Anthony Rizzo ended up as the #3 overall first baseman according to Zack Sanders end-of-season rankings. Looking over Rizzo’s stat line about everything lined up with expectations. The 31 home runs and .278 average are well within expectations. A few additions around him in the lineup boosted up his counting stats. The only change in his stat was a huge jump in stolen bases to 17. In his previous four seasons, he only had 16 stolen bases total. I am going to examine Rizzo today especially the chances of his stolen base total staying up.

Not Stolen Base Information

The 26-year-old’s stats were in line with expectations, if not a bit better. One item which improved was his 19% K% in 2014 (and it is near his career average) dropped to 15% in 2015. Rizzo went with the approach of swinging more (44.5% to 46.8%) and making more contact (79.7% to 83.1%). If a few more of these batted balls fall in play, he could push a .300 AVG.

I could even expect his Run and RBI total to increase as the rest of the Cubs grow and mature. The team’s wRC+ has gone from 81 in 2012 to 96 this season. The 2012 to 2014 teams averaged 609 runs a season with the 2015 squad scoring 689 runs. With Rizzo hitting in the middle of the lineup, he could easily top 100 Runs and 120 RBI.

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Yes, the 2016 projections are available thanks to Steamer. Well, they are kind of available. The projections’ playing times are all set to 600 PA for hitters, 200 IP for starters and 65 IP for relievers. There is no middle ground right now. The playing time estimates will be included from our depth charts once the postseason is over and the hot stove season is well under way.

I have gone ahead and included the Standard Gain Points value I calculated from the 2014 NFBC leagues from the 2014 season to give the players an overall rank. I will eventually get around to calculating the 2015 SGP values, but these numbers will give owners an initial estimate of the player’s value at the set playing time values.

Here are the hitters and pitchers tables and the values can be download with the link after both tables.

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• Well, I have taken the Tommy John surgery information Jon Roegele (mainly) and I (a small bit) and created a Tableau graph (full page view) out of the year-to-year values. I know it is simple, but it is the most common way I have seen the information.

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Stephen Vogt was a nice sleeper coming into 2015, especially since the Athletics stated they were going to use him as a regular catcher. He quickly got catcher eligibility in mid-April and his value jump some. His value skyrocketed in early May when he hit 5 home runs in nine days and was producing at a league leading level. This production didn’t continue and he saw quite a bit of drop off over the season’s second half. Going into 2016, Vogt’s projected production should probably be about the same as his overall 2015 production.

The 30-year-olf Vogt came into the season as a catcher play in deeper leagues without much major league experience. He seemed to perform decently in 287 PA in 2014 with 9 HR and a .279 AVG. He was mainly a platoon option but was looking at more playing time between catching and playing first base. Here are David Wiers preseason thoughts on Vogt.

Best used as a platoon player against right-handed pitchers, Vogt does offer value in that role. Don’t make the mistake of simply extrapolating and nearly doubling his 2014 counting production, but Vogt could be a sneaky pickup late in the draft or off of the waiver wire.

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This past season may end up going down as the year of the prospect. So many good rookies got their promotion to the majors like Kris Bryant, Carlos Correa, Noah Syndergaard, and Lance McCullers. It is time to look at finding the next batch of rookies. By using just a handful of minor league stats, I have created basic prospect rankings for 2016.

I have played around with prospect rankings for a while and just recently publish my 2015 ZOBRIST rankings which looked at older potential hitter breakouts. I have had some personal player rankings using just the player’s stats, but nothing worth publishing. Well, I finally took the few step forward by stealing some ideas from a couple of my fellow writers. First, I was able to add position values to the rankings after helping Carson Cistulli work on his minor league WAR values. The final piece came after reading a recent article by Tony Blengino at ESPN where he gives credit to the player’s age compared to the level’s average age.

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I will continue to implement player grading on the scouting scales of 20-80. I will use Kiley McDaniels scale he discussed in this article.

I will give a value for where I think the pitcher could currently fit in on the average team (CV=current value) and where they could end up (FV=future value). I am sure I will disagree with some grades from others, but I am only looking at one game.

Note: If I say a pitch moves 11-5, it is from the pitcher’s perspective.

Tyler Duffey (CV: 50/FV: 60+)
9/20/15 vs Angels

Game Thoughts
• On the surface, the 24-year-old righty looked to have just two pitches, fastball and curveball, but his manipulation of these two make him tougher to figure out.
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• I am really light on content today, but I am going to stick to my plan of publishing every Thursday no matter the news.

• Ruben Tejada is expected to be ready by spring training after having his leg broke.

The Mets announced Monday afternoon that infielder Ruben Tejada, injured on a slide into second base by the Dodgers’ Chase Utley in NLDS Game 2, won’t need surgery to fix the non-displaced fractured fibula in his right leg.

CBS MLB Insider Jon Heyman reports that Tejada instead will spend 6-8 weeks in a cast, and be ready for spring training in February.

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In a runaway win, the player with the most value from a single tool easily goes to Billy Hamilton and his 57 SB. He was completely useless otherwise for his fantasy owners with a .226 AVG (.274 OBP), 56 Runs, 28 RBI, and 4 HR in 114 games. Even with those horrible numbers, he ended up 88th (~7th rounder) in ESPN’s Player Rater ahead of Robinson Cano, Jason Kipnis, and Alex Rodriguez. Those 57 SB are gold though with teams now running less and less.

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• I completed going through the DL instances and looked for players who will likely be on the DL to start the 2016 season. If the return dates are March then April, there is a good chance the player will come back healthy, but they are close to being 100% yet. I am taking the conservative route and want to see them playing before I remove them from the list.

• Carlos Santana played through the 2015 season with a bad back.

Not once this season did Carlos Santana mention to reporters that he was bothered by a back issue that was plaguing his offensive production. A few hours before the Indians’ final game of the year on Sunday, the first baseman admitted that the ailment was a persistent problem.
…
Heading into Sunday’s action, Santana was sporting a .232/.358/.397 slash line to go along with 19 homers, 29 doubles, 72 runs, 85 RBIs and 107 walks. His overall showing was not far off his production from last year, though his home run total (27 in 2014) and slugging percentage (.427 in ’14) took a hit.

Historically, back injuries don’t linger too much into the next season. Since he is now only 1B eligible, his 2016 value is minimal.

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Well, it is that time when we look back to see how bad were our 2015 BOLD preseason predictions. Let me see if I can improve on last year’s three for 10 results.

Note: I will use the rating from ESPN and Yahoo! to determine the player’s ranking.

1. Mike Trout or Clayton Kershaw will not be the #1 ranked fantasy player for 2015.
Well, I started out fine. Kershaw came close by being the 3rd overall pitcher with Jake Arrieta and Zack Greinke ahead of him. Kershaw was his normal self, but Greinke and Arrieta had career seasons. Trout was a little further down the hitter rankings at #7. His biggest issue was an injured wrist which limited his production.

1 for 1

2. Pedro Alvarez will lead the National League in home runs.
Nope. He ended up tied for tenth in the NL with 27 home runs. The 27 was more than most people expected, but not #1. I should have stated HR/FB% in which he was #1 in the NL (and AL) with a min 400 PA. Alvarez needs to find his way to the American league where he can bat every day.

1 for 2

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