In looking through the largest discrepancies between in game production and my various xStats, namely xOBA, I noticed that four of the largest differences come from the Yankees. Disturbingly, these are in the negative direction, meaning xStats are making a claim that these four Yankees are playing over their head and are due for a regression. Who are these Yankees? Didi Gregorius, Carlos Beltran, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Brett Gardner.

Three left handed hitters and a switch hitter playing in Yankee stadium, a ballpark geared for left handed production. On first blush, you might scoff and claim the stats aren’t accounting for the ballpark, these guys are probably benefiting from the short porch. Yes, they likely are benefiting to some degree from the short right field fence, but last season didn’t seem to have this problem with the xStats from these four batters.

The All-Star break is a time to furiously send trade offers before those bottom half teams check out, or at least try to entice them back to their computers for one last look at their teams so that they might help you improve yours. But we’re all in different types of leagues, so instead of a few mixed-league buy low players, I thought I would try to dream up some buy-low players for every situation. I won’t cover all of you, that’s impossible with the proliferation of fantasy baseball styles these days, but maybe I’ll cover more of you.

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Previous rankings:
March/April (Preseason)
May
June

* * *

To this day, I think I don’t fully understand what y’all want. With these monthly rankings, do you want end-of-season rankings or rest-of-season rankings? For the record, given we just eclipsed the halfway point of the season, end-of-season rankings would equally weight players’ first and second halves. Rest-of-season ranking, meanwhile, would unequally weight a player’s second half in favor of his first half. First-half performance informs second-half rankings, but more in the sense that “regression will hit this guy hard” and so on.

I ask because, man, y’all rip into us pretty good with these rankings sometimes. And I know I’ve failed to adequately communicate my criteria for ranking particular players a given way because I simply don’t have enough words or time.

With that said, I will provide for you here rest-of-season rankings for National League outfielders, complete with anticipated regression and all that. Tiers will be named in order of my favorite Every Time I Die albums, which is totally not obscure in any way. Enjoy! (Or not.)

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Small sample sizes be damned! OK, not really. But today we take a look at two players who, in very limited playing time, have made us (or should make us) look twice and dig just a little deeper.  Read the rest of this entry »

Back in March, I made some bold predictions, as all RotoGraphs staff do. Some bold predictions I make simply for the sake of being bold. Or for the sake of making a prediction. One of the two. But I don’t have a vested interest in my predictions, mostly because (1) they typically suck and (2) I don’t own many, if any, shares of the subjects of my predictions (because, well, the predictions suck). It’s kind of like not putting your money where your mouth is.

In this case, I absolutely have a vested interest in Jose Ramirez. Chris Mitchell and I both hold a special place in our hearts for him. I’ve come to realize, in my years of watching and loving baseball, that I most appreciate the hitters who are (debatably) underappreciated contact hitters. Victor Martinez. Pre-breakout Daniel Murphy. Nick Markakis. Martin Prado. Reggie Willits???

Speaking of Prado, Ramirez looks like peak Prado right now, and in more ways than one:

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It once again is time for the monthly update for my AL Outfield Tiers! As always, these are my rest of the season ranks for the position and you can check out my previous versions below as well as Alex Chamberlain’s NL versions. Read the rest of this entry »

I cover the National League outfield beat, but I occasionally abdicate my duties. I’m easily distracted. I also enjoy constructing narratives from a player’s statistics, and being on the NL outfield beat, I can only cover the same dudes so many times. But it truly has been a while, and given that market inefficiencies will always plague player valuation, I hear an old go-to of mine calling my name.

I’ll offer three NL outfielders at varying level of ownership (per Yahoo!’s tallies), make a case for each, and offer names of other more-owned NL outfielders to drop (or trade, given their inflated perceived values) in place of them. Got it? Cool. Let’s get cracking. (Ownership rates are current as of June 27.)

Less than 60% owned

Melvin Upton Jr., SD
58% owned

I do not totally get this, but I also do totally get this. Upton was bad for a while. The last three years were difficult to stomach, with his volatile offensive profile finally succumbing to his poor contact skills. The strikeouts grew, and the power shrank, and Upton was but a shell of his former self. He left a bad taste in our mouths.

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The worst batted ball in baseball is the pulled grounder. It heads right into the shift, right into the waiting glove. The best batted ball is the pulled fly ball. It soars majestically into the night.

The line between the two is razor thin. Hitters want to get that good wood on the ball and yank it for power, but if they roll over the top at all, it’s the worst idea. That’s why up the middle is the safe idea. You build a safe, solid swing.

But what about the guys living on the razor’s edge? The guys pulling a ton of balls, but pulling them in the air? Maybe they’re doing something that makes their power more believable. They’ve got the best batted ball figured out.

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Just straight hitting the ball hard has its value, but there is an ideal angle. Hit the ball a million miles per hour into the ground, and you’re Giancarlo Stanton, grounding out to second base on the hardest hit ball so far in the Statcast era. You gotta hit it square.

People smarter than I am have determined that the ideal launch angle is between ten and thirty degrees. That combines the line drive angle (10-25 degrees) and home run angle (25-30), but in fantasy baseball, we’ll take a line drive or a home run, either’s fine.

So if we want to know who’s hitting the ball harder this year, it’s probably best to ask who’s hitting the ball harder in the right angles for success? That will tell us a little about some hot starts that are more believable because of what’s going on under the hood.

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The two players I’m recommending this week share almost nothing in common. One is young, powerful, and crushingly enticing. The other is nearing the end of a magnificent career with the same fleetness of foot he enthralled us with 15 years ago. Endless potential versus a potential storybook ending. And if you own either of them right now, you’re likely playing in a very, very deep league.
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