On Monday, I compared the Spd Score metric with a hitter’s stolen base total to highlight three players who may experience a surge in the steals category next season. Today, I will look at the opposite, three hitters whose stolen base total is much higher than expected given their Spd scores. As a result, they may be in danger of contributing fewer steals for your fantasy team next year.
The Marlins finally have their new park, and now comes the hard part: filling the seats. No, that’s for them to worry about. Our difficult project of the day is attempting to project Mike Stanton’s power in that new park.
A caveat first. Stanton has gobs of raw power and can get it out of any park in the league. But we may find a surpise, too. It doesn’t look like the new park will produce the second 50-homer season in the league since 2006, at least not without a power surge from the player. Let’s look at the numbers and then a picture to clarify.
This group of American League outfielders is filled with players whose upside is limited by a flaw or two, but who are still very much worth employing as third or fourth outfielders, depending on the size and format of your league. All of these players are still in their prime, capable of putting up above-average numbers in at least two fantasy categories and, for the most part, they’re going to help much more than they hurt. Yes, even B.J. Upton.
We’ve covered tiers one and two for the NL (and tiers one and two for the AL, and yes, we’ll collate them into mixed league rankings soon), but the position has bountiful keeper options and this third tier is not terrible. The best thing is that these guys are in their peak age ranges — the worst thing is that they each have at least one flaw that may keep them from superstardom.
Tier One
Matt Kemp
Ryan Braun
Tier Two
Justin Upton
Carlos Gonzalez
Andrew McCutchen
Tier Three
Mike Stanton
Let’s leave the speculation about Stanton’s new home park to my Wednesday slot. Instead, let’s marvel in the fact that this gigolo with gorgeous chest hair has the led the National League in isolated slugging percentage since he debuted in 2010. He even got more powerful in his second season, pushing his ISO from .248 to .275 and his home run per fly ball rate from 22.9% to 24.8% (which led baseball). He did all of this while hitting more ground balls and fewer fly balls, which may seem somewhat odd. Then again, Albert Pujols (1.17 GB/FB), Prince Fielder (1.16), teammate Braun (1.11) and Joey Votto (1.17) all have similar batted ball profiles to the Florida outfielder who doesn’t turn 22 until next week (1.18). Dude has “80 power.”
The base off-season has officially begun and that means it is time to start looking forward to the 2012 season and projecting player performance. One of the most difficult categories to project any significant change in is stolen bases. Steals are as much of a result of speed and base stealing ability as it is opportunity and the mere willingness to run. I decided to sort all qualified hitters by Spd Score, which was originally created by Bill James and includes stolen base percentage, frequency of stolen base attempts, percentage of triples, and runs scored percentage. Although I am not a big fan of the metric since runs scored percentage is too team dependent to be included in the statistic, Spd Score is pretty much the best speed metric available by default. I compared the top Spd Score hitters to their stolen base totals to determine who may see a spike next year.
This batch of American League outfielders is the smallest. The reason? Unlike those from the first tier, none of these players can be counted on to be an OF1 because of some kind of flaw, obstacle or hiccup…but all three of them are also capable of being your top OF in the end, if you squint through the appropriately-colored glasses.
The top of the outfielder food chain is a crowded place. Between our first National League tier, the first American League tier, and these three talented dudes, we’ve already got nine excellent players. It seems to make sense to wait to pick your OF1 in mixed leagues, doesn’t it?
Tier One
Matt Kemp
Ryan Braun
Tier Two
Justin Upton
Little Brother did a lot of things right this year. He cut his strikeout rate to one that was better than league average for the first time (18.7% in 2011, 23.9% career). He hit a career high in home runs, runs, RBI, and stolen bases. His ISO was the best of his career, too (.240 in 2011, .211 career). In the end, only five outfielders in all of baseball outproduced Upton last year.
The fact that there’s no obvious outlier in his peripherals can only be considered a good thing. Sure, he hit all those career highs, but all of them were within hailing distance of his career numbers (other than, perhaps, strikeout rate). His BABIP (.319) was reasonable and below his career number (.337). His increase in power was tied to an increase in fly balls, but even that seems sustainable. he hit 44.8% fly balls last year, and his career number is 41%.
Yesterday, we began the process of unveiling our 2012 keeper rankings here at RotoGraphs, starting with the first tier of catchers and National League outfielders. Today, we get to American League outfielders with tier numero uno.
The fantasy season has largely drawn to a close — sure there’s Pick Six all the way until the final out — so it’s time to start thinking about the offseason. Here at RotoGraphs we’ll be unveiling our keeper rankings, tier by tier, position by position. For outfielders and pitchers, we’ll combine them at some point, too.
Here are your top tier National League outfielder keepers this offseason:
Matt Kemp
The number one producer in fantasy baseball last year according to Zach Sanders’ new calculator, Kemp had a season for the ages. One more home run and he would have had the fifth 40/40 season in the history of baseball. Even with slightly more power/speed combo players in baseball these days, it was an exemplary year. The mercurial 27-year-old center fielder put up career highs in hits, home runs, RBI, runs, walks, and stolen bases. That alone makes him a candidate for regression, but it’s nice to see what peripherals were actually in line with his career work. His strikeout rate, for one, improved over last year (23.1% this year, 25.4% last year) but really just settled into to his career rate (23.4%). Maybe his 10.7% walk rate won’t happen again (career 7.9%), but maybe it will. Kemp walked at about an average rate in the minor leagues and patience and power come with age. Speaking of power, his .262 ISO was a career high, but it comes off a steady three-year improvement in that category. He’s also slowly been shifting from hitting ground balls to hitting fly balls — after putting up a 1.4 GB/FB in 2008, he’s steadily pushed that ratio to the 0.9 he showed last year. First you get the fly balls, then you get the power. His HR/FB rate has followed the same steady progression.
Power is typically the hardest to come by in free agent pools across the land, but Josh Willingham and Logan Morrison were likely undrafted in many shallower leagues (think 12-team and fewer mixed leagues), yet contributed solidly in the homer category. Let’s see what we might expect for 2012.
Jason Catania discussed him a bit yesterday, but I wanted to look a little more in-depth. Willingham is a free agent this off-season and has always hit in pitcher’s park. Of course, that hasn’t stopped him from posting a .214 career ISO, but it will still be interesting to see where he ends up. Willingham is an extreme fly ball hitter, which is what you love to see from a power guy, though it does hurt one’s BABIP, and resulting batting average. His HR/FB has jumped around between 11.3% in 2010 to a career high 17.5% this past season. It would probably be wise to assume a bit of decline in his FB% (maybe to the mid-40% mark, rather than high-40%), while his HR/FB dips as well, though his new home park may have some effect here.
The good news is that although those two factors would take a bite out of his home run total, his contact rate should improve from its career worst mark. As Jason mentioned, health is the key for Willingham, but if it cooperates, another season of mid-20 home run production to follow. And if all the stars align, he does have the skills to clear the 30-homer plateau for the first time.
After hitting just two home runs in all of 2010 (albeit in just 244 at-bats), Morrison surprised many by swatting 23 out of the park this season. But maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised. In early 2009, he fractured his right wrist, causing him to miss two months of action and he complained of continued soreness during spring training in 2010. This would help to explain the power outage. In 2007 in Single-A, he hit 24 homers in 453 at-bats with a .216 ISO, so the power skills had certainly been displayed before. That said, he needs to hit more fly balls to increase my confidence in the power being sustainable, and it is hard to believe he will come close to repeating an 18.1% HR/FB ratio.
He should absolutely see more at-bats next season, assuming he doesn’t miss another meet-and-greet or have a Twitter battle with new manager Ozzie Guillen. So although the rate of homers is sure to decrease, his increased playing time should ensure another season of 20+ homers. Factor in a .265 BABIP that should jump and you have a guy who may even yield a profit versus his draft day cost.
