Archive for Outfielders

A player with a lot of hype surrounding him after the numbers he put up last year, Justin Upton has been a bit of a disappointment this year. Before the year began, some fantasy guru’s were projecting the ever elusive 30-30 from Upton, hoping that his raw skills would shine through and get him to that promised land. It hasn’t happened, to say the least. Upton’s numbers have dropped off in every standard category, hurting owners who pounced on him early in drafts.

Upton’s biggest problem this year has been the strikeouts. Because he had always struck out more than an average player, we knew this could happen, but a K% over the 30% mark is scary. While his K% has risen, his Whiff% has fallen, a strange occurrence. Upton has actually done a better job making contact this year, and while he may be letting too many pitches go by, I’d say he’s in for a lowered K-rate next year.

While he’s struggled with the K’s, he could still be one of a handful of players that could end up in the 20-20 club this year. It’s going to take a small surge over these next couple of weeks, but Upton could do it and no one would be surprised. What worries me is his success rate on the basepaths, as it’s dropped all the way down to 68%. Obviously, that needs to improve next year.

Could his down year be a great thing for future owners? Definitely. He could easily bounce back next season, and put up numbers closer to his 2009 campaign. I’m thinking he’ll end the 2011 season with a .285/25/18 line, which is impressive, but not overly so. I don’t think predictions of a 30-30 season were off base, but they may have been a tad optimistic. Temper your expectations when it comes to Upton’s 2011, but don’t forget the promise he’s shown and the potential he has.

Down to the wire in your leagues. Don’t hesitate to drop players, especially pitchers – by the time someone picks them up they’ll get one start at most. Push, push, push, There’s still a little bit of time! Some short-term help below.

Julio Borbon, Rangers (25% owned)
Some of you might have Nyjer Morgan on your H2H team, and his eight-game suspension just went down. You might be going the distance. You might be going for speed. Your team is all alone, all alone in this time of need. Cue the speed racer, Julio Borbon. In September, he’s cut his strikeout rate back down to the 10% level it lived during his minor league career (10.7% career), and his BABIP is rising. Considering his speed, he could definitely own a BABIP higher than the .311 he has now, ZiPs RoS BABIP (.304) to be damned. In any case, September has Borbon starting (11 of the team’s 13 games), hitting (.333/.350/.410 so far), and stealing more bases than he has in a while (two), and that’s all you want from a short-term speed boost in H2H. Michael Brantley is also hot and stealing bases more prolifically, but we bigged him up at the end of August, so even though he’s owned in fewer Yahoo leagues (10%), it might be Borbon you find on your wire if your league is full of RotoGraphs readers.

Carlos Carrasco, Indians (5% owned)
You can still get the other CC for his start today against the Royals in some leagues, and that’s recommended. He’s not showing the best strikeout rate in the majors (6.10 K/9) or minors (7.93 K/9) this year, but he has supplemented that with an improving groundball rate in the majors (66.7%) and minors (46.1%). He’s also bettered his control this year in the majors (2.61 BB/9) and minors (2.66 BB/9), so he has his uses. Perhaps the mix isn’t mixed-league worthy every start – he’s much riskier for his next start against Minnesota, his second matchup against the Twins this year – but in deeper leagues, he makes a great spot start when he’s playing teams like the Royals. His minor league story is a little strange – he’s had strikeout rates north of nine per nine and south of six and a half per nine, and his groundball rates have oscillated from about 40% to 48% – but the overall package looks like it might play, if only on the back of his strong control. Streaming is inherently risky, but made more so with Carrasco.

Not many teams have the ability to replace an everyday player with his conceptual clone, but the Padres could have done just that when Tony Gwynn Jr. went down with an injury. Luis Durango, a 24-year old switch hitter, had been tearing up Triple-A pitching and is starting to see some playing time in the bigs.

During his first stint in Triple-A, Durango adjusted well, keeping his walk rate north of 10%, managing his strikeouts and running all over the basepaths. He stole 34 bases in 423 trips to the plate, though he was thrown out 32% of the time, a rate that will raise some eyebrows. Thanks to a line drive rate of 20%, Durango ended up posting a .300/.378/.325 line, coming in at a wOBA of .329. While he’ll never be an offensive force, as a tablesetter, Durango has his uses.

Unfortunently, we don’t have much of a MLB sample to go on when it comes to Durango. He only have 48 plate appearances this year, and those have been spread over multiple stints and pinch-hit appearances. While a line drive rate of only 2.8% is sad, a consistently good LD% in the minors is a much better indicator.

Could Durango have a place on your roster next year? Possibly, but he needs to receive more playing time. Because of their impressive outfield depth, the Padres have been filling the center field vacancy with a variety of options, Durango being one of them.

When you have wheels like Durango’s (seriously, if you’ve never seen him fly, watch this), you are a threat to be a fantasy stud someday. Keep an eye on him this offseason, and snatch him up if he can steal (pun intended) playing time in San Diego. If you’re in a deeper NL-only keeper league, he’s a solid option to stash away for next year.

In place of a post ranking the outfielders, I thought it might be fun to update the news about a rank outfielder or two. Badumching. Joe Pawlikowski did a nice piece on the front of the site talking about Nate McLouth and his strikeouts, but that was almost a month ago, and much has changed since then. In the meantime, the Braves traded for another center fielder, watched him play for a few days, and then went right back to the well with McLouth. Small sample sizes!

Of course, it’s not too hard to beat out Rick Ankiel these days. He still takes a walk right around league average (9.7% this year, 7.9% carer) while whiffing along with the league leaders (35.3% this year, 27.2% career). The silly thing is that while the whiffs have come with the usual corresponding poor batting average (.234 this year, .248 career), they have not come with boost in power that often comes with the all-or-nothing swing. In fact, Ankiel has now been at league average with the power stroke for two straight years (.156 last year, .152 this year, .194 career). Add in the fact that UZR/150 doesn’t like his center field defense (-11.7 career), and you have an unworthy player. Or, to be more precise, a player worth just about nothing (0.2 WAR on the year).

Then again, saying something like “Nate McLouth walks more, strikes out less, and has similar power, more speed and better outfield defense than Rick Ankiel’ is akin to saying that the Yankees have been run better than the Mets in recent history. Badumching yet again, I’ll be here all the week. Is there anything going on here that can help us believe in McLouth’s recent tear (.333/.367/.704) in September)?

Well, one of the things that McLouth had been struggling with was the K, as Joe P noted. He featured a sub-20% strikeout rate for his two best years and then got to Atlanta with the swiss cheese bat (23.5% this year). At least with Triple-A Gwinnett, McLouth worked on that and produced a better strikeout rate (13.9%), as well he should. Of course, the rest of his line was underwhelming during his minor league stint (.234/.338/.383), but at least he worked on the strikeout rate.

McLouth’s power also waned once arriving in Atlanta. His .131 ISO this year would be a career-low, but we do know that ISO takes the longest to become reliable, that McLouth has only accrued 253 plate appearances this year, and that his ISO also took a step forward in the minor leagues. Chalk that up as two things that got better once he went down to work on his game. Not surprising, given the state of his competition, but we’d be much more worried if he didn’t show these steps forward, right?

Nate McLouth will never be one to own for batting average, and we are working with small sample sizes when we look at his September numbers, but he’s also shown that he’s done work on his power and patience, and that he can at least be the McLouth of old. Especially in OBP leagues, or in deeper leagues, he can be a late-season asset. As for his keeper prospects, the way that the Braves have treated him seems to suggest they may look for a free agent center fielder this offseason, which would make him a very risky keeper.

The summer is winding down, but your fantasy team still needs furious updating for the final push, so don’t neglect it. Here is a duo of players, one for shallower leagues, and one for deeper leagues.

David Murphy, Rangers (17% owned)
Murphy has started 34 of the Rangers last 37 games, so the idea that he’s primarily a bench player seems outdated. Of course, he’s been getting more time with Josh Hamilton on the schneid with rib issues, but as this Rangers juggernaut rolls into the final couple weeks of the season, they’ll only have more incentive to rest their studs and get Murphy into the lineup. Murphy took a nice step forward this year, as he held on to the gains he made at the plate last year (9.9% walk rate last year, 9.7% this year, 8.7% career) while reducing the strikeouts from a career-worst level last year (18.3% this year, 24.5% last year, 19.9% career). Unfortunately, his ISO took a hit once he stopped swinging so hard (.144 ISO this year, .175 career) – and it’s a little surprising to see ZiPs RoS predict that the ISO will drop even further (.118 ZiPs RoS ISO). Here’s a bet that he can keep his ISO around league average going forward, which will make him playable with the better batting average that goes with the reduced strikeout rate. Murphy is also working on a career high in stolen bases (12) and since he’s only been caught once, it seems that the opportunistic thievery can continue. If you need a little bit of everything right now, Murphy could be your man.

Brayan Pena, Royals (2% owned)
Back on August thirteenth, I mentioned in a post about Ned Yost that the Royals manager was going to play his backup catcher more often. More often at first meant that Pena would start a couple games and rest a couple games, but then Jason Kendall got hurt and he’s been playing almost every day since. He’s under team control for a couple of years still, so it behooves the team to give him the at-bats to see what he can do. His wRC+ values over the last two years (96 and 92) don’t seem to suggest he’s a great sleeper for fantasy leagues, but it’s a tough position and players like Chris Snyder (owner of a similar wRC+ this year) have been owned periodically in many leagues. He’s worth a look. His walk rate right now (8.7%) is a little high given his minor league number (6.9%), but so is his strikeout rate (16.2% this year, 13.2% career, 10.1% minors). He could make a little more contact and keep a similar line. He won’t have much power (.100 minor league ISO), but his current line is sustainable – and he’s hot, hitting .421 over his past two weeks. He’s a borderline guy in the deepest of leagues, but he could help the right team.

Just last week, R.J. Anderson took a look at Bobby Abreu from a real-life standpoint. He asked for a reason why the Angels outfielder had a low BABIP to right field this year, suggesting perhaps a drop in speed, a change in the defense, issues at the plate or normal variance for Abreu as possible reasons for this aberration. We’ll get into these a little bit, while trying to focus primarily on the meaning for Abreu’s fantasy keeper and 2011 draft value.

First, Anderson basically discounted a change in defenses, so let’s leave that off the table. Second, a random variance is certainly possible, as BABIP doesn’t even normalize over one season and can be unpredictable from year to year, but is less interesting for our purposes, so let’s see if we can find something to sink our teeth into. That leaves us with power and speed as possible culprits for Abreu’s meh season – and it’s about as meh as a 20/20 season can be.

At first blush, Abreu is enjoying a power resurgence. He has his best ISO in five years and should hit 20 home runs for the second time in those five years. But not all power spikes are built equally. This one seems to be attributable to the second-best flyball rate of his career (36.4% this year, 31.9% career). It’s not built on his line drive rate (17.% this year, 22.3% career), and in fact you can see from his line drive rate that he’s not centering the ball like he used to. While it’s possible that the stringers in the Angels park are more cynical than his former venues, Abreu has seen his line drive rate drop below 20% the last two years after consistently living above that threshold for most of his career (and over 24% for most of his peak). Two below-average line drive rates in row would be less worrisome if he didn’t have a bit of a bad body and wasn’t 36 years old.

The second component of his decline is also in a non-obvious slide. A back of the baseball card glance might produce Abreu’s 19 steals and an affirmation that he’s the same old big man with passable wheels. But then you might notice that he’s been caught ten times this year, that his 65.5% success rate is the worst of his career, and that the second-worst success rate of his career was in 2008 (66%). His 2010 Bill James’ four-component speed score is also the second-worst of his career. Add in some subjective reports of slowing foot-speed and the fact that he’s been poor in the field, and it’s reasonable to wonder if the end is nigh for the outfielder-slash-DH.

If the speed is waning, and the power (as represented by his line-drive percentage) is also iffy – and hasn’t been plus since his peak – Abreu’s fantasy stock is on the decline. We can say this even if some parts of this decline may be random variation, and we could probably use his age as an ersatz single stat anyway. A big-bellied 36 year old who derives much of his fantasy value from steals is an iffy proposition – you can probably pencil him in for fewer than 20 stolen bases next year, even if it would be the first time in twelve years that he didn’t hit that benchmark in the category. Give Abreu a slight tick down on your 2011 cheat sheets and think hard before keeping him this offseason.

It’s getaway day for a long weekend, but I refuse to admit the summer is nearing an end. I’m holding on for dear life. Oh, and here are a couple players that should be on your waiver wire and might be interesting to you.

Yuniesky Betancourt, Royals (18% owned)
Long a laughing stock of baseball, Betancourt is getting some love recently. Longtime critic Joe Posnanki even tweeted the other day that his OPS+ was higher than Derek Jeter’s this year. How’s that for a drink-snarfing moment? Hopefully your league does not count OBP, because he still is walking only 3% of the time this year (3.2% career) and featuring a terrible .289 OBP. Then again, hopefully your league doesn’t count slugging percentage either (.432)… but hey, look at that, the average slugging percentage for shortstops in the American League this year is a paltry .362. So that’s what Betancourt is – a semi-slugger at a position full of limp noodles. In any case, he’s hitting .313 with eight home runs over the past month, so he’s hot. Who knows how long it will continue, but but his BABIP (.273) is still below his career norms (.287), and his line drive percentage, though not great, is decent (18.1%). Betancourt could run into a few home runs while your regular shortstop is hurt, and as much as it pains this skeptic to say it, he has some use in fantasy leagues. Maybe if Jeff Francouer was a shorstop, he would have use in fantasy leagues, too!

Nolan Reimold, Orioles (15% owned)
This is one of those writeups that may inspire a ‘why should we pick this guy up again’ comment. But it’s worth taking a look at a player that will get some playing time this September, whether because of Adam Jones and his wonky shoulder or because the team would like to know if they have the flexibility to trade Luke Scott this offseason. Playing time alone is fantasy gasoline, but the talent has to be the spark to really get the flame going. Earlier this season, Reimold was walking (10.7%) and striking out (24.7%) about the same as career rates (11.35% and 22.1% respectively), but his power had fallen off a cliff (.124 ISO, .174 career, .215 in the minor leagues). Then the team sent him down, and he put up a nasty .249/.364/.374 line that doesn’t inspire any confidence that he found what he was looking for. His .125 ISO down there looked like a middle infielders’ output. There was certainly some poor luck at play – his MinorLeagueSplits.com luck- and park-adjusted line reads a little better (.288/.397/.433) – but the power is still on the lam. Looking at his batted ball profile, his poor line drive percentage in the major leagues stands out (14.1%), but at least he puts the ball in the air and had many .200+ ISO minor league seasons before this year. At 27, he’s no longer as young as you might think, and his time to grab a regular role may be running out. He seems a best fit for a fantasy manager that is out of the running in a deeper keeper league and is looking for a final keeper. Maybe he turns it on in the final month, the team trades Scott in the off-season, and things all fall into place for a cheap outfielder with a little pop. The rest of us can pass, as those are a lot of hurdles for a big firstbaseman to jump before he’s a great option.

It’s the final final day that teams can trade players, so there will be some post-deadline analysis coming. Here are a couple guys that are more sure things, as they are already on their teams and we have some historical data to analyze. Then again, there’s plenty of historical data that suggests that Jeff Francoeur and Manny Delcarmen are not good pickups no matter what team they are on.

Marcus Thames, Yankees (7% owned)
The book on Thames is that he mashes left-handers, and his platoon splits back that up. In 781 plate appearances against lefties, he has an .860 OPS that is eminently useful. Tom Tango’s the book says that we should regress his performance against lefties against 2200 plate appearances for right-handed batters, and his minor league stats going back to 2005 don’t show this same split, so we are justified in being skeptical. On the other hand, Thames is getting most of his at-bats against lefties and his team obviously believes he can hit southpaws best. This might sound like bad news – Thames is on a crowded team, and there are fewer lefties in baseball than righties – but it’s not. Predictable playing time is useful, since most fantasy teams have benches. Put Thames on your bench, and he’ll play once Lance Berkman comes back anyway. You see, Curtis Granderson has a split in the other direction, which makes moving Brett Gardner over to center and playing Thames in the outfield the probable course of action for the Yankees against southpaws. Finding an .800+ OPS batter that you can slot in against lefties is nice. Finding one that has hit six home runs in the past six games is just the cherry on top.

Mike Morse, Nationals (2% owned)
Morse is battling Willie Harris, Roger Bernadina and Justin Maxwell for playing time in the Nationals’ corners right now, but there are reasons to like this former shortstop’s chances of carving out some time for himself. For one, he’s hot, with ten hits in his last 15 atbats. Another thing that Morse has in his favor is power. He’s suddenly found his power stroke since moving to the weaker league, with a .231 ISO last year and a .243 ISO this year. Of course, those numbers have only come in 240 plate appearances and are not yet statistically significant, but a quick check of his minor league ISOs shows that a definite trend is in place. Last year, he had a .219 ISO in the minor leagues, and this year at Triple-A Syracuse, he turned in a .216 ISO. He’s a little over his head right now, and he usually hits too many balls on the ground (career 34.1% flyballs) to show this kind of power, but he’s worth a shot in the deepest of leagues. Harris is a career utility player or backup type, and while Bernadina is exciting and young, Maxwell is neither as young as he used to be (going on 27 now), nor as good as we though he might be. Right now he’s just not making any contact with a 20% walk rate and a 40% strikeout rate. Morse has a chance to carve out some time for himself as the regular right fielder.

Cameron Maybin, Marlins (Owned in five percent of Yahoo leagues)

Maybin, 23, has another shot at big league playing time following San Francisco’s pick up of Cody Ross. Maybin has logged nearly a season’s worth of MLB plate appearances spread over four seasons, and the results are vexing. The tooled-up center fielder has a .249/.310/.379 line in 512 PA, which translates to a .308 wOBA and an 88 wRC+. He has struck out 31.4% of the time, and he hasn’t drawn enough free passes (7.2 BB%) or slugged enough (.130 ISO) to compensate for the K’s.

CHONE and ZiPS are split on Maybin’s chances of being an offensive asset at this point. The former projection system pegs the erstwhile Tigers prospect as a .272/.351/.424 hitter, while the latter has Maybin languishing at .241/.319/.373. There are still sound reasons to believe that Florida’s big get in the Miguel Cabrera deal will be a long-term asset — he’s a plus defender at an up-the-middle position and he’s not helpless at the dish. However, his bat is of most concern to fantasy owners, and it’s hard to say what sort of offensive player he’ll be. Maybin is not a hacker, but his walk rate has dipped at the upper levels of the minors and is below-average in the show. He’s got a lanky 6-foot-3 frame and Baseball America predicted he’d eventually hit for plus power, but he has smacked the ball into the ground 55.5% of the time in the majors. Maybin has the skills to develop into a strong batter, but he’s got a long way to go in refining those talents.

Dan Hudson, Diamondbacks (36%)

Talk about making a good first impression with your new employer. After six exceptionally strong starts with the D-Backs, Hudson has 8.49 K/9 and 2.88 BB/9 in 59.1 big league innings this season. His 3.03 ERA is the product of some fortuitous bounces — Hudson’s BABIP is .269, and he has left nearly 81% of base runners high and dry. Also, the extreme fly ball pitcher (30.5 career GB% in the majors, 32.9 GB% at Triple-A) has given up homers on 8.2% of fly balls hit against him, a mark that’s likely to rise considering the MB average is closer to 11% and Chase Field inflates homers per fly ball hit by about six percent.

Even so, Hudson holds a quality 4.01 xFIP. There’s little question about his bat-missing ability, as he punched out 132 hitters in 117.1 innings at Triple-A over the past two years. In the big leagues this year, he has an 11.1 swinging strike rate (8.4% MLB average). Hudson’s three main pitches are all getting whiffed at often — eight percent for his 92-94 MPH fastball (six percent MLB average), 23.4% for his low-80’s changeup (12.6% MLB average) and 15.6% for his mid-80’s slider (13.6% MLB average). According to Pitch F/X data from Joe Lefkowitz’s site, Hudson’s fastball has induced a pop up 15.7% of the time that it has been put in play, compared to the 9-10% average for four-seamers.

The Old Dominion product’s fly ball tendencies should be monitored, particularly due to the unforgiving environs of his home ball park. But Hudson is well worth grabbing in mixed leagues.

For those of you past your trade deadline, the waiver wire is increasingly important. At this point in the season, it’s also probably time to start thinking about particular statistics. A targeted push will make much more of a difference than an attempt to find across-the-board boosts. In that effort, here are some (slightly) one-dimensional players that should be interesting in the final weeks.

Peter Bourjos, Angels (1% owned)
It’s obvious that some people on the front of the site have a little mancrush on Bourjos. It’s irrational, but so are some aspects of Bourjos’ game. In a mere 17 games, he’s already accrued 5.2 UZR (a redonkulous 96.9 UZR/150 which leads the universe I’m pretty sure without checking). Also, Bourjos currently has an 8.6 four-factor speed score, which would lead baseball if he qualified. On the basis of those two aspects alone, he’ll have a pace in baseball… and a long leash. Long leashes are important when you are sporting a .202 BABIP on a team that doesn’t seem to care too much about advanced statistics. In particular, Bourjos is still playing every day because his glove is required, and he even strung together five hits in his last 18 at-bats, so deeper league stewards seeking stolen bases should select this speedster straight away. (Suffering succotash.)

Mitch Moreland, Rangers (1% owned)
It’s not terrible to be in a platoon if you’re the left-hander and are getting the bulk of the at-bats against right-handers, and that’s where Moreland finds himself. Moreland is also probably scraping the upper levels of his upside right now. A high BABIP (.359) is floating his batting average a little bit, but his walk rate (13.2%), strikeout rate (27.6%) and ISO (.190) are all in line with what might be expected from a man with his minor league walk rate (10%), strikeout rate (15.9%) and ISO (.196). In fact, as that BABIP regresses to the mean, he may actually strike out a little less often and keep his overall line looking very similar. Call him the anti-Chris Davis because he probably won’t put up the same strikeout and power totals as the former first sacker, but that doesn’t sound like denigration after all the troubles Davis went through. Jorge Cantu can’t quite cut it any more at first base with a .138 ISO and a poor walk rate, so this might just morph into a situation where Moreland starts and Cantu is a multi-position backup. With the injury concerns on a team that seems like a lock for the postseason, Moreland looks like he might get playing time either way.