Bryce Harper finally did it. It was over five years ago when he was drafted #1 overall by the Nationals. This past season, the 22-year-old became the top fantasy player with one of the best seasons ever. He will not even be 25 next season, so the only direction he can is up, right? Actually, it’s better to tap the brakes on the Harper love, especially when it comes to his power.

Let’s start with a few facts on Harper everyone should know:

1. He is young.
2. He was probably the most hyped hitting prospect ever.
3. He had a great 2015 season.

In an early industry draft, Harper was taken #1 overall. Even with the above facts, I just can’t take him #1 for two reasons.

Reason #1: Mike Trout Read the rest of this entry »

• Not much injury news this past week. One note, I finished my annual review of the disabled list and it has been sent to the Hardball Times editors. Expect to see it run sometime in the next couple of weeks.

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I will continue to implement player grading on the scouting scales of 20-80. I will use Dan Farnsworth’s scale he discussed in this article.

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We have been a concentrating on our positional reviews here at RotoGraphs and have missed covering the fantasy ramifications of some offseason trades. It is time to catch up on the major players in each trade.

Arizona Diamondbacks traded RHP Jeremy Hellickson to Philadelphia Phillies for RHP Sam McWilliams

Jeremy Hellickson: The 29-year-old righty got a second lease on life with this trade. The Phillies will just start him every few days and live with the results. They really don’t have any other options.

I don’t see the move as a positive for Hellickson’s production. He is going from a one home run park to another so his heavy flyball nature will still generate home runs. The Phillies aren’t going to win a ton of games so he won’t get a bunch of wins. I see him as a matchup pitcher in NL-only or 20-team or deeper leagues.

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• Lance Lynn will miss all of the 2016 season after having Tommy John surgery.

General manager John Mozeliak, who detailed the team’s list of injuries and player surgeries two days after the Cards were eliminated from the postseason, did not disclose any concerns about Lynn’s health at that time. As it turns out, Lynn alerted the club to elbow discomfort more recently, saying he had pitched with it through much of the season.

The Cardinals sent him to Dr. David Altcheck, who confirmed the ligament tear. George Paletta, the Cards’ former medical director, then performed the surgery.

It is tough to determine when the injury happened, but he may have started the season with it. His injury indicators are all over the place. He started the season with a 1.5 mph drop in velocity, but also his best Zone% of the season.

Well, the 2016 season is already over for him and hopefully he will 100% ready for the 2017 season.

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Well, my pain may be your gain. For a future Hardball Times article I am working on, I needed to create some historic pitcher groundball rate (GB%) projections. I decided to go ahead and run the values for 2016 and make them publicly available.

Here is the basic background behind creating the projections.

• I used a three-year weighting of .7 for 2015, .2 for 2014 and .1 for 2013.
• The data was regressed some to a league average rate.
• I didn’t use any aging factors.
• The final r-squared from the projection to actual results is around .67.

With that small amount of background information, here are the projections.

I am pretty sure no one saw an eighth overall 3B ranking from the Giants Matt Duffy. Coming into 2015, he seemed to be a nice late piece in NL-only and deep leagues for the stolen bases and a decent average. The twelve home runs seemed to materialize out of nowhere. He was one of only twenty players with more than 10 HR, 10 SB, and greater than a .280 AVG in 2015. I get the feeling people don’t expect a repeat performance in 2016 and after looking over his performance I think his limited power is legit.

I will start with the easy projections, speed and batting average. The 25-year-old should be able to have a stolen base total in the low teens looking at his history.

Season: Combined SB
2012: 10
2013: 25
2014: 20
2015: 12

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• Curtis Granderson just had surgery to repair a torn ligament in his thumb.

Granderson underwent surgery this week at the Hospital for Special Surgery to repair a torn ligament in his left thumb, less than a week after swatting three home runs in World Series play.

Granderson, 34, injured his thumb sliding into a base in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. He wore a wrap on it for Game 4, vowing that it would not affect him for the World Series.

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Robinson Cano was a usually considered a first round pick for years until he signed with the Mariners. This past season, he came in as the 7th best 2B according to our end-of-season rankings. While not horrible finish, he was consistently in the top few for several seasons. After looking over Cano’s season, I think the 2015 results will be more of the same going forward.

Several factors have been limiting Cano’s potential since leaving the Yankees. Some under his control, some not. I will start with his drop in home runs. After peaking at 33 home runs in 2012, he has hit 14 and 21 the past two seasons. While he did have just an 11% HR/FB% in 2014, he put up a 16% value in 2015 which was 3rd highest career value. His 2015 Hard Hit% was at 32.4% was almost the same as a career 32.8%. Cano’s power doesn’t seem to be taking a nose dive. His power is down for one reason, fewer flyballs and the not spacious Safeco field.

Before signing with the Mariners, he had a career 31% FB%. In his two years with the Mariners, it is 25%. I think he has got it in his head that he can’t hit the ball out of Safeco, so he isn’t trying but should. He hasn’t been affected by the stadium with 21 HR hit in Seattle and 15 away. If I was going to look at one time for Cano to improve on in 2016, I would like to see him put a little more loft on the ball.

With the decline in home runs, he will have a lower number of Runs and RBI. The drop in home runs explains some of his drop in Runs and RBI, but the biggest cause has been the anemic Seattle offense. Here are Cano’s last R+RBI totals along with his team’s overall runs scored per game over the past 5 seasons.

Season: R/G, Run+RBI

2011: 5.35, 222
2012: 4.96, 197
2013: 4.01, 188
2014: 3.91, 159
2015: 4.05, 161

A drop of 60 R+RBI is huge while even the drop of 30 from 2013 is nothing to sneeze at. If Cano gets around 25 HR, the Mariners lack of hitting talent will limit his upside.

The final noticeable change was his drop in BB% from 9.2% in 2014 to 6.4%. The cause for the drop can be attributed to a drop in his intentional walk rate. Here are his overall walk rates and non-intention walk rates for the past four seasons.

2012: 8.8%, 7.4%
2013: 9.5% 7.4%
2014: 9.2%, 6.4%
2015: 6.4%, 5.7%
Career: 7.7%, 6.4%

For people worried about a declining plate discipline, don’t. His real walk rate is in line with his previous values. Those owners in OBP leagues, the drop may be permanent and taken into account.

For 2016, I think 2015 Cano is the floor. His AVG could increase after it was at his lowest level since 2008. His power could jump by hitting a few more home runs. Also, the Mariners offense could regress after scoring the 3rd lowest amount of runs in the AL last year. I am a small bit more optimistic that his Steamer projection (18 HR, 157 R+RBI, .285 AVG) with 20 HR, 165 R+RBI, a .300 AVG. I really see this past season as a floor and he could see quite a bit more upside.

• My major accomplishment this week was to get the 2015 disabled list information finalized for public use. Let know if any of the information is incorrect or missing.

• Edwin Encarnacion had hernia surgery as soon as the Blue Jays were out of the playoffs. Reports say he will be 100% for spring training.

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