Bearish On Alex Gordon
In light of his very nice contract extension, which Brandon Warne covered extensively earlier this week, I figured giving my thoughts on Alex Gordon would be timely.
Gordon was a fantasy MVP for many teams last year. If you took a flier on him in your draft last season, you were rewarded greatly as almost nobody expected the type of season he had. Everyone understood that Gordon was talented, but a .300 average along with 23 homers and 17 steals was surprising to even the biggest Gordon optimists. He put it together, much like his fellow outfielders Melky Cabrera and Jeff Francoeur did, for the first time in his career.
I like Gordon as a player, but I am bearish on him for fantasy this year. I never like to draft players coming off career years. This goes for Jacoby Ellsbury, Curtis Granderson, and Ian Kennedy as well. I simply do not like paying a high price for last year’s numbers when there is little reason to expect duplicated success.
When looking deeper into Gordon’s numbers, the first thing everyone sees is the enormous BABIP. Even though his BABIP was .358, he did record an xBABIP of .331. Not all of his average was luck, but his expected slash line, meaning his slash line if his BABIP matched his xBABIP, is then just .283/.359/.474. Those are still very good numbers, but the drop in average is pretty significant for fantasy purposes.
The next part of Gordon’s game I worry about is the stolen bases. This was by far the most surprising part of his game, as he stole 17 bases after going 1-6 in stolen base attempts the previous year. Gordon was usually a better base runner than he was in 2010, as he had 14 steals and was caught just two times from 2008-2009 in the Majors. Even last year, the 17 stolen bases came with eight caught stealings, which is worrisome for future stolen base totals. A rate of 68% is not bad, but it is not optimal either. I expect his total to drop this year, at least somewhat.
My last worry about Gordon is his home run total. I am not as worried about his home run total as I am about his average or steals, but there is reason to believe that he may have reached his homer upside last season. He plays in a poor park for left-handed home runs, rating just a 71 on Stat Corner. The poor rate combined with the fact that he had his highest home run per fly ball rate of his career leaves at least some cause for concern that he is more of a 17-20 home run guy than 22-23.
I think Gordon is a very good player and that the extension he signed made sense for both parties. I am glad that he got his career back on track and I would take him on my team if he fell to me in a draft or if an owner of him was even more bearish on him than I am. I just have not found myself targeting Gordon this year and I am skeptical that his 2011 season was as real as we all want it to be.
Ben has been at RotoGraphs since 2012 and focuses most of his fantasy baseball attention toward dynasty and keeper leagues.
Hater in the building. Gordon goes 25/25 this year. Just watch. #ibn
I haven’t found Alex Gordon’s price to be overly inflated. I wonder if his middling past (especially when considering how touted he was as an amateur/prospect) is the primary driver there. Anyhoo, I like Gordon a lot this year in just about all formats.
Agreed. I think there’s reason to be bearish on Gordon but still like him in drafts. I think he’s someone–along with Melky–who alot of people are actively avoiding because of all the reasons mentioned in this article. As an example, I just got him with pick 75 in a recent draft, a full round after his ADP and after guys like Desmond Jennings, Carl Crawford, Adam Jones, Shane Victorino and Nelson Cruz–all guys ranked behind him in the RotoGraphs consensus ranking. I’m not expecting Gordon to repeat his 2011, but if he provides just 80-90% of that production he’ll have been worth the draft slot imo.
Completely agree. Maybe it’s just in the leagues I play in, but I think everyone looks at his huge BABIP #s last year and feels like he’s destined for a big decline. He’s the opposite of a sleeper.
Even assuming something like 270/18/12, Gordon is going for far less than comparable OFs. Jayson Werth (who carries his own ???) recently went for $20+ in an auction where Gordon went for $12. That seems consistent with what I’ve seen generally.
The BABIP scares me for sure. He slipped a little in one of my leagues and was staring me in the face as the obvious best value selection, and I took him. I don’t feel great about doing so, and would feel better about it if he were hitting in the two hole instead of leadoff. I’m hoping the extra runs provided from Gordo in the leadoff spot will help to balance out the loss of RBI.
Just because a player won’t do as well as last year doesn’t mean he is being overvalued in drafts. E.g. I see Ellsbury’s ADP anticipating something like .290/19/40 with 170 R+RBI. That seems achievable to me. He doesn’t have to repeat last season to earn his draft position.
I think based on his ADP, Gordon is being valued for .275-.280, 20 HR and 14 SB, which is consistent with your own projections. I think there are generally better options around him at his ADP, but that doesn’t mean he’s a terrible pick.
I kept him for $3. Call me bullish on him for that price.
This is a very unconvincing article.
If the crux of it is that his elite xbabip indicated that his previous babip should have been a bit less elite (although still fantastic), I think I can still find room on my roster for him.
I mean, production for these guys can swing by 40% year by year – not even counting injuries – and people are “discovering” slight nuances in the previous year as an indicator. Not since financial rating agencies used historical data to value subprime CDOs with absolute (historical) precision has a group of brilliant people so clearly missed the point.
Gordon’s price seems fine. After the first 20 or so hitters are off of the board, everybody’s got questions about something. Gordon was once upon a time the next big fantasy star, so why not take a chance? It seems like the only real outlier was the average, but he did hit a ton of line-drives, so that explains a good deal of it.
At the prices/draft positions I’ve seen him go, the only way he’s a bad value is if he does something like 250/15/10, which seems more unlikely than him repeating/improving his #s from last year. A decline is being built into Gordon’s valuations, but I think he’s actually a good value.
Another reason Gordon is overvalued: Gordon will be batting leadoff this year and it will reduce his RBI opps. Remember last year he batted 1/3 of the games in the 3 hole, which is a much better spot in the lineup for fantasy couning stats. He won’t reclaim the 3 hole from Hosmer this year unless Hoz slumps badly. He also set a career high in games(151) and ABs(611). Don’t buy at the career year prices.
This comment made no sense.
Yes, batting leadoff means fewer RBI chances. And yes, Gordon set a career high in games and ABs. But unless I’m missing something, Gordon will get MORE PAs batting leadoff, which should increase his non-RBI counting stats. And given that leadoff hitters typically are expected to run more, presumably we would see Gordon with more SB attempts.
Yes, BABIP should decline, and yes, it’s certainly possible that power and SB success may drop as well. But batting first is not at all a reason to avoid him.
The leadoff spot isn’t a big problem in my eyes for the reasons Dkmin identified. Add in the fact that both Cain and Bourgeois fit the role better than Gordon I think there is a good chance he is moved to a more prime RBI slot at some point this season.
I don’t like where he is going either but apparently he has gone higher in my leagues than others in this thread. I’d generally rather have the 4 or 5 OF that go after him rather than him in my experience.
There are probably 4-5 outfielders I’d rather have later as well, but there aren’t 20 outfielders I’d rather have later. He may be overvalued slightly but he’s definitely not overvalued wildly.
I don’t see any real reason why Gordon can’t put up Choo-like numbers for the next 5-6 years. He has one of the best hitting coaches in the business, knows how to take pitches, and will chip in with decent HR and SB totals. Even a slight regression makes him a top-15 OF.
In lieu of? Probably should be ‘In light of’
/editor
Are that many people really saying, or drafting as if, he’s going to repeat or improve on last year’s stats? Dude was like a top twenty player last year, and I think you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone advocating that he be taken in the top two or three rounds.
Y’all need to check out his avg home run distance last year. Was leading the league for a long time and ultimately placed top 3-5 I believe. He hit a huge number of balls off the wall in KC. He either hit the damn wall or drove it 20 plus feet beyond … 25 HR power for sure.
It occurs to me you are not factoring in his lineup position onto his counting stats. He is leading off full time this season. This is a 700PA hitter this year and hypothetically any of the losses in regressions in power could be totally offset by sheer force of opportunity. Conversely if last year is the new baseline, the additional PAs could turn gordon into a monster.
Nice call buddy! You nailed it, unlike most of the comments here.