Archive for Mailbag

Today’s mailbag question comes courtesy of reader JD, who asks:

I am in a 10 team keeper (6) roto league with R, 2B, HR, RBI, BB, KO, SB, AVG, and OPS as the offensive categories. Right now I have both Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera as first basemen. Do have any advice on which one I should trade and which one I should keep?

I also have both Evan Longoria and Pablo Sandoval (eligible at 1st as well) at 3rd. Obviously Longoria is better now, and probably will continue to be, but how do you think Sandoval will improve? Could he reach the consistent 30 HR neighborhood this season? Depending on how you see him progressing do you think it would be smart to trade Longoria, or Sandoval? Or maybe keep them both? I can only keep 6, and Sandoval is hovering on the edge right now. The choice is among him, Chris Carpenter, Nick Markakis, Clayton Kershaw, A.J. Burnett, and Jonathan Broxton.

Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder on the same club. Nice work last year, JD. The easiest way to compare these two players is to simply displaying their numbers side-by-side and see what comes out of it.

2009 Stats
Prince – .299/.412/.602, 46 HR, 141 RBI, 35 2B, 163 wRC+
Miggy – .324/.396/.547, 34 HR, 103 RBI, 34 2B, 148 wRC+

2010 Fan Projections
Prince – .290/.396/.583, 43 HR, 135 RBI, 33 2B, 155 wRC+
Miggy – .321/.391/.558, 35 HR, 124 RBI, 37 2B, 148 wRC+

Cabrera is a superior AVG hitter, but big daddy Fielder is a far better HR hitter. It’s a hard decision to make, but I’d keep Fielder over Cabrera. Trading Miggy shouldn’t be difficult, because only one or two other owners will have a better first baseman on their squad. While keeping Prince is better if you want extra power while sacrificing some average, Miggy is a better keeper if your team needs average. Looking at the team you have assembled with the little information I have, I’d keep Prince.

Now, onto part two of JD’s question. Let’s look at what the Fan’s expect from the Kung Fu Panda next season:

2010 Fan Projection
Panda – .325/.387/.556, 26 HR, 111 RBI, 41 2B, 141 wRC+

I’d have to say I agree with the Fans at this point. Projecting 111 RBI is a bit much with the lineup he has around him, but he will likely get 90+ in 2010. Playing San Fran kills his power numbers, but 25 HR is about where he is at this stage of his career.

I would recommend keeping Sandoval around for another year and letting Burnett walk (or trade him). Burnett’s injury problems scare me, as do Carpenter’s. But unlike Carpenter, Burnett isn’t a fantasy Ace anymore when healthy. Assuming you have a CI or UTIL spot, you can play Sandoval, Longoria and Fielder everyday, and that is a solid combination to base your lineup around (along with Markakis).

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Here is the second edition of our mailbag. Our email address for this feature is rotographs+mailbag@fangraphs.com, so send in your questions! Remember to try to give us all relevant information in the fewest words possible, and you’ll be all set.

Just wanted to get your thoughts on this trade:

Do you think Dye was the right choice to trade? Did I get enough for him?
Thanks! B.M.

Yes, Dye was the right one to trade. I like Upton the best and I believe that Cruz will steal enough bases to more than make up for whatever (if any) advantages Dye has in the other categories.

But he may have been too much to give up for Nolasco. Sure, Nolasco is unlikely to maintain a .387 BABIP or a 52.7 percent strand rate. But even if he flips the switch and pitches like he did in the second half of last year, you still have the injury threat from last year’s innings total hanging over his head.

Yet, I would not worry too much about the deal. Dye was unlikely to fetch much better, his loss does not hurt your offense and there’s a good chance that Nolasco will offer stretches of good pitching for your team.

In a 10-team, 23 player, mixed head to head 5×5 keeper league. I was offered Matt Capps and Hunter Pence for Broxton OR Javier Vazquez for Broxton. Here is my team:

Thanks, S.H.

Your OF is pretty strong so I would concentrate on the Vazquez-Broxton swap. Broxton has been overpowering this year. His average fastball velocity of 97.6 is a career high, as is his 15.19 K/9. He is going to challenge for a 40-save season. Vazquez also has a career-high 11.07 K/9, although his fastball velocity is the lowest its been since 2004. The updated ZiPS forecasts Vazquez with 15 wins for the season, which seems a tad high to me.

Vazquez is a solid pitcher. I think you could use a SP upgrade and this would not be the worst deal in the world. But I would shop around and see if you could do better elsewhere.

11 team, 5×5 deep mixed keeper league. Received Josh Hamilton, Sherrill and Uehara for Gallardo and Broxton. I desperately needed J-Ham as I am dead last in HR and RBI. I think there’s some upside to Uehara. I also think Sherrill will get his job back. My rotation took a hit (Lowe is now my ace, Baker, Pettitte, Webb on DL). My other closers are Wilson and (eventually, I hope) Marmol and Zumaya. Did I give up too much?
Thanks, E.A.

Yes.

It’s time for the inaugural edition of the RotoGraphs Mailbag. Our email address for this feature is rotographs+mailbag@fangraphs.com, so send in your questions! Remember to try to give us all relevant information in the fewest words possible, and you’ll be all set.

In a 10-team mixed league I was offered Lincecum for Bruce, Baker and Joba. I’ve got plenty of depth at SP with Haren, Vazquez, Gallardo, Meche, Slowey and Ubaldo (we start 10 pitchers and have no bench). I’d replace Bruce with Fowler/Morgan. It’s not a keeper league.
Thanks guys, D.S.

While I’m always a proponent of consolidating talent in shallow leagues, this really tests the assumption that you should always take the best player in a trade. Tim Lincecum is by far and away the best player in this trade, that much is for sure. Amazingly, he’s upped his otherworldly strikeout rate and dropped his walk rate this year. In fact, with at .368 BABIP against, he’s been unlucky, if you can believe that. Other than the fact that he led all pitchers under 25 in Baseball Prospectus’ Pitcher Abuse Points last year, there’s little to worry about.

But you don’t have the luxury of moving pitchers in and out. You need to field six or seven good starting pitchers, not just one or two and a bunch of spot starters. Dropping from Joba Chamberlain and Scott Baker to Lincecum alone will hurt your depth and cause you to go to the waiver wire for pitching. And starting pitching on the waiver wire is pretty barren these days. I say you hold on to your buy-low trio and reap the benefits of their return to grace.

As David pointed out, Jay Bruce is only on the way up from here. Chamberlain still has an elite strikeout rate himself (8.83 K/9), despite a step back. It is upsetting that his HR/9 almost doubled and his BB/9 is up a full walk, and also that his fastball is down almost three miles per hour over last year. People are reaching a lot less, too (20.5% this year, 26.3% career). (Wait, why was I recommending you keep him?) Baker, though, should rebound for sure. After giving up 9.5% HR/FB over his career (MLB average hovers around 10%), Baker is serving up home runs on 18.6% of his fly balls. Nothing else is out of order, so he should return to his customary value as that number falls.

Sure, none of these guys are Lincecum. But if you’re already playing Ubaldo Jimenez, it might get ugly quickly if you start looking for another pitcher on the wire. Perhaps more knowledge about the pitching on the wire would shift this trade into the ‘do’ category.

I am in a 12-team mixed head-to-head league and am considering trading Adam Lind for Shin-Soo Choo for a couple reasons: 1) I like the more balanced stats Choo brings to my team (more R and SB), and 2), I think Lind may be overvalued right now considering his hot start (BABIP of .384), and vice-versa for Choo. Based on Choo’s great second half last year, and improving BB% and K% this year, I think he has a decent chance of outperforming Lind even in HR and 2B and RBI. Would you make this trade?
Thanks, M. R.

Wow, you did a lot of the analysis for us here. But the question is still interesting, for another reason. These players are actually very similar: they are high-line drive hitters that should hit for solid averages. They both may have mediocre home run totals by the end of the year, as well.

The under-rated Shin-Soo Choo’s career fly-ball percentage is low for a power hitter, at 32%, but he’s settled in around 36% the last two years. His line drive rate has been nothing short of elite – it’s at 26.4% this year (8th in the majors), and 23.8% for his career. Line drive rate is positively correlated with batting average, and with the improving walk and strike-out rates, Choo is indeed a very safe producer in batting average. A 68% success rate on steals should mean he’ll comfortably continue to pilfer bags, too.

Adam Lind has the same low fly-ball percentage (33.5% career), and also sports a great line drive rate this year (25.4%). However, his career line drive rate is nowhere near Choo’s elite status at 19.8%, a figure that has largely been skewed by this year’s excellence. Because Lind has always sported a double-digit HR/FB rate, while Choo hasn’t, ZiPS likes Lind to hit another 14 homers while it likes Choo to total 14 for the year. However, with Lind’s low fly ball percentage this year (29.5%), he’ll have to start getting those infield flies (25.8%) out of the park for the power projections to be correct. He certainly is busting out, as Dave Cameron outlined here.

I think you’re right in taking the safer choice of the two. Choo’s added steals should make up for the five or six home runs he may lack compared to Lind. But I can’t help wondering: Can you upgrade somewhere else since Lind’s name is so hot right now? Add a second pair of players into the deal in order to cash in on Lind’s rising star and better current numbers.

Many people have written in to ask for advice on trades. We now have an email address rotographs+mailbag@fangraphs.com specifically (and only) for questions of this nature. This will be a work in progress initially but it will be a collective effort among all people on the RotoGraphs staff.

When you submit to the mailbag, please include all relevant details. We need to know your league parameters. Also, if you are trading different positions, like an outfielder for a pitcher, your other options at both positions are key considerations. Try to give us the most information in the fewest amount of words.

Here’s an example: In a 13-team mixed roto league I was offered Matt Garza for Carlos Lee. I have OF depth to trade Lee and my SP are Beckett, D. Davis, E. Jackson, Meche, Pelfrey, Washburn and Zito. That was 35 words and had all of the necessary information.

We will try to answer as many questions as possible but please understand that it may be impossible to respond to everyone. The first priority will be to interesting proposals that could apply to many different leagues. A two-for-two trade in a 12-team mixed roto league probably will have a better chance of being answered than a five-for-five deal in a 16-team NL-only points league.

Fire away!