Mock Draft Central is currently running mock drafts and I will look at how second basemen are being taken in those drafts. Besides the data Mock Draft Central provides, I have added in the approximate round the player would have been taken in a 12-team draft and the difference between the earliest and latest the player was drafted. First, here is a list of the second basemen with their draft stats:
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Mock Draft Central’s ADP (Average Draft Position) is created by getting the ADP from the last 14 days worth of drafts. Here is a look at some players that are getting drafted too low, in my opinion, from Mock Draft Central’s most recent rankings.
Johnny Giavotella (Rank: 406, ADP 317, Drafted 4.5%)
Johnny looks to be in the running for a prime batting order position, second, in the Royals above average lineup. Last season Melky Cabrera had a top 40 fantasy year from this spot. Johnny will get a long look to see if he is the answer at 2B for the Royals or do the Royals need to find someone else to fill that position. Look for him to be a nice sleeper.
Martinez torn his ACL on Tuesday and will likely be done for the season. The true nature of his injury, and therefore his return time, will not be known until he has surgery on his knee. He looks to be basically useless for the upcoming fantasy season. If a some owner has the option to drop him as a keeper, go ahead and let him go. There is no reason to keep a 34-year-old DH/C/1B for the entire season on the DL when some other player, that can contribute, could be kept. I could see him be drafted in all leagues and then stashed on the DL. With most fantasy teams, these DL spots will fill up with players that plan on returning rather quickly, so he may end up back on the waiver wire early in the season.
With the Yankees trading for Michael Pineda and signing Hiroki Kuroda this past weekend, the fantasy values of both A.J. Burnett and Phil Hughes took huge nose dives. While both did not even have decent 2011 seasons, they were looking to rebound in 2012. With the additional pitchers added, Hughes and Burnett should have little fantasy value to start the season.
CC Sabathia is entrenched as the ace of the staff. Ivan Nova should have one of the other spots in the rotation locked down. Pineda and Kuroda will have the final 2 spots since the Yankees inclined to show off their shiny new toys. Only one more spot is left to be filled. Even when one of the two wins the job, it will be just the 5th spot and likely skipped over a few times throughout the season. The other pitcher will probably be regulated to long relief. While both struggled last season, there are some positive signs for them this up coming season.
By signing with the Yankees, Hiroki Kuroda’s fantasy value took a huge hit. He has had a few good seasons with the Dodgers putting up numbers near 3.50 ERA, 7 K/9 and 2 BB/9 in the weaker league. The 37-year-old has not had much of a history of time on the disabled list, so he should be expected to throw the entire season.The Yankees get a good starter, but his overall fantasy stats will suffer for a few reasons. He will get a boost to his fantasy value from his teammates, but it will not be enough to offset the downside.
First, he is moving from the National League to the American League. There is probably not much difference in the leagues now in overall talent, but there is some. He will have to face a designated hitter every game instead of a pitcher, too. AL DH’s hit for a triple slash line of .266/.341/.430 while NL pitchers hit a staggering .142/.177/.184. He should expect to see his WHIP and ERA take a hit because of the DH. Besides the extra hits, DHs strikeout less than pitchers (18.1% vs. 32.5%) and walk more (9.7% vs 3.4%).
Other than the disadvantage of having to face a DH, most of the teams he will go against will be from the AL East because of the unbalanced schedule. On average in 2011, the other four teams in the AL East scored 4.7 R/G. In the NL West, Kuroda faced teams that averaged 4.05 R/G game. The competitive AL East could put a dent in his ERA. The dent will grow further by pitching his home games in New Yankee Stadium. It has a 108 batter’s park factor while Dodgers Stadium only has a batter’s park factor of 98. He should expect to see a 10% jump in run scored against him because of the new home park.
Not all is lost with the move to the Yankees. He will have the rest of the Yankee team to help him out. First, the Yankees are generally a good defensive team with with team UZR 20 points higher than the Dodgers in 2011. This will help limit some hits and runs. Second, the Yankee’s bullpen should give him enough support to keep any lead. Last season the Yankees’ bullpen had a 3.12 ERA while the Dodgers had an ERA of 3.92. Finally, the Yankees’ offense should be considered on of the league’s best by scoring 5.4 R/G. He will get good run support and a decent number of Wins.
In all, Kuroda should see a worse ERA and WHIP and some drop in strikeouts because of signing with the Yankees. He should see an increase in wins, but it will not be enough to offset the drop in the other three categories. Good move by the Yankees, bad move for Kuroda’s fantasy owners.
The higher the position a player is in a lineup, the better their fantasy stats will be at the end of the year. The player will get more PAs and therefore more opportunities for counting stats. Also, the team’s best players are grouped together at the top of the lineup and will create more RBI and Run chances. The key 5 spots for hitter to see a jump in their Runs and/or RBIs are the 1 to 5 spots. Today, I will look at 2 such battles on decent run scoring teams, the Royals and Reds.
Royals #2 Spot
Last season, Melky Cabrera thrived batting second for the Royals. He scored 102 times and had 87 RBIs on the league’s 10th highest scoring offense. This off season he was traded to the Giants, so the position has reopened for the Royals to fill.
Every fantasy owner looks for an edge over the competition. Using a hitter’s platoon splits versus right- and left-handed pitchers is one such method. When looking at these platoon splits, however, a fantasy owner needs to look a little further than just the basic splits to see if the difference is seen is with all pitchers or just relievers.
Historically, left-handed batters hit right-handed pitchers better and right-handed batters hit left-handed pitchers better (called the platoon advantage). With some players, the extent of the difference can be more or less than the league average. For hitters with extreme splits, it may be best to sit them and play someone else if they are up against a certain handed starting pitcher.
Today, let’s make some useful data available for reference on a couple of a subjects — park factors and pitcher batted ball data.
Extreme Park Factors
With Carlos Quentin getting traded to the Padres and the resulting discussion on how his power translates to San Diego, I decided to make available the most extreme park factors in the league. I used the handedness data available at Statcorner.com. I only looked at values that are 10% higher or lower than the league average. Also, I made available the factors that are the most relevant to fantasy baseball, Line Drives (major component of BABIP and AVG) and Home Runs. The park factors are for hitters with a value over 100 helping a hitter and a value below 100 hurting a hitter.
Here are the 2011 triple slash lines for 4 outfielders and the career split for another player:
0.262/0.309/0.423
0.264/0.323/0.393
0.262/0.336/0.429
0.271/0.327/0.438
0.263/0.312/0.509
All the players are similar. The first player went 14th over all in a recent Fangraphs Dynasty league draft and the others were taken at the following picks: 112th, 234th, 163rd, 62nd.
Jimmy Rollins inked a 3-year deal with the Phillies this weekend. Since he is staying with the Phillies, not much changed with his surroundings. The 33-year-old’s main issue is that he is fairly old for a SS and age is beginning to bring down his stats.