Looking for outfield help with some pop to spruce up your fantasy roster?  Got a guy on your team mired in a slump and could stand to ride the pine for a week or two?  Deeper league owners should already be wise to these players (if you’re not, you’re probably sitting in last and could stand to pay some attention), but if you’re in a relatively shallow league, you might want to consider grabbing one of them.  Whether it’s to replace an injured Matt Holliday for a few games or a slumping Alex Rios for a couple of weeks, both of these guys can contribute, atleast for the short run. Read the rest of this entry »

Not every big fly is a home run.

Fantasy players in leagues that count slugging percentage know that they can find a competitive advantage in players that don’t hit home runs but do manage plenty of extra base hits. Those in ottoneu linear weights leagues know the same. So let’s look at some different players that have added value in leagues that count extra base hits that are not home runs.

The first idea that comes to mind is doubles power. Perhaps there are some players that hit doubles but don’t really have the power to get those balls over the wall (dirty). This year, the doubles leader is Michael Young, which might come as a surprise considering his two home runs so far. Other players with lower home run totals that appear in the top ten are Alex Gordon and Chipper Jones. Jacoby Ellsbury and Billy Butler are the only other surprises in the top ten.

The most attainable of this crew might be Gordon. He’s showing the best power of his career when measured by ISO (.181), but we know that statistic takes the longest to stabilize. Will his doubles power continue to offer value in non-home-run-centered leagues? It seems yes. Since strikeout rate stabilizes early and Gordon’s 21.4% strikeout percentage is the best of his career, we can assume that he’ll put more balls into play than in his average year. Contact percentage becomes reliable early as well, and his current 81.6% contact rate is well above his career number (76.8%). Put more balls into play with above-average career power (.163 ISO career, .150 is average), and you’ll end up at second base often enough. Consider trying to acquire Gordon if you need extra points in linear weights leagues, or some extra slugging percentage in OPS leagues.

Another way to add value in these non-traditional leagues is to show an above-average ISO when your home-run power is pedestrian. Most of the ISO leaderboard is conventional. Obviously Jose Bautista leads the list and Curtis Granderson and Mike Stanton follow closely. But you might be surprised to find Russell Martin and Shane Victorino rounding out the top 30 in that statistic.

Martin deserves some attention on his own because his work is superlative when seen in the context of his career. But Victorino has long been a secret boon in leagues that measure power in ways other than home runs. His career ISO is .153, but he’s bettered that mark since 2008. This year, by making more contact, he’s hitting the most fly balls of his career. That might seem like a poor idea for a speedy hitter, but obviously the Phillie center fielder has some power. Last year, Victorino did not hit 30 doubles for the third straight year, but he did manage to hit a career-high in home runs. if he doesn’t hit 20 home runs this year, expect him to challenge 30 doubles like he used to. Either way, Victorino, once healthy, will provide great power in leagues that can see past his pedestrian home run total.

Thank goodness for injuries opening up playing time for new blood or I would be out of a job. Injuries to Jason Heyward and Nate McLouth have provided opportunities for a one-time recent prospect and another one-time prospect who has become a productive bench bat.

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On the morning of May 2nd, a fairly toasted Shin-Soo Choo flagged down a police cruiser and asked for directions home. As you know, the rest of his night went downhill from there, and for fantasy owners, the rest of his production has been pretty much downhill from there too.

While Choo isn’t the flashiest of players and he won’t single handedly carry you in a particular category, I wouldn’t blame owners if they figured they could pencil in a .300 batting average, 20 home runs, 20 steals, and 90 RBI on draft day and move on. But since the beginning of May, Choo has batted .236/.325/.361 with one home run and has struck out 29.2% of the time. Whether or not that incident has been the catalyst for such a slide, I don’t know, but Choo either presents a quandary for owners or a potential opportunity for trade mavens, so let’s dig in and see if we can’t unearth the cause.

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A brief (and terrible) joke: What is up with Nick Swisher?

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Let’s take a quick look at one of the more decimated outfields in the big leagues. The Atlanta Braves haven’t had a good outfield in years, but going into this season, they had trade acquisition Nate McLouth manning center and two home-cooked products in Martin Prado and Jason Heyward on the corners. It looked like it could be a decent-to-strong group and a change of pace for the Braves.

This weekend, Heyward went on the DL with his rotator cuff inflammation and McLouth left a game early with an oblique problem. That’s a good way to test your depth. Unfortunately, the Braves are short on depth in the outfield. Let’s look at the winners in this outfield mess.

Eric Hinske (4% owned in Yahoo, 8.3% in ESPN)
Obviously this career .256 hitter won’t continue to hit .355, especially when he’s out there playing every day. Most worrisome is what will happen when he goes up against lefties — some of his success this year have some from being hid versus same-handed pitchers (69 of 81 PAs have come against righties). He has a .300 OBP and .385 SLG against lefties, career, and those numbers go up to .347 and .456 against righties. If you can sit him against lefties, he makes for a good short-term pickup in deeper leagues just because he will be playing regularly and has a little pop. One note about his BABIP — since he’s been hitting balls on the ground more often this year, he actually has a .339 xBABIP. Yes, his .442 BABIP will regress, but it might not regress to his career .301 BABIP. He will probably put in the best seasonal batting average of his career this year.

Joe Mather (0% owned in Yahoo, 0.3% owned in ESPN
Acquired from the Cardinals in the offseason for outfield depth, Mather is now on fire in a small sample size. As a right-hander, he’ll probably work as Hinske’s caddy versus lefties — he’s not a center fielder by trade. He played all over the diamond in Atlanta’s Triple-A affiliate (1B, 3B, LF, RF), but never in center, and he’s been moved to the corner outfield gradually over his career. On the other hand, despite being better against lefties in the minor leagues, Mather has not shown great numbers against major league lefties to date. His current swinging strike percentage (13.5%), paired with his BABIP (.545), suggests the batting average is headed for a nose dive.

The Rest
If McLouth hits the DL for an extended period of time for his oblique injury, a truer center fielder than Mather will be required. Diory Hernandez took over for McLouth in Sunday’s game, but the shortstop moved to third base, pushing Martin Prado back out to left fied and Mather in to center. Hernandez, however, hits like the defensive replacement he is. Could Jordan Schafer or Matt Young get the call? Both are better defensive center fielders, perhaps, than a career infielder. Neither is playing very well in Triple-A (.256/.309/.323 for Schafer and .255/.354/.306 for Young) but both are on the 40-man roster. Schafer is, however, showing the best strikeout rate of his career in the young season. If McLouth’s oblique is a problem, he might come up. If the new strikeout rate persists, he might be able to pair a decent batting average with some speed and a little bit of power (though, to be fair, the power has disappeared since 2009). Cautious interest, even in deeper leagues, is the best tactic here.

Today we’ll continue our look at Pick Six values by looking at middle infield and outfield.  You can see our discussion of catcher and corner infield values here.  As a reminder, the production numbers you see below (FP/PA = Fangraphs Points per Plate Appearance) are weighted averages of THT’s Oliver and BPro’s PECOTA.  I didn’t include ZiPS, but feel free to click the players and look up those numbers as well.

Middle Infield

Elite Three (they cost a fortune, but they’re worth it):

Troy Tulowitzki, 1.57 FP/PA, $56.75
Hanley Ramirez, 1.53 FP/PA, $51.50
Robinson Cano, 1.40 FP/PA, $46.75

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Sometimes you just get bitter. Like when your FanGraphs ottoneu Experts League team has just been staring at fifth place for a month and a half in a keeper league and there’s absolutely no way to know which way to go. Sell or buy? Well, let me have a healthy week or two and I’ll decide, eh?

The David Wright injury will hurt me, but it’s a situation in my outfield that has me most upset. Nelson Cruz went down – that was obviously a risk going in, given his history. Then Angel Pagan went down, and really that’s a ditto. And Grady Sizemore? That’s on me too I guess. Travis Snider was a backup plan, though, and that went out the window with all the strikeouts. Hey maybe I deserved it?

That doesn’t help me be any less bitter. So I head over to the new leaders team, the one belonging to Tim Heaney and the crew from KFFL. I should be able to find some sell-high guys there, right?

Uh, not so much. Alex Avila, Mark Teixeira, Brandon Phillips, Starlin Castro, Aaron Hill, Evan Longoria, Juan Pierre, Ian Desmond… looks fine here. On the staff? Dan Haren, Tommy Hanson and Jhoulys Chacin are all pre-season favorites and are strong bets to continue their fine performances. Huston Street, and Jordan Walden are his only official closers, but Kenley Jansen and Daniel Bard make for fine future closers. This is a nice team.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t a couple players on the team perhaps performing beyond their capabilities. Drew Stubbs is striking out 27.5% of the time and has a .349 BABIP supporting his .281 batting average right now. Once that BABIP returns to earth – and we’re talking .325ish territory, since he does have good speed – he won’t have a real-nice looking batting average. He’ll still have power and speed, though, as his .181 ISO is right in line with career norms and he stole 46 bases at his last stop in Triple A (in 472 PAs). So, yeah, still a good player.

Same theme with Curtis Granderson. Sure, he won’t slug .643 all year and his .364 ISO will return to earth some. But he’s also hitting the ball in the air more and squarely in his power prime at 30 years old. Even with a little power regression, KFFL should be able to bank at least 35 home runs from their $14 player. Not so bad. Once money is considered, does it even matter if the $1 Brennan Boesch is a platoon player with an inflated BABIP? He’s playing well enough to fill in for the suddenly resurgent Adam Lind. Can you sense the bitterness?

Dudes even got Alexi Ogando for $2 so that takes the sails right out from any mention of his .193 BABIP or continued platoon split (4.85 FIP against lefties). Well, at least they spent $18 on Delmon Young, amiright. Even some BABIP love won’t help if he continues to pound that rock into the ground 50% of the time. Gotta get em up to get em out.

What really gets me, though, is this graph from the new ‘Reports’ tab in ottoneu. Check my team going in the wrong direction, and KFFL going through the roof. It’s enough to eat your hat.

After stumbling last year following his 2009 breakout season, Jason Kubel is quietly having a really strong start to 2011 — bet you didn’t realize he’s currently fifth in batting in the AL — so why, exactly, is he a potential a sell high candidate?

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Today, we’ll focus on one National League outfielder instead of the entire class. We know from his twitter feed that 24-year-old Logan Morrison is an excellent young man worth paying attention to, but it’s hard to know exactly how excellent he is with respect to his fantasy value without unpacking his power potential.

Right now, Mr. Morrison has a .313 ISO which would be fourth in baseball if he had played enough to qualify for the batting title. We can’t hold his foot injury against him, but we do know that it means that he’s had fewer PAs than his competitors and his sample is even smaller than average. For a guy that showed a .164 ISO last year, and a .174 ISO in his minor league career, we can remain skeptical that his power will last, and the size of the sample doesn’t help matters.

We do know that isolated power doesn’t even really stabilize over a season, so maybe we don’t really know what his major league power looks like on a reliable level. He’s only played for 366 major league plate appearances. Players don’t usually put up power numbers that trump their minor league work, but certainly young men put on weight and become more powerful as they age. Could Morrison out-do his rest-of-season projections that have him dropping back down to a .177 ISO? That projection would mean only ten more home runs the rest of the season even though he’s managed five in his first 79 plate appearances.

One piece of good news is that Morrison has changed his batted ball profile slightly. After putting up groundball rates over 50% regularly in the minor leagues, Morrison is showing what would be a full-season low in that category right now (40%). Correspondingly, he’s hitting more fly balls (43.6%) than groundballs for the first time in his life. If these changes hold, he could very easily outperform his previous power work.

How far are we from being able to reliable predict that these changes in his batted ball profile will hold? Some might say never because of stringer bias, but Pizza Cutter tells us the ground-ball rate numbers that we have stabilize around 40 PA. So Morrison has shown us that he’s willing to hit the ball on the ground a little more in the major leagues. According to his work, we’ll have to wait another 100 PAs to believe the fly ball rates, but we do know that he’s hitting fewer ground balls.

You have to get the ball in the air to get it out of the park. This is true even if your home park suppresses home runs between one and five percent depending on your handedness. It would be folly to believe a .300 ISO from Logan Morrison, given his minor league career numbers, but a .200 ISO now seems possible with his new ground-ball rate. With the average major league ISO now down to .139, Morrison’s power looks better in comparison even if he doesn’t sustain a .200 ISO, though.

It’s clear that Mr. Morrison is an excellent play even if he doesn’t ever hit 30 home runs a season. His modest power is being boosted by what might turn out to be a real change in approach at the plate.