I’ve done this before — compare similar players, one of whom is “name-brand,” the other “generic-brand,” using blind résumés — as have many others. Ben Kaspick carried the torch a while this year, but he credited Joe Douglas with the idea. So let’s say it’s a group effort to which I’ll contribute once again.

In anticipation of 2018 drafts, I wanted to carry out a “buying generic” style of analysis, borrowing in part from too-early mock draft average draft position (ADP) data. I do not intend to construe the following comparisons as rigorous analysis. I do, however, intend to highlight some potential bargains that, if the too-early mock ADP information is concerned, warrant your attention on draft day.

Comparison #1: Outfielders

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Max Kepler wasn’t an incredibly popular sleeper heading into the 2017 season, but I was certainly far from the only analyst who was high on the young German. The 24-year-old was coming off a productive yet unspectacular rookie campaign, and was just one year removed from a breakout year in Double-A that made him a fixture on top prospect lists.

Kepler’s 2016 wasn’t eye-popping, but there were many positive signs for the rookie. His power had just started showing up in games in that breakout Double-A season a year before, and now he was taking the next step and hitting the ball over the fence (17 HR in 447 PA). It certainly wasn’t out of the question to predict another step forward in that department, perhaps to a 20-25 HR season in 2017.

He stole just six bases in the majors in 2016, but the fact that he’d swiped 19 bags in the minors the year before was reason for optimism. Furthermore, his .235 batting average was held down by a .261 BABIP, which seemed far too low for a player with pretty good speed.

In short, it wasn’t hard to envision something like .275/25 HR/15 SB if everything came together in 2017. Despite being an unproven option at a deep position, Kepler was drafted in well over half of Yahoo leagues. Like I said, not a super-popular sleeper, but not flying under the radar either.

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Back in February of 2015, I wrote the first edition of this article – I Don’t Get It: Avisail Garcia. Three seasons later, that article has held up really well. Avisail Garcia has posted less than four WAR over his last 1,615 plate appearance. However, since his 2017 campaign checked in at 4.2 WAR with strong four category production, fantasy owners are going to jump back onto the Avisailwagon. I’m here to advise caution.

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This is the second installment of my Unlikely Pairs series. Last week I looked at Mike Trout and Freddie Freeman and their elite offensive production. This week we’ll be aiming a little lower in the draft, and maybe it will be more controversial.

Domingo Santana v Shin-Soo Choo.

These two players are on opposite ends of the career spectrum. Santana, 25 years old, just put up great numbers in his first full season in the majors.  Domingo Santana is a bit of a late bloomer, having spent full seasons in both AA and AAA, both with the Astros, prior to advancing. His AA season was particularly mediocre, as he suffered deep drops in both walk rate and batting average. The following season, age 22 in AAA, his walk rate and batting average both bounced back, but he was only given a total of 18 major league plate appearances. In mid 2015, still in AAA, he was traded to the Brewers as part of the Carlos Gomez/Mike Fiers trade. In 2016, Santana injured his elbow and missed most of the season. So, 2017 was his first real chance in the majors, and he certainly ran with it, hitting 30 homers, stealing 15 bases, and achieving 126 wRC+.

Meanwhile, Shin Soo Choo, 35 years old, enjoyed a bounce back year after an injury plagued 2016 campaign.  Choo established himself as a solid and reliable player in 2008, and put up consistent 20 HR, 80 R, 60 RBI seasons from 2008 through 2015 with two exceptions. Read the rest of this entry »

Today we complete the hitter side of the 2017 Pod’s Picks & Pans with the outfielders. Let’s see how my rankings on the players I disagree with the RG consensus performed.

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If you took a quick look at the MLB leaderboard for hard-hit rate in 2017, you would probably surmise that Nick Castellanos actually did break out, as opposed to what the headline of this post may indicate. Castellanos hit the ball hard more frequently than all but six players this season, as you can see below. The ranking by each player indicates his end-of-season rank in standard 5×5 leagues:

• J.D. Martinez – 15th – 49.2%
• Joey Gallo – 99th – 46.4%
• Aaron Judge – 5th – 45.3%
• Miguel Sano – 102nd – 45.2%
• Paul Goldschmidt – 4th – 44.4%
• Corey Seager – 66th – 44.1%
• Nick Castellanos – 65th – 43.6%

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Giancarlo Stanton has gone crazy recently, hitting 32 home runs in 48 days. Last I checked, anyhow. It could be up to 36 by now, you never know with that guy. There have been many talks about his MVP consideration, as well there should be. However, Stanton is not the only guy in that Marlins lineup who is hitting the cover off the ball. Oh no, you have Christian Yelich raking behind Stanton, and then Ozuna behind Yelich.

In the second half, Yelich is batting .295/.387/.530 with a .389 wOBA. Marcell Ozuna is batting .292/.378/.522 with a .379 wOBA. Both of these players are sitting high among the second half offensive leaderboards, Yelich 25th and Ozuna 34th. Together with Stanton, the oft forgotten Derek Dietrich, and JT Realmuto the Marlins have 5 of the top 112 batters in the second half, including 3 of the top 34 and, of course, numero uno.

This is the offensive production the Marlins expected to see throughout the course of the entire season. Unfortunately for them, it took a few months for this to gel, in large part due to the relative poor performance of Christian Yelich in the first half.

I am not saying Yelich was terrible, because he wasn’t. He was average in April and May. But Yelich isn’t on the team to be average, he is a core piece, and his performance over the past month and a half shows just how dynamic he can be for a ball club. In April and May, though, he was not hitting nearly as well as he is right now. So let’s see if we can find a reason. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Tuesday, Jeff Sullivan wrote this article on Byron Buxton’s transformation into the Twins’ most valuable player. If you haven’t read it and you’re interested enough about Buxton to read this fantasy slant, you should probably also read Jeff’s analysis on Buxton’s increasingly well-rounded real-life skill set.

Yesterday, Buxton unleashed the best game of his career to this point, singling and stealing a base in the 1st inning as a prelude to his homers in the 4th, 7th and 9th. As Jeff pointed out in his post last week, Buxton has dramatically simplified his mechanics at the plate, most noticeably ditching the inconsistent leg kick he used to constantly tinker with, and that was certainly in evidence on Sunday.

Basically everything about his swing looks better than it did earlier in the season. The toe tap he’s replaced the leg kick with is allowing him to consistently plant his front leg, which means he can better incorporate his lower body compared to the “100% arms” swing he was flailing about with at the beginning of the season.

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I put some pretty tight restrictions on myself for this column, as I narrowed it down to players who are both a) owned in <25% of Yahoo leagues and b) were not included in Paul Sporer’s “Nine Unheralded Players for the Stretch Run” column from last week. As it turns out, I managed to come up with three solid recommendations, so let’s get right to it.

Eddie Rosario (Yahoo 20%, ESPN 15.6%, CBS 25%, Ottoneu 32.9%)

It’s not just fantasy players who are ignoring Rosario’s white-hot streak, it’s analysts too. When I looked at CBS to find his ownership rate, I noticed that all three of their experts left Rosario out of their top 100 outfielders when they revised their rankings last week, which is an incredible oversight. Over the last month, the 25-year-old is the No. 25 OF in standard leagues, a performance that now has him inside the top 50 OF on the season.

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Launch angle continues to trouble me. It might trouble many of you as well, I don’t know. I’ve done a lot of research into which launch angles are the most valuable (10-26), most repeatable (<0 and >26), most common (-10 to 10), and which have the greatest exit velocity (-10 to 20).  These are round numbers, and each batter many differ with regards to their personal swing path or pitch selection.

Even with all of this, launch angle troubles me. Especially when I hear people quoting average launch angle.

In a lot of ways, average launch angle might be similar to average pitch velocity. If a pitcher throws 10% breaking balls and 90% fastballs his average velocity would be significantly higher than if he threw 90% breaking balls and 10% fastballs. Alright, 90% breaking balls is extreme, but you get my point. Maybe it is better to look at the velocity of each pitch independently: the guy has a 95mph fastball and an 84 mph curveball. That gives us a lot more information than saying he has an average velocity of, say, 91.

You have the same sort of problem when you quote average launch angle. Is the guy only hitting the ball to extremes? Maybe he only hits ground balls and pop ups, that would give you the same launch angle as a guy who only hit line drives or a guy who hit a perfectly balanced mix of ground balls, line drives, and fly balls. Using the average feels inherently wrong to me, but I haven’t been able to identify a better way to easily sum up this information. Read the rest of this entry »