The Rays lost a lot of firepower this offseason in the form of Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena, though they replaced some of that production with Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon. Not all of it though, and one player expected to help pick up the slack is outfielder Matt Joyce, acquired from the Tigers for Edwin Jackson once upon a time. He put together a .361 wOBA in limited playing time last season and is a sneaky good late-round fantasy option.
One of the growing trends we see in fantasy baseball these days is the significant increase in the number of players contributing in the stolen base category. With that, the price for speed, overall, is decreasing. However, people still seem to go out and spend extra auction dollars on Juan Pierre or reach too high in their snake drafts for Brett Gardner. You don’t have to be that guy (or girl). Here are a couple of much cheaper options who will help keep you right in the thick of things in the speed department… Read the rest of this entry »
Manny Ramirez was humbled this winter. The dreadlocked one pulled in over $23 million last year and has career earnings topping $200 million, but he inked a one-year, $2M deal with the Tampa Bay Rays after a 2010 season sullied by three DL stints and a power outage. Even compared to his DH brethren signing single-year deals on the free agent market — Jack Cust, Hideki Matsui, Vladimir Guerrero, Jim Thome — Manny got less money.
Ramirez’s stock is similarly down in fantasy leagues. MockDraftCentral lists Manny’s ADP 42nd among those with outfield eligibility, and 156th overall. Jason Kubel, Ryan Ludwick and even Carlos Lee place ahead of Ramirez. Is it possible that Manny is actually underrated at this late point in his career? To answer that question, let’s review Ramirez’s injury-marred 2010 and try to project whether he could have a quality year in the land of cowbells.
Let’s take a look at a pair of 20-something AL East outfielders with a chance to move up the rankings this summer…
Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes…it rains. Fortunately, the ominous, dark clouds that usually precede the storm are visible enough to give you fair warning and help keep you from getting wet. So as we talk about the AL outfielders this week, here are a few that have those dark clouds hovering over that you might want to avoid. Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier today, Jason rolled out our outfield rankings for the American League and upon scanning the list, I was left rather dissatisfied, like watching an episode of 30 Rock without Tracy Morgan getting the crazy eyes. For all of the talent in the outfield, there’s really only one guy that is being considered in the first round, and that’s not even a sure thing. It seems disingenuous to call outfield a thin position but when you need three outfielders, that means a minimum of 36 of these guys will be starting for someone, so you best find a couple towards the top.
The $142 million dollar man was mostly known for his legs, but being dropped into a batting order with some bonafide thuggery means he’s not necessarily going to need to be standing on second base to score anymore. No doubt Crawford will run, but his steals could dip south of 40 sans urgency and in an effort to preserve the investment (although he stole two in their game yesterday). Despite that, 100 runs is almost a guarantee and he is almost as likely to hit better than .300 and drive in 75-80 runs while giving you HR’s in the teens. That’s a spicy meatball.
Josh Hamilton did his Hulk-smash thing for 133 games and made owners drool over the possibility of a full season of production. But no two words have more readily appeared in a player analysis than ‘if healthy’ to describe the fortunes of Hamilton headed into 2011. If he can stay on the field, he’d produce like a first rounder. But that he’s prone to injury is no secret, and it’s only the gambling sort of manager that will select him early in the second round, where he’s currently projected. I’ve seen age mentioned as another reason to be concerned about Hamilton, but he’s only 3 months older than the guy that tops this list, and he’s still a year junior to the likes of Albert Pujols, Jose Bautista, Nelson Cruz, and Matt Holliday, and you don’t read a lot about their length of tooth too much.
Can he repeat what he did in 2010? Probably not. But give him 130 games and he can give you a .300 batting average with close to 30 home runs and triple digit RBI. But there’s about as good a chance he has 350 PA’s as 700, so have your nerve pills handy.
The guy with the name that my kid loves to say, Choo is kind of an understated version of Matt Kemp with a more reliable batting average. He has become a proverbial take-it-to-the-bank .300 BA, 20 homers, 20 steals hitter which doesn’t arouse visions of rocket’s red glare, but you’re not going to find too many outfielders with the ability to check all five boxes the way Choo does. If some of the Cleveland kids can stay healthy enough (Grady Sizemore, Carlos Santana, Asdrubal Cabrera), Choo ought to flirt with triple digit RBI as well as 85+ runs. No longer the sleeper pick, he’s coming off the board in the late 3rd/early 4th in most mixed, so if you’re a believer, you’ll have to pay for it.
If I were feeling particularly impish, I’d just say “See Josh Hamilton” here. All the same things apply for the two Rangers. But I have to say that I enjoy watching Cruz hit because he inflicts pain on the ball like he’s the Clubber Lang of the Nation’s pastime. He hits for high average, drives in oodles of runs, and perhaps because of a reckless style of play, gets hurt frequently. You really have to plan on no more than 125 games with Cruz, and yet even in that number of games, he’s capable of hitting .290, pushing 30 home runs and 100 RBI. What’s even better is he’ll steal you 20 bags in between all the visits to the trainers room. However, I’d have to think there will come a time when he stops running so much to try and stave off some of the injuries, and that time might be 2011, so plan accordingly.
What he does for an encore after the whole Babe Ruth act, I don’t know. So much has been written about Bautista going into 2011, that I’m loath to add to it, so let’s just state the obvious: he’s unlikely to repeat those home runs, it’s entirely possible that he turns into some version of the guy he was with the Pirates, and it’s probably smart to plan on something in between the old and the new Jose. This leaves you with a risky pick, but a guy that ought to hit for a middling average, 30 home runs, and 90/90 runs/RBI. That he will be eligible for third base probably means that he won’t be in too many fantasy outfields, but nevertheless, the versatility is a plus.
The act of ranking American League outfielders is best described as an exercise in risk evaluation. Whether you crave risk or shrink from it—or perhaps you prefer a little of both, eh?—there are plenty of options from each end of the spectrum in almost every one of the below tiers. I’ll be your guide this season as we evaluate the men who patrol the green pastures of the junior circuit.
As per usual, these ranks were determined from a compilation of lists submitted by the RotoGraphs crew. Before we get on with the tiers, a few housekeeping points:
1) This list comprises the Top 53 outfielders.
2) To establish continuity, only players who received at least three mentions from our panel of judges are ranked.
3) For the purposes of this project, eligibility requires either 20 games played in the outfield in 2010 or a projected outfield spot in 2011.
Now, onto the tiers.
Ah yes, the contract year. It’s a very real phenomenon, something our own Dayn Perry brilliantly analyzed in Baseball Between The Numbers. Fantasy teams benefit from contract years just as much as real teams do, and if you’re lucky you’ll roster one or two such players a year. This is 100% subjective on my part, but I put together a list of five position players that could be primed to explode in 2011 with their eyes on a contract for 2012. Tomorrow we’ll tackle some pitchers.
Buster Posey and Jason Heyward garnered most of the attention among the NL rookie crop last season and rightfully so, but Mike Stanton of the Marlins was damn impressive in his own right. His 396 plate appearance debut featured a studly .248 ISO (15th highest among the 238 batters with at least 350 PA) and 22 homers, numbers that are pretty historic. The only other players with an ISO that high in that many plate appearances in their age 20 season: Mel Ott, Ted Williams, Alex Rodriguez, Bob Horner, and Frank Robinson. What does that mean for Stanton in 2011, specifically fantasy-wise?
It looks like the Rays are close to an agreement with Johnny Damon. While the move isn’t a front-line kind of thing, there are some slight positives that might make the player interesting in most fantasy leagues. As with the player, though, each possible reason for optimism comes with huge asterisks.
Though he isn’t the most powerful outfielder, Damon’s .130 ISO last year was a precipitous drop from his .207 the year before and was slightly below his near-league average .149 career ISO. The difference meant he didn’t hit double-digit home runs for the first time since 2001. We shouldn’t overstate the case for his new home park, though, as they treat left-handers virtually identically. Left-handers enjoyed a 90 park factor for home runs in Detroit, and an 89 in Tampa – but his overall offense may fare a tiny bit better, as lefty wOBAs are suppressed by four percent in Detroit, and three in Tampa. A few more doubles would treat his batting average better, at least.
Now, the lineup around him also provides some reason for optimism. The Rays scored 51 more runs than the Tigers last year. An increase around 7% to Damon’s runs and RBI would have been welcome, since he also failed to score 90 for the first time since 1998. But this possible positive is also mitigated by a negative. The Rays’ lineup famously lost Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena over the offseason. Even without “chicken littling” the Rays’ chances to be competitive in 2010, it seems the two offenses may be closer together this season.
Last, we come to Damon’s speed. He hasn’t been a true speed daemon since the early aughts, and he only lost one stolen base off of 2009’s total, but his speed score has stayed above average (5.7 last year, 5.0 is average). He’s also stolen 23 bases in the last two years, against only one caught stealing. Here, the lineup effect may actually be somewhat significant – the Rays stole a league-leading 172 bases last year, the tigers only 69. It’s not too much of a stretch to expect a few more stolen bases next year.
All in all, the effect will be muted by the mere fact that Damon is another year older and should decline some accordingly. That isn’t to say, however, that he might not hit few more doubles, cross the plate a couple more times, and steal a handful more bases. The underlying true talent could decline, and yet his fantasy stats could see an uptick. If Damon hits .280 with a .360 OBP, double-digit home runs and twenty stolen bases, would he be useful in your league?
