Archive for First Base

Some quick injury updates at fantasy’s most productive position…

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Right off the bat, I’ll tell you…bargain shopping for first basemen is a risky way of running your team.  In fact, I don’t recommend it at all.  Real success is found in the premier mashers, and I always recommend you draft at least one.  But if your league uses a corner infielder and/or a DH/utility slot, then picking up a super cheap first baseman can turn into a very economical boost in offensive production. Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday, we rolled out our First Base rankings and while it’s commonly referred to as a deep position, the bottom isn’t necessarily never ending. There are some gentlemen on the list that you might want to dodge on draft day, unless of course the price is just too good. With that in mind, here are your preseason First Base Fallers:

Billy Butler

Butler headlines this list primarily due to unmet expectations. Butler was being drafted in the 75-79 range in 2010 as he was a rising star but after disappointing in his power and run producing output, his ADP going into 2011 appears to be in the 85-92 range (unless you’re Yahoo! and his ADP is inexplicably 66). Many managers have lost a little patience with him despite his contributions in the batting average category. He’s certainly not a dud, as the kid only turns 25 in April and he’s actually got a solid resume to date plus the history of a pretty fantastic hitter in the minor leagues.

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We debuted our first base rankings yesterday and have been breaking down the position a bit more thoroughly since. Today we’ll take a look at three first sackers on their way up the rankings, but unfortunately it’s impossible to have Albert Pujols any higher. Contract year Pujols is an exciting proposition. Here’s three guys climbing the rankings…

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There are a few new faces in new places among first basemen this season. The two most prominent are Adrian Gonzalez in Boston and Adam Dunn in Chicago, and they’ll probably do just fine in their new digs. But what about Carlos Pena, Adam LaRoche and Lance Berkman? Let’s take a look.

Carlos Pena
Did you know that Pena will be 33 this season? The seemingly perpetually deemed young Pena is actually hovering close to old man territory these days, which should help him fit right in with the veteran-laden north siders. At this point, Pena would be easy to write off, as his 5×5 stats have been mostly in decline for three straight seasons (except, oddly enough, for his stolen base totals). Still, not everything about Pena was a disaster last season.

His .211 ISO was better than Prince Fielder’s, and ranked 11th among qualified first basemen overall. Likewise, he was 10th among first basemen in home runs. Projections have him in that 28-31 range once again, but with a bounce back in ISO, wOBA and SLG that would bring him closer to his 2008 levels. Part of that is likely due to the bump he should see in switching from Tropicana Field to Wrigley. Stat Corner has Wrigley’s park factor for LHB HR at 119, a full 30 percent higher than Tropicana’s 89. The question with Pena is by how much will his BABIP rebound, and David G did a great job of examining this back in December. Assuming his BABIP does rebound to the .250’s, Pena could be a mid-round steal.

Right now, his ADP on Mock Draft Central is 217, and his aggregate RotoGraphs rank is 19th. Compare that to someone like Paul Konerko, who is likely due for a regression this season. If so, would you rather invest early in Konerko – his MDC ADP right now is a much pricier 71 – or wait a half-dozen more rounds and pick up Pena on the cheap?

Adam LaRoche
LaRoche has alligator blood. The Nationals will be his fifth team, and it’s safe to say that his lot with the Nationals will not be greatly improved from his lot with the Diamondbacks. LaRoche is what he is at this point, a guy who is going to give you 20-25 homers and a .260ish average. His aggregate RotoGraphs preseason rank is 22, with no one placing him higher than 16th. But while there is little upside in LaRoche, there is a certain level of comfort as well. Akin to a TastyKake, LaRoche is never going to be a snack you go out of your way to get, but they’re both satisfying.

When you get down to the lower rungs of first base options, many of them are of the youngish variety. In fact, the two players surrounding LaRoche in the RG preseason ranks are Mitch Moreland and Freddie Freeman – two inexperienced players whose performances, while they hold more upside, are also likely prone to greater fluctuation. If you wait out first base, you may want to grab LaRoche as well as your phenom dujour, so that when said phenom puts up an 0-fer on his first four-city road trip, you don’t have to wallow in misery with him.

Lance Berkman
Say this about Berkman – he’s entertaining. Whether he’s taking unprovoked shots at the Rangers, or trying to Benjamin Button himself back to the outfield – and claiming that it will actually be easier in the process – Berkman is definitely going to keep beat reporters on their toes.

Whether or not he can keep opposing pitchers on their toes is another story. It would be folly to discount him altogether – after all, he is 37th all-time in OBP. Taking a look at his comparable players by age over on B-Ref, we see that four of them are Jim Edmonds, Jason Giambi, David Ortiz and Larry Walker. While Edmonds’ drop came a bit later than the other three, all of four had large single-season drops in wOBA in their thirties, only to rebound the following season.

It wouldn’t be wise to bet on Berkman turning the trick as well, but it could be smart to grab him late and stash him on your bench. His aggregate RotoGraphs ranking of 25 and his current MDC ADP of 391 show that he’ll be available late. And since the “Big Puma” has always been better in the first half (.980 career first-half OPS versus .923 in the second half), you may not have to wait long to find out if he will rebound. If he does, and with all of the RBI opportunities he’ll have behind Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday, he could very well be this year’s Vladimir Guerrero that you flip in late June and snicker to yourself as he wilts in the summer heat. Buy low, sell high and all of that.

The Tampa Bay Rays have never been known to do things in a traditional way. Bat a rookie catcher lead off? Sure. Platoon your shortstop based on the opposing pitcher’s GB/FB tendencies? Absolutely. Seemingly use a different lineup every night? Why not? They thrive in the unorthodox and relish in the abnormal. For a team in contention for another division title, having such a question mark at a cornerstone position like firstbase is anything but normal.

This isn’t a position battle in the true meaning of the phrase. Those usually leave one player either released or relegated to giving teammates hotfoot while on bench duty. As currently constituted, Dan Johnson is the Rays starting firstbasemen, though he could have competition.. The last time Johnson played a full season in the big leagues was 2007 with Oakland. He then spent 2008 in the Rays organization at AAA Durham, and all of the 2009 season in Japan. Most of Johnson’s 2010 season was once again spent in Durham where he hit well enough to earn himself 140 plate appearances with the Rays later in the year. Despite a .198 average in those 140 appearances, Johnson slugged seven home runs and walked 25 times.

The Rays feel good about Johnson, but 140 appearances is a small sample size. Many projection systems are high on Johnson this season, but Marcels is a bit more pessimistic, giving Johnson only 270 plate appearances and a .233/.327/.414 slash line. If he can maintain something close to his .339 wOBA from last season, and hit decently enough against left handed pitching, he’ll likely keep his job all season and be a viable fantasy asset. If not, there is someone waiting to take those at bats. His name is Ben Zobrist.

Fantasy wise, Zobrist is most valuable at second base due to his combination of speed and power.  He’s likely to get starts all over the diamond, but could gain first base eligibility rather quickly if Johnson slips. The Rays have two very capable players in Sean Rodriguez and Matt Joyce who play Zobrist’s two fantasy positions, second base and the outfield. The Rays’ ability to man those positions ably without Zobrist would make the transition to firstbase a rather easy one. The 2010 season wasn’t a kind one to Zobrist, but while his power numbers were way down he still maintained some value by swiping 24 bags. He’s likely never going to hit 27 home runs again as he did in 2009, but nearly every projection has him back into the 15-20 homer range. The increased power coupled with tri-positional flexibility gives Zobrist back much of the value he lost last season.

The 2011 season (and fantasy drafts) are rapidly approaching, so we here at RotoGraphs put our slide rules down long enough to come up some aggregate positional rankings. Today I present to you first basemen, and I’ll be your guy at the position all season…

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Ah yes, the contract year. It’s a very real phenomenon, something our own Dayn Perry brilliantly analyzed in Baseball Between The Numbers. Fantasy teams benefit from contract years just as much as real teams do, and if you’re lucky you’ll roster one or two such players a year. This is 100% subjective on my part, but I put together a list of five position players that could be primed to explode in 2011 with their eyes on a contract for 2012. Tomorrow we’ll tackle some pitchers.

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The Nationals found their Adam Dunn replacement today, reportedly agreeing to a two-year deal with journeyman Adam LaRoche. Only 31, this will be his fifth team – so another new team for LaRoche and another Adam at first will make this transition seamless for both sides, right?

Er, not quite. Dunn had a lifetime ISO of .271 and a 16.3% career walk rate while LaRoche comes in at .216 and 9.2% in those two categories. That’s a lot of lost offense. It can be as obvious as looking at Dunn’s constant home run totals around 40, while LaRoche’s hover around 25. Old-school stats actually work in this case.

LaRoche has been passed around so often because, well, he’s so average. Since 2008, qualified first basemen have averaged a .219 ISO – LaRoche had a .216 ISO over that same time period. The same group of first basemen had a collective 21% strikeout rate. LaRoche has a 25% career strikeout rate. They walked 11.5% of the time, LaRoche 9.5% of the time. They averaged 25.9 home runs per season, LaRoche has hit exactly 25 in each of the last three seasons. LaRoche has had a 116 wRC+ over the last three years, which looks okay until you see that the average first baseman has had a 130 wRC+. In fact, since each part of the package is so close to average or just below, he hasn’t even been an average first baseman.

At 31, this isn’t likely to change, especially given LaRoche’s move from Arizona to Washington. Washington’s park has a 94 park factor for home runs by lefties, and a 108 factor for doubles. That seems fine, except that LaRoche played in a park that showed a 114 home run park factor and a 115 doubles factor for lefties last year… and showed the third-worst ISO of his career along with the second-worst batting average. The boost barely showed.

Doesn’t matter, we can pencil him in for a .270ish batting average and 25 home runs, right? After all, that describes most of his seasons despite the different home ballparks. Well, maybe, but the Nationals’ park will have the worst park factor for lefty home runs of all the parks he called home. 20 home runs is just as much a possibility as 25. If he pairs last seasons’ career-worst strikeout rate (30.7%) with a BABIP more in line with his career number (.330 last year, .315 career), he may have another year with a .260 batting average – or worse.

Now you’re looking at a possible .260/20 HR guy. In a recent set of projections, I had LaRoche around 30th, but that was before he signed with a team that could afford him regular at-bats, so the projection only had 416 at-bats. With 500+ at-bats, he could ‘zoom’ up the charts… to about 27th or so. Would you rather have LaRoche, or take a chance on someone like Brandon Allen or Matt LaPorta? Or, if you like veterans, LaRoche or Garret Jones or Luke Scott?

Looks like LaRoche is almost toast, in fantasy terms.

* Anyone not named Billy Butler and Joakim Soria, obviously.

Yesterday we looked at what remains of the Royals’ pitching staff to determine if any of those guys were worth a roster spot in a fantasy league, and today we’re going to move onto the position player crop. Fun starts after the jump…

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