Joe Camp won his league, probably because he reads us and listens to our podcasts here, I dunno, but that’s my guess, totally not because he’s an Associate Professor of electrical engineering. Anyway, he won his league, and his leaguemates started chirping about a couple trades he made that year that may have appeared lopsided at the time — my personal opinion is that vetoes suck, and are a dampener on league activity, and we should all be active and talking to each other as much as possible, so if you were on it, you would have made that lopsided trade first — and so Mr. Camp set out to prove he would have won the league anyway.

The way he did it? He took the worst team in the league and replaced everyone on the team with the best free agent pickups of the year. He then compared that team with everyone’s originally drafted teams. The free agents easily won — 96 points to 87 for the best drafted team.

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I usually get three or four of these Bold Predictions right every year, and I’ve grown comfortable with that level of success. Any more and they aren’t bold enough, any less, and they’re useless. That said, wait till you see number one. It’s a doozy. It’s *so* wrong that it should probably invalidate all my hits. It’s *so* wrong that I’m questioning why any of you are here right now. It’s *so* wrong I want to throw crap.

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I’m an Alex Dickerson fan, but I don’t know if anyone else is. He at least appears to have gone largely without fanfare thus far, as evidenced by his lowly ownership rates (4.7 percent at ESPN, 5 percent at Yahoo!). He never projected to be much of anything; former FanGraphs prospector Kiley McDaniel graded Dickerson’s tools below-average across the board, with exception to his plus raw power, and Dickerson led a weak crop of Padres prospects prior to the 2015 season in terms of projected WAR.

Fast forward to 2016, and Dickerson doesn’t look so meager. In 240 Triple-A plate appearances, he generated the Pacific Coast League’s 3rd-best wOBA. In fact, it eerily resembled that of the lauded Willson Contreras, and it only trails by a nonzero margin that of the seemingly powerful Mitch Haniger. Dickerson not only cranked up the power, posting a career-best .240 isolated power (ISO), but also shaved more than 7 percentage points off his strikeout rate (K%). The hit tool that once graded out well-below-average suddenly looked like a solid asset. While some hitters sacrifice power to refine their plate discipline or contact skills, Dickerson’s 3-year ISO of .199 from 2013-15 increased about 40 points.

The best news is the gains have carried over to the Major League level. To attest, Dickerson’s plate discipline, by definition, is above average:

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Two weeks ago, I facetiously appended “Deep A.L. West-Only Leagues” to the end of my column’s title since the two players I wrote about both played in the A.L. West, specifically in Oakland. As if there are A.L. West-only leagues. Actually, are there A.L. West-only Leagues? Or any division for that matter? Do any of you play in divisional-only leagues? If so, why? And how’d you settle on your division? Please let me know in the comments because I’m dying to hear what a frustratingly unsatisfying experience that must be.

Well, this week I’m at it again championing two more unheralded and under-owned A.L. West players toiling away in fantasy obscurity, eager for the opportunity to play on a contender. Even one of the digital variety.

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In fantasy, I generally consider utility players to be more valuable than ever in September, when expanded rosters allow managers to schedule in a few more rest days for their regulars. Throw in the fact that these guys have already played five months of baseball, and the combination of nagging injuries and general fatigue further encourages managers to work in additional rest days.

The last thing you want in the fantasy playoffs is empty lineup slots. Of course, there’s the obvious caveat that it’s difficult to find productive utility players on waivers at this point in the season. In other words, don’t go picking up Cliff Pennington just because he’s eligible at four positions. Let’s not get carried away here.

The three players featured in this piece are all widely available, and capable of producing when they find their way into your lineup.

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Previous rankings:
August
July
June
May
March/April (Preseason)

* * *

It’s hard for me to feel like these rankings are worthwhile. Something like two-thirds of you are in your respective league’s playoffs or have already been eliminated. For those of you to whom this pertains, now we’re rolling the dice on small sample sizes — something inherently subject to volatility. Also, we’re practically a week into the month already.

So I won’t waste too much breath here. The following rankings reflect classic 5-by-5 rotisserie (“roto”) formats. Just please remember: this is your playoff hunt. If you play in a roto league, you know which categories you need to chase. I can’t answer that for you. But that category (or plural) are inherently more important to you, and you should value National League outfielders who contribute meaningfully to that category (or plural) accordingly. If you play in a points league, find power bats who minimize the split between their strikeouts and walks (assuming you are punished for the former and rewarded for the latter).

With that said, let’s dig in.

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If you’re still in the hunt for a fantasy championship at this point in the season, let me just say, nicely done. Labor Day marks the stretch run of the fantasy season, during which our preferences for substantive changes in approach or ability run secondary to riding out any and all hot streaks we can get our hands on. With that in mind, I’d like to turn our attention to our titular hero, Andrew Toles, a free-swinging, light-hitting outfielder, fighting for time on a crowded and talented Dodgers roster. I know, I know that sounds terrible. But I should also mention he’s absolutely raking right now and has speed in spades.

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The calendar has flipped to September, which means we’re down to the final stretch of the season. As a result, there are a plethora of characters and stories circulating through baseball, but at the moment I’m particularly interested in three outfielders; Bryce Harper, Jason Heyward, and Jay Bruce.  Three national league right fielders, each playing for a contender, and each going through various stages and degrees of struggle.

Jason Heyward came into the season with a newly minted 184 million dollar contract, which he has presumably framed somewhere in his house.  If it were me, I’d probably have a copy framed in every room of my house, but that’s neither here nor there.  Bryce Harper entered the season as the reigning NL MVP, with many claiming he was going to officially dethrone Mike Trout as the greatest player in the sport.  Jay Bruce, well, he might not be as accomplished or wealthy as the other two, but was acquired by a New York Mets team that placed huge hopes that not only would he help them down the stretch this season, but also act as leverage to perhaps extend Yoenis Cespedes, or even replace Cespedes altogether next season. Those are big shoes to fill.

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Once again, I present to you my monthly update of the AL Outfield Tiers. As always, these are my rest of the season ranks for the position. There is a month to in the regular season and as the clock runs out for the regular season it becomes harder and harder to do these ranks. Value at this point depends on what you need in your league. A player like Jarrod Dyson may not be as valuable as Ian Desmond all things being equal, but if you are searching for speed then he may be to you. So, keeping this in mind I have done my best to give ranks that best reflect my value while giving a boost within tiers to players like Dyson that may offer elite production in singular categories for those needing to make up last minute points in roto formats. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m always reluctant to discuss a player whom we have recently featured at FanGraphs. Indeed, Rylan Edwards noted that, unlike swimming, Keon Broxton is not boring. Jeff Sullivan also recently covered Keon Broxton, ushering everyone on board his respective bandwagon (Broxton’s, not Sullivan’s). It’s a good feature, and its biggest takeaway is the following: Keon Broxton is hitting the ball pretty damn hard.

Broxton has slipped a bit — he no longer holds the top spot, ceding it to Nelson Cruz, Giancarlo Stanton, and some kid named Gary Sanchez. Stanton hasn’t played in two-plus weeks, so it stands to reason that Broxton’s exit velocity has slipped in the last week. That’s fine. As is, it’s still elite.

Except, woah, the strikeouts. Right? That’s alarming. It’s not so alarming that it’s a dealbreaker. Sullivan even brought up the idea of Broxton being a center-fielding Chris Carter. For a team like the Milwaukee Brewers, that would work just fine.

It’s the composition of the strikeouts — in other words, the way Broxton gets to those strikeouts — that kind of blows my mind.

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