In every draft you do, there are players who you target and players who you settle for. As we move through these depth chart discussions, it’s good to look at outfields such as that of the Indians, because, while you have your draft strategy mapped out and have your list of targets, something always goes awry and you need to settle for Plan B. Not to worry, though. Plan B isn’t so bad as you have some potential upside. The ceiling has the potential to be high, the floor isn’t too bad and more often than not, they end up somewhere in the middle. These Indians are your Plan B. Read the rest of this entry »

The White Sox made waves this offseason by bringing in younger, more talented players. Problem is, that excitement will mostly be saved for the outfield. Jose Abreu was brought in, and should make an immediate impact, but the team has been somewhat hesitant to talk up Matt Davidson. That leaves the usual, boring suspects to fill out the rest of the infield. The question is whether any of them can contribute enough to be a fantasy asset.

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Last year, I was optimistic about Indians pitchers given that the team had a very speedy outfield to gobble up fly balls. But alas, the pitching staff allowed a .302 BABIP, eighth highest in baseball and the defense compiled a weak -4.5 UZR/150, ranking 26th overall. Although the defense will mostly be the same, so that won’t be one of the reasons to like the pitching staff, it’s an exciting group despite the potential lack of help from the fielding unit.

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At first base in Atlanta, you’ve got a line drive, batting average on balls in play god with maybe a lower power ceiling than some of the others at his position. At third base in Atlanta, you’ve got a line drive, batting average on balls in play demi-god with maybe a lower power ceiling than some of the others at his position. At catcher, you have two grip-it-and-rip-it guys with power and little else. There isn’t too much science to those parts of the Braves’ infield depth chart.

In between the three positions, you’ve got some strange batted-ball distributions that make for more interesting conversations.

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The Kansas City Royals rotation had a clear edict in 2013: don’t blow anybody away, but don’t hand the opposition anything. As such, they ranked 27th in strikeout rate, 17th in walk rate and relied on a rangy defensive outfit to make up the difference with all of those balls in play. It worked out well enough, though perhaps below expectations, as the Royals rotation was roughly league average (18th in ERA and fourth in innings pitched).

Well, Ervin Santana is out, replaced by Jason Vargas, and everything else remains largely the same. Does it make sense to commit $36.6 million, 45 percent of your entire payroll, to a rotation that looks to be league average at best? Probably not, but here we are, with perhaps the most unspectacular two-through-four in baseball.
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You know a team failed to make a big offseason splash when their biggest highlight is when some Grammy-winning artist from New Zealand says her big hit was inspired by George Brett signing a bunch of baseballs. But so it goes for the Kansas City Royals as they made just a few minor tweaks to get themselves ready for a run at the playoffs in 2014. One of the tweaks, though, was the acquisition of a new right fielder, somewhat of a problem spot for them last season. So let’s take a look at that move and what fantasy owners can expect from the Kansas City outfield this season. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been an interesting ride for the Twins veteran southpaw Glen Perkins. After about a season and a half’s worth of starts back in 2008 and 2009, the organization apparently decided that they had seen enough. Can you blame them? Sure, he suffered from elbow and shoulder issues that could have hampered his performance, but he also endured two straight years of sub-4.5 K/9 marks! That’s not going to get it done. He then spent the majority of the 2010 season pitching for the Triple-A club.

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For a team that’s consistently had a postseason presence in recent years, the Tigers will unveil a dramatically different infield this upcoming season. The organization authored perhaps the biggest trade of the offseason, sending slugger Prince Fielder to Texas for second baseman Ian Kinsler. Futhermore, Miguel Cabrera should transition back to first base, while the door opens for top prospect Nick Castellanos to man the hot corner.

Significant changes, but the unwavering piece of the Tigers’ infield, at least in terms of fantasy production, will be Miguel Cabrera. He’s the best hitter on the planet and is probably the consensus number-two fantasy option behind Mike Trout. He may have captured the Triple Crown in 2012, but his 2013 season was unquestionably better. The 30-year-old superstar hit .348/.442/.636 with 44 home runs, and his 192 wRC+ was the highest of his career by a healthy margin.

There’s not much to offer in terms of fantasy analysis on Miguel Cabrera. He’s amazing. He will provide elite production in all major categories, aside from stolen bases. The other thing to love about Miggy is that he’s accumulated at least 600 plate appearances in 10-consecutive seasons. He’s as close to a sure thing as one can get in fantasy baseball.

Around the remainder of the infield, though, we have some things to discuss. And in general, I’m not excited about what the Tigers’ infield offers for fantasy owners in terms of production and value.

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If you look at the individual player pages for each of the projected Detroit starters, you’ll see that the most recent article in which three of them were tagged was written by me. I’ll summarize the guys I’ve already written about this offseason and then cover the other two.

The only Tiger starter that Steamer projects to have a higher WAR than they did last year is Rick Porcello. I’m with Steamer in thinking Porcello can improve, but unlike Steamer, I think the improvement could be more than slight. Porcello improved in a lot of areas last year. Most notably, he went away from using his sinker as much and moved those extra pitches over to his breaking and off speed stuff. That helped him raise his strikeout rate to league average, and it didn’t hurt his above average ground ball rate. In fact, his ground ball percentage was higher than ever last year. He also improved significantly in a couple of areas in which he had really struggled. He didn’t give up hard contact as much as he had in the past as his ISO allowed was one of the 30 lowest in the league. And after the first month of the year, he almost never gave up anything hard to right-handers. He also got much better out of the stretch. His strikeout minus walk rate out of the stretch was about 3.5% before last year but jumped up to 7.3% last year.

It will be up to Porcello to continue to improve in those areas or at least maintain the gains he made last year. But there’s a factor outside his control that could help him improve this year. In fact, it’s something that will work in favor of all Tiger starters. That’s the presumably improved infield defense. Although the pitcher most likely to benefit from that improved infield is Porcello because he’s easily the most ground ball heavy pitcher in the rotation. Below is a chart showing the runs above or below average (DEF) for the Tigers who played the most at each infield spot last year and the Oliver projected DEF for the Tigers most likely to play the most innings at each infield spot this year. Read the rest of this entry »

After the Indians released incumbent closer Chris Perez at the end of last season, the team was without a stopper heading into the offseason. The team decided to cross that off their shopping list by signing former Brewers closer John Axford. After three seasons of saving games in Milwaukee, Axford lost his job so early in 2013 that he failed to record even one save. Now, Cleveland is hoping that he rebounds and that the mechanical changes he made while in St. Louis not only sticks, but was actually the root cause of his struggles in the first place.

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