After trade talks regarding Brandon Phillips failed to drum up even a modicum of interest –thanks to being owed $50 million over the next four years, of course — the Reds return the exact same starting unit on a position-by-position basis that dominated playing time for the club during the 2013 season.

In fact, if one subtracts catcher, where Devin Mesoraco and Ryan Hanigan split time last year, the Reds return an infield that combined to start 614 of a possible 648 games last year (94.8%).

That isn’t necessarily a good thing, however. For all the grief and guff Joey Votto took from people over his RBI totals, he was the sole survivor in an infield full of offensive disappointments. Read the rest of this entry »

The Minnesota Twins had the worst starting pitching in baseball in 2013. That’s no secret. It’s highly likely that the Twins starters didn’t get used very often in most standard fantasy formats as they were chock full of low strikeout arms with crummy peripherals and unlikely win prospects. But for Twins fans, and your fantasy team, there’s reason for some optimism in the Minnesota rotation in 2014.

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So, the Pirates are good now, you guys. It’s going to take some getting used to, probably, but the 2013 Pittsburgh Pirates were really quite good at baseball. They won 94 games and made the playoffs for the first time in approximately 800 years. With that success, however, it’s important to take note of the areas in which they excelled and the areas in which the they struggled. In other words: Pittsburgh had the third best ERA in baseball last season, but was 16th in wOBA. It was an elite pitching team, but an average offensive one.

The team was successful, and it’s still good, but that doesn’t mean much to fantasy owners. And so we come to the Pirates infield, and the cast of characters there for 2014 who may (or may not) be of use to fantasy owners.

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The Cardinals infield returns three regulars from last year but only has two players manning the same position and has one completely new face. But regardless of whether they’re old or new, I probably like all five players less than the general public based on early ADP data.

One of the two guys manning the same position is a Cardinal stalwart, Yadier Molina. I looked into Molina earlier this off season and his value derived primarily from his batting average last year as he provided more fantasy value with his batting average than any other catcher thanks to the second highest average at the position and a relatively high number of plate appearances. But he didn’t do the things that made him great in 2012. His HR/FB rate returned to about his career rate, so he hit 12 home runs as opposed to 22. His speed went away as quickly as it appeared, so he stole 3 bases as opposed to 12.

Without the 2012 power/speed combo that is basically unheard of at his position, Molina absolutely must have his average remain high for his fantasy value to remain high. That’s a little scary because Molina’s BABIP was .338 last year. To be fair, his xBABIP was .331 thanks in large part to a 24.3% line drive rate. But it’s just a little nerve-wracking to be drafting a guy that is so BABIP dependent when BABIP is such a fickle stat. For example, Molina had a 24.8% line drive rate and .344 xBABIP in 2012, but his actual BABIP was only .316. Read the rest of this entry »

I would love to spend the next few hundred words or so of this article talking about the impending arrival of Byron Buxton, the near-consensus No. 1 overall prospect in the game, who promises to immediately change the face of the Minnesota outfield and the lineup as a whole.

Unfortunately, Buxton’s ETA is more likely 2015 — potentially late 2014 — so we’re stuck talking about the guys who are actually going to get the bulk of the playing time this year, and it may not be pretty. Eyeballing our depth charts, Minnesota is the only team who isn’t projected to get even 2 WAR from a single one of their outfield spots; If you want to split hairs and say that 1.9 WAR and 2 WAR are basically the same thing, you wouldn’t be wrong, but you also wouldn’t really be changing the point. Minnesota’s outfield tied with Houston for last in both wRC+ and wOBA last year, and they return largely the same group, so no, this may not be pretty. Read the rest of this entry »

You may have heard about the Royals decision to designate Emilio Bonifacio for assignment. Bonifacio is widely regarded as ever so slightly better than replacement level, so getting out from under most of his $3.5 million contract is probably a good thing for the Royals. That roster move actually could have fantasy ramifications. It didn’t appear as though there was consistent playing time for Bonifacio in Kansas City, whereas several teams could use his services on a regular basis. Since he’s a notable stolen base threat with a lot of fantasy flex, the right job and a little BABIP luck could make him a positive fantasy contributor.

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It is the best side versus the worst side for the 2014 Milwaukee Brewers infield. On the left side is two players with job security and talent. On the other side is a 1000 piece blue sky jigsaw puzzle with 50 or so pieces missing. I will go from the good to the bad to the WTF.

Short Stop – With the infield being bi-polar in nature, Jean Segura suffered through a well documented bi-polar 2013 season. Last week, I looked at the significance of his first and second half stats and found most of his struggles were batted ball related (small bit of BB% decline). Looking over his batted ball data, I found one interesting fact, Segura home run power came from fastballs up in the zone. Here are his fastball home run heat maps from the season’s 1st and 2nd half.

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The White Sox are obviously a fan of position battles and creating drama because not only do they have a situation brewing between their first base and DH candidates, but their outfield is overflowing as well. Things had been very simple until the team decided to complicate matters when they acquired Adam Eaton from the Diamondbacks as part of a three-team trade in mid-December. That had a domino effect and someone is going to be the odd man out, or at least see their playing time severely reduced.

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The Mariners infield situation stabilized quite a bit when Cano signed the deal to take over at second base for the mess left there last season. The infield is generally set and decent except for the huge nested IF THEN ELSE situation at first base. I will start with the known and move to the unknown.

Second base.

No more Dustin Ackley. No more Nick Franklin. It is Robinson Cano’s job. Cano is a great healthy player. No problems here.

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It’s a little… weird… writing about the Brewers closing situation without having to discuss whether or not the 17 homers John Axford gave up the night before are “any indication he’ll lose the job in the near future.” Maybe more nice than weird. While the Brewers return a fair number of their 2013 relief corps, a few fresh faces enter the mix. While far from the deepest bullpen in the league, the back end has a few guys who may perk the ears of fantasy owners.

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