I got a simple request for a study, are good players (i.e early draft picks) more reliable for steals than worse hitters (picked later in drafts). Through my work with The Process, I’ve found around a .650 OPS to be the production level where players start heading to the bench/minors/waiver wire. The person remained persistent and asked for an expanded look so here it is.

One of the first items to understand is that any comparison of recent projected versus the actual stolen bases will be negative. From 2010 to 2019 (extent of my historic projections), stolen bases are down from 2959 to 2280 or a drop of 23%. And for this analysis, we are concentrating just on high stolen base guys. Here are the players projected for 20+ steals and those that reached that number in the past ten seasons.

The number of hitters projected for 20+ steals has been cut in half over the time frame. In a fifteen team league, a team is going to get one, maybe two hitters projected for and actually reaching 20 steals. So when aiming for steals, which players should be targeted?
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I’m like everyone else out there, grinding away from every little nugget to gain an edge. The following players I’ve heard something intriguing about during various podcasts or discussion. While I should trust the analysts, I don’t. I prefer to verify what they said and see if I’ll need to adjust my projections.

The Rockies Garrett Hampson reworked his swing in the second half of last season.

Hampson was a late-round darling in the previous draft season for those hoping to get some late steals. He did nothing until September when he went off with a .903 OPS and nine steals. Several people mentioned a swing change and a quick search later, I found out about the toe tap.

“I was thinking of way too much mechanically in the box this year,” Hampson said. “What (the toe tap) has allowed me to do is just be way more in rhythm with the pitcher and (get) started, and my hands and everything else are natural from there. I don’t think about what my hands are doing. There’s a lot of things that weren’t synching up with my leg kick, and now they seem to synch up more naturally.”
…
Beginning with that Aug. 25 game, Hampson has hit .344 (21-for-61) with a .397 on-base percentage and a .905 OPS in 22 games (16 starts). His 19 percent strikeout rate during this span is a marked improvement from earlier. And Hampson has two homers, six RBI, 10 runs scored – he scored 23 runs in his previous 74 games – and six stolen bases without being caught during this stretch. Indeed, with 11 stolen bases in 14 attempts, Hampson is the sixth Rockies rookie with at least 10 steals in a single season and the first since Eric Young Jr., in 2010.

So what did the top tap change in his profile Here is his season divided up into three sections with his demotion on May 12th is the first division and the August 25th game mentioned in the article being the second. Try to find a smoking gun.

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During the offseason, I caught up on the news every couple of weeks. The news is picking up so I’m going to have to now go weekly. This article is too long but I didn’t want to cut anything useful. Sorry for the length and I try to keep them shorter.

• Teoscar Hernández will start the season with full-time at-bats.

Even though he’s managed to improve there in each of his three seasons with the Jays, it seems likely Hernández’s ceiling as an outfielder will never be higher than below average. Still, his big second half of 2019 (142 wRC+), and the fact that his platoon splits were even over that span (144 wRC+ against left-handed pitching, 141 against right-handers), means that he should be playing every day — at least until he proves that was a mirage. In a perfect world, he’d do so at DH, but that would force one of Alford or Shaw to the bench against right-handers, which isn’t ideal.

• Mitch Haniger will be out six to eight weeks because of hernia surgery.

“He’s gone through his surgery and we think it was successful,” Dipoto said. “We’re just fingers crossed. We have no expectation on his timeline until we actually see him live [at Spring Training]. We’re not going to push him. Mitch will return at his own pace. Whether that is some time around Opening Day or sometime around the middle of the season, I have no idea. We’re going to see where it takes us.”

Haniger was expected to miss at least 6-8 weeks after feeling an issue in his core muscles while ramping up his hitting program two weeks ago in Menlo Park, Calif.

Dipoto indicated at that time that Haniger almost certainly would still be sidelined at the start of the regular season in late March, but he was less specific on Tuesday as the team edges closer to the start of Spring Training.

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Early this offseason, I determined that Mike Matheny doesn’t hate stolen bases, but could be a boost to the Royals stolen bases. At the time, I noted to check on Joe Maddon’s tendencies but never got to it. Then, my podcast mate, Rob Silver, basically begged me to run the same analysis for Dusty Baker. After that, one of my other team owners brought up Joe Girardi and Gabe Kapler. I was done talking to people before every manager needs to be analyzed on their stolen base tendencies. The following are the numbers on the four and the results were a little surprising.

To examine the managers’ tendencies, I compared how the baserunner’s tendencies changed with or without the manager in question. There were three groups of hitters to examine

1. The hitters who were on the manager’s team and then on a different one that same season.
2. Hitters who were on a different team the season before or after a season on the manager’s team.
3. The hitters who were on the manager’s team the season before or after his tenure started and ended.

Also, I combined all the values for an overall rate.

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Depending on league type and tendencies, there is a group of five pitchers who I have a problem differentiating their value. They are Chris Sale, Mike Clevinger, Jack Flaherty, Stephen Strasburg, and Shane Bieber. While the ideal spot would be to take the last of this group, not every owner will have that option. There will be instances where if an owner passes on one of this group, none will make it back to their next pick. I needed to dig in a bit to differentiate them.

The first elephants in the room to deal with are Walker Buehler and Blake Snell. I went through the following analysis and Beuhler came out a bit ahead of the ground and Snell a bit behind. I completely understand if someone wants to include them. All these pitchers are close but currently, they are easier for me to rank. I’m sure someone can’t wait to write a small essay in the comments on why I’m wrong. I can’t wait to ignore it.
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I’ve completed two 15-team, 50-player draft-and-hold leagues and started two more. While I feel I have a decent understanding of the player pool, after pick 500 I’m unfamiliar with many of the players being drafted. This series will rectify that for me and hopefully other owners can find it useful.

To find the names, I just started working my way down the NFBC ADP list until I said “Who?” As I found out diving into the players, I don’t know may of the young prospects. And backup catchers. And middle relievers. Besides the who players

James Karinchak
CLE
P
476 ADP

I missed those five great major league innings at the season’s end. While he’s always been able to strikeout about 1.5 batters per inning, his walk rate hovers around 6.0 BB/9. There is a chance he could close but I think he needs Brad Hand and Nick Wittgren to get hurt and/or suck. And also probably Oliver Perez and Emmanuel Clase. I’m going to pass.

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I don’t know for sure where I read or heard it, but an analyst mentioned they would never go near Luis Severino this season in drafts because of last season’s major shoulder injury. This claim is something I can investigate on the surface to see if anything sticks. Besides the numbers for shoulder injuries, I included the pitchers with elbow injuries.

For the analysis, I took the players who were on the IL for a shoulder or elbow injury in year one and then compared their next season projection and results. I had matching data going back to 2010 but didn’t use 2018 IL data because for some reason I didn’t clean up the last year’s data. Read the rest of this entry »

• Here is a loaded Tweet:

Dave Martinez revealed Friday the clearest picture yet of the Nats’ plans this year. They’re betting on Carter Kieboom at 3B and…
• Starlin Castro everyday 2B
• He thinks Zim reunion will happen
• Lineup shuffling could include Trea Turner hitting 3rdhttps://t.co/ziJg1M5s6d

— Sam Fortier (@Sam4TR) January 17, 2020

Starting with Turner, I think this gives him a bump in value. His Run-RBI mix will be closer to 1:1. Additionally, I compared all hitters projected for 30+ steals and how often they attempted steals from the first and third lineup spots in the same season. The drop was between one and two stolen bases. It’s a change but nothing to get too worked up about. The like 50 extra RBIs is a much bigger deal.

Also, with Starlin Castro at second and Carter Kieboom at third, Asdrúbal Cabrera’s fantasy value tanks.
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Since I’m starting drafts, I decided I needed projections for seven of the players signing from Asia, either new to the MLB or returning. I could just pull a ranking out of my ass, but I figured I should at least start with a projection before inserting my own biases. For the following projections, I averaged the ZiPS and Clay Davenport projections and then add my own playing time adjustment.

Pitchers

Pierce Johnson
From the NRB
Signed with the Padres

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