Beat the Shift Podcast – Hot Episode w/ Jason Collette

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April 28, 2023

The Hot episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Jason Collette

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Ariel is the 2019 FSWA Baseball Writer of the Year. Ariel is also the winner of the 2020 FSWA Baseball Article of the Year award. He is the creator of the ATC (Average Total Cost) Projection System. Ariel was ranked by FantasyPros as the #1 fantasy baseball expert in 2019. His ATC Projections were ranked as the #1 most accurate projection system over the past three years (2019-2021). Ariel also writes for CBS Sports, SportsLine, RotoBaller, and is the host of the Beat the Shift Podcast (@Beat_Shift_Pod). Ariel is a member of the inaugural Tout Wars Draft & Hold league, a member of the inaugural Mixed LABR Auction league and plays high stakes contests in the NFBC. Ariel is the 2020 Tout Wars Head to Head League Champion. Ariel Cohen is a fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) and the Society of Actuaries (SOA). He is a Vice President of Risk Management for a large international insurance and reinsurance company. Follow Ariel on Twitter at @ATCNY.

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Bobby MuellerMember since 2016
2 years ago

Ariel, I thought the discussion on the podcast about Jake McCarthy was interesting. When I look at his numbers, the most glaring thing on the page is his .349 BABIP in 2022 and his .160 BABIP this year. It looks like he was fortunate on balls in play last year and very unfortunate on balls in play this year.

Looking back, his expected stats were much worse than his actual stats in 2022:

.283 AVG, .249 xBA
.427 SLG, .357 xSLG
.337 wOBA, .298 xwOBA

His expected stats are much better than his actual stats this year (and even better than his expected stats last year):

.143 AVG, .251 xBA
.238 SLG, .380 xSLG
.217 wOBA, .315 xwOBA

In the pre-season, ATC (and other projections) had him in between his actual and expected wOBA from last year. ATC had him projected for a .321 wOBA with a .331 BABIP. That projected wOBA isn’t far off from this year’s .315 xwOBA, but his .160 BABIP has prevented him from coming close to that number.

If he had a .331 BABIP this year, like ATC projected, with all of his extra hits being singles, his rate stats would be .278/.350/.440.

On the podcast, you discussed the projections and the process of drafting Jake McCarthy to see if there’s anything we can learn from this situation. I think the massive difference in BABIP between 2022 and 2023 makes it difficult to say the process or projections were bad. No system or person could predict a .160 BABIP. If a half-dozen extra balls had dropped for singles this year, McCarthy would be in the ballpark of his pre-season ATC projection and wouldn’t even be a topic of discussion.

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TheUncool
2 years ago
Reply to  Bobby Mueller

Right. It just seems he must’ve been extremely unlucky for his 1st month this, especially considering his speed and GB rate/tendencies… and really, it’s only just 1 month.

I do think many were probably overrating him and expecting a bit too much of him leading to the fairly high ADP. I picked him up very cheaply in my moderatly deep, salary dynasty league late last year and was definitely surprised by the high ADP this preseason. I’m probably holding him (maybe for another month or two) to see if he bounces back to still help me as a contender — went and grabbed Jack Suwinski cheaply to replace him probably to platoon w/ Pederson most of the time… and yes, most of the rest of my lineup is either very solid or having what looks like real, significant breakouts…

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