NL OF Tiers: June
NL OF Tiers: May
NL OF Tiers: Preseason

I’ll own up to it: ranking Carlos Gomez first last month was careless of me. I blindly assumed production from him when his peripherals advised otherwise. Josh Shepardson recommended cutting bait in keeper and dynasty leagues. Frankly, the long-term outlook at this moment isn’t great.

Also, I’ll own up to undervaluing Justin Upton. That was also a strangely careless oversight. Frankly, I love five-category contributors, and so should you, so I don’t know why he didn’t excite me more.

I’m going to undertake the impossibly difficult task of creating tiers by Coen Brothers films. This will probably be harder than ranking the outfielders, so go ahead and have your “so the guys in the bottom tier are actually the best?” jokes locked and loaded.

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In my younger (read: teenage angst years), one of my favorite up-and-coming bands was a little known group out of Reno, Nevada called This Calendar Year. While the band never gained much notoriety, despite a couple solid tracks (warning: they’re a bit loud), the name always stuck with me. Today for the American League outfield beat, we’ll be looking at two names that could surprise you with their strong numbers since this time last year (minimum 450 plate appearances).
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I haven’t forgotten about you National League only owners! Because I play in the American League Tout Wars, it’s far easier for me to come up with deep league names in that league. But it’s time to give you NLers some love.

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A month before the season started, I introduced a model that predicts a Minor League hitter’s chances of Major League success based on his statistics during his most recent AAA stint. I will use that same model now to update the list of the National League’s top MLB-ready outfield prospects, the key term here being MLB-ready, not prospect — the goal is to identify players who scouts may not love but stats do.

The model looks at how a hitter once performed in AAA and compares it to his known career outcome, ultimately calculating probabilities that a certain career outcome will occur. These probabilities can then be applied to current Minor League players in order to project their currently unknown career outcomes. I discuss the model’s nitty-gritty, as well as its similarities with and potential shortcomings to Chris Mitchell’s KATOH, in the link provided in this post’s first sentence. Both models share the same goal and their methodologies are almost identical, so their results can be considered comparable; mine simply takes a more subjective approach, as I will explain shortly. This is not a turf war.

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There is no ideal batted ball mix for all players. Run the numbers, and there’s no strong correlation between things like pull, opposite-field, ground-ball and fly-ball rates and weighted on base average or similar production stats.

That said, there is at least one “bad” batted ball type, the infield fly. And there is a decent relationship between fly balls and power, and between oppo% and BABIP. So you can feel your way to the ‘right’ mix for each player type.

And the players do themselves, as well. In general, they hit fewer ground balls as they approach their peak, which is a way for them to increase their power. And there are plenty of anecdotes from hitters about either leveling their swing plane to get on base more, or trying to hit more fly balls in order to hit for more power.

It’s clear that batted ball mix is a source for improvement in younger hitters, and that — if you’re careful — you can use it to try and figure out the future for a young player. So let’s turn this spotlight on two very different players, Manny Machado and Billy Burns, to see what we can learn.

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This week’s edition highlights two hitters who have just been freshly recalled from the minors. They could return there by the time you read this sentence or remain on the big league roster for some time! That’s the joy of picking from scraps in deep leagues.

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We gather here today to mourn the loss of one of our dearly beloved. Jorge Soler‘s chances of earning the National League Rookie of the Year award recently walked off into the sunset, fading into a distant memory, albeit a fond memory at that. In light of Joc Pederson’s performance thus far, however, we maybe gather here today to mourn something that never existed. My heart struggles to understand how we could have possibly loved but never lost.

It seems like just yesterday that Soler was the Chicago Cubs’ safest prospect. As much was argued — nay, commanded — by our very own Scott Spratt. Indeed, another of our Scotts, surname Strandberg, once spoke of the Cubs’ embarrassment of prospect riches by leading with Soler’s name rather than Kris Bryant‘s or Javier Baez‘s or Addison Russell‘s or Arismendy Alcantara‘s or Albert Almora‘s or Kyle Schwarber’s. I think that the fault is neither Scott’s nor Scott’s; the greater fantasy baseball community had its eye on Soler. Indeed, I tabbed Soler as my NL ROY favorite. So, too, did Eno. We are all fallible.

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The Indians and the Orioles entered 2015 with higher expectations than the mediocre showings they’ve had so far this year. So it comes as no surprise that both teams have made some roster shakeups in June, calling up our two candidates this week who will get a shot to prove they can not just help their clubs, but fantasy owners as well. As usual, the players highlighted in this column are better suited toward mono leagues, and the ownership percentages are by way of CBS.
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Eos is extending her rosy middle finger in our direction, beckoning us to another day of Fantasy futility. Our weekly Fangraphs deadline is here, and once again, we have spent a restless night pondering, weak and weary, the question preoccupying all of Fantasyland: what’s going on with Melky Cabrera?

Since you’ve found your way here, you probably already know all there is to know about Melky, but let’s do a quick review, just for giggles. He turns 31 in August. He had some success early in his career with the Yankees, had an excellent 2011 with the Royals and an even better 2012 with the Giants, producing the highest batting average in MLB. He’d have won the official batting title, but MLB had other ideas after Melky was caught enjoying a mild stimulant composed of arrowroot, cyclopropane, and organic library paste.

He served a suspension, spent much of 2013 on the DL, then came back strong with Toronto last season (.301/.351/.458). He signed a big three-year contract with the White Sox during the off-season, and there was a broad consensus among forecasters about what would happen during 2015: Mild regression to the mean, with a slash line of roughly .290/.340/.440, a dozen or so home runs, about 75 runs scored, and maybe 65 RBIs.

In other words, a player of some Fantasy value, and he went for $10 in the Tout Wars mixed auction (same price as Joc Pederson!) and in the 12th round of the Tout Wars mixed draft. We ourselves got him in the 11th round of our NFBC draft, which was about his average draft position in the NFBC. Read the rest of this entry »

The economics of keeper and dynasty leagues intrigue me because no two owners value the future equally. Given my primary league is of the keeper taxonomy, I am always thinking about the future. Given the especially miserable state of my team in said league, I’ll soon reach a point where I am only thinking about the future.

A segue of remarkably poor quality: Joc Pederson is good at baseball.

Another segue of questionably better quality: he reminds me of George Springer for reasons not entirely surprising.

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