and 25 respectively. Galarraga is 28 years old and has pitched 475 1/3 major league innings. He’s no lapsed prospect that hasn’t gotten the chance to perform – he’s a journeyman just trying to hang on.

The bounce back won’t look like Hudson’s or Kennedy’s for Galarraga, who has pitched to a 5.17 FIP over his career, but could it look okay anyway? Take his career strikeout rate (5.7), strikeout-to-walk ratio (1.62) and ground-ball rate (40.4%) and look for comparative qualified starters in the National League last year, and it’s not pretty. Being as good as Randy Wolf (5.93 K/9, 1.63 K/BB, 39.4% GB) and his 4.17 ERA (4.85 FIP) would be a success story for Galarraga. Other close comps are Dave Bush (5.52 K/9, 1.64 K/BB, 39.5% GB, 4.54 ERA, 5.13 FIP) and Rodrigo Lopez (5.22 K/9, 2.07 K/BB, 37.6% GB, 5.00 ERA, 5.21 FIP) so he’s not in happy territory.

Galarraga may take the fifth starter role in Arizona next year, and he may pitch better than his terrible 2010 season (imPerfect game notwithstanding), and he may even have some superficial similarities to other AL starters that have made the same move recently – all of these things may be true, but he’s still probably not a good pick in your next draft.

It looks like the Rays are close to an agreement with Johnny Damon. While the move isn’t a front-line kind of thing, there are some slight positives that might make the player interesting in most fantasy leagues. As with the player, though, each possible reason for optimism comes with huge asterisks.

Though he isn’t the most powerful outfielder, Damon’s .130 ISO last year was a precipitous drop from his .207 the year before and was slightly below his near-league average .149 career ISO. The difference meant he didn’t hit double-digit home runs for the first time since 2001. We shouldn’t overstate the case for his new home park, though, as they treat left-handers virtually identically. Left-handers enjoyed a 90 park factor for home runs in Detroit, and an 89 in Tampa – but his overall offense may fare a tiny bit better, as lefty wOBAs are suppressed by four percent in Detroit, and three in Tampa. A few more doubles would treat his batting average better, at least.

Now, the lineup around him also provides some reason for optimism. The Rays scored 51 more runs than the Tigers last year. An increase around 7% to Damon’s runs and RBI would have been welcome, since he also failed to score 90 for the first time since 1998. But this possible positive is also mitigated by a negative. The Rays’ lineup famously lost Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena over the offseason. Even without “chicken littling” the Rays’ chances to be competitive in 2010, it seems the two offenses may be closer together this season.

Last, we come to Damon’s speed. He hasn’t been a true speed daemon since the early aughts, and he only lost one stolen base off of 2009’s total, but his speed score has stayed above average (5.7 last year, 5.0 is average). He’s also stolen 23 bases in the last two years, against only one caught stealing. Here, the lineup effect may actually be somewhat significant – the Rays stole a league-leading 172 bases last year, the tigers only 69. It’s not too much of a stretch to expect a few more stolen bases next year.

All in all, the effect will be muted by the mere fact that Damon is another year older and should decline some accordingly. That isn’t to say, however, that he might not hit few more doubles, cross the plate a couple more times, and steal a handful more bases. The underlying true talent could decline, and yet his fantasy stats could see an uptick. If Damon hits .280 with a .360 OBP, double-digit home runs and twenty stolen bases, would he be useful in your league?

A bunch of recent minor signings and news items probably don’t deserve full posts but might be relevant in deeper leagues. Let’s clear them out!

Jose Arredondo is healthy
Arredondo is finally good to go after a two-year battle with his elbow. You might wonder who this dude is, but remember his excellent 2008 with the Angels (3.10 FIP), when he was good enough to close for most teams. And then remember how bad Francisco Cordero is (4.53 xFIP last year), and you’ll know that Arredondo may just vulture a save or two this year. Sure, Aroldis Chapman is starting in the pen, too, and is in line in front of Arredondo, but he’s also got the ability to start. File this name away, at the very worst he may be useful in deeper leagues that use holds.

Shane Victorino was called out by Charlie Manuel
While Manuel may not be right to call out his player publicly, the fact that he mentioned that Victorino was swinging for the fences too often was interesting. Victorino had the worst BABIP of his career last year, and the highest fly-ball rate. These things are related, since the BABIP on fly balls is poor. Give Victorino a few home runs less and push his batting average a few ticks higher if he’s listening to his manager. Either way, he’s a decent bounce-back pick, and always shows a little power and a good amount of speed. Under-rated if you ask me.

Chien-Ming Wang to be ready for spring training
He hasn’t been useful for anything other than Wang jokes since about 2007 (or 2008 if you want to be generous), but Wang says his shoulder feels good and that he’d like to compete for a role in the rotation in spring training. Carlos Silva had some similar statistics and came to the weaker league and performed well – this Wang may not be done Chunging yet. Don’t forget about him in your deeper leagues, even if his lack of strikeouts makes his upside a little less palatable.

Earlier in the week we showed that you can still get a comparative advantage over your fellow drafters by drafting an elite catcher that will rack up 10-12% more plate appearances than other catchers. But that’s only half the picture – what the catchers do with their plate appearances is the rest of the picture. If you can’t get too much of a comparative advantage in terms of the other statistics, the plate appearances won’t matter much.

In order to do that, we’ll take a look at some of the projections for catchers that should go early and catchers that go later. We’ll use draft picks from the Stupidly Early Mock Draft over at RotoHardball.com to approximate ADP (but there’s more help coming from RG when it comes to rankings and mocks, don’t worry).

First, let’s just take the Bill James projections for the top 12 catchers, grouped not in tiers, but just in groups of four. These jerry-rigged tiers will allow us to compare the top, middle, and bottom catchers without too much discussion about getting them into the correct tiers. A straight average of the groups should put this into focus.

2.10 Joe Mauer .338 BA, 15 HR, 3 SB, 93 R, 87 RBI
4.1 Brian McCann .280 BA, 24 HR, 4 SB, 68 R, 94 RBI
4.2 Victor Martinez .298 BA, 19 HR, 1 SB, 69 R, 88 RBI
4.3 Buster Posey .308 BA, 21 HR, 1 SB, 74 R, 83 RBI

Top-“Tier” Average: .306 BA, 20 HR, 2 SB, 76 R, 88 RBI

7.5 Geovany Soto .276 BA, 20 HR, 0 SB, 56 R, 72 RBI
7.8 Carlos Santana .280 BA, 22 HR, 7 SB, 83 R, 91 RBI
9.4 Matt Wieters .288 BA, 16 HR, 0 SB, 55 R, 74 RBI
12.11 Mike Napoli .246 BA, 24 HR, 4 SB, 62 R, 66 RBI

Mid-“Tier” Average: .273 BA, 21 HR, 3 SB, 64 R, 76 RBI

14.6 Jorge Posada .260 BA, 16 HR, 2 SB, 49 R, 60 RBI
14.7 Miguel Montero .273 BA, 14 HR, 0 SB, 51 R, 58 RBI
15.9 Ryan Hanigan .281 BA, 5 HR, 0 SB, 39 R, 37 RBI
16.12 Kurt Suzuki .266 BA, 13 HR, 4 SB, 65 R, 73 RBI

Bottom-“Tier” Average: .270 BA, 12 HR, 1 SB, 51 R, 57 RBI

It looks like you get what you pay for, but the middle tier might get you the best value. The bottom tier looks pretty bad, but if you replace Hanigan with John Buck, whose projections are a little rosier (.248 BA, 17 HR, 0 SB, 47 R, 60 RBI), then your averages for the bottom tier look a little nicer – .262 BA, 15 HR, 53 R, 63 RBI.

While the top three in plate appearances will show a comparative advantage over the rest of the field, plate appearances can be hard to predict. Going by projected performance, it looks like the best plan may be to wait, but not wait too long.

Did you know that only seven catchers qualified for the major league batting title last year? 16 second basemen did, too, and they were the second-least represented group. The most amount of plate appearances accrued by a catcher was 584 by Joe Mauer. Centerfielders had the second-worst leader by PAs, and that was Denard Span with 705 plate appearances. No matter where you draft your catcher, you’ll be getting fewer opportunities to accrue counting stats from your catcher.

There are some nice catchers near the top of the rankings, and there is certainly some advantage to be gained by picking a stud at the position. The argument might go that you can rack up comparatively more plate appearances by getting one of the top six or seven guys, even if their absolute plate appearances don’t stack up against other positions. Well, we can test, this right?

When compared to the top 12 catchers by plate appearances alone, here are the comparative plate appearances that the top three catchers can provide, with 100 equaling the average for the top 12.

Joe Mauer = 115
Brian McCann = 111
Kurt Suzuki = 107

Let’s compare that to second basemen, who seem to have similar problems accruing plate appearances. The top three secondbase dudes by plate appearances:

Rickie Weeks = 114
Chone Figgins = 106
Robinson Cano = 105

Well, look at that – and I don’t mean the delicious irony that Rickie Weeks led second basemen in plate appearances. Good thing we went into this without preconceptions, because it looks like you can gain an advantage against your leaguemates by snatching up one of the catchers that comes to the plate regularly. It’s kind of crazy to think, but Jorge Posada, with his 451 plate appearances, came to the plate more often compared to his peers than Aaron Hill with his 580 plate appearances.

Of course, none of this factors in the actual projections for the catchers near the bottom of your rankings, a topic we’ll tackle later in the week.

The Nationals found their Adam Dunn replacement today, reportedly agreeing to a two-year deal with journeyman Adam LaRoche. Only 31, this will be his fifth team – so another new team for LaRoche and another Adam at first will make this transition seamless for both sides, right?

Er, not quite. Dunn had a lifetime ISO of .271 and a 16.3% career walk rate while LaRoche comes in at .216 and 9.2% in those two categories. That’s a lot of lost offense. It can be as obvious as looking at Dunn’s constant home run totals around 40, while LaRoche’s hover around 25. Old-school stats actually work in this case.

LaRoche has been passed around so often because, well, he’s so average. Since 2008, qualified first basemen have averaged a .219 ISO – LaRoche had a .216 ISO over that same time period. The same group of first basemen had a collective 21% strikeout rate. LaRoche has a 25% career strikeout rate. They walked 11.5% of the time, LaRoche 9.5% of the time. They averaged 25.9 home runs per season, LaRoche has hit exactly 25 in each of the last three seasons. LaRoche has had a 116 wRC+ over the last three years, which looks okay until you see that the average first baseman has had a 130 wRC+. In fact, since each part of the package is so close to average or just below, he hasn’t even been an average first baseman.

At 31, this isn’t likely to change, especially given LaRoche’s move from Arizona to Washington. Washington’s park has a 94 park factor for home runs by lefties, and a 108 factor for doubles. That seems fine, except that LaRoche played in a park that showed a 114 home run park factor and a 115 doubles factor for lefties last year… and showed the third-worst ISO of his career along with the second-worst batting average. The boost barely showed.

Doesn’t matter, we can pencil him in for a .270ish batting average and 25 home runs, right? After all, that describes most of his seasons despite the different home ballparks. Well, maybe, but the Nationals’ park will have the worst park factor for lefty home runs of all the parks he called home. 20 home runs is just as much a possibility as 25. If he pairs last seasons’ career-worst strikeout rate (30.7%) with a BABIP more in line with his career number (.330 last year, .315 career), he may have another year with a .260 batting average – or worse.

Now you’re looking at a possible .260/20 HR guy. In a recent set of projections, I had LaRoche around 30th, but that was before he signed with a team that could afford him regular at-bats, so the projection only had 416 at-bats. With 500+ at-bats, he could ‘zoom’ up the charts… to about 27th or so. Would you rather have LaRoche, or take a chance on someone like Brandon Allen or Matt LaPorta? Or, if you like veterans, LaRoche or Garret Jones or Luke Scott?

Looks like LaRoche is almost toast, in fantasy terms.