Author Archive: Jeff Zimmerman

It’s tough to get excited about this year’s batch of rookie pitchers. One reason is that most of the top arms (Reyes, Gohara, Buehler, Flaherty) have already debuted in the majors. Many of the other top-ranked arms have not pitched in double-A yet.

With this year’s class looking down, there always seems to be a few pitchers who come out of nowhere like Luis Castillo did last season. He wasn’t picked among the top 600 players in NFBC and now he near a top-100 pick. Jake Faria and Dinelson Lamet were a couple other arms who were off owner’s radars. It just takes a pitcher gaining a couple ticks on his fastball or developing a new pitch to shoot up in talent.

I found it best to be aggressive on this these mid-season call-ups. They may be getting promoted because they are ready. Investigate any recent scouting reports and don’t be afraid to roster them if they’re talented.

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With prospect week happening on the main website, I’m going to look at the hitting prospects ranked by their NFBC ADP (average draft position). This will be the batter’s value just in redraft leagues, not in keeper or dynasty leagues. I’ve included the player’s average, low, and high ADP values along with their Fangraphs prospect ranking.

Ronald Acuna (133 ADP, 88 min, 207 max, #2 prospect)

As the first rookie hitter off the board, his price is just a little too high for me considering the options available after him. He’s a talented ball player who is consistently ranked as either the #1 or #2 prospect in the game. He’s going to be good but how good in 2018 is the question. I have two reservations about him.

First, the no league has had a chance to adapt to his weaknesses and then have Acuna adapt back. Even pitchers found Mike Trout’s “weakness” and he had to adapt. Acuna will need to also. The question will be when the adaptation will occur and how long will it take. Will it happen in the minors and take a couple months? Or will happen in the big leagues and only be a week or two. This adjustment time could really frustrate owners.

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It’s tough to create a perfectly balanced team on draft or auction day. Owners are feeling the push-and-pull of trying to balance all five categories in a roto league. Mid-draft, many owners decide to drop a category with the hope of finding the needed stats on the waiver wire. Knowing which stats can be found can be tricky. By looking back at last season’s Tout Wars leagues, a decent idea of available stats can be determined.

One feature of the OnRoto.com fantasy league website computes the league’s final standings using just the drafted teams (nine pitchers, 14 position players). I took these draft values and compared them to the actual final values for each of the four roto leagues (12-team AL and NL-only and the two 15-team mixed leagues).

Some specific notes on these leagues. First, they are deeper than most leagues so every player who might be good is already owned. As for the timing of the mixed draft (the other three were auctions) happened a few weeks before the other three. Additionally, only the 23-man rosters were used used for the projected standings. Each team had an additional five or six-person bench.

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Alex Reyes was considered to be a top-5 prospect coming into the 2017 season. Then his elbow gave out and he eventually needed Tommy John surgery. He’s nearing completion of his recovery and the Cardinals are considering when he’ll return and his role.

Wanting to protect their top prospect as much as possible, the Cardinals have set a soft target of May 1 as a likely return date for Reyes. What hasn’t been so explicitly defined, though, is what role he’ll fill upon that return.

Long term, the Cardinals have every intention of using Reyes to anchor their rotation. MLB Pipeline recently ranked Reyes as the seventh-best right-handed pitching prospect, and he likely would have been higher on that list had he not just missed a full season.

But given the recovery process Reyes has undergone over these last 12 months, the Cardinals intend to be cautious in 2018. Their preference, as stated multiple times this offseason by president of baseball operations John Mozeliak, would be to have Reyes first come out of the bullpen.

For fantasy owners, they could take a chance on having an elite arm as a starter or reliever. With so many possible unknown outcomes, the following is a breakdown of 2018 value.

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With the ATC projection data is now available on the website, it’s time to examine where the auction values from the projections and the NFBC ADP disagree. For these comparisons, I used the normal NFBC league settings.

Carlos Correa (10th Hitter by his ADP, 19th by ATC values in auction calculator)

I did not expect to see him on this list but here he is. Correa’s going seven picks ahead of Francisco Lindor while Lindor has the better projection.

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Last week, I profiled Jose Quintana as a pitcher’s whose ADP and our auction value differed. In my analysis, I noticed that his swinging strike rate (SwStr%) and strikeout rate (K/9) didn’t move in tandem. Here are the pair plotted against each other.

And here are his historic values showing he doesn’t have a propensity to have a higher strikeout rate than his swinging strike rate suggests.

Quintana’s projections seemed based off his strikeout jump, not his swing-and-miss numbers. Steamer has him pegged for a 9.1 K/9 for 2018. Today, I’m going to look to see if just looking at strikeouts rates and not swing-and-miss totals is the correct procedure moving forward.

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As for now, I can’t find any find any predictability to year-to-year hitter consistency once adjusting for plate appearances. For the readers looking for a short article, stop now and move on to Paul’s thesis on starting pitchers. For the stubborn ones, here is what I’ve additionally found out after previously investigating the subject.

On Monday, I could not find any predictability for hitter being consistency. That is not entirely true, I did find that the more plate appearances a hitter accumulates, the more likely they are to reach their true talent level. And if given the opportunity to be closer to their talent level, the more consistent their output.

The one factor I thought might point to year-to-year consistent play in a player’s statistical profile. Are power hitters inconsistent because a few gusts of wind could make a difference in a half-dozen home runs? Do high-walk hitters see their stats as being more consistent since walks stabilize faster? Basically, are certain hitter types more consistent on a yearly basis.

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Whether I like it or not, I’ve opened Pandora’s box on year-to-year consistency. The concept states that if a hitter’s overall year-to-year production is consistent, the consistent production will continue. Therefore, good, consistent hitters should be valued more highly since owners know what they’ll be getting on draft day. The problem is that consistent overall production doesn’t lead to future consistency.

The discussion started last week when I wrote that Eric Hosmer and Edwin Encarnacion had similar fantasy values but Hosmer’s NFBC ADP (average draft position) was quite a bit lower. Reader’s stated in the comments they devalued Hosmer because of his year-to-year inconsistency.

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I’ll continue my look at players who our auction calculator and NFBC ADPs (average draft position) disagree on the most. Today, I will examine some top rated arms who have lower ADPs, Jose Quintana, Jeff Samardzija, and David Price than our Steamer projections may suggest. This trio has some common factors they share and some individual traits which could keep owners away.

These three starters really stood out on the rankings page with ADPs over 80 but supposedly top-20 starters. They each share these common traits.

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… they need Production. That’s it. If anyone says differently, they’re wrong. I’m tired of hearing owners say they want 35+ home runs from first base. It doesn’t matter where the production comes from. Owners don’t get extra points because the home run was from first base or from their shortstop. Home runs are just one category. Other hits, besides home runs, keep the AVG high and can also generate Runs, RBIs, and stolen base opportunities. Home runs don’t have monopoly on run scoring. Owners need to stop tying home runs (or any other stat) to a position and just pick the most productive players.

Today’s rant is being brought to everyone by my Twitter followers. Yesterday I asked them why Eric Hosmer was getting no love with his low NFBC ADP.

I have Eric Hosmer valued as the 28th or 32nd best hitter (z-score and SGP methods). His NFBC ADP is the 46th hitter off the board. Here are my theories for the difference. Which one do you believe is correct?

I have no idea.

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) January 23, 2018

The big winner is power from first base. I’ve never gotten this philosophy of targeting a single stat, like stolen bases or home runs, from a set position. This is especially true early in a draft. In the first 100 picks or so, all the players are average or better. Accumulate as many of these above average talents as possible and then fill in the voids. If the team needs stolen bases, find them now later. Or batting average. Or heaven forbid, home runs.

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