Breaking from Projections: 3 Ottoneu Players to Buy

Last time, I suggested three players who I would sell or cut in Ottoneu, despite seemingly having surplus. Today, we’ll look at three players who I would buy or keep, despite projections telling me they are over-priced.

Like last time, when I talk about a player’s surplus, I am talking about value minus cost where:

• Value = The value provided in Justin Vibber’s surplus calculator, which is based on Depth Charts projections
• Cost = average salaries across Ottoneu leagues
• Value and Cost are based on numbers captured on 1/25 – these may have moved a bit since that date, but probably not much

Anthony Rendon

Simply put, I think the projections on Rendon are way too low.

Other projections are much better, but still a far cry from what he has done. I just don’t think Rendon is about to fall off that aggressively. Jose Ramirez projects to be more than a $40 player with a .376 wOBA projection, which is still lower than what THE BAT or ATC project for Rendon.

How low is that .368 projection from Depth Charts? Between 2019 and 2020, Rendon’s 45-game rolling wOBA fell under .368 for one day – on September 4, 2020, it dropped to .365. I would be very happy to buy or keep a Rendon at his average values and perhaps even above those prices.

Austin Meadows

Call this one the COVID effect. In a season that was a small sample size for everyone, it was even smaller and even less easy to interpret for Meadows. Thanks to a case of COVID before the season started, Meadows played only 36 games with 152 PA. He also never seemed right this year, and given what we know about the effects of COVID, it’s hard to not just sort of ignore his 2020.

But the projection systems don’t, as far as I know, account for COVID, so they are not going to ignore his 2020, and it shows. One year off posting a .380 wOBA in 2019, Meadows was at an abysmal .292 in 2020, and Depth Charts has him pegged for .327 in 2021, hence the low projected value.

He’s paid, on average, like a $15 OF. Outfielders projected around $15 in FanGraphs points leagues include Teoscar Hernandez ($15.40, .334 wOBA), Nick Castellanos ($15.10,.334 wOBA), and Alex Verdugo ($14.70, .343 wOBA). Meadows bouncing back to a .350 or even .360 wOBA would not surprise me at all, and would easily surpass his average salary.

Clayton Kershaw

Like Rendon, Kershaw seems to be taking a beating from Steamer and ZiPS that I just don’t buy. It looks to me like this is an aging curve issue. Depth Charts projections suggest he’ll have a K/9 below 9.5 for just the second time since 2013. His projected BB/9 (1.98) would be his second-worst since 2013. The projected 1.31 HR/9 would be only the second time in his career he has been over 1.3. He projects for a 3.50 ERA (his 2019 3.03 is the only time he has been over 3.00 since his rookie year) and a 3.71 FIP (his 2019 3.86 is the only time he has been over 3.50 since his rookie year).

Kershaw turns 33 in March and time is, of course, undefeated, but I don’t really see much reason to think age is going to catch up with Kershaw right now. His fastball velocity ticked up last year and while I suspect that was helped by the shortened season, it doesn’t suggest he’s about to fall apart. He got a career-high ground ball rate last year, supported by his lowest average launch angle in the Statcast era.

It’s not all good news – his barrel and hard-hit rates were up (though his average and max exit velocities allowed were down), and given the small sample size, it is hard to know how much to read into any of that.

For me, Kershaw is Kershaw until he is not Kershaw, and so far he still looks like Kershaw. I suspect projections will be down on him every year from here on out, until one day he ages out of the elite tier of SP. But right now, I think those average salaries are still very good prices on one of the best pitchers I have ever seen.