Baseball in 2015 has finally begun! Well, the version that actually counts has. So it’s time to dig deep and uncover those hidden gems that could lead you to victory. As usual, the deep league wire will include names owned in 10% and less of CBS leagues and usually be players whose value is confined to deep mixed or mono leagues, unless otherwise noted.
Dan Rozenheck recently published some interesting research via the Economist regarding the significance of spring training statistics. For the TL;DR crowd, there is some legitimacy to spring training breakouts and disappointments, although they correlate with only marginal improvements to in-season performance in terms of on-base plus slugging (OPS) and earned run average (ERA).
Our own Mike Podhorzer also conducted similar research of his own a couple of years ago. He found that a pitcher’s spring training strikeout and walk rates carry some significance in regard to in-season performance.
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Yesterday, I opened 2015 Pod’s Picks season with my infield bullish and bearish selections. Today I’ll finish my look at hitters by moving into the outfield. The bullish group will only include those I ranked within my top 60 and the bearish only players the consensus ranked within their top 60.
Episode 211
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!
In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette have news about Billy Butler, Brandon Morrow, and Clay Buchholz before finishing off the Outfielder Preview.
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Episode 210
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!
In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris have news about Anthony Rendon, Ryan Rua, Justin Verlander, Wil Myers, Carlos Rodon, and Domonic Brown before kicking off the Outfielder Preview.
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“Don’t read into Spring Training stats” is a good surface level mantra to hold on to. The competition is uneven, the results don’t matter, and the players are all working on things in preparation for the regular season. To some extent, it’s like looking at September numbers on a non-contending team: those are very different from May numbers.
Even the benefits of a huge surge in results is only slightly predictive. There’s the study from John Dewan about a huge slugging percentage breakout in the spring, but recently work by Ben Lindbergh and Jon Shepherd poked some holes in the theory.
If you look at when stats stabilize, however, there are a few stats worth checking out. We know from Jeff Zimmerman that fastball velocity stabilizes very quickly, and so it’s worth reading his MASH articles to find the most recent gun readings on pitchers.
And we know that strikeouts stabilize quickly — 100 plate appearances for batters, 126 batters faced for pitchers. A spring is something like a half of a September, so it doesn’t get to those thresholds, but the evidence is there that strikeouts become meaningful quicker than most stats, and so therefore spring strikeouts may be worth keeping an eye on.
Time for another round of rankings for the American League outfield. As usual, the tiers and rankings reflect 5×5 redraft values for what the I believe the players will accomplish, not necessarily their present (or soon to be) numbers. For example, if someone starts slow, don’t expect them to drop too far. Without further delay, here are the tiers, represented by my favorite Nintendo 64 games.
A player in a tier by himself, a nostalgic game in a tier by itself. Instead of droning on and on about Trout —something I could easily do — instead here is a video of the first level accomplished via speedrun.
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It’s been quite the offseason for Michael Saunders. He was traded, then had knee surgery. Then there were reports he might be ready for Opening Day. Now there’s news he will definitely not be ready for Opening Day. Even with that latest bit, he’s worth an investment for a few reasons.
Saunders has some power. He hit 19 home runs in 139 games in 2012. Since that was the highest HR/FB rate he’s produced and his batted ball distance was higher that year than in the two following, 19 feels like a good upside total. The move to Toronto will help since Rogers Centre boosts left-handed power and Safeco Field slightly suppresses it.
Saunders has some speed. He stole 21 bases in 2012 and 13 in 2013. He was much less effective last season, stealing four bases in nine attempts. Since he’s 28 and has shown speed every other season, I’m not going to buy his speed has suddenly dried up.
Every year, we here at RotoGraphs publish tiered rankings for every position and update them throughout the year. What you will read below are, more or less, my end-of-season projections for National League outfielders, since the season hasn’t started yet. However, these rankings will change as the year progresses, and I would be a fool to tell you the tiers below will look the same in September.
No doubt, this is a contentious matter, and you can tell me how much of a moron I am in the comments.
Without further ado, here is the 2015 season’s first installment of tiered rankings for NL outfielders.
I already covered by thoughts on Anthony Gose to nab 40 steals in my 10 bold predictions — so he’s obviously a lock to do so, amirite — but I’ll elaborate a bit more. I love his speed potential and I see Jake Marisnick in a very similar way.
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