Rays traded Logan Forsythe to the Dodgers for Jose De Leon

After looking over several factors (e.g. league, park, etc.), the biggest change for Forsythe will be the players surrounding him and his lineup position. Currently, we have the Dodgers projected for 4.6 Runs per games while the Rays are at 4.3 Runs per game. A better offense equates to more plate appearances, Runs, and RBIs.

My one worry is lineup position. In the games he started last year, he always led off. Right now, RosterResource.com has him again leading off. If he struggles, the Dodgers have better lineup replacement options than the Rays did. His value could plummet if moves down, especially to the eighth spot.

As for De Leon’s value, the key will be how many innings he throws. With the Rays not really contending this season, he could spend quite a bit of time in the minors or be up in a couple of weeks. No one knows for sure.

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Outfield deserved two parts given its depth so we’re diving into part two today. There has been some shifting right around my cutoff point (50th OF) so keep in mind that I’m discussing their average draft slot at the time of writing. In fact, the first guy I’m mentioning today was actually at 52 when I did part one, but he has jumped up to 50.

Previous Editions:

• C/1B
• 2B/SS
• 3B
• OF Pt. 1

OUTFIELD

• Eric Thames (pick 212) returns from an obscenely successful run in Korea during which he averaged 40 HR and 20 SB a year with a .348/.463/.720 line including a 47 HR/40 SB/1.288 OPS season in 2015.
• Projections throughout the industry are very aggressive on Thames with his being the rare case where Fans are lowest on him, but even if he “only” reached their level (.264 AVG/24 HR/6 SB) it’d be a nice season and well worth his average draft cost, though a big spring will cause his price to surge.

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Just yesterday, I mentioned I was happy to get Michael Pineda in the 19th round in Lindy’s mock draft. I am not a believer he can quit getting hit around so hard and therefore lower his ERA near his FIP. I do though want the pitcher with a +9 K/9 and a walk rate under 3 BB/9.

Using NFBC average draft position data, Pineda’s is getting picked as the 230th player off the board but he has gone as early as 184th. A spread of 46 picks is about three to four rounds depending on league size. I created a simple spreadsheet to help an owner know the chances a player is still available at each of their picks thereby knowing when to wait on a player or immediately pick them up.

Merging an owner’s personal projections and the current ADP is probably one of the most important processes in a preparing for a draft. It takes some time (which I understand not everyone has) but it can give an owner a nice leg up on competition. These owners understand when they can get 5th round values in the 12th round.

In past articles, I demonstrated how to go through each round and use ADP to see which players may or may not be available. I would sort of gamble on when a player may go using the earliest and average pick. By setting up a spreadsheet to calculate the normal distribution using the draft pick data from NFBC.

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Quote of the day

“People tell me that, and I’m like, ‘Shut up.’ ” –Trea Turner when asked why he hits so many home runs and doesn’t bunt more.

Quick (Long) Look at Matt Andriese

Andriese intrigues me as a potential sleeper. Historically, he has never been a highly rated prospect when he was a third-round pick out of Clemson. Baseball America ranked him at the Padres 20th rated prospect (50 overall grade) in 2013 and in 2014 he was 15th in their system (50 grade again). Then the Rays traded for him where he fell off the prospect map. From his old Baseball America profiles, he was working on several pitches but nothing stood out. When Kiley McDaniel graded him in 2015, he graded him with future 45’s to 55’s but put his overall grade at 40. No one extolled his virtues when he was finally called up to the majors.

I first noticed him when his 3.30 pERA (ERA based on each pitch’s results) was quite a bit lower than his 4.37 ERA. The per pitch grade had him with a plus change (60 grade), average fastball and curve (50 grade), and below average cutter/slider (45 grade). Additionally, he showed plus-plus control with his 1.8 BB/9 which when combined with his pitch grades put him as a 55-grade (above average) pitcher. Examining his 2015 season, his pitches were graded the same except he was throwing a below average two-seamer and didn’t have as much control.

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Power often comes with punch outs. When homers aren’t tied to strikeouts, that’s usually the profile of an elite hitter. In 2016, only six players with more than 250 plate appearances recorded a Hard% north of 40% and a K% south of 20%. One of those six players, David Ortiz, is now retired. Joining Big Papi in that group of hitters was Josh Donaldson, Miguel Cabrera, Matt Carpenter, Jose Bautista and Kendrys Morales.

Using the NFBC ADP data, Donaldson and Cabrera require roughly a top-15 pick for their services with the former carrying an 11.16 ADP and the latter sitting at 15.58. Carpenter has an ADP of 70.58 and Bautista’s ADP is 118.16 after a down year. Lagging way behind this group is Morales with an ADP of 178.21, a minimum pick of 116 and a maximum pick of 213. Yes, Morales’ utility only eligibility at most fantasy sports sites is less than ideal and should be baked into his ADP, but it looks like there’s plenty of wiggle room for a profit. Read the rest of this entry »

As we continue our tour of the NFBC average draft data by position, I want to reiterate something I may have been unclear about early on: this isn’t a ranking list and as such, not every player will be mentioned. Additionally, every position header after these intros is a link to the ADP data of said position.

Previous Editions:

• C/1B
• 2B/SS
• 3B

OUTFIELD

I have to go two parts on outfield, it’s too robust. I’ll go first 50 today and then the rest in another piece.

• For someone reason Mike Trout (pick 1) has a max pick of 2, meaning he was not taken first in a draft.
• You are trying way too hard if you’re taking any hitter but Trout at #1. I can listen to the Kershaw #1 camp, especially since we’re not going into the season thinking there are upwards of 20 aces like last year.

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This season, I was lucky enough for a couple print publications, Lindy’s and The Fantasy Baseball Guide, asked me to contribute their fantasy preview magazines.  While the quality of both magazines is top notch, print publications have limited room for explanations and no ability for back-and-forth discussions. Today, I am going to go over my contributions which I feel could use more explanation and will answer any questions on my thought process.

Lindy’s

For Lindy’s, I participated in their 12-team mock draft ( standard team except 1 C, 4 OF, 8P) and I picked out of the 3rd position. Here is my team

Position – Name (Round Drafted)
C – Buster Posey (3)
1B – Hanley Ramirez (7)
2B – Rougned Odor (2)
3B – Adrian Beltre (4)
SS – Marcus Semien (12)
MI – Jung Ho Kang (17)
CI – Albert Pujols (10)
OF – Andrew McCutchen (5)
OF – Mark Trumbo (9)
OF – Marcell Ozuna (14)
OF – Matt Holliday (16)
Util – Mike Moustakas (18)
P – Clayton Kershaw (1)
P – Chris Archer (6)
P – Rich Hill (11)
P – James Paxton (13)
P – Michael Pineda (19)
P – Jharel Cotton (20)
P – Andrew Miller (8)
P – Shawn Kelley (15)

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There is a palpable unreliability to ADP data that we usually forget about until it punches us in the face three rounds into every draft. This has pushed me toward a “get your guys” tactic that I’ve been employing for a few years now. It’s not new, I didn’t make it up, but I used to get hung up on taking a guy “too early” because ADP says he’s a 10th rounder. Until one day I told myself, “hey dummy, you do realize the A in ADP stands for average, right?” I’m very rude to myself it seems.

It was then I started to look more at the highest a player has gone just to get a feel for where the most aggressive believers are on a player. By the way, this isn’t to say Min Pick (as it’s titled on the NFBC data) is a perfect guide, either. It’s the outlier, but it prepares you for what could happen in your draft. In short, a reach or a bargain really varies between the fantasy players. My reach is your bargain and vice versa… well, assuming I didn’t have perfect rankings, but theoretically you could deem one of my bargains a reach.

Just get your guys. Be reasonable, but get the guys that you want. You did the research, you have players you think will greatly outdo expectations, so lock them in. Again, being reasonable is the key part here. This means going a round or two higher within the top 150 picks and then you can stretch it to 2-4 rounds in the double-digit rounds.

I’m only looking at third base today because outfield is going to be a biggie and pairing the two would’ve been a bit much. I’ll go deep here to make up for doing just one position.

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This time of year, I love perusing the NFBC ADP data and identifying potential late-round targets. For the sake of using a round number as a cutoff, I opted to focus on players who were select after pick 300 on average. Three players stood out as especially intriguing to me. Read the rest of this entry »

My article today spawned after listening to The Sleeper and the Bust podcast when Paul Sporer interviewed NBFC’s Main Event champion Rob Silver. The entire podcast is a must listen, but one part sparked my interest. Rob mentioned he uses infield flyball rate plus strikeout rate minus walk rate to value pitchers (55:45 point). Silver successfully targeted Kevin Gausmann, Marco Estrada, and Rick Porcello late in his draft by using this stat combination. I will create the same filter to find 2017 sleepers.

There is no easier ball to catch than the infield fly. It’s an easy out. In those few instance when they errantly fall to the ground, a fantasy owner shouldn’t worry since the rest of the inning’s runs won’t count because of the error.

Besides being an easy out, a player’s infield fly rate stabilizes with just over a half season’s data. While infield flies don’t stabilize as fast as strikeouts, they do become stable within a season.

Infield fly rate (IFFB%), especially as we represent it here at Fangraphs, misleads the user. The IFFB% listed indicates the percentage of flyballs (FB%), not all batted balls, which are hit in the infield. To get the infield popup rate, the IFFB% must be multiplied by the FB%. The confusion doesn’t end yet.

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