Before the holidays, Lucas Kelly ran through his keep or cut decisions in the outfield, part of our ongoing series heading into the keeper deadline on January 31. To catch up with him, Chad Young and I are finally getting around to our entries in the series before we move onto pitchers next week. I’ll run through three players on my bubble and where I think the keep line could be for each of them. All P/G projections are from the 2024 Steamer projections.

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Cedric Mullins OF
Salary: $15
Average Salary: $17.1
2023 P/G: 4.37
Projected 2024 P/G: 4.80

We’re now two years removed from Cedric Mullins’ huge breakout in 2021 and it really seems like that was his high water mark. In the two years since posting a 136 wRC+, that metric has fallen year-over-year to just a point below league average last year. He did struggle through a recurring groin injury that cut into his playing time and definitely affected his ability to use his speed to his advantage. Now we’re left with plenty of questions about how valuable he’ll be moving forward.

There are a few encouraging signs under the hood though each of them is tempered by a red flag. After seeing his ISO drop from .228 during his breakout season to .145 in 2022, he was able to punish the ball more often last year, pushing his ISO back up to .183. That improvement was backed by an improved barrel rate and a batted ball profile that leaned even more heavily into pulled contact in the air. Elevating his batted balls was one of the keys to his success back in ‘21, though he might have gone a little too far last year. His groundball rate was the lowest of his career and nearly half of his batted balls were categorized as fly balls, but the expected wOBA on that elevated contact was nowhere near where it was two years ago.

His sweet spot rate — the rate at which he makes contact at ideal launch angles — was at a three-year low last year. Despite elevating his batted balls on the regular, he was hitting far too many at uncompetitive launch angles or without much power behind them, leading to a ton of weak fly balls.

On the plate discipline side of things, Mullins cut his chase rate to the lowest it’s been since a brief cup of coffee back in 2018 in his first exposure to big league pitching. That helped him post a career-high 9.5% walk rate. Unfortunately, his contact rate also fell three points and the corresponding increase in whiffs drove his strikeout rate up to 22.2%.

The other complicating factor is that the Orioles started to platoon Mullins pretty heavily last year even though his platoon split was pretty even. It’s hard to take that split seriously since he only accumulated 119 plate appearances against left-handed pitching last year but it’s something to monitor, especially with a crowded outfield in Baltimore.

Keep or Cut?
As much as I’d like to dream about Mullins reaching his 2021 heights again, I don’t think he’ll be worth $15 this year. Steamer has him bouncing back in 2024 with a .317 wOBA which would be higher than what he posted each of the last two years. Still, that’s more like a $8-$10 outfielder, not the $20 outfielder he was in 2021. I’m gonna cut and see where he goes in the draft because I think a lot of people will be overlooking him due to his struggles.

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Seiya Suzuki OF
Salary: $18 and $24
Average Salary: $21.8
2023 P/G: 5.76
Projected 2024 P/G: 5.53

In his second season stateside, Seiya Suzuki improved across nearly every significant offensive category. But simply looking at his full season stats hides some of the ups-and-downs he experienced during the season and I think some of that narrative is affecting how he’s valued heading into this upcoming season. Here’s his rolling 20-game wOBA from last year:

He had an early slump, dealt with a few minor injuries, and really slumped in June and July and was finally benched for a short time in early August. But from August 9th onwards — the day he returned to the lineup full-time — he was the second best hitter in baseball, a hot streak that salvaged his full season stat line. So which version of Suzuki is the real one?

As Ben Clemens laid out in the article linked above, the adjustments Suzuki made in August were specific to his approach and directly addressed the reasons why he was struggling in the first place. He was specifically hunting breaking balls located in the zone while continuing to wallop the fastballs he saw up the middle and to the opposite field. It was a change to his approach that got him out of the middle ground between trying to adjust to hard and soft stuff. As Clemens put it, “This isn’t some fluke of soft line drives falling in all over the place or grounders finding holes in the infield. He’s just pummeling the ball, and doing it in a way that suits his game.”

It’s possible some of the hesitation around drafting Suzuki is related to his bearish Steamer projection. It sees him taking a slight step back in 2024, with a .345 wOBA that sits right in between what he’s accomplished over the last two years. But remember, his .358 wOBA from last year included those two significant slumps during the first half of the season. With another season of exposure to major league pitching under his belt and the assurance that he was able to make significant adjustments to his approach on the fly, I’m thinking he’s got a good shot at beating that projection this year.

Keep or Cut?
I’m extremely happy to keep at $18 and I’m trying to find room in my budget to keep him at $24. I’d think I’d be comfortable keeping him at up to $26 or even $28 depending on the league context and cap situation.

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Masataka Yoshida OF
Salary: $20
Average Salary: $23.4
2023 P/G: 5.16
Projected 2024 P/G: 5.63

When Masataka Yoshida made the leap from NPB to the majors, the biggest question was whether or not his low-strikeout, high-walk approach would translate against big league pitching. It’s a little complicated but I’d say his rookie year was a modest success; he posted a 109 wRC+ though his overall value was seriously hurt by his lead glove in left field. His defense isn’t a concern for fantasy baseball, but even his offensive production had some curious red flags.

Through the end of June, he was posting a 129 wRC+ with a good 8.7% walk rate and a great 11.3% strikeout rate. More importantly, he was hitting for power and generally looked like he had made the transition without much fuss. From July 1 through the end of the season, he took just seven walks total, his strikeout rate spiked to 17.0%, and his power output dried up a bit. The contours of his season look pretty ugly once you pull up his 20-game rolling averages.

Even though his plate discipline fell apart in July, he was still producing at the plate. Once the calendar flipped to August, that production dried up and he slumped all the way through the end of the season. Looking under the hood, it really seems like he started pressing as soon as he started to struggle. His patient approach went right out the window and he started aggressively swinging at everything.

His overall swing and chase rates spiked during the second half as he tried to swing his way out of his troubles. That led to a collapse of his walk rate and a corresponding spike in strikeout rate. The good thing is that his contact rate stayed relatively unchanged. He wasn’t generating as much power with his swing during his slump, but he was still putting the ball in play regularly.

Keep or Cut?
Were his second half struggles indicative of what to expect moving forward or was it just a particularly bad slump compounded by an aggressive turn to try and break out of it? Steamer seems to think it was just a blip and is projecting a pretty significant improvement in 2024. I’m leaning towards believing in the projection but there’s still some risk involved here. $20 feels right without leaning too heavily into that risk. I’m not excited to keep him at that salary but I don’t think I’d be able to get him any cheaper in the draft.

We hit a bit of a lull over the holidays, but we are back in full swing, continuing our series of tough keep/cut decisions as we get closer to the Ottoneu keeper deadline (1/31). Lucas covered his decisions back in December, now here are mine.

Read the rest of this entry »

Right now, if I wanted to find a free-agent outfielder to add to my team in any of my Ottoneu FanGraphs points leagues, the best I could find is an injured 5.24 points per game (P/G) Andrew McCutchen. After that, playing time gets tricky. Yes, I placed a 30-game filter on my search query, but playing time is always hard to find, always. I see there’s a 4.38 P/G Richie Palacios and a 4.36 P/G DJ Stewart. There’s even a 4.35 P/G Jeff McNeil available. No matter how much tweaking and clicking and scrolling I may do, I still won’t be able to find a replacement better than right around 4.3 P/G. It’s the offseason, I can’t add anyone to my roster from free agency, but it’s a good exercise nonetheless. I previously went into further detail about my process for finding a points-per-game replacement level for each offensive position and in this post, I’ll use the 4.33 P/G replacement level I calculated to make keep or cut decisions on four outfielders.

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Hunter Goodman, 1B/OF
Salary: $3
Average Salary: $4.74
2023 P/G: 2.76
Proj 2024 P/G: 4.83

In 2022, Goodman rose through three levels of the Rockies minor league system (A, A+, AA) and hit 36 total home runs. In 2023, he started at AA, hit 25 bombs, moved on to AAA, hit another nine, and finally made his major league debut on August 27th. In his debut, he recorded two hits and went 13 for 43 in his first 13 games. That prompted me to write about him in an August 30th, Ottoneu Hot Right Now after which I added him to one of my rosters for $3. The power is tantalizing.

While that .302 batting average to start his major league career grabbed people’s attention, he finished the season going 1 for 27 bringing his scouting report of having a questionable hit tool back to the forefront. All said and done, Goodman’s MLB slash line in 77 plate appearances did not impress:

2023: .200/.247/.386
2024: .254/.308/.483 (PROJ)

But, his projection makes me hopeful. Still, projections for players with only 77 plate appearances can be challenging to buy in on, but for $3, why not? He very well could hit 20 home runs and in a format like FanGraphs points leagues, having a player with a home run and slugging upside even when it is at the detriment of batting average can be ok. As of now, RosterResource has him penciled in as the player in right field batting eighth and that’s good enough for me at $3.

Keep or Cut?
Keep and hope the Rockies don’t Rockie his playing time.

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Wilyer Abreu, OF
Average Salary: $4.29
Salary: $3.00
2023 P/G: 4.45
Proj 2024 P/G: 4.55

Anytime a player’s AAA slash line looks like Abreu’s did (.274/.391/.538) in a big chunk of plate appearances (363), I’m intrigued. 2023’s AAA BB% (16.3%) and K% (20.4%) looked better than his major league numbers (BB%: 10.6%, K%: 27.1%), but that’s to be expected for a young, 24-year-old, player. His 4.45 P/G mark looked good as a starting point, but his 6.18 P/GS looked even better, as was pointed out by Chad Young’s great article, Finding Ottoneu Bats using P/GS vs. P/G.

Abreu can hit the ball hard and with efficiency. He posted an above-average Barrel% and HardHit% (Statcast) in his small sample of major league games. While his .316 batting average is surely inflated by a .431 BABIP, and his 77.4% Z-Contact% rate was well below average (85.4%), he isn’t swinging out of the zone (O-Swing%) too much, as his 27.1% is better than the MLB average of 31.9%.

Will he be platooned? Maybe. Yes, according to RosterResource. The left-handed hitter batted .333 vs. righties and only .200 against lefties, but being the batter who platoons against right-handed pitching is better than the opposite. That brings his 452 projected plate appearances (Steamer) into question, but for $3, it’s worth the wait-and-see.

Keep or Cut?
Keep!

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Jose Siri, OF
Average Salary: $4.30
Salary: $3.00
2023 P/G: 4.42
Proj 2024 P/G: 3.95

Jose Siri strikes out a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. His 35.7% was the highest among all players who amassed at least 350 plate appearances in 2023. However, he nearly slugged .500 (.494) and he hit 25 home runs. How much do you typically have to pay for that type of slugging and home run hitting? Here are some (hand-selected) comparable players and their 2023 stats/salaries, focusing only on plate appearances, slugging, and home runs:

Brandon Belt – PA: 404, SLG: .490, HR: 19, Avg. Salary: $3.63

Triston Casas – PA: 502, SLG: .490, HR: 24, Avg. Salary: $9.10

Christian Walker – PA: 661, SLG: .497, HR: 33, Avg. Salary: $9.15

Brandon Drury – PA: 523, SLG: .497, HR: 26, Avg. Salary: $7.15

Each of these players betters Siri’s 364 plate appearances, and they each are hitting above .250, unlike Siri, but consider the price difference and Siri seems like a great player to have on your roster. The biggest problem with this logic is Siri’s 2024 projection. Steamer has him for 463 plate appearances and slugging, a regressed, .411. He just doesn’t have a long enough track record to not regress his slugging percentage. His Steamer projection brings him into cut territory as he is projected to be below my P/G replacement mark. In an early July assessment of Siri’s sustainability, Leo Morgenstern wrote a great article with an even greater title, Back Off Alexa, Jose Siri Is on a Rampage, and after reading it I believe more in Steamer’s projection. Ok, ok, so what is his full projection?:

Steamer 2024: .221/.276/.411, 33.8% K%, 19 HR

Keep or Cut?
Keep. You may notice a pattern with me. I keep a lot. But $3 for 19 home runs seems like a good deal and I’ll stick with it to see what happens.

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Colton Cowser, OF
Average Salary: $4.62
Salary: $7.00
2023 P/G: 7.51
Proj 2024 P/G: 4.35

Let’s start here. $7.00 is too much for a player with very little path to playing time. As of now, Cowser has been left off the projected RosterResource big league squad. If Cowser gets traded away from Baltimore, and makes it onto an opening day roster in 2024, is $7.00 still too much? Probably so. His latest update to his prospect TLDR is not promising:

Prospects TLDR: Cowser is not a great fit in CF and has shown more swing and miss at upper levels than is ideal for a corner outfielder. He looks more like a platoon option than a true everyday mainstay.

He didn’t necessarily showcase an affinity for hitting against one type of handedness, going .143 vs. lefties and .111 vs. righties in 77 total plate appearances. But, the truth is, 77 major league plate appearances just isn’t enough playing time. Cowser showcased serious power in AAA in 2023. He slashed:

.300/.417/.520

and hit 17 home runs. There is still serious potential for Cowser, but he’ll need playing time to work through his struggles against major-league pitching. He struggled against the fastball, recording negative run value (PitchInfo) on both four-seamers (wFA) and cutters (wFC) and his zone contact rate (Z-Contact%) was below average (Cowser: 83.9%, MLB Average: 85.4%). There is work to be done and the only way to do the work is to get MLB plate appearances. There is certainly something to be said for keeping a player who has outgrown AAA, but hasn’t yet found his groove in the big leagues, but the price would have to be at or below the average $4 for me to do so.

Keep or Cut?
Cut and try to re-draft for a lower price.

After Jake, Lucas and I covered MI two weeks ago, Lucas got us started on CI Wednesday and Jake followed up this morning. Now, it’s my turn to look at my toughest CI decisions.

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Jeimer Candelario, 1B/3B
Salary: $3.00
Average Salary: $4.31
2023 P/G: 5.38
Proj 2024 P/G: 4.74

There are some caveats needed on all those numbers. First, I have Candelario in a 4×4 league, not FanGraphs Points, so the P/G (both past and projected) are less relevant, though they are still a good short-hand for his value, and his projections are worth about the same in both formats. Per Justin Vibber’s Surplus Calculator, Candelario is a $3 player in points and $3.30 in 4×4. By percentage, that is a big difference. But in terms of his actual value, it’s negligible.

The other caveat is that while the projected P/G represents a pretty big drop from 2024, it’s very much in with what he did after his trade to the Cubs (4.59 P/G).

Candelario appeared to break out in 2017, when he moved to Detroit and exploded for a .379 wOBA in a brief 106 PA. He improved his K-rate but mostly he hit for a really high BABIP (.392) and it wasn’t a huge surprise when the BABIP deflated the next season. More disappointing was the return to a 25% K-rate, losing almost all the gains he showed in 2017.

After down years in 2018 and 2019, he appeared to break out again in the shortened 2020. Again BABIP played a big role, but he also nearly doubled his HR/FB rate (thanks at least in part to doubling his barrel rate) and brought the K’s down a couple of percentage points again. And this time it mostly stuck. 2021 and 2023 were both good years – not quite to 2020 standards) but good enough.

Following his career, you can see the slowly improving K-rate and HR/FB rate, but you can also see how wOBA has followed BABIP.

The concerning thing from this chart is that Candelario lacks the power to overcome BABIP issues – top power hitters hit enough balls out of the park and draw enough walks that a low BABIP hurts but doesn’t kill. Candelario isn’t that kind of hitter and when the BABIP dipped to .257 in 2022, he became unusable in Ottoneu.

The positive thing is that with even an average BABIP, he is a pretty solid overall player – definitely better than what his projection. Candelario has been a .344 or higher wOBA three of the last four years, with the one exception being the year his BABIP dropped below .260. It was also the year he posted outlier chase- and swing-rates, leading to an equally outlier career-low walk rate. His hard-hit-rate and xwOBA were also well below the levels he showed in 2020, 2021 and 2023.

My read is that 2022 was an outlier season for him, but that 2020 was also an outlier on the other end. Over this four-year stretch he has a .331 wOBA but, as noted above, has been .344 or higher three of four years.

Keep or Cut?
All of that is enough for me to take the over on his projected .323 wOBA, with the caveat that we don’t know yet where he will be playing. And for Candelario, it is not as easy as saying, “I hope he lands in a good hitter’s park!” I am not sure, for example, that Yankee Stadium, with it’s AL-leading 116 park factor for HR, per Baseball Savant, is such a great fit given it’s low park factors for singles, doubles, and triples. Had he played all of his games at Yankee Stadium in 2023, instead of 22 HR he would have had…22 HR. I am planning to keep Candelario and I wouldn’t hesitate to do so at or even a little above his average salary, despite the projection. But I’ll be watching where he lands and adjusting.

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Vinnie Pasquantino, 1B
Salary: $10.00
Average Salary: $9.91
2023 P/G: 4.97
Proj 2024 P/G: 6.01

Oh baby, check out that projection. Easy call, right? That’s a $20 bat, even at 1B. Ok, it is more like $15-$20 in 4×4, but still, no-brainer!

Except in 558 career PA, Pasquantino has put up 5.34 P/G and suffered a serious shoulder injury that cost him most of 2023. And shoulder injuries are not great. Jeff Zimmerman covered this last year in relation to Fernando Tatis Jr. and basically found that shoulder surgeries and hitters don’t mix so well. Tatis followed the pattern, performing fairly poorly (.332 wOBA, a .067 drop from his career numbers coming into the year) in 2023.

On the other hand, Corbin Carroll missed almost all of 2021 with a torn labrum, bounced back well in 2022 and was a breakout star in 2023. And you can make the case (and I don’t think this is a crazy stretch) that we should downplay Pasquantino’s 2023 4.97 P/G because he was trying to play through shoulder issues – that isn’t a “healthy baseline” for him, it’s something he should improve from once he gets back to full health.

Given the short and messy MLB track record, Pasquantino should be a bit polarizing and it is hard to take a $20 projection as reliable. It’s not that it is wrong, but if that is the middle of his range of possible outcomes, I have much lower confidence/certainty that he will achieve that than I would for a seasoned veteran.

That has both positive and negative implications. Positive because Pasquantino is more likely to put up a breakout year than an older, more established player with a reliable baseline. Negative because Pasquantino is more likely to fall on his face than that more established player. Plus you have to worry about injury risk.

Keep or Cut?
It’s still a no-brainer for me to keep Pasquantino if my other option is to cut. I am not comfortable banking $20+ in value from him or even assuming he can lock down my 1B spot. I like him as part of a group with depth, where I can use him if he breaks out and absorb the hit if he doesn’t. And at $10 that is an easy keep. But if another manager is drooling over his $40 upside and buying hard on a $20+ projection, I am more than happy to make a deal.

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Pete Alonso, 1B
Salary: $31.00, $42.00
Average Salary: $34.51
2023 P/G: 5.77
Proj 2024 P/G: 6.21

I have Alonso in one FanGraphs Points league (at $31) and one 4×4 league (at $42) and they are both somewhat interesting choices. The Polar Bear is coming off arguably the worst season of his career (2020 was a little worse, but it was also much shorter) and those are some pretty steep prices.

Speaking of “worst season of his career;” that helps explain the near 0.50 P/G jump in his 2024 projection vs. his 2023 season. Alonso was at 6.1 and 6.3 in 2021 and 2022, and has a 7 P/G season under his belt, as well (the 2019 rabbit ball year, which maybe shouldn’t count). And even that 5.77 wasn’t bad – it was top ten at 1B in 2023!

But even a bounceback season as projected by Steamer, back in line with what we would have expected before 2023, is only worth $26 in FanGraphs Points and $31 in 4×4 (yes, he is one of the rare players worth more in 4×4, thanks to high OBP and prodigious power). After accounting for inflation, that makes both of those prices pretty fair, if I buy the projection. But do I buy the projection?

In short, yes. What happened to Alonso in 2023 is pretty easy to explain. He struck out and walked around his career norms, but he posted a .205 BABIP after coming in with a .274 career BABIP. Some of that can be attributed to a career-high FB-rate paired with a career-low LD-rate – when you trade liners for fly balls, your BABIP will go down. But, for a power-hitter like Alonso, seeing the fly ball rate increase isn’t major cause for concern. And given the fickle nature of LD-rates, I would bet on positive regression there.

He also increased his barrel-rate and xwOBA despite a lower hard-hit rate. In 27 fewer PA, he hit more balls over 110 mph in 2023 (61) as 2022 (60). If his drop in hard-hit rate were decline-related (or injury-related, or anything else other than mostly noise), I would expect to see every bucket get lower – some of his 115+ mph contact would turn into 110-114 mph and some of his 110-114 mph would turn into 105-109, and so on. At least for his top-end power, we are not seeing that at all.

The more I look, the more his “rough” 2023 looks like bad luck on BABIP resulting in underperforming his xwOBA and nothing more. In fact, if you buy the increase in FB-rate and believe the line drives will come back, you could make a case that he is primed for a career year.

Keep or Cut?
Keep. In league 13, that $31 price just isn’t high enough to want to cut him, especially given that team just won a championship and we can, effectively, run it back even keeping our highest-priced stars. In league 1199, I did a hard rebuild starting mid-2023 and Alonso is a perfectly solid keeper for me to either a) add some high-end talent to a young, inexpensive team where I can afford to pay up for a stud, or b) hold and trade with a loan in May if things go sideways quickly. In both cases, I am open to trading Alonso – in 13, I also have Matt Olson and while I plan to keep both, I don’t have to keep both and in 1199, I have youth at 1B that I like, and could move Alonso for help at other spots. But I expect I’ll still have them both in January.

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Alec Bohm, 1B/3b
Salary: $7.00, 6.00
Average Salary: $9.34
2023 P/G: 4.98
Proj 2024 P/G: 4.95

Bohm is another I have in one FanGraphs Points league (league 13 at $7) and one roto (1443 at $6) but in this case the roto league is 5×5. This matters because Bohm’s high average and nice batting slot in a strong offense makes him a pretty solid 5×5 contributor. We often look at speed and power for 5×5, but a guy who offers high average while scoring and driving in a decent number of runs is a pretty solid option.

The challenge is that Bohm isn’t great in either format. These prices are pretty close to how he projects and how he projects is pretty close to his 2023 and his 2023 looks like a pretty fair progression for his career without a lot of reason to think it’s an outlier. It’s just not exciting.

You can see that progression looking at his plate discipline over time.

The walk rate has been steady, though you can kinda see an uptick from 2022 through 2023, but his K-rate has been in decline. His first full season, in 2021, strikeouts were an issue. By 2023, they were a strength, helping that high average. Statcast sliders are pretty imperfect, but they can be a useful shorthand and this is pretty telling:

Bohm does not hit the ball super hard, but he makes contact at a high rate, avoids strikeouts, puts the ball in play and is better-than-average and finding the sweet spot, leading to a high line-drive rate.

That all means we can and should expect more of the same from Bohm, which is what Steamer is seeing, as well. That makes him – in both points and 5×5 – a solid 3B option, maybe not a guy you want as your starter but certainly a guy you can live with.

Keep or Cut?
Honestly, I am not sure. Right now, keep. Come January, I sort of hope I have better options – either a legitimate stud starter who is clearly better than Bohm or someone with more upside I can dream on (or both!) and Bohm isn’t a necessity. I still might keep him in that case – he is a solid insurance policy at 3B – but I am not sure I feel all that good about it.

A few weeks ago, the Ottoneu+RotoGraphs team — Chad Young, Lucas Kelly, and myself — ran through some tough keep or cut decisions at middle infield for our Ottoneu teams. This week, we’ve moved on to corner infielders. I’ll run through three players on my bubble and where I think the keep line could be for each of them. All P/G projections are from the 2024 Steamer projections.

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Ryan Mountcastle 1B
Salary: $9
Average Salary: $11.3
2023 P/G: 4.99
Projected 2024 P/G: 5.09

Ryan Mountcastle had a really weird year in 2023. He started off producing one of the most unlucky batting lines in the league; through May 13, his wOBA-xwOBA was -.067, the fifth lowest in the majors among qualified batters. On that date, he was placed on the IL with a wrist injury and had another stint on the shelf with a bout of vertigo a month later. Upon his return, his results finally caught up with his expected stats and he wound up posting an overall line right in line with his .335 wOBA from his first full season in the majors in 2021.

Under the hood, his plate discipline improved ever so slightly; his strikeout rate dropped by 2.5 points and his walk rate was up slightly to 7.9%. With a selectively aggressive approach that produces plenty of hard contact, he won’t have the solid floor of a player with better on-base skills, but his approach moved in the right direction last year. And despite the weird batted ball luck that plagued him early in the season, his contact peripherals all fell within his established career norms.

So what’s the problem? It’s his home park. Mountcastle struggled last year when the Orioles expanded the depth of the wall in left field to its current cavernous dimensions. During his first full season and the last season Camden Yards had its old dimensions in 2021, Mountcastle pulled a little under 40% of his batted balls. That pull rate has dropped significantly the past two seasons and it’s a big reason why his actual results lag behind his expected stats.

In 2023, Mountcastle’s wOBA on pulled batted balls dropped dramatically despite producing similar contact quality. Some of that is related to his elevated groundball rate — that metric jumped up five points over where it was in 2021 and 2022 — but those deep dimensions in left field certainly affected his results. Rather than trying to pull the ball in the air like he did so successfully a few years ago, he adjusted his approach to try and hit up-the-middle more often. Of course, a batter like Mountcastle is going to do the most damage on pulled and elevated contact so seeing him diverge from that type of contact is a little worrying.

Keep or Cut?
The good news is that Mountcastle was able to post a wOBA within a couple of points of his .335 mark from 2021 this season. He has the raw power to overcome the deep dimensions of his home park but they’re certainly a hindrance to him reaching his full potential. Without a high ceiling to reach for, his value is capped around $7–10 I think. That kind of production could be an option to use at UTIL, but it’s not good enough to be your full-time 1B. And because he doesn’t have any positional flexibility whatsoever, he’s actually not that great an option at UTIL anyway. I’m probably cutting.

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Andrew Vaughn 1B
Salary: $9
Average Salary: $13.1
2023 P/G: 4.53
Projected 2024 P/G: 5.38

With José Abreu out of the picture, Andrew Vaughn finally had a full-time role at his natural position at first base in 2023. Getting him off the outfield grass helped his defensive value tremendously, but it didn’t have any positive benefit for his production at the plate. His wOBA dropped six points though he was able to post the best power output of his young career. All of his batted ball peripherals look good and he was even able to put the ball into the air more often this year.

Vaughn’s Steamer projection is particularly rosy. The computer sees another pretty significant step forward in power output for him next year plus a slightly higher walk rate which results in a projected wOBA higher than what he’s produced in any of his three seasons in the big leagues. If he hits that projection, he’ll easily be worth his average salary. The projection plus the batted ball quality point to a player who will likely be on a number of “breakout” lists this offseason.

I’m not totally convinced, however. The White Sox really screwed with Vaughn’s development, first by calling him up before he had even accumulated 250 minor league plate appearances and then by sticking him in the outfield for two years. He’s had solid batted ball peripherals all three seasons in the majors but his results have been rather lackluster nonetheless. And now that he’s lost outfield eligibility, the onus to produce at the plate will be even higher.

Keep or Cut?
That Steamer projection is really enticing; the Auction Calculator believes that projection will be worth somewhere between $13 and $15. It’s probably worth the risk to keep him at $9 to see if he can really take that big step forward, but I’d want to have a backup plan in place just in case he sticks around the production level he’s already established.

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Wilmer Flores 1B/3B
Salary: $7
Average Salary: $4.5
2023 P/G: 5.21
Projected 2024 P/G: 5.33

There are a bunch of competing factors that make Wilmer Flores somewhat overlooked by fantasy players. He’s old-ish and has been around forever — he’s entering his age-32 season and his 12th season in the big leagues — he’s more of a part-time player than someone you can count on everyday, and he’s a right-handed batter who mashes left-handed pitching. All of that contributes to glossing over the fact that he produced a career-best .368 wOBA this year.

Those factors also make this keep or cut decision a little tricky. Flores only played in 126 games in 2023 and only missed 10 days to an IL stint for a foot contusion in June. When you isolate the games he started and ignore the games he entered as a pinch hitter or defensive replacement, his points per game jumps from 5.21 up to 6.19. That’s a tremendous improvement in production, even if it’s a little intermittent. Rostering him means you absolutely need to have a second option to rotate into your lineup when Flores is on the bench which makes roster and lineup management a little more intensive.

The other complicating factor is that Flores lost 2B eligibility which really hurts his flexibility and potential value as an option at MI. He certainly can have some value as a part-time 3B in your lineup since that position is a lot shallower these days. And if you’re only using him when he starts, there’s a possibility that he’d even be an option at 1B provided you have another option to pair with him there.

Keep or Cut?
I don’t mind the headache of keeping tabs on when Flores is starting and the deep rosters in Ottoneu make platooning a viable fantasy strategy. $7 is probably the upper limit I’d want to invest in a part-time player, but Flores’s production definitely makes it worth it.

In a previous post, I created benchmarks for what should be considered a replacement-level player in a few of my FanGraphs points leagues. Though some may disagree with the specifics of my process, the general question we’re all trying to answer remains the same. At what level of projected P/G should you easily be able to decide on cutting a player? Here’s what I came up with for corner-infield players:

1B Replacement Level: 5.03 P/G
3B Replacement Level: 4.71 P/G

With those marks in mind, here are four players I must make keep or cut decisions on this offseason.

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Nolan Schanuel, 1B
Salary: $3.00
Average Salary: $6.09
2023 P/G: 5.04
Proj 2024 P/G: 4.67

With 29 games under his belt in 2023, Steamer expects the 21-year-old lefty to accumulate 125 games in 2024. That’s a very big jump, but one look at the Angels RosterResource page reveals no other clear option at 1B. Sure, Brandon Drury did play 47 games there in 2023, but with a DH spot (sadly, and likely) opening up in the Angels lineup, Drury will likely spend most of his time there. In addition, if you look at Eric Longenhagen’s June write-up of the top prospects in the Angels system, there’s not a single projected first baseman in the 28 players analyzed. Schanuel has a defensive path forward. The next question to ask is, how’s his defense? If you’re on the hopeful side of the argument, don’t read this excerpt from Michael Baumann’s September Schanuel piece:

Amateur first basemen have a low ceiling because of their limited defensive potential, and anyone who’s playing first base at 18 or 20 years old usually isn’t going to end up stealing a lot of bases when he’s 28 or 30.

In 244 innings at first base, Schanuel recorded -2 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), meaning his defense cost his team two runs. The best first baseman with at least 200 first base defensive innings, Carlos Santana, saved his team 11 runs by DRS while the worst, Spencer Torkelson, cost his team 11. Schanuel landed a little worse than right in the middle of the first base DRS spread, which is as unhelpful as it gets when it comes to this evaluation. The Angels could very well add first-base depth this offseason to hedge their bets.

Regardless of his defensive ability, he soared through three minor-league levels in 2023 as a recent draft pick to then make his debut with the big-league boys in mid-August. That’s where he began to catch people’s attention, slashing .275/.402/.330 in 132 plate appearances. Among rookies in 2023, the average K% was 25.8% and the average BB% was 8.1%. Schanuel did better on both of those marks, striking out only 14.4% of the time and walking 15.2%. That points to some serious upside in 2024 in the OBP department, but with a big sacrifice in power. Steamer projects the following slash line:

.258/.364/.407

With such a short track record to go off of, I’d like to see what ZiPs has to say about Schanuel as it projects with more of a similarity score process. The problem is that in a FanGraphs points format, walks don’t pay the bills like slugging ability and Schanuel’s projected 4.67 points per game sinks him down into replacement level.

Keep or Cut?
If I were rostering him for anything over $3, I would cut. Yes, he is projected to be under what I would consider “replacement level”, but I’m going to keep and hope and gamble that Schanuel’s development will be important to watch and that the upside is there given his plate discipline. Michael Baumann’s take:

…he’s only 21 and is lean in such a way that it wouldn’t surprise me if he put on more muscle in the next couple years. It’s not a huge stretch to imagine him as an elite all-fields line drive hitter.

That sounds right to me, and I’ll take the gamble in 2024.

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Alex Bregman, 3B
Average Salary: $32.24
Salary: $34.00
2023 P/G: 5.79
Proj 2024 P/G: 5.96

Alex Bregman is projected for a higher P/G mark in 2024. Here’s a slash line comparison to help understand how:

2023: .262/.363/.441
2024: .267/.367/.458 (PROJ)

It’s a very small, almost insignificant difference. Basically, Steamer thinks Alex Bregman will be Alex Bregman and maybe he’ll hit one or two more doubles. Steamer simply split the difference between Bregman’s 2022 23 home runs and his 2023 25 home runs, projecting him for 24 in 2024. That was a sentence with a lot of twos!

But, here’s a valuable statistic; between 2017 and 2023, which cuts out Bregman’s partial rookie season, the third baseman has accumulated 3981 plate appearances, good for 16th on a leaderboard full of big-time players. He finds himself on the VIP list of players like Freddie Freeman (1st, 4308), Francisco Lindor (2nd, 4305), Paul Goldschmidt (3rd, 4285), and Marcus Semien (4th, 4273). Bregman’s track record of volume and 20+ home run potential make me just want to keep him at $34, but we’re not there yet! There have only been four seasons in Bregman’s career where he has missed the 20 HR mark:

2016 – 8 HR (short rookie year)
2017 – 19 HR (missed by 1!)
2020 – 6 HR (pandemic, duh)
2021 – 12 HR (injury)

Now, how does that translate to value? According to the work I did creating tiers for all offensive players, 5.96 P/G is tier two status, and tier two players were paid $18 on average. But 5.96 P/G is close to making it out of tier two and into tier one. I’m willing to pay for tier one where the average price jumps to $29. There are also no available third basemen as of yet and I don’t think there will be come cut date. In this particular league, José Ramírez ($56), Rafael Devers ($35), Manny Machado ($34), Bregman ($34), Austin Riley ($27), and Nolan Arenado ($24) are the highest paid and though I would like to have Bregman closer to $30, I don’t think I could get him back for that price at the draft.

Keep or Cut?
Keep!

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Matt Mervis, 1B
Average Salary: $4.74
Salary: $4.00
2023 P/G: 7.11
Proj 2024 P/G:

Who is Matt Mervis, really? Hopefully, he is not his 2023 27-game slash line:

.167/.242/.289

Hopefully, Mervis can do better than the RosterResource red highlight that signifies he is in a “Projected platoon vs RHP”. Hopefully, he makes the big league club this spring and moves up slightly from the eight spot he’s projected to bat from. That’s a lot of hope for $4. I, admittedly, make the mistake of giving up too soon too often in keeper formats, but I need something I can grab onto with Mervis. I’m having a hard time finding it.

Mervis struck out an alarming 32.3% (26.3% vs. R and 57.9% vs. L). With only 19 at-bats against lefties, it’s nothing to get all worked up about, but it’s not something to ignore either. It’s his power that got so many excited when he was an up-and-coming prospect and a lot of the hype came from fantasy touts after his Arizona Fall League performance. Then there’s this, from Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin’s assessment of the Cubs system back in July:

His raw power is real, though. Mervis’ hands are fast and powerful, and he’s capable of hitting titanic pull-side blasts. He once hit a home run that struck the Cubs’ spring training stadium’s upper level… from their primary minor league backfield. Hanging breaking balls and anything that finishes on the inner third of the plate are vulnerable to his pull-heavy style of swinging.

How did that turn out in his short 2023 stint? As expected with the fastballs, but not so with breaking balls, mostly because he saw very few of them.

Statcast

I don’t like banking on the idea that Mervis might see lots of hanging breaking balls on the inner third. No, the truth is found if you just keep reading his prospect report beyond the “smashes breaking balls” part:

Mervis ends up being pretty long to the outer third of the zone, and big league fastballs up and away from hitters who swing like this tend to present a real problem. Mervis’ initial big league trial was pretty rough and we don’t anticipate things will get much better. He’s got a lot of Quad-A signals and we’re now receiving them.

Statcast

You can see, unhighlighted in the visual, that pitchers took advantage of the scouting report and worked him outside. But, highlighted in the visual, you see that he didn’t do much with pitches on the inside third, pitches that he is supposed to pull out of the galaxy.

Keep or Cut?
I have thoroughly talked myself out of this one. He’s a cut for me and I may just try to sneak him on my roster for $1 with the hope that the swing adjustments he was reportedly making in AAA pay off.

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Isaac Paredes, 1B/2B/3B
Average Salary: $8.11
Salary: $13.00
2023 P/G: 5.55
Proj 2024 P/G: 5.43

This version of Paredes has received a $2 arbitration increase in each of the past two seasons, bringing his rostered salary well above the average. His projected 5.43 P/G in 2024 lowers him, just barely, into tier-three status among all offensive players with at least 75 games in 2023. But, there’s upside and it comes from Paredes’ power, or lack of power, or…it’s complicated. In a FanGraphs points format, slugging percentage is key and Paredes is projected to slug .463. The upside, however, comes from his 2023 mark of .488. In each of his big league seasons, he has increased his slugging percentage. Though his .362 wOBA doesn’t match his .314 xwOBA, his average launch angle has increased from 7.5 in his rookie season to 22.2 in 2023. He hovered around 6% with his barrel rate in 2022 and 2023 and while the league average was 8.1% in 2023, Paredes is still only 24 years old, and his MaxEV of 110.4 is respectable. FanGraphs writer Esteban Rivera examined this conundrum back in July of 2023 which is an excellent read for anyone trying to figure out Paredes. As Rivera points out, Paredes’ game is to pull the ball in the air and despite his lack of raw power, his approach and understanding of the zone allow for his actual statistics to beat out his expected statistics, allowing for sneaky good results:

Will he be figured out? Will pitchers simply focus on throwing to the outer edge of the plate, limiting his ability to get into his pull power? So far, it seems, that Paredes is covering the plate just fine:

Statcast

Isolated to only balls in the zone, you can see he’s still able to pull plenty of balls on the outer half. The visual above makes for a very broad assessment as there’s no isolation of pitches, but what I like most about Paredes’ improvements over the past few seasons is his ability to hit the fastball. His Pitch Info pVal on four-seam fastballs jumped from -3.1 in 2021 to 0.7 in 2022 to a whopping 8.4 in 2023.

Keep or Cut?
Now for the hard part. Remember that part about sneaky results? Well, the term “sneaky” no longer applies to a $13 player. Keep or cut? It’s simple, just answer the question, keep or cut?! Well, $13.00 is a lot and I may be overvaluing Paredes’ power, but I love his positional flexibility and I’m paying a little extra for the upside in 2024. I’ll keep, but don’t tell too many people.

Part I covered 35-22 and Part II covered 21-11, so now we are onto the top ten trades I made in Ottoneu this year.

Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, Lucas Kelly and Chad Young ran though their tough keep or cut decisions at middle infield for their Ottoneu teams. Now I’ll join in on the party and run through three players on my bubble and where I think the keep line could be for each of them. All P/G projections are from the 2024 Steamer projections.

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Ryan McMahon 2B/3B
Salary: $6 and $10
Average Salary: $11.4
2023 P/G: 4.71
Projected 2024 P/G: 4.95

Ryan McMahon’s career trajectory has been anything but a straight line. A breakout season in 2019 was followed by an extremely disappointing pandemic-shortened season. A second breakout in 2021 made it seem like he had gotten things back on track but he took some significant steps back the next year and followed that up with another step back this year.

It all comes down to his strikeout rate. In 2021, he struck out a career-low 24.7% of the time while continuing to hit for power and draw a decent amount of walks. The strikeout rate stayed low last year but his power dried up a bit despite similar looking underlying batted ball peripherals. His quality of contact stayed mostly the same in 2023 — a good thing — but his strikeout rate suddenly shot back up above 30%. It’s pretty easy to see why.

His ability to make contact on pitches in the zone absolutely cratered last year. His walk rate was actually a career-high 10.8% which indicates he still had a decent idea of which pitches to swing at. Unfortunately, his ability to consistently make contact with those right pitches eluded him. For a player with his offensive profile, making the most of every single ball he puts in play is paramount, but when those below-average bat-to-ball skills take a turn for the worse, the whole house of cards collapses.

Keep or Cut?
The good news is that his quality of contact is still present. He posted career bests in barrel rate and expected wOBA this year and will continue to play in the most hitter friendly environment in baseball. His profile will always be a little risky thanks to his below average contact skills even if his power and discipline give him a solid floor in this format. Steamer projects a bit of a bounce back in his strikeout rate at the cost of some power leading to an overall wOBA right in line with what he’s done the last two years. That puts his value somewhere between $8 and $11 based on the Auction Calculator. I’m rostering him in two leagues and I’m definitely keeping him at $6. In the other league, he’s still on my bubble since that team desperately needs cap space and I’m not sure keeping McMahon at essentially market value is the best use of resources there.

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Jeff McNeil 2B/OF
Salary: $8 and $13
Average Salary: $10.9
2023 P/G: 4.35
Projected 2024 P/G: 5.14

A year ago, Jeff McNeil was coming off a phenomenal season in which he won the NL batting crown, was an All-Star, and received down-ballot MVP votes. Fast forward a year and McNeil’s star looks a lot less bright. It’s not hard to figure out the issue that sank his season this year: it’s all about the BABIP. In many ways, his offensive struggles this year look a lot like the mediocre season he put together in 2021. Unfortunately, there are a lot more red flags this year than there were two years ago.

It’s important to note that McNeil’s full season stats hide the ebbs and flows of his season. He actually started off fairly strong, posting a 139 wRC+ through the first month of the season, but a prolonged summer slump dragged his production into a crater that even a late season surge couldn’t salvage.

For the most part, his wOBA followed his BABIP, which makes sense for a player so dependent on his high-contact approach. The weird thing was the gigantic spike in strikeout rate that occurred in the middle of the season. It’s almost as if he tried to swing his way out of his slump which only exacerbated his issues. Despite that huge mountain of strikeouts during the summer, his overall strikeout rate ended up at nearly a career-low by the end of the season. His ability to make contact isn’t in question.

I am a little more worried about his quality of contact. McNeil has never really hit the ball all that hard, relying instead on an ability to spray his contact from line to line while never really producing all that much weak contact. Unfortunately, his hard hit rate fell three points to 27% and his sweet spot rate dropped seven points to 32.1%. It all culminated in a ghastly .281 expected wOBA on contact, easily a career-worst for him and one of the worst marks in baseball among qualified batters. For a batter who relies so heavily on putting the ball in play, to have such a dramatic drop in contact quality is a serious red flag.

Keep or Cut?
McNeil now has almost 2700 career plate appearances with a .346 wOBA and Steamer projected a nice bounce back from him in 2024. Still, the drop in contact quality is a big concern which clouds his future a bit. During his down year in 2021, his hard hit and sweet spot rates were right in line with his career norms indicating that much of his struggles were simply rooted in bad batted ball luck; that’s not the case this year. Despite his up-and-down year, he was still worth $8 according to the Auction Calculator in 2023. Like McMahon, I’m rostering McNeil in two leagues and one is priced as an easy keep ($8) and the other puts him on the bubble ($13). There is certainly a universe where McNeil returns that higher value or even more but it now feels a little more risky than it did a year ago.

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Carlos Correa SS
Salary: $27
Average Salary: $27.4
2023 P/G: 4.45
Projected 2024 P/G: 5.40

A year ago, if you told me I had the option of keeping a $27 Carlos Correa, it would have been a no-brainer decision. One season long bout with Plantar Fasciitis has completely changed his fortunes. Health has always been an issue with Correa; he’s topped 150 games played in a season just once back in 2016 and has had major IL stints for a variety of ailments in nearly every other season. The production is obviously elite when he’s on the field, but you have to bake in some risk that he’ll miss significant time each season into your evaluation calculus.

While his foot injury sapped a lot of his power, he also underperformed many of his underlying metrics based on his batted ball quality. His hard hit and barrel rates were right in line with his career norms, but all of his expected stats outpaced what he actually produced at the plate this year and his BABIP fell from .339 to .272. That one-two punch of bad luck combined with bad health meant that he was a shell of his normal self in 2023.

The amount you value Correa in 2024 seems entirely dependent on how much you think he’ll play. If you believe he’ll be healthy and ready to play a full season, a $27 salary could be close to market value with the potential of becoming a steal if Correa is truly firing on all cylinders. As it is, $27 feels like too much of a risk for a player who had yet to prove he can stay on the field for an entire season.

Keep or Cut?
The team that has to make a decision about Correa also has Gunnar Henderson to cover shortstop if I end up cutting the former. Steamer projects a pretty significant bounce back campaign for Correa next year and the projection even accounts for around 20 games missed next year. Because I have Henderson to step into the full-time shortstop role and they’re priced around the same, I’ll be cutting Correa in favor of the younger option.

Yesterday, Lucas Kelly went through some tough keep or cut decisions at for his Ottoneu teams. Today, I’ll do the same. Before diving in, I’ll note that Lucas and I have slightly different values on middle infield.

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Last week I tried to create benchmarks for what should be considered a replacement-level player in a few of my FanGraphs points leagues. Here’s what I came up with for middle-infield players:

2B Replacement Level: 3.71 P/G
SS Replacement Level: 3.51 P/G

The actual MI position is a tricky one to nail down, so I’ll just separate the two positions out for now. This replacement level mark is not an exact science. Maybe your league mates have been stock-piling shortstops for some reason and that would change the way you calculate a replacement-level player. Regardless, if you have a sense of what kind of player you can typically find on the waiver wire throughout the season, you can make decisions on whether a player is worth keeping in 2024 or not. With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few of my middle-infielders and analyze their keepworthiness for 2024.

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Tommy Edman, 2B/SS/OF
Salary: $11.00
Average Salary: $11.98
2023 P/G: 4.17
Proj 2024 P/G: 4.50

Edman’s projected 4.50 P/G according to Steamer places him in Tier 5 among all players who played in over 75 games last season. Steamer expects Edman to take a step forward in 2024, increasing his P/G mark by over 0.30 P/G. What’s the reason for that? Well, his BABIP was at a career-low .248 in 2023 and Steamer took notice, bumping it up to .264 in 2024, which is aiding increases in his slash line:

2023: .248/.307/.399
2024: .264/.321/.407 (PROJ)

Though Edman did lose some time to injury in 2023, he still reached 528 plate appearances. Steamer has bumped that up to 536 in 2024 and FanGraphs Depth Charts is even higher at 581. No one seems too concerned that Richie Palacios will be taking over either 2B or SS playing time from Edman in 2024. Unless something unexpected happens this offseason, Edman seems like a very good lock at everyday SS. Edman’s speed is still an asset and though FanGraphs points leagues reward power and slugging percentage more, speed still plays and I’m banking on a positive hitting regression for Edman.

Keep or Cut?
I am keeping for 2024. If I were rostering him for $12, I would cut him and take my chances trying to get him back for less at the auction. Cuts have not been made in this league yet, and when I look at the players who are not rostered at the 2B/SS positions who played more than 75 games in 2023, the best I can find is 4.35 P/G (Jeff McNeil). That makes me feel pretty good about where I’ve set the replacement level considering McNeil ended the year on the IL.

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Andrés Giménez, 2B
Average Salary: $9.11
Salary: $6.00
2023 P/G: 4.39
Proj 2024 P/G: 5.15

Giménez’s slash line took a hit in 2023 compared to 2022:

2022: .297/.371/.466
2023: .251/.314/.399
2024: .265/.328/.427 (PROJ)

If that’s not an example of a projection system regressing to the mean then I don’t know what is. It would be easy to say that he was BABIP’d in 2023 (.289) and move on. But Giménez is still only 25 years old and I do think there is another gear in his game. His power skills took a hit in 2023, but he played in a career-high 153 games. Could there be an aspect of fatigue involved? Take a look at some of his power skills between 2022 and 2023:

Barrel% 2022: 6.2 -> 2023: 5.5
HardHit% (Statcast) 2022: 37.6 -> 2023: 27.0
xwOBA 2022: .326 -> 2023: .300
EV: 2022: 87.8 -> 2023: 84.8
MaxEV 2022: 109.9 -> 2023: 108.8

He also started to pull the ball more with less power:

There is a disagreement between his statcast HardHit% and his SportsInfo measurements. Regardless of which you believe in more, the bump in 1% in the graph would need to be a whole lot higher in order for the pull-the-ball-in-the-air approach to help Giménez’s power. Though the table below is not adjusted for batted ball events, it does indicate that Giménez is generating the most power from line drives:

He seems to find himself in this place where he needs to add a little more power to his pull-the-ball-in-the-air approach, or he needs to simply focus on making hard contact and plate discipline to increase his BB%. His 30 stolen base potential is at risk and declines further from the .314 OBP he showed in 2023.

Keep or Cut?
Last season’s 4.39 P/G was well above what I’ve marked as replacement level (3.71 P/G) and Steamer likes a positive regression in 2024. The upside is there, stolen base potential and perhaps he finds a way to add power to his new approach. If not, and he reverts back to a harder-hit ball, not in the air, then I still like what he did in 2022. Most second basemen with over 75 games in 2023 at 5.00 P/G were rostered, on average, between $5-$12. I’m keeping anywhere below $8 and might even go a few dollars higher.

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Brice Turang, 2B/SS
Average Salary: $4.30
Salary: $3.00
2023 P/G: 2.51
Proj 2024 P/G: 3.87

Turang’s projection places him above the replacement level at 2B in 2024, but just barely. He came very close to a full season in 2023, playing 126 games and recording 546 plate appearances. Steamer projects a step forward when looking at his slash line:

2023: .218/.285/.300

2024: .246/.319/.370 (PROJ)

Steamer also thinks his six home runs and 26 stolen bases will turn into 10 home runs and 20 stolen bases next season. Turang is not being rostered in Ottoneu leagues due to his ability to provide a P/G mark above that of any replacement-level player. Managers are rostering for his future value and upside potential. The question is, will it come? For now, he seems good enough defensively to stay in the 2B position, and depending on what happens to shortstop Willy Adames in 2025 when he hits free agency, it could be a few more seasons before we really get a sense of what Turang will become. His contact rates from 2023 looked a little troublesome and he really struggled to hit the fastball. While rookies walked 8.1% and struck out 25.8% of the time in 2023, Turang did better, walking 8.5% of the time and striking out 21.0% of the time. However, he did not hit the ball hard very often, only barreling the ball 2.9% of the time. The league average among rookies is 7.6%.

Keep or Cut?
This is my last season holding Turang for upside and it might not last long. He hasn’t shown the skills necessary to be a rosterable hitter, yet. That is in a points format, however. Any player who can hit 10 home runs and steal 20 bases at a very low price should probably be rostered in roto formats. In points formats, anything over $3 is a cut for me.

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Jonathan India, 2B
Average Salary: $12.13
Salary: $16.00
2023 P/G: 5.20
Proj 2024 P/G: 5.23

India found himself in Jeff Zimmerman’s “Hitters Who Played Through a 2023 Injury” report at the end of the season, but the difference between his projected OPS and final OPS was a tiny .003. Regardless, Zimmerman’s research has determined a decline in performance while players play through injury, and with an injury like plantar fasciitis, the one India suffered through in 2023, you can hope that India will improve with health in 2024. Even with the injury, he was above replacement. Players who earned around the 5.0 P/G mark in 2023 with over 75 games have an average salary between $5-$14.

In 2023, India’s BB% increased, his K% decreased, but his overall slash line declined, except for SLG. His wOBA was also up over his 2022 mark. His BABIP was at a career low, .281. His power metrics and batted ball profile have roughly stayed the same, but he’s hitting the ball in the air more. The problem is that his fly ball increases did not correspond with his power increases throughout the season:

His swing percentages tell a story, I’m just not sure what the story is. It looks as if his swing decisions have improved. He has swung outside of the zone less often, swung inside the zone more often, and become more selective overall. None of that really helped against left-handed pitchers, though, he hit .207 against them. That’s the second-worst mark in front of Alan Trejo among second basemen with at least 100 plate appearances against lefties. That’s worrisome when you look at the Reds RosterResource page and see India lined up in the DH spot. He feels dangerously close to finding himself platooned.

Keep or Cut?
I think the $10 or $11 dollar mark is appropriate. Anything over $12 feels like a cut.