The Steamer and I reviews continue this week, which pits a player’s preseason Pod Projection against his Steamer projection. Today, I’ll review 2014 breakout Corey Dickerson, who unfortunately saw his plate appearance total cut in half due to various injuries. I was far more bullish on his prospects than Steamer was.
For our second Pod Projection review of the season, I will recap what was predicted and what actually happened for rookie Yasmany Tomas. Refresh your memory by checking back on my original Pod Projection post.
As a Cuban rookie with no minor league data to work with and limited statistics to analyze from his work in Cuba, Tomas was a challenge to forecast. Essentially, everyone was really just taking an educated guess and it was more like a 3rd grade education than grad school level.
Episode 290
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!
In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris are talking trades! This mega-trade episode covers all the big moves we’ve seen so far from Craig Kimbrel to Cameron Maybin and everything in between. We also discuss the early signings and qualifying offers that were accepted. Read the rest of this entry »
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For the first time this year, I decided to compare my Pod Projections to Steamer and discuss the players we disagreed on most. Of the hitters we both projected, it was clear I was much more optimistic than Steamer on the whole. However, for Giancarlo Stanton I was actually significantly more pessimistic.
In the review of this series, I will be including my original Pod Projection and Steamer counting stat projections extrapolated over the same number of plate appearances that I had projected. However, I included Steamer’s actual PA projection in that column. Also included are the player’s 2015 stats, plus the counting stats extrapolated over the number of PA I projected.
It’s outfield week here at RotoGraphs, so I’ll begin the festivities by reviewing my preseason Pod’s Picks at the position. Every year after the RotoGraphs consensus positional rankings are published, I compare my column of ranks to a recalculated consensus after excluding mine. It’s a fun little activity and it allows me to figure out why I might be more bullish or bearish on a particular player than the rest of the crew.
Episode 289
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!
In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette are back and talking baseball. The offseason is already filled with player movement and today we’re discussing some intriguing DFA players, the trade block, and some rumored teams for Darren O’Day and Jordan Zimmermann. They also talk way too much* about their DFS football teams.
*like two minutes, so relax already… feel better, Charmander!!
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The little brother of Mariners third baseman Kyle, Corey Seager enjoyed a delicious cup of coffee with the Dodgers after being recalled in early September. He BABIPed his way to a .421 wOBA over 113 plate appearances after heading into the season ranked as the team’s second best prospect.
Troy Tulowitzki managed to stay healthy enough to accumulate the most plate appearances he has since 2011. Surely that would have resulted in an excellent fantasy season, and perhaps some profit for those owners who were willing to take on such an injury risk. But that’s not what happened. Though he still finished third among shortstops in fantasy value, he earned just below $10 and posted the second worst wOBA of his career. If that wasn’t bad enough, he was then traded out of the cozy confines of Coors Field, making forecasting his near-term future difficult.
You have to scroll all the way down to the 24th ranked shortstop, Eugenio Suarez, to find a hitter who recorded fewer at-bats than Carlos Correa did this season. And yet, Correa still managed to finish second in dollar value among all shortstops. He did it in just 387 at-bats and 432 plate appearances.
When the Dodgers traded Juan Uribe on May 27, long-time super utility player Justin Turner finally became a full-time starter. In the months since, Turner’s performance earned him praise, including from Dave Cameron on JABO, but it didn’t quite click for me just how good Turner had been until I looked at his offensive numbers from the past two seasons. Among hitters with at least 500 plate appearances since 2014, Turner has the 11th-best wRC+ (148), just behind Anthony Rizzo and ahead of players including Nelson Cruz, Jose Abreu, Michael Brantley, and the likely first selected fantasy third baseman in 2016 drafts, Josh Donaldson.