The 2012 Catcher keeper rankings continue here with the third tier which is filled with a little bit of hope and a whole lot of promise. How much of that promise we see…well, that’s going to be the question. In case you missed the first two tiers, here are links to Tier 1 and Tier 2 so you can see exactly where these guys here in Tier 3 rank in the grand scheme of things.
The first tier to the third base keeper rankings was decidedly small, featuring only Evan Longoria and Jose Bautista (for those of you wondering, yes, Jason Catania and I have decided that he’s awesome enough to be top keeper at two positions). There was a moderate degree of discontent regarding the decisions revolving around the first tier, although I’ll admit I was expecting a greater degree of vitriol.
Many of you seem to have concluded (as several of us around here have), that third base is riddled with land mines relative to keeper status and it’s hard to use one of your few keeper picks on guys that are either old, ineffective, or so young that predicting future performance remains rather tenuous. Nonetheless, the second tier features some first tier talent based on 2011 performance not to mention some formerly high-ranked players who didn’t live up to expectations in 2011. The second tier, in fact, is long enough to consume two posts, featuring (in no particular order) Brett Lawrie, Adrian Beltre, Aramis Ramirez, Ryan Zimmerman, David Wright, Pablo Sandoval, and Kevin Youkilis. I’ll take a look at half that batch today.
After looking at the top tier of 2B, I will move onto the 2nd tier. The top 3 are much better than these 4 players, but the drop off after these three is much smaller.
I am basing the list heavily off of the talent ranking I did recently. As a general rule, the ranking did not like younger players with little MLB experience.
While working on my 2B rankings, I kept seeing Dustin Ackley and Jason Kipnis ranked low. The rankings were a combination of 2011 stats and ZIP preseason projections. While they both hit good in 2011, the projections seemed low. I decided to look into players that had similar rookie seasons and how they performed the next year.
I took all rookies from 1991 to 2011 that had between 150 and 400 PA and an OPS between 0.750 and 0.850. I chose to use OPS, because it is an encompassing stat that is available in the options at Baseball-reference’s Pay Index. Twenty-eight players made the list. Besides Ackley and Kipnis, two other rookies from 2011 where on it, Paul Goldschmidt and Eric Thames. In the end, I had 24 players to use in the comparison.
First things first: As Howard Bender noted yesterday, we’ve decided to move away from a rigid tiering system into something with a little more flexibility. At this point, very little changes in what’s already out there. I still like Ian Kennedy a lot because of the production you get for his value and for some of the reasons I’ll get into with Tim Lincecum below.
I’m still going to list the values for those interested, just know that if a $13 player is listed above a $16 player, it isn’t a typo.
In fact, without further adieu, let’s jump right into the melee. Read the rest of this entry »
We interrupt the 2012 Catcher Keeper Rankings to answer a question from one of our readers, Buck Turgidson, who asked, “Will Jesus Montero be eligible at catcher to start next season?
Plenty of people are wondering whether or not they will get to use the New York Yankees hitting phenom at the position he played in the minor leagues or if his late season call-up that saw him DH for 14 games and work behind the plate for just 3 will lock him in as a designated hitter. For the most part, those using ESPN and Yahoo as their fantasy site will be forced to begin the season with Montero as a DH and have to wait until he logs enough games behind the dish to qualify. Those using other sites, such as CBS Sports, may have a little more flexibility depending on their Commissioner capabilities. Personally, I think ESPN and Yahoo need to loosen the reins a little and allow for exceptions such as this. I don’t see anything wrong with Montero beginning the season as a catcher and even set up something specific in the rules for just such an example.
With the 2011 season firmly behind, it’s easy to look at Philadelphia’s Four Aces mantra as hubris, especially in light of their surprising exit in the NLDS. And yet, three of the aces held up their end of the bargain. The title was only rendered false by Roy Oswalt turning in a career worst season as the fourth expected ace. While his comparatively poor year didn’t do much to inhibit the Phillies in terms of regular season success, he is something of a question mark in 2012. It must be said, however, that it bodes well for a team’s continued success when one of their bigger unknowns is whether their fourth starter, who was still slightly above league average despite a down year, will return to the team.
When he first came to the Phillies in the midst of the 2010 season, Oswalt looked every bit the ace he was in Houston. He was extremely stingy with base runners and struck out 73 hitters in just 12 starts. In 2011, he struck out just 20 more hitters in almost twice the starts as part of a decline in nearly every fantasy stat. He posted his highest WHIP ever and his highest ERA since 2009 — symptoms of a lot of balls finding holes at rather untimely moments. This could be due to a decrease in fastball velocity, something Michael Barr explored earlier this month.
His BABIP was 20 points above his career average despite a LD% below his typical level. He produced a high number of fly balls — both infield and outfield flies — yet allowed a career high OPS and a near career high slugging despite a HR/FB below his career rate. He wasn’t giving up lasers all over the park or suffering greatly from his home park’s dimensions, yet it seems that balls continually found gaps in the outfield, which makes his overall line look worse than it ought to have been. He’s a pitcher who has outpitched his xFIP for most of his career, so this year was nothing unusual in that sense.
While his back is no longer bothersome to the point that he is thinking about retiring, it is a concern. The injury has flared up a few times in the last few seasons, costing him over two months of time in 2011. The Phillies’ training staff is certainly aware of the injury and are almost certainly working to mitigate it, but we’re reaching the point where their job may be more palliative and less preventative. The hope going forward may well be that Oswalt’s time on the DL will be short, rather than that he’ll be able to make all his starts. He still made 23 starts this season, so it’s not like his injury renders him devoid of value, but it does have to be part of the keeper math.
Without a doubt, part of the overwhelming disappointment with Oswalt was his acquisition price. His ESPN ADP was 71, well ahead of Matt Cain, Yovani Gallardo, Matt Garza, and more than 100 picks ahead of Madison Bumgarner. He didn’t match either his 2010 numbers or the hype surrounding the Phillies’ rotation, and that will reflect poorly on him, perhaps unduly so, when it comes to both keeper decisions and to draft day 2012.
That gap between expected value and produced value is part of what makes him a tough keeper call. I fully expect him to be better next year than he was this year, but I don’t think he’ll be worth the slot he was picked at for the 2011 season. If you have any sort of dilemma about whether he’s worth using a keeper spot on him, I’d put him back in the pot, then hope to get him at a reduced rate or slot. Just because you’re putting him back into the mix doesn’t mean you can’t target him as a solid SP option for the back end of your rotation. If someone else is willing to take him in the 70s again, more power to them, but pitching is so deep right now, I don’t see him being worth drafting that high or keeping.
Before we continue with the catchers today, allow me to make a correction/clarification. After much discussion behind the scenes and after some of the comments received, these rankings will be purely based on the players’ level of worth, much in the style of our regular in-season rankings. Costs to protect and relative value are up to you as there are just too many nuances and cost variations for individual leagues that we are unable to accurately factor in. That being said, please allow me to make one change to the first tier…. Read the rest of this entry »
The inaugural season of ottoneu on FanGraphs is over. Let’s take a look at the final standings, dissect the winning moves, and congratulate the winners!
FanGraphs Staff League
Congratulations to Jesse Wolfersberger for winning the first edition of the FanGraphs Staff league. I blame linear weights points (and my infamiliarity with them) for my poor showing, but Jesse didn’t have a problem with it at all. It came down to five points on the last day, and one hit is worth 5.6 points. A photo finish!
Being tasked with ranking the NL starting pitchers is a mixed blessing.
On one hand, there’s so much talent here, I don’t have to worry about having to recommend someone like Derek Lowe as a tier three pitcher, which is nice, since Lowe really isn’t a SP3 option in any sense of the term. On the other hand, someone like Matt Garza may end up in the fourth tier or perhaps even the fifth, which always gets someone’s goat. I love Garza — and I’m quite sure I’d never trade him for Theo Epstein — but if you’re giving me the choice between Garza and Roy Halladay, suddenly I love Garza a lot less.
Tiers are derived from Zach Sanders’ retrospective auction values. If I think a guy isn’t likely to stick near the same level next year — either that he’s tiered too high or too low — I’ll let you know in the comments, but this is reflective of what they did this year.
Joining the chorus of keeper rankings that have popped up over the last day or two, here are your NL starting pitching ranks.
Clayton Kershaw — $35
Not much to argue about here. Kershaw may not have saved many games, but he dominated the other four standard pitching categories with nearly 250 strikeouts, an ERA of 2.28, a WHIP under 1.00, and more than a quarter of the Dodgers’ wins this season. He was good last year, so it isn’t as though his success is unexpected, but he took a huge step forward this year and should continue to be dominant for the foreseeable future. If he’s the first pitcher off the board next year, I can’t say I’d disagree with that choice. He’s just 23 after all, it’s entirely possible that he’ll improve from here, which has to be a downright terrifying thought for the divisional rivals that have to see him multiple times a year. Projecting someone to reach Pedro Martinez’s level of outrageous dominance is foolhardy at best, but if I had to put money on some current pitcher to get there, Kershaw would be hard to pass over, though Stephen Strasburg makes a compelling case as well.
Roy Halladay — $30
Doc set a career high in strikeouts last year with 219, then bested that record this year with…220. Ok, he didn’t exactly blow away that mark, but the strikeouts are a relatively recent addition to Halladay’s arsenal, which has made him more valuable in almost every format over the last two seasons; clearly, the move to the National League did him some good, but facing a pitcher instead of a DH will do that. I’m not at all portending doom for Halladay in the near future, but next season will see him turn 35. It’s entirely possible to pitch well at ages more advanced than that, but not everyone ages so well. Of the 10 best seasons since 1960 turned in by a pitcher age 35 or older — determined by ERA+ — Randy Johnson owns five, Roger Clemens and Kevin Brown each have a pair, and Whitey Ford has the remaining one. Halladay looks like he could turn in a season good enough to join the list, but we’ll see what next year brings.
Cliff Lee — $30
Like his teammate Halladay, Lee set a career high in strikeouts this season with 238, and unlike Halladay, it was an appreciable improvement over his previous career high of 185. Concerns over Lee moving to hitter-friendly Citizen’s Bank Park proved to be overblown as his H/9 dropped to a near career-low 7.6 and he allowed opposing hitters to slug just .339 against him. In fact, Lee pitched much better at home, allowing hitters just a .559 OPS in Philly compared to .672 on the road. No one will mistake the Phillies’ rotation for a bunch of college kids, but there’s no reason to believe Lee is going to suddenly “regain” his 2007 form.
Ian Kennedy — $25
There’s no surprise that Halladay and Lee were among the top five pitchers this season; Kershaw and Hamels weren’t givens to join them, but were obviously capable. Kennedy is the man who looks out of place in this list, but he certainly earned it. His H/9, HR/9, and BB/9 all dropped from 2010 while his K/9 rose; the 21 wins are just the icing on the cake. In an objective sense, there are other players who might be better than he is, but if he can keep his strikeout rate reasonably high, there are few who can match his combination of low acquisition price and high production.
Cole Hamels — $24
Hamels did lose a few strikeouts this year, but in exchange he also gave up fewer hits, fewer home runs, and fewer walks. Given that he had strikeouts to spare last year, it seems like pretty a fair trade off to me. He still struck out nearly 200 hitters, so it isn’t as though he turned into Livan Hernandez, and the balance made him a better option across the board. He’s the youngest of the Phillies’ Four Aces, so he’s got that going for him. If he can add in the strikeouts he lost this year, while keeping the other peripherals down, I see no reason he can’t be even higher on this list next year.