Absent all other information, we should always expect a player to be worse than the previous year. A.J. Pollock won’t be worse in 2017 by virtue of missing nearly all of 2016. That’s practically a guarantee. But what should we actually expect of him?
Today, I start my reviews of my Steamer and I series that happened to cover mainly outfielders (not by design). The series compared my Pod Projection to the Steamer projection, as I discussed the players I was either significantly more bullish or bearish on compared to the system. We start with Mike Trout, who I was far more bearish on than Steamer. It was an interesting exercise for me since I had no idea I was in that position to begin with. Diving it to determine why was an enlightening activity.
Last offseason, Jeff Sullivan noted the dramatic changes George Springer made to his contact and pull rates and how that transformation appeared to make the Astros’ right fielder a safer bet going forward. He also noted that, given the inconsistency between the results of Springer’s first two years in the majors, it was still hard to know what to expect in Season No. 3.
The suspense is over. The 2016 season is in the books, yet it’s not entirely clear what sort of performer Springer will be in 2017. We can certainly look more confidently to Springer to provide plenty of plate appearances. Not only did he serve ably as the Astros’ leadoff hitter for most of the season, but unlike in his first two seasons, Springer stayed healthy, appearing in all 162 games and starting all but one.
Imagine your prototypical outfielder. What does he look like? What did he look like in 2010? The numbers say he’s changed a bit. Where he might have been Jermaine Dye or a late-career Moises Alou back then, today’s outfielder looks a little bit more like Ian Desmond or Tyler Naquin. That probably has ramifications on what you expect, generally, from your outfield.
This is the sixth edition of a continuing series. If you missed the previous rounds, catchers, first basemen, second basemen, third basemen, and shortstops can be found via the links. Yesterday, we evaluated what outfielders did in 2016. Today, we’ll take a first stab at ranking them for 2017.
As a reminder, these rankings represent my first reactions rather than a truly rigorous approach. I’ve used an absolutely objective technique called mental math to compile the lists. I’m assuming a standard 5×5 format.
The purpose of this exercise is two-fold: to get an early start on 2017 rankings and to crowdsource missing or misranked players. That’s where you come in. Let your thoughts and feelings be known in the comments. As we’ve done in previous editions, we’ll break this into digestible chunks.
Outfield is a very large position. I’ll be focusing written analysis on the players who most interest me. There’s a very high likelihood some players have slipped through the cracks – either because I only ranked them at another position or missed them entirely.
It’s outfield week! Let’s begin by recapping how my rankings compared to the consensus by reviewing my outfield Pod’s Picks and Pans.
Mike Trout was the MVP of baseball this year. He had to fend off a good season from Mookie Betts, but there was no questioning that Trout was amazing. Flip to the fantasy world and it was Betts who triumphed over Trout. With an extra 49 plate appearances and slightly better 5×5 numbers, Betts did just enough to score $3 higher than our favorite fish. Of course, if you happen to play in an OBP league, Trout’s .441 OBP destroyed Betts’ .363 OBP. Real baseball is an OBP league.
In case you’re just tuning into this series for the first time, I recommend going back in time and starting from the beginning. Luckily, you won’t need a time machine. The post on catchers has notes on important methodological changes. You can also go straight into the calculator to tweak values for your league.
For these articles, I’m going to assume a 12 team, 5×5, standard deep roster with a pitching cap of 1475 innings (most leagues are 1450 or 1500, I split the difference). I set the batter split at 65% because that produces what I consider to be the most realistic position adjustments.
Carlos Santana had/is having quite the season. It’s his best by virtually any metric. Pick slugging, isolated slugging, strikeout rate, batting average, hits, home runs, even baserunning runs, and you’ll get either a career-best or second-best effort this year. He ended up the 10th-best fantasy first baseman and we have so many positive changes to choose from if we want to say why he was so good this year.
Here’s my guess: he swung more this year. I’ll explain, but it’s clear from his career-low walk rate and career-high swing rate that he was more aggressive. That might have been more important than anything else he did, and that might give us a road map to finding other mid-career breakouts like Santana.
Wrapping up my position-by-position look at the 2016 power surge, we hit third base and outfield today. If you missed the first two pieces, here are the catcher/first base and second base/shortstop ones.
THIRD BASE
The hot corner didn’t set any records with its power output in 2016, but the 17 hitters who popped at least 20 homers tied for the third highest ever. The previous highs had a Giants-like even year pattern with 2004 (17), 2006 (21), and 2008 (18) being the other three seasons with at least 17 hitters achieving the feat. Homers have been on the rise at third base the last three years with just eight reaching 20+ HR in 2014 and then 15 last year.
We’ve done a good thing for those of you that still care about fantasy baseball right now. The Auction Calculator now has 2016 stats as an option so that you can look backwards at what has just happened. That’s going to be part of our effort, on the way to the end of the year, to look at last year to learn more for next year.
This is an important part of fantasy that usually gets ignored. Not only does the league itself change year to year, so retrospection is important in that way, but we can learn things about fantasy itself that will improve our ability to value players going forward.
The fourth-best player in the game last year, by this list, has already inspired a possible change to the auction calculator going forward. Let’s see what else it jars loose.