Despite not being a prospect guy like Marc Hulet, I find myself drawn to younger players in fantasy. In keeper, it’s easy to explain away: Sign a couple top talents to cheap contracts when they’re young and you’ve got the foundation for a dynasty — provided of course you can manage the rest of the year-to-year budgeting properly. In redraft, there isn’t the same incentive to capitalize on grabbing a player who isn’t quite in his prime yet. Deep leagues necessitate a little creativity, and so there’s motivation there, but grabbing Mike Trout the instant he was called up last year was probably a mistake for most players. Grabbing a slightly riper Trout this year…that could be another matter entirely.

The flipside of the opportunity presented by prospects in the fantasy context is the chance that they will disappoint and leave you without much in the way of value for your trouble. Sitting for a full year on players like Brian Matusz or Brett Wallace can not only be galling in short term, but can sour owners on players going forward. (For more information on this phenomenon, see Vazquez, Javy.) Sometimes skepticism based on bad experiences is warranted, sometimes it’s sour grapes, and determining which can be the difference between letting a good sleeper pass and just another of many fantasy stories about the one who got away. Read the rest of this entry »

Two weeks ago I followed up on Chris Cwik’s look at several busts from the past season with some more names. Now it is time to look at the opposite side of the coin, those supposed duds who turned out to be studs. In the studs to duds article, I explained why you might want to consider trading for each particular player. This time I will dive into why it may be prudent to trade away the player in question. Of course, I will have to ignore the cost to keep the player since every league has different rules. So think of this section as more of a handful of reasons why the player will be overvalued.

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Inspired by Chris Cwik’s work this morning discussing some of the biggest busts of this past season, I will take a look at a couple more players mentioned in the first comment of that article. Assuming you did not own any of these busts and endured the heartache they gave their owners, a disappointing season is a welcome phenomenon that drives down the player’s cost in next season’s drafts. Of course, the question then becomes whether the player will rebound, which is precisely what we’ll try to figure out. We will assume the stud in question is owned by another team in a keeper league and you have the opportunity to make an offer for said player.

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Even the best fantasy players post poor seasons. Often times, one owner’s disappointment can be another owner’s opportunity. Fantasy baseball is such a “what have you done for me lately” game, that some owners will give up on premier talent after a down season. While it’s never easy to make a deal in fantasy — particularly when the players involved are considered elite — sometimes it pays to inquire whether a certain player is available in your leagues. Here are some of those elite players that could be available at a lower price in your leagues right now.
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While working on my 2B rankings, I kept seeing Dustin Ackley and Jason Kipnis ranked low. The rankings were a combination of 2011 stats and ZIP preseason projections. While they both hit good in 2011, the projections seemed low. I decided to look into players that had similar rookie seasons and how they performed the next year.

I took all rookies from 1991 to 2011 that had between 150 and 400 PA and an OPS between 0.750 and 0.850. I chose to use OPS, because it is an encompassing stat that is available in the options at Baseball-reference’s Pay Index. Twenty-eight players made the list. Besides Ackley and Kipnis, two other rookies from 2011 where on it, Paul Goldschmidt and Eric Thames. In the end, I had 24 players to use in the comparison.

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Yesterday, I looked at the batted ball data for full time hitters. Today, I moved onto the hitters that had between 150 and 400 PA in 2011. There are more outliers in these groups because the hitter’s batted ball data did not have a chance to stabilize.

HR/FB%

No young players sneaking up onto this list. Just the 2 part time vets

LD%

Salvador Perez – Sal should see plenty of attention going into next season. A catcher that hits 0.300 will get noticed. He won’t continue to hit LD at a near 30% rate. Pitchers will find a weakness in his swing and the numbers will come down.

BABIP

Alejandro De Aza – He is getting mentioned as next year’s lead off hitter for the White Sox. The possible drop he may see in AVG could easily be made up with SB and Runs.

Hank Conger – He always had a BABIP over 0.300 in the minors. He can’t seem to get it over 0.250 in the majors. He needs to finally break through or he may have a long future as a journeyman catcher.

Brian Roberts – He was hitting bad before losing the season to a concussion. I like him as a buy low candidate in 2012. I would not have him as my first choice at 2B, but would take a late round flier on him.

Chone Figgins – I have no idea why the Mariners just haven’t cut the cord on him.

Anthony Rizzo – He was one of the players that came over in the Adrian Gonzalez trade. He is a long ball hitter with 20 or more HRs over the last 2 years in the minors. While with the MLB club, he hit only 1 HR. A low LD% (13.4%), high K% (30%) and fly balls that won’t leave the stadium (2.8% HR/FB) will lead to the 0.141 AVG. Hopefully he will have a better 2012. It almost can’t get any worse.

Tyler Colvin – Tyler looks like a home run hitter that can’t hit home run. After hitting 20 home runs with a HR/FB ratio of 19.4% in 2010, he only hit 6 HRs in 2011 with a 8.6% HR/FB ratio. I just don’t think he can hit good enough to make it in the majors.

Welcome to Championship Week in Fantasy Baseball. If your team is currently fighting for the league trophy; this article is not for you. Nope. This article is for the majority of fantasy owners that fell short of the gold this season. Did you fight valiantly only to fall in the playoffs; or did your team crash and burn from the start? In either case, something went wrong for your team this season. Even though the sting of defeat is still fresh, there’s no better time to look back on your draft to figure out why your team isn’t fighting for the gold this season.
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Casey Kotchman has been a nice surprise for the Rays this season by generating 2.4 WAR. The Rays have gotten little production from the 1B in recent years. Even with his breakout/comeback this season, he should get little consideration when creating a roster next season. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday, I introduced my Luck stat for pitchers and hitters. Today, I will look into some improvements to the hitter portion of the stat. Read the rest of this entry »

Andre Ethier usually launches bombs, but over the weekend he dropped a bomb on the Dodgers-related news media. The 29-year-old outfielder admitted that he’s been playing with pain in his right knee all year. General Manager Ned Colletti was having none of it, responding with an incredulous question: “What am I supposed to be concerned about?” This is a man who knows how to handle personnel in the media. Give him a better team to destroy, right?

Snark aside, we know that many keeper and dynasty teams are looking to next season and beyond. Therefore it makes sense to evaluate Ethier’s year, future with the Dodgers, and long-term fantasy prognosis with this knee injury in mind. In other words, does this news kill his keeper value?

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