Archive for First Base

Earlier this month, I looked into the case of a talented-but-often-frustrating American League lefty first baseman who had finally begun to produce consistently. That was James Loney, whom I tossed aside — perhaps unfairly, but I won’t pretend I’m not a Dodger fan who had to watch him struggle for years — as a one-tool player for fantasy purposes.

Today, we’ll look into a similar player, but one whom I like quite a bit more: Texas’ Mitch Moreland. Despite being one of the most-added players in fantasy over the last week — six homers and three more extra-base hits in nine games will do that for you — Moreland remains available in at least 40% of leagues at all of the three main sites. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time to update the rankings!

Hopefully these rankings will allow you to find your own buy-low and sell-high opportunities. The disagreements between our different rankers should help. Jeff Zimmerman’s rankings are largely built upon a mix of Steamer and ZiPs, Zach Sanders has his own secret sauce, and Mike Podhorzer and I are a little more intuitive, even while we both use the projections as a basis. Hopefully we are representative of the different types of fantasy managers out there.

The first basemen shuffled the cards around a bit, but the elite are still the elite… except for one Anthony Rizzo, who is zooming up the ranks. To the point where we are wondering if he’s the number one fantasy first baseman going forward. Well, someone knew it was coming, and yet that same someone wouldn’t yet make Rizzo the number one guy. There are still the matter of his strikeouts and his final batting average.

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Everyone knows Anthony Rizzo is one of the premier young first baseman in the league today, saying such is certainly not stepping out on any limbs. The question of how high he should be valued is a worthwhile discussion, however. As a first baseman, he is supposed to mash. A .280 average and .352 on base percentage are far from elite, but his home run prowess and sudden willingness to run may make Rizzo one of the top fantasy players in baseball this season.
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Not a whole lot changes during the first month of the season. There simply haven’t been enough plate appearances yet to knock established players for poor performances, ditto boosting them due to strong performances. Injury is the biggest reason why players move from tier to tier at this point of the season. Our preseason consensus rankings can be found right here while the April tiers are right here.

Tier One
Joey Votto
Prince Fielder
Albert Pujols

How much longer do we consider Pujols an elite player? He’s off to another slow start (89 wRC+) and it’s painful just watching him run these days because of his knees and plantar fasciitis and whatever else. The homers and RBI totals are still there, but everything else is going south. Pretty scary.

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At the beginning of last year, we took some heat for leaving Adrian Gonzalez near the top of the first base rankings. Our reasoning, if I can speak for the consensus ranking crew, was that power takes the longest to stabilize and we didn’t know for sure whether or not the power was going to come back. The player himself said his shoulder didn’t hurt any more. As the season progressed, the truth became more obvious, and he dropped in the rankings.

Going into this season, we had three consecutive half-seasons of evidence that his power was gone. We dropped him in the rankings, and I even made a bet that the other former Padre first baseman — Anthony Rizzo — would outperform him this year. Now the player himself has admitted what we’ve known for a while and suspected for even longer.

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I’ve been writing about the Dodgers on a daily basis for nearly six full years now, and so you can probably imagine that one of the most exciting deals in that span was the massive trade with Boston last August. Oh sure, Los Angeles picked up Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez, & Nick Punto, and that was nice enough — but nearly lost in that was the fact that after year upon frustrating year, James Loney was gone. Finally! My long personal nightmare would be over.

Here we are less than a year later, and now Loney’s hitting .375/.430/.528 for the Rays. It’s a line that demands examination. I’ll never escape him. Read the rest of this entry »

While Ike Davis may not have been the super-trendy sleeper this year like he was going into 2012, he was still marketed as a nice buy-low candidate after a rough opening two months last year masked the significant improvements he made in the second half of the season. I (along with countless other owners) scooped him up for $5-8 in more than a couple drafts this year, and even went to $14 in our new Fangraphs Ottoneu staff league. But on the young season, “Vanilla Ike” has done nothing but disappoint to the tune of a .165/.265/.318 triple slash. After opening the year as the Mets cleanup hitter, he has been dropped a couple times in the lineup and there are even rumblings about a possible minor league demotion. Eek.

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Last summer, Jeff Zimmerman updated the xBABIP formula and provided a spreadsheet calculator to perform the dirty work. So with a month of the season in the books, let’s take a look at the hitter’s who have outperformed their xBABIP marks the most. It would be easy to simply sort by BABIP and note that the .400+ guys won’t maintain that pace, but it’s very possible that their batted ball profile supports a BABIP above .350. You wouldn’t know that without the calculator.

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It’s a little early in the year to be overhauling preseason position rankings, but that doesn’t mean players have not shown good and bad signs yet. First base is a premium production position, so any change in a player’s projected value is a big deal. It’s almost impossible to win a league without big time first base production. Here are two guys who are improving their stock and two on the way down.

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As usual, the primary waiver focus leans towards pitching with calamitous bullpens and hot young arms taking center stage. But what if your pitching isn’t the problem? Let’s say you’re flush with quality starters and secure closers and you don’t want to spend the bulk of your FAAB budget on Tony Cingrani or Edward Mujica. What about adding a little offense to secure your future? Leagues with short benches make it tough to stock a few good bats as most people tend to use their bench for starting streamers, but deeper leagues with more abundant bench spots allow you to do both. So here are a couple of guys who might be helpful adds as part-time injury fill-ins who could blossom into full-time fantasy stars. Read the rest of this entry »