Archive for First Base

We have two months of data in the books, so I have decided to deviate a littler further from my previous first base tier rankings. In case you were curious about where the first basemen ranked previously, here you go:

Preseason 1B Rankings

May 1B Rankings (although I mistakenly put April)

I’ve decided to add some tiers this go around because there are players who fall into two categories who I am having difficulty tiering with the rest of the first basemen. The first additional tier will be guys out for any significant time be it injury, suspension, or are simply in the minors. It’s great to stash some of these guys if you have the room, but you should be looking elsewhere for playing time so I simply ranked them in value in their own tier.

The other tier is for those multi-positional players. I had been very adamant that you should not be using catchers as your first basemen. That was until I had Kevin Plawecki, Yasmani Grandal, and Miguel Montero in a two catcher NL-only league, and needed to trade my starting first baseman for speed. So I am more sympathetic to wanting to put different people at 1B, but still struggle where to rank them amongst the more regular first basemen. This tier is just ranking those players with ten or less games at 1B who will not get the majority time at first. A few guys may have slipped in who are also ranked with the rest of the 1B.

The theme for this month’s tier rankings are my favorite summer jams. I work in education and yesterday was the last day for the students at the middle school I work at, so summer has officially started for us. Some songs have summer themes, whereas others are just fun songs that I like to hear during the summer months. If you disagree with my song selections, please make sure to list your favorites and why I am wrong, and I will do my best to ignore them. Just kidding…sort of. Anyway, hope you enjoy!
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Kendall Graveman (3% Yahoo, 1.6% ESPN, 11% CBS) – on its surface, Graveman’s 5.48 ERA is enough to scare off most casual fans. And his 5.91 FIP and 4.33 xFIP suggest there’s little to see here. Yawn. Move on, right? Well, maybe. But depending on your league size, Kendall Graveman could be a surprising source of productive innings moving forward.

First, the bad. I’ve already touched on his disappointing ERA and the indicators that support it. He’s also walking more batters than he did last year. In fact, his 3.59 BB/9 would be by far the worst of his career, including his time in the minor leagues. After his start on Thursday, his Zone% is sitting at 42%, a 4-point drop from his 2015 rate. And then there’s the home runs. His HR/FB% is a ghastly 25%. As you might suspect, this is where we start looking for upside.

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The Phillies called up Tommy Joseph exactly a week ago, which means I am technically a week late in getting this to fantasy owners looking for some depth at first base. I blame the timing of the Phillies who need to be more cognizant of this writer’s publishing and writing schedule. I intend to touch on Joseph’s past, as well as looking forward to what lies ahead in his future as well, which is a bit difficult with his lack of past experience.
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It was suggested that we should celebrate the day that stats stabilize. Today is Grounder Day! Eat a sloppy joe while sitting on a blanket. Drink one of these, or some of this, but I don’t know about having any of this. Grounder Day!

Well, we actually aren’t all the way there. Only about twenty players have officially reached the stabilization point for ground ball rate. But that’s fine. It actually serves as a reminder that stabilization is not something that magically happens at one point. Stabilization happens over a spectrum, and today we know a little more than we did yesterday, and tomorrow we’ll know a little more.

But! Relative to *other* stats on our leaderboards, we know a good deal about a player’s ground ball rate by now. And the beauty of that news is that just knowing a player’s change in ground ball rate can tell us a good deal about what sort of power we should expect from them going forward.

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A few weeks ago, I joined a league after an owner dropped out last minute. The only reason I joined was because I thought the previous owner did a nice job compiling this squad, or else I wouldn’t have touched it. It’s a 14-team head-to-head points league where you play three different owners at once. There are some funky rules in the league (which I’m always game for), but there is one that caught me by surprise regarding position eligibility.

To start the season, players have traditional positional eligibility (20 games at a position). So when I took over this team, I had Anthony Rendon at 2B and Edwin Encarnacion at 1B. No problem. Then on Sunday, the day after waivers run mind you, somebody informed me that both these players would not be eligible for those positions next week, which confused the hell out of me. After much research and a bunch of clarifying questions, I discovered this crazy rule I have never encountered. By May 1^st, positional players must play ten games at a position in order to continue to receive eligibility at that position. Since Rendon hasn’t played any second base, he lost second base eligibility. Encarnacion also lost 1B eligibility because he has played less than 10 games at first, but he still has a chance to regain that (he now has ten games at 1B).

In honor of this new format I encountered, and the craziness that is Friday the 13^th, I am going to look at other first baseman who may have lost 1B eligibility in leagues similar to this one, as well as looking at players who did not have 1B eligibility, but are on their way to gaining that eligibility. I intentionally left off catchers because you probably shouldn’t be starting more than the required amount, and if you are, go to your waive wire and find an actual first baseman.
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For many years, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on batted ball velocity and launch angle data. When Statcast data became public last year, I wasted no time jumping in and playing around with the data. Last season, I began to develop a series of stats using information from Statcast, the fruits of which are what I call xOBA and xBABIP, with various spin off stats such as xRA (expected runs average for pitchers).

Over time, I hope to delve deeper into these stats, how I think they may be useful, and some interesting results I have found, but before all of that, I bet you’re curious how they are calculated.

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So a month has gone by since I tiered the first basemen for the preseason, which you can check out here:

2016 First Base Tier Rankings: Preseason Rankings

I tried not to be too reactionary by making massive changes unless somebody has garnered more playing time than expected, or suffered an injury or lost their role. In other words, my list is similar to my initial one since one month is not enough of a sample to make significant changes.

In honor of the NHL playoffs and my love for the New York Islanders, I have ordered my tiers by the players with the highest points per game in Islanders history. I welcome and encourage all feedback, but do note that these are subjective and still predictive in nature, as opposed to being reflective of one month. Enjoy!
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The biggest challenge writing for deep league managers is trying to cover the broad continuum of league depths in a limited space each week. In response to last week’s column, one commenter lamented that both of the players recommended had been rostered in his 20-team league since the start of the season. So for you masochists out there languishing in the bowels of waiver wire obscurity, I present you with this special Über Deep League Waiver Wire edition.

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One of the players I struggled to rank to start the season was Hanley Ramirez. He is kind of an enigma in fantasy because the talent has always been there, and for a SS, has put together some strong years outside of injuries. The move to the outfield and to Fenway Park seemed like it would work well for his value, but instead turned out to be nothing short of a disastrous first season, despite just missing twenty home runs. Writers were all over the place with where to put Ramirez, and some writers thought injuries and the new scene played a significantly negative role and he was worth taking a flyer on this year. There is still a lot of season to play, but based on some of the rate stats I’ve seen so far, I’m selling big time.

First, let’s look at his BB%, K%, ISO and BABIP. One of the reasons I was down on Ramirez this season was the drop in his walk rate. One reason to be optimistic was that his ISO was not far off his career average and strikeout percentage was right in line. Additionally, his BABIP was much lower than his career rate, so it’s easy to chalk up his troubles to pressing and injuries. Then I looked at the past two seasons versus his career rate with those stats and turned this up:

Hanley Ramirez Rate Stats

Season	BB%	K%	ISO	BABIP
2015	4.90%	16.50%	0.177	0.257
2016	3.30%	25.00%	0.14	0.333
Career	9.20%	16.70%	0.198	0.327

The walk rate continues to drop, his strikeout rate has risen, his ISO has dropped, yet his BABIP is around where it should be for his career. The number that really jumps out at me as an issue is the drop in the walk rate. If he had a strong walk rate last season and just started off low, that’s one thing. Now, though, after last season and to still continue to drop has me concerned. Is he just not seeing the ball as well? Is he being overly aggressive? That’s where I looked at his plate discipline numbers.

For this table I’ve included his plate discipline numbers for the last two seasons and his career. This is the table created:

Hanley Ramirez Plate Discipline

Season	Team	O-Swing%	Z-Swing%	Swing%	O-Contact%	Z-Contact%	Contact%	Zone%	F-Strike%	SwStr%
2015	Red Sox	34.30%	71.70%	50.90%	69.40%	89.30%	81.80%	44.30%	59.30%	9.10%
2016	Red Sox	36.80%	65.00%	53.10%	50.00%	87.20%	76.40%	58.00%	71.70%	12.10%
Total	– – –	26.80%	66.40%	45.80%	65.60%	89.80%	82.40%	47.80%	60.10%	7.90%

He’s swinging outside the zone more than he used to, but that percentage began to increase when he went to the Dodgers, so although the increase is a concern, it doesn’t explain this much of a drop-off fully. He is swinging more than he used to, but he is also seeing a lot more balls in the zone, so that can explain some of that.

These are the numbers that worry me for this season: his Contact% and his Zone%. He is making less contact than he ever has, yet is seeing more pitches in the zone than he ever has. His swinging strike percentage is at a high and is falling behind in the count over 70% of the timejust after the first pitch.

In short, Hanley is having a rough start that other players have gone through and eventually came out fine. My concern is that the struggles aren’t suddenly new to him this season and appeared last year in some of these areas. I don’t have a clear explanation for why Ramirez is on this slide, and based on what I’ve seen this year and last, I’m staying far away and advise you do the same. Sure, there’s a good chance he’ll hit a hot streak and things could go back to the way they were. The lack of a disciplined approach is what worries me most and I just don’t see him suddenly turning that around with all the pressure surrounding him. He may need some time in a low stress environment to fix his approach, which he certainly won’t get in Boston.

This week we look at two hitters available in deep leagues whose uncharacteristically good contact thus far warrants a closer examination. Obviously, as should be stated with almost any analysis at this point in the season, small sample caveats apply. And now that we are disclaimed, let’s irresponsibly dig for upside!

Preston Tucker (2% Yahoo, 2.8% ESPN, 8% CBS) – Tucker burst onto the scene last year in Houston posting a .243/.297/.439 slash line. Wait, that’s not very good. Why did I say burst? Oh right, because Tucker actually posted a 120 wRC+ through July before tanking in just 83 plate appearances the rest of the way. Tucker’s decrease in playing time obviously coincided with the arrival of Carlos Gomez.

But even beyond the trade deadline’s roster crunch ramifications, Tucker just stopped making good contact. His soft% increased to an alarming 32% from August onwards. He also stopped taking walks, reaching base via the free pass just 3.6% of the time.

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