In 2015 Manny Machado finished the season as the #1 overall shortstop with 1,040 points, and it wasn’t really close, as Xander Bogaerts finished a distant 2nd with 787 points. But raw points aren’t everything, and since all Ottoneu leagues are auction leagues, true player value has to be measured as the result of production and cost (salary). So which players were the most valuable to their owners in 2016?
Yesterday, we published the final 2016 first base rankings and dollar values. So let’s review my preseason Pod’s Picks and Pans at the position, where I identified those hitters I was most bullish and bearish on compared to the rest of my fellow RotoGraphs rankers.
With 2016 leagues in the books, I’d like to present some league-wide season-ending stats to see what kind of conclusions we can draw about success in the very data-driven game of Ottoneu. The focus here is one of the more popular scoring formats, FanGraphs Points (FGPTS), and the numbers you see in each of the first two charts represent the average standings data for all teams/all leagues by final 2016 finish.
Yesterday, I reviewed my 2015 hitter xBABIP underachievers and the results were fantastic. Today, I’m going to review the flip side, the 2015 hitter xBABIP overachievers. Let’s see how this group performed.
**To avoid confusion, yes this is supposed to read 2015. It’s a recap of my preseason article that discussed the 2015 xBABIP underachievers.
Today I continue to work my way through my preseason article recaps, this time focusing on xBABIP, the equation that the intelligent and very handsome Alex Chamberlain brewed up. We’ll start with the biggest underachievers from 2015. Let’s see how they performed this season.
So as I do annually, I compared my personal dollar values and resulting rankings to the RotoGraphs consensus rankings (excluding my own of course) at each position before the season began and identified those I was most bullish on as my picks and those I was bearish on as my pans. Last week, Brad Johnson published the catcher end of season values and rankings, so we’ll begin by reviewing my 2016 Pod’s Picks and Pans at catcher.
The fantasy baseball season has closed, but the game of Ottoneu continues long into the off-season (one of the hallmarks of its year-round appeal). Following Justin’s take on what happened with some of the best teams in Ottoneu this year, I’ll focus today on how one team mastered this game, presenting you with an interview from the of the 2016 Ottoneu Champions League winner, Brent Daily.
It was a very strange year at catcher. The top of the end of season catcher rankings don’t look too unusual with Jonathan Lucroy and Buster Posey at the top, but those full-season numbers do not capture the amazing impact three catchers who become starters midseason had. Gary Sanchez’s prospect star had faded a bit in recent seasons, but that reflected defensive doubts. Most scouts agreed that Sanchez would hit if he could field his position. Willson Contreras had become the top catching prospect, and he immediately delivered on that promise with the Cubs.
Sandy Leon was completely different. Leon made his debut with the Nationals all the way back in 2012, and Wilson Ramos was not the only reason Leon never played regularly before this season. In his 235 plate appearances from 2012-15, Leon slashed an abysmal .187/.258/.225. His .223 wOBA over that period made him roughly equivalent at the plate to Mike Leake. This season, Leon was tied with Lucroy for the third-highest wOBA of .362. He was nearly identical to Contreras in both plate appearances and production.
Yesterday, I reviewed the list of players my ESPN Home Run tracker analysis suggested had significant HR/FB rate downside this season. So today I’m going to check in on the group of players I identified as possessing serious upside. I would imagine this group would have done well simply due to the league-wide power surge. Let’s find out if that was indeed the case.
In addition to the analysis I conduct using my xHR/FB rate equation, I also still look at ESPN Home Run Tracker after the season ends. As usual, I identified a group of hitters before the 2016 season that based on the Home Run Tracker data, appeared to have serious HR/FB downside. Let’s find out how these hitters performed.
