In early February, I essentially listed hitters who have posted low fly ball pull percentages. However, I added two important additional filters to finalize the list — above average Brls/True FB and Avg FB Dist. The idea here is that they already have the raw power to hit their balls out of the park, but they just need to hit those balls more to the pull side where the fences are closer. These are the guys I considered potentially benefiting most from more pulled flies. Let’s find out whether they did indeed increase their FB Pull% and if that jump also fueled a spike in HR/FB rate.

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Even though Jose Peraza had only a little more than a full season’s worth of major league playing time entering 2018, it seemed fair to think we had a strong grasp of what kind of hitter he was. In his major and minor league past, he had been an aggressive hitter with good contact skills but with little power. Speed was his top tool coming up as a prospect, but in his first full season in the majors in 2017, Peraza merely tied for 17th in the stolen base rankings with 23 and tied for 40th in infield hits with 16. It was easy to see why he was often ignored until after the first 200 players were picked on draft day.
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I try not to miss examining players who had great, short seasons. An injury or time in the minors kept them off the end-of-season rankings. They flew under the radar but given a full season of playing time they stick out and could provide hidden value. Today, I’m going to start by examing the top prorated hitters.

I needed a way to value the hitters and decided to create an overall Standing Gain Points (SGP) formula from The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational leagues. The 13 15-team leagues were set up with  14 hitters (1 C, 2 Util), 9 pitchers, and used AVG. Tanner Bell and I will be providing this formula, along with several others, in our new book, The Process, available within weeks (shameless plug).

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Dammit. For a few years, I followed an old study showing hitters who played through an injury would outperform their next season’s projections, especially in relation to power. Last offseason, I collected a list of 26 such hitters. When I went to compare this group’s projections to their actual performance, I found no overperformance and I’m not sure how I’ll value them going forward.

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Yesterday, I reviewed my stolen base upside guys, after comparing my Pod Projections to Steamer projections in the preseason. Today, I’ll review my downside guys. Let’s see how they performed.

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Let’s continue reviewing my Pod vs Steamer series, pitting my preseason Pod Projections against the Steamer forecasts. Today, I’ll recap my stolen base upside picks. I used PA/SB as my ratio to account for any differences in playing time projections. Let’s see how the group performed.

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With steals becoming more scarce, owners were forced to reach for the few stolen base sources which could carry a team. In 2018, Dee Gordon and Billy Hamilton were supposed to be two such sources. Both disappointed their owners but the risk of a decline was evident even though their owners, which includes the author, ignored them. The owners were hoping for a stolen base panacea but ended up with burnt pancakes.

Going into the season, our Depth Charts projected Hamilton to have the most stolen bases at 52 and Gordon was third at 46. Both missed badly with Hamilton stealing 34 and Gordon with 30. In my Tout Wars league, 16 steals were the difference between 7th and 2nd in the category.

The reason for their decline didn’t involve their ability to steal a base. Both couldn’t hit enough to get on base and continue leading off. Both had on-base rates under .300 and OPS’s in the low .600’s. By the season’s end, both were deservingly hitting at the bottom of the lineup (Hamilton 106 times, Gordon 34 times). In all fairness, their projected OPS values (.674 and .648) were below the average catcher (.676).

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After just about a week of the season, I published a list of eight hitters whose early fly ball rates were significantly higher than their 2017 marks. I dubbed these guys as potential fly ball revolution participators. Let’s find out if they were able to maintain their FB% gains and whether it led to a home run surge.

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10/19/18

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

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Mitch Haniger surprised about everyone this season with top-25 production when his average draft position was over 200 in NFBC leagues. In all fairness, he should have made several sleeper lists but the industry failed to pick up on his productive but ignored 2017 season.  He’s the type of hitter owners need to focus on rostering, late-round injured hitters.

His stats speak volumes. Here are some of Haniger’s projections and results over the past two seasons.

His projection coming into 2017 was decent with a 20 HR and 8 SB profile when prorating to 600 PA. The season started out great until he went on the DL with an oblique injury which lasted for over a month. He came back from the DL, struggled, got hurt a coup of times (finger and face), and finally turned it on over the last month. This profile screams sleeper and everyone slept on him.

By just prorating his 2017 season to 600 PA, he would be at 23 dingers and 7 bags with an acceptable .282 AVG. His results were similar to another pre-season unknown, Marwin Gonzalez (23 HR, 8 SB, .303 AVG). Gonzalez’s average ADP was 123, about 100 picks before Haniger went off the board.

As for Haniger’s 2018 season, he showed the value of a well-rounded player. A near .300 batting average, over 20 homers, and about 10 stolen bases placed him as a  top-25 overall batter. Unexciting stats can still be good.

Going forward, owners can take several lessons from this failure. First, dig into hitters after pick 100 who struggled with injuries but showed positive production when healthy. Most owners are going to hope the top names like Kris Bryant and Jose Altuve will rebound. They aren’t going to surprise anyone. Instead, players like Kyle Seager (toe), Steven Souza Jr.(pec), and Jorge Soler (rib) might be acquired for nothing and end up being a top-50 player.

Another item is to prorate each player’s previous season to 600 plate appearances to see if anyone pops up if given more playing time. With Haniger’s nearly identical pro-rated 2017 and 2018 seasons, his 2017 season would have stood out and owners could have taken notice. Instead, he was relegated to the reserve rounds.

Missing on Haniger’s points to some obvious projects for me later in the offseason. Until then, let me know of any players who the industry missed on and there was no obvious cause.