The 2018 season opened my eyes to the risk of young players losing playing time because of massive platoon splits. Usually, it’s the established major league veterans like Matt Adams who get platooned. Manual Margot was such a player who usually led off against lefties but was dropped in the batting order or even to the bench against righties. Those lost plate appearances can add up over the course of a season whittling away a hitter’s value. Today, I’m going focus the most talented hitters who are most like to be platooned.

For Tanner’s and my book, The Process, Steamer projections were kind enough to include every hitter’s projected OPS versus right and left-handed pitchers. From the book’s research, we found teams have historically started platooning hitters when one side of the platoon’s OPS drops below .650 and definitely at .600. Here are some the hitters who may end up in a platoon situation if their team decides to go that route. Besides the risk of sitting out games, some teams move these players up and down the lineup based platoon differences. I’m likely going to give some of these hitters a playing time adjustment.

Note: The projected platoon OPS are league and ballpark neutral and may seem off compared to the current projected OPS.

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Though it might feel like he’s older, Asdrubal Cabrera will be entering just his age 33 season. It will happen while in a Rangers uniform, as he signed a one-year deal with the club on Tuesday. This makes it his sixth team in six seasons. Despite moving all around the country, he has remained pretty consistent offensively. How might the move to Globe Life Park (GLP) affect his stable performance? Let’s check the park factors, comparing GLP to Citi Field (Mets), as he spent the majority of last season in New York.

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It’s time to get nerdy. Very nerdy. While I’m going to post some auction values end the article’s end (I just lost 99% of the readers), the focus of the words is to concentrate on setting a pitcher-hitter split by just using Standings Gain Points (SGP). It’s not going to work with every league type. Not even close but it’s a theoretical solution which can help an owner the best chance to get the most value out of every draft pick or auction dollar. It’s definitely a better option when trying to set in-season values.

The following process is definitely ripe for discussion and argument. While writing The Process, Tanner and I debated this idea and even brought in others to determine if the pitcher-hitter split can be done by using SGP values. We published without including the concept as we were still ironing it out. We are still not in 100% agreement but here is the idea.

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Yesterday, I identified and discussed six hitters who appeared near the top of my barrels per true fly ball (Brls/TFB) leaderboard. As a reminder, Brls/TFB is one of the primary components of my xHR/FB rate equation and is calculated by taking the Statcast Barrels count and dividing by the batter’s fly balls minus infield flies. Today, let’s check in on the hitters who surprisingly ranked closer to the bottom of the leaderboard, rather than the top.

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Catchers … what a dumpster fire for a fantasy position. I can’t remember it being worse. It probably was at some point but with the increased knowledge of pitch framing, more horrible hitting catchers are accumulating plate appearances. Today, I’m going to go through the natural catcher tiers for various league types and show where owners need to buy for the best values.

Before I go any further, I need to explain a few concepts. I’m going to be using Standing Gain Points (SGP) to differentiate the various players. The main reason I like to use SGP is it takes all of player’s Roto stats and combine them into a single value. This important with differentiating the value of a speedster leading off or a middle of the lineup slugger. Additionally, I’m using The Process’s 15-team, two-catcher formula for all the following comparisons. It may not be the perfect formula when comparing different league types but it will provide a nice baseline.

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Two weeks ago, I discussed the hitters who enjoyed surges and suffered declines in their barrels per true fly ball (Brls/TFB) rates, a metric that’s one of the primary components of my xHR/FB rate equation. Today, let’s identify and discuss some surprises at or near the top of the Brls/TFB leaderboard. Some of these hitters did post high HR/FB rate, so those hitters might not be so surprising as Brls/TFB leaders, but rather the rankign validates the success.

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1/18/19

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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Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles

• Avisail Garcia to TB (7:17)
• Adam Ottavino to NYY (12:50)

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A couple of days ago, I released some hitter rankings and now I’m going to dive into some players with the biggest value divergence. By going through the most different players, the value averaging makes any effects of an outlier less meaningful. Also, remember that these are the most divisive projections. Other player projections involve less disagreement.

It’s not always one projection being “wrong”. Each one as some instance of diverging. By using several projections, the faults of one are lessened.

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Yesterday, I identified and discussed the hitters who increased their fly ball pull percentage (FBP%) most from 2017 to 2018. Pulling the ball more frequently typically fuels power growth, so a significant decline could be the cause of a power dip. So let’s find out which hitters with at least 30 fly balls enjoyed a FBP% decline of at least 10%.

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Alas, we have reached the final 2018 pair of recaps of the primary components of my xHR/FB rate equation, fly ball pull percentage (FBP%). Simply, it’s easier to hit a homer to the pull side. Why? Because the fences are closer down the lines than to center field. Plus, hitters are typically able to generate more power when pulling the ball, so they hit their pulled flies harder, plus those pulled flies don’t have to travel as far to jump over the fence for a dinger. So let’s find out which hitters with at least 30 fly balls enjoyed a FBP% surge of at least 10%.

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