On Wednesday, we took a look at two 2B who appear very similar while possessing vastly different average salaries throughout the Ottoneu universe. While Kipnis and Forysthe appeared nearly identical in many ways, today I want to look at two outfielders who are similar in several regards, but not nearly as identical as Wednesday’s test-cases.

One of the major differences between today’s Mr. Name Brand and Mr. Generic is their respective ages. Why is this important? If you’ve played Ottoneu (or any dynasty slanted format) for any amount of time, you will likely find that the majority of owners are biased against the aged. While age is typically viewed as a premium, this can be detrimental when pricing comes into play as owners will chase after the shiny, younger, new toys. Given the 10 year age difference between our name brand and generic option, it is likely that these two will never be considered in the same tier.

The $38 price difference across Ottoneu leagues also confirms this – and while age is not the only reason for this price gap – it should help us determine that Mr. Name Brand is priced as if he is one of the most elite players in Ottoneu. While both are power hitters, our name brand option displays otherworldly power, but also strikes 13% more than our generic option. He also had 40 points of BABIP on Mr. Generic. Let’s dig a little deeper.

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On Sunday, it was reported that Matt Holliday signed with the Yankees to presumably be their every day DH. Well, at least until his age rears its head and injuries take their roll. Though perhaps filling the DH role every day will help him remain healthy. Yesterday, Jeff Zimmerman discussed the move and how it could affect Holliday’s fantasy prospects, but I wanted to go a little bit deeper and dive into the park factors. Since the second half of 2009, Holliday has been a St. Louis Cardinal, which calls home one of the worst parks in baseball for right-handed home runs. So let’s compare Busch Stadium to Yankee Stadium and see how the park switch may effect Holliday’s numbers.

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This wasn’t the season newly minted Andrew McCutchen owners had in mind when they rostered him during their 2016 drafts. Not only was he a disappointment in fantasy circles, but also in real baseball, where he easily posted the worst wOBA of his career and failed to muster even 1.0 WAR, finishing at a measly 0.7. His previous low WAR total was 3.4 set during his 2009 rookie season! Check out where he has ranked among outfielders since 2012 according to our dollar values:

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Desmond ranked sixth in our End of Season outfield rankings at $22.10, behind Nelson Cruz and ahead of Mark Trumbo.

No matter how one slices it, Ian Desmond’s bounce-back season was nothing short of tremendous. From a real-life standpoint, it wasn’t Desmond’s most valuable season — though it was among his three or four best — but from a fantasy perspective it’d be hard not to put this among his best.

First of all was the sheer magnitude of the improvement. It’s not often that a 29/30-year-old simply forgets how to play baseball, but it was an ill-timed poor season to be sure for Desmond, who not only turned down a lucrative offer from the Nationals prior to the season, but hit free agency with the ferocity of an indecisive running back hitting the line of scrimmage. Coming off hitting just .233/.290/.384, Desmond’s market was bound to be limited. Doubly so, considering the Nationals still slapped him with a qualifying offer. And while in retrospect it might have made sense for Desmond to accept — a la Jeremy Hellickson, Matt Wieters and Neil Walker — things couldn’t have panned out much better for him.

But the amazing part isn’t only that Desmond raised his wOBA 40-plus points, his batting average by more than 50 points and posted his career-best OBP. He also did it while switching positions, a truly intriguing proposition that would make even the faintest shortstop’s stomach queasy. There’s a quite a bit of value at short as someone who has hit .264/.312/.424 over their career — Desmond’s line coming into 2016 — while in the outfield, that’s….well let’s just say that Matt Joyce just signed a two-year deal for $11 million and he’s a career .242/.341/.429 hitter.

But in the end, Desmond gambled on himself — and won. So did fantasy owners. Can they do so again next season? Let’s investigate. Read the rest of this entry »

When looking for breakout hitters, outfield is usually a great place to start. Volume alone gives it an edge over the other positions, but there’s also the fact that a lot of the best athletes play out there and can offer a dynamic set of fantasy numbers. Sleepers don’t exist as they used to anymore, we all know that. Before the internet age, you could legitimately know of some players that the rest of your leaguemates were oblivious to and scoop them up late. Nowadays, no player is truly hidden – or asleep, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get bargains in the draft.

Let’s not get hung up on the term “sleeper” and instead focus on mining some surplus value in the draft. I look at them on levels: mid-rounder, late-rounder, and flyer. I loosely use the following guidelines for them.

Mid-rounder: picks in the 7th-12th rounds

Late-rounder: picks in the 13th-18th rounds

Flyer: picks from the 19th round on, including reserves

To qualify as a sleeper, I generally see that player as someone who will deliver value about four or more rounds higher than his draft slot. Again, these are loose guidelines, but they give me a general framework for identifying my potential plus value picks. I’ve got an outfielder for all three categories today.

Mid-rounder: Marcell Ozuna | Marlins

Ozuna returned to his 2014 level after a rough 2015 that included a demotion, but that’s not quite as impressive when you consider the surge in offense across the league. In fact, his .773 OPS was a point higher than ’14, but his wRC+ was 11 points lower at 105. Credit him for rebounding from ’15, but there’s a level of disappointment to Ozuna’s season because it looked like he was going to breakthrough and have that big season some have seen coming for him (including yours truly).

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Yesterday, we discussed a few speedy outfielders who could break out in 2017. The speed tool is easy to observe. For them, it’s mostly about opportunity, defensive ability, and hitting just enough to bat near the top of the lineup.

Prognosticating power breakouts is a harder job. One way is to look for guys with 80 grade batting practice power like Miguel Sano. Opportunity and ball park are other important indicators. As we learned in 2016, many power breakouts are the result of mechanical changes. I can’t predict those here.

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Remember when Odubel Herrera had the third most walks in baseball this season? Jeff Sullivan wrote about it in late April. Herrera was a Rule 4 draft pick who immediately became a 4-win player in his rookie season for the Phillies in 2015. As such, he quickly dropped in the mental space I have that holds players like Jose Bautista and J.D. Martinez who changed something after already becoming major leaguers and became dramatically different players. And so maybe it was possible that Herrera could become the next Joey Votto. I just didn’t know how to project those late bloomers.

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As a projectionist, it’s always fun when players switch teams. It doubles the challenge, as not only do I need to account for standards such as aging and regression in my forecast, but now I have to consider the effects of a switch in home parks. When Khris Davis was traded to the Athletics before this season, I immediately projected a dip in offensive performance, unadjusted for park. That was a normal reaction. Just check out the park factors! Below is a breakdown of just those park factors the two parks sharply differed in.

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We have this dichotomy in fantasy baseball. Even though we measure five categories, we mostly talk about power or speed. With the occasional exception of a Joe Panik, nearly every major league player can be described as speedy, powerful, or both. That’s not just a reflection on the way we play fantasy, it’s also an insight into processes of major league clubs. They supply our talent pool.

Judging from the title, we’re here today to talk about speedy outfielders – specifically the breakout candidates. While a power breakout can come in many forms – think about Mark Trumbo compared to tiny Jose Altuve – speed is highly observable. A guy is fast or he is not fast. On the margins, you’ll have players like Michael Brantley and Chase Utley. Neither were ever particularly speedy, but they knew/know how to pick their spots. Alternatively, current Philllies Cesar Hernandez and Odubel Herrera are plenty fast, but they’re TOOTBLAN kings.

We could get into this in more detail. Here’s the point. Speed is easy to see. Breakouts for speed type players happen in other categories. Usually, they suddenly show better plate discipline or buff their hard hit rate. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of starting regularly or earning a better spot in the lineup.

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At last, we come to our final outfielder Steamer and I review. Today, I’ll recap my Steamer and I battle over Michael Conforto, which pit my Pod Projection against the Steamer projection system. I was surprised to learn that I was significantly more bullish on Conforto than Steamer was, as I felt he was actually overvalued in fantasy leagues, though mostly due to his expected lineup slot toward the bottom of the Mets order. Let’s see what we expected versus what actually transpired.

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