The stats of the 8th hitter in the National League can be deceiving because of the pitcher hitting after them. Teams pitch around the 8th hitter. They are not allowed to make an out with the pitcher hitting, so are rarely given the green light to steal a base. I have gone through and looked at how the stats of the 8th hitter change when they are moved to another position in the lineup. Read the rest of this entry »
As usual on Mondays, I will look at a few players coming off the DL that are owned in less than 50% of ESPN’s leagues.
Rajai Davis (hamstring, 37% owned): In Toronto, center fielders Colby Rasmus (wrist, 69% owned) and Davis are both on the DL right now. They should come off the DL in a couple weeks.
Toronto will play Rasmus regularly if he is available, limiting Davis’ value. Besides not getting regular playing time, Davis is coming off a hamstring injury. Toronto may have him take it easy for the rest of the year, thereby limiting his steals. In the mean time, Mike McCoy is getting the starts in CF.
Justin Smoak (nose, 19%): Justin looks to take back the Mariner’s 1B position from Mike Carp’s when he returns in around 2 weeks. Smoak’s fantasy value is being driven down by his his 20.7% K%. The K%, to go along with his low BABIP (0.253), is putting his AVG (0.231) under attack. With a below average AVG and league average home run ability (10.2 HR/FB), he will not cut it as a MLB 1B. He doesn’t look like a league keeper and hopefully your team has found a better solution for 2011 at 1B.
J.D. Drew (shoulder, 2%): Drew has played the most games in RF for the Red Sox this season. He is currently in the minors rehabbing and looks to join the Red Sox on Thursday when the rosters expand. I have not been able to find Boston’s plans for him, but it looks like there is not an everyday position for him when he returns. Josh Reddick has 2 more home runs in 20 less PA than Drew. Also he has a 0.283 AVG vice Drew’s 0.219. If I have a DL position available, I may pick him up and see how the situation unravels once he returns. If he starts, keep him. If he is just a bench player, ditch him.
Freddy Garcia (finger, 18% owned) – Garcia is a nice play for a team desperate for a few extra Wins. Freddy comes off the DL tonight (Monday) against Baltimore. While his peripheral stats aren’t the greatest, he is a good enough pitcher to keep the Yankees in a game to pick up a few Wins.
Carlos Carrasco (elbow, 5% owned) – Carrasco looks to be coming back in a week or two. If the Indians are still in the playoff picture will determine if he pitches this season. If they are still breathing, he could be used for a couple of starts. If not, he will likely be shut down for the season.
Michael Morse is having his best season ever with 21 home runs and a 0.319 average. The 29 year old has filled in the void left at 1B when Adam Dunn signed with the White Sox this off season. I will look to see if his 2011 season can be duplicated in 2012.
Morse’s has hit as many home runs this season, 21, than in his previous 6 seasons. In his career, he has a 15.3% FR/FB ratio. This season it has increased a bit to 18.4%. In 2010, his average home run and fly ball distance was 300ft. In 2011 it has increased to 307ft.
Besides more fly balls becoming a home run, his OF FB% is up from 29.3% to 31.8%. Not much of a jump, but it is a jump. Morse’s home run increase seems sustainable into next season.
Batting average is the other stat that is making Michael valuable. His 0.319 AVG is 17 points higher then his career average of 0.302. The increase is not caused by more contact. His career K% is 21.1%. His 2011 value is 21.1%.
His BABIP this season is 0.367. This value seems high, but it isn’t that far off his career value is 0.355. Using slash12’s xBABIP formula, his 2011 xBABIP of 0.325 and his career xBABIP would be 0.326. Both of these values are below the actual values, but are still respectable. In 2010, he had a 0.330 BABIP and a 0.289 AVG to go with it.
For 2012, I could see his home run total between 20 and 30 and a 0.270 to 0.320 AVG. With those numbers, he should be drafted and started in all leagues. The stats are not ideal for a fantasy 1B in a shallow league, but Morse should be qualified in the OF in most leagues (27 LF starts this season). He will be a decent OF and can flex to 1B when an injury occurs or a player has a day off.
Michael Morse looks like he can keep up the 2011 production into 2012, with the possible exception of a drop in AVG. He adds great roster flexibility since he is qualified at 1B and OF. There is no reason to avoid him on draft day next year.
What to expect from Kelly Johnson in Toronto – Kelly has been a disappointment this season, mainly for his inability to make contact (27.4 K% vice a career 20.9 K%) and get a hit (0.257 BABIP vice a career 0.309 BABIP). He has been a nice source of home runs (18) and stolen bases (13) though.
Johnson’s home run ability should not take much of a hit since the LHH park factor for home runs is the same for each park (114). In Toronto, the park factors for singles, doubles and triples are all less than they were in Arizona. Rogers Centre will put another dent in Johnson already beat up season AVG.
I am not sure of Toronto’s plan for where he bats in the lineup so his value could be effected on where he finally ends up. He should see some more Runs + RBIs since Toronto’s offense averages 0.3 R/G more than Arizona’s offense. Finally in Toronto, he should be in the field everyday (which wasn’t happening recently in Arizona).
I see Johnson’s Runs and RBI’s up, HRs staying the same, while his AVG might even take more of hit because of the trade.
What to expect from Aaron Hill in Arizona – Hill, like Johnson, has had a disappointing 2011 season. A 0.225 AVG and 6 HRs are a let down from the 0.286 AVG and 36 HRs from just 2 years ago.
Looking at the stadium numbers, Hill’s home run potential will go down as he goes from a RHH HR PF of 116 in Toronto to 102 in Arizona. While his HR rate looks to take a hit, he should get a boost in his AVG because of the higher PF for singles, doubles and triples.
The chances for RBI’s and Runs will go down since Arizona doesn’t score as many runs as the Toronto offense.
Hill looks like he should get a chance to turn it around in Arizona, but the home park and his teammates look to limit his upside.
What to expect to from John McDonald in Arizona – McDonald’s value jumped the most from this trade. He looks to be the everyday SS in Arizona since Stephen Drew is out for the season. He will occur the same downgrades that Hill has because of the stadium and surrounding teammates. While he is not an offensive force, he should be getting playing time everyday and help an owner in a deep or NL only league with some counting stats.
Thanks to statcorner.com for the Park Factors
The following list is of the 2B that have had the largest changes in % owned at ESPN and the reasons behind the changes.
Risers
Darwin Barney (+25.1%) – I can not put a finger on one particular reason for the sudden jump in his ownership, but here are several ideas.
The following is a list of players on the DL that should be owned in keeper leagues in preparation for next season. These are players have no value for the 2011 season, but could be kept or used for trade bait for 2012.
Grady Sizemore (38% owned – Knee and Hernia ): It has be reported by the team that Sizemore is returning to the Indians in early September. He should then retake his position in CF from Kosuke Fukudome. He is no longer a threat to steal bases, 0 SB so far this season, but has been a decent source of power, 10 HR in 232 AB. He needs to be owned in all deeper and AL only leagues.
Alex Gordon has generally been seen as a disappoint since being called up to the majors. After spending a couple seasons bouncing to and from the majors and the minors, he is finally producing like he was somewhat expected to when he was drafted as the #2 overall pick out of Nebraska. Gordon’s break out this season isn’t really a breakout, he has always produced at this level in the majors.
Read the rest of this entry »
A few rookies called up recently, Jason Kipnis, Brett Lawrie and Johnny Giavotella, have made a splash in their short time in the majors so far. The following is a look at the areas of concern for each player going forward that may bring their hot starts back to earth.
Read the rest of this entry »
On Friday, I asked for our reader’s input on a few topics and here are some of the results. Thanks to everyone that filled out a survey (over 330 filled out) and hopefully we can use the information to better serve our readership:
5 categories for each pitching and hitting: 58%
Even with the expansion of other types of fantasy leagues, the basic 5×5 league is still the most common.
Types of Leagues
Roto 46%
H2H 50%
Other 4%
There was almost a 50%-50% split between head to head and roto. We may have not been giving the H2H format enough credit, so there may be more content on them in the future.
Average Number of Teams in a Mixed League:12.4
10 Team League: 24%
12 Team League: 43%
14 or more teams: 20%
Leagues are generally small in number with 2/3 of the leagues having between 10 to 12 teams. This fact leads us to our next bit of data:
% of leagues with a player over 50% owned in all leagues, but still available on the waiver wire: 75%
I have seen many comments on waiver wire articles that the players covered were not available in their leagues. These owners must be the vocal few and players over 50% owned may be popping up more in WW articles.
Percentage of leagues with 1,2, or 3 DL spots: 73%
The number of DL spots for leagues seems low. Long term DL stashing doesn’t seem like a viable option for many owners useless it is a top tier player.
Days for position qualification
1: 2.%
5: 39%
10: 39%
20: 5%
These number are fairly common.
Designate a difference between SP/RP: 77%
With the high number of H2H leagues and those that have SP/RP designations, we should write more articles on starting pitchers with RP qualifications.
Weekly Lineup changes: 24%
Daily Lineup changes: 74%
Mixed League: 89%
AL Only 6%: 6%
NL Only 4%: 4%
Nothing ground breaking with the 2 previous results.
Keeper League: 62%
This was probably the most surprising number out of the whole survey. Almost 2/3 of the leagues are keeper leagues. This off season we will look into more strategies/rankings for these leagues.
FAAB Budget: 20%
Reserve Roster: 30%
I am actually surprised that the numbers are this high for these two results. More future content may be coming on these two topics.
Auction League: 27%
Draft League: 70%
This seems about right with the ease of running a snake draft
Well that is all for today. I may cut and sort the data a little more, but the preceding is a nice snapshot of the current Rotographs readership. In the future we hope to direct more content for the types of leagues and rules readers use. Finally, thanks again for everyone that participated in the survey.
