Archive for First Base

The RotoGraphs staff was pretty divided on the fantasy turtle in the American League. There were plenty of candidates to choose from, including Max Scherzer, Carlos Santana and Ben Zobrist. But the most interesting player on the list might have been Brandon Moss. A career .251/.358/.442 hitter, the 28-year-old Moss mashed over the second half of the season. His .291/.358/.596 was so unexpected, which likely led to him being available in just about every league. And if you were lucky enough to be the first owner in your league to realize Moss’ performance, you may have walked away with a league title.

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I didn’t just make 20 bold predictions in the pre-season, I also made various other proclamations and forecasts that put my credibility on the line. One of those series of articles was a look at who I thought were the most overvalued and undervalued players at every position, including pitchers. Today is a review of the hitters I thought were overvalued. As a reminder, I looked at the top 10 hitters in ADP at each infield position and top 20 in the outfield. I tried looking at catcher, but realized that because most leagues draft only one, the most overvalued I found was only ranked one spot earlier than my rank. The most overvalued were those who I ranked furthest away from the hitter’s ADP at the time. I am going to use final season Yahoo ranks because that seems easiest, even though I am quite positive their valuation system probably is not all that accurate. Anyhow, Let’s see how I did.

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It’s time again to look ahead to the 2013 fantasy baseball season by highlighting the top potential impact rookies at each position. Why? Because it’s never too early to begin thinking about next year, even if you’re still trying to win your league right now.

For those of you in keeper leagues, particularly deeper ones, these primers will be especially helpful, because you’ll find out which young players may be worth snatching up now — before other owners get a clue — so you can hang onto them next season, when their value kicks in. Think of it like an investment requiring only a little up-front cost that could pay off big in the near future.

Much like my Mining the Minors columns on this site, which focus on current-season impact more than long-term upside, these 2013 rookie primers are meant for players who will exhaust (or are expected to exhaust) their rookiedom next year. Also much like my MTM work, the point here is to find the right mix of opportunity and talent, so that you’re picking up a player who can contribute, either in a starting role or as a reserve, from Opening Day or soon thereafter. For now, it’s good to get ahead of the curve with a snapshot of the young talent at each position.

In case you need a brief example of how this sort of strategy can be worthwhile: In two deep leagues, one AL-only and one NL-only, that allow for up to 10 keepers, I picked up Jarrod Parker, Addison Reed and Will Middlebrooks, as well as Paul Goldschmidt, Todd Frazier and Zack Cozart around this time last year, keeping them all for dirt cheap. Worked out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

Here are the previous position primers: Catchers

Next up? Corner infielders (aka, first and third basemen).

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Every season there are a handful of hitters who experience power breakouts. As much as a fantasy owner would love to take credit for predicting such a surge, it seems more like a crapshoot to me. Sure, you could use 20/20 hindsight to find clues for some of these hitters, but those same clues likely failed to lead to home run increases for many others. Let’s see if we could figure out what to expect in 2013 from three surprises from this year.

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Somehow, despite having the top OPS over the past calendar month, Mark Reynolds is still owned in just 51% of Yahoo! Leagues. Now, in most very competitive leagues, Reynolds is off the waiver wire and impossible to acquire, but there are still shallow leagues or slightly less competitive leagues where he is available. 49% of Yahoo! Leagues have not simply been given up on with a month left in the year.

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All too often, players get dismissed in fantasy leagues because of a low batting average. Owners are paranoid that a player with a low average is going to siphon off points in that category and no matter how productive he may be, will always be a drain. But then they get so caught up in avoiding these players and only see the aggregate numbers that they miss when one of them turns things around. Here are two players to check out for the home stretch. Both are turning their average around, both can hit for tremendous power and even if they do start to slump again in the average department, there’s simply not enough time for them to accrue enough at-bats to completely kill you in the category. Read the rest of this entry »

The fun part about MLB trades for fantasy owners is all the new opportunities afforded to players on the teams involved. New roles open up and suddenly intriguing fantasy options are available for the taking from the free agent pool.

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On Monday, I took a look at the hitter BABIP leaders and tried to determine how sustainable those marks were for 2013. Today, I will check in on the bottom dwellers in the metric. This could be your initial list of undervalued hitters in next year’s fantasy drafts.

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The trade, as it stands now, is Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto to the Dodgers for Jerry Sands, James Loney, Ivan DeJesus, Allen Webster and Rubby De La Rosa. We’ll have plenty of in-depth analysis over the coming days, but fantasy is often about speed, so let’s try to break down the “blink” style fantasy implications.

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Let’s face it.  Sifting through the waiver wire at this point can be an exercise in futility.  I mean, if the guy is just sitting out there waiting to be snatched up by anyone desperate enough to have to employ his services for the final month of the season, how good can he really be? There is no “long term” anymore, so it’s time to turn that roster spot into a revolving door and start playing the hot bat.  They’re certainly not the be-all, end-all, but here are two that just might be of service for the home stretch. Read the rest of this entry »