Two years ago the Braves were hoping to have the best outfield in baseball, with legitimate 20-20 options at left, center, and right field. This year, things are certainly different and much less intriguing from a fantasy perspective. There still may be some value for deeper leagues, despite the lackluster options the Braves are rolling out into the outfield this season.
Read the rest of this entry »
It’s time for our Depth Chart Discussions to begin. In an effort to suss out every team, we’ve divided them into four parts (infield, outfield, bullpen, and rotation) and will begin breaking them down for you over the next few weeks. You can find them gathered here.
The Chicago Cubs outfield doesn’t have a single player in the top 30 fantasy outfielders here at Rotographs, but that’s certainly not to say they don’t have anything to offer to fantasy owners. In fact, one of my favorite fantasy prospects will be the everyday right fielder, and there’s a couple other options for NL-only leagues on the north side.
It’s time for our Depth Chart Discussions to begin. In an effort to suss out every team, we’ve divided them into four parts (infield, outfield, bullpen, and rotation) and will begin breaking them down for you over the next few weeks. You can find them gathered here.
It’s a little jarring to run a report from the Fangraphs leaderboard on the Mariners outfield in 2014. It seems like it must be a mistake, because just one name appears – Dustin Ackley. Indeed, if you use the “qualified” filter, they had one solitary mainstay in the outfield in 2014 due to what was mostly a disaster of experiments in center and right field for the better part of the season.
This post continues our Depth Chart Discussions. You can find the Depth Chart Discussion posts gathered here.
The Dodgers made a lot of moves this off-season. Exciting, savvy moves. One of the biggest shipped Matt Kemp and a bunch of cash down the Pacific coast to San Diego, reducing some of the outfield clog. Joc Pederson, most assume, will assume the starting centerfield role, while the one newcomer, Chris Heisey, will serve as a defensive specialist.
So, the Dodgers outfield is comprised of one of the most athletic and electric young players in the game today (PUIG), a top prospect seemingly handed a starting job in his age 23 season, and a potentially very interesting platoon in left field.
| Pos. | Starter | Platoon/Backup | Depth |
|---|---|---|---|
| LF | Carl Crawford (v.RHP) | Scott Van Slyke (v.LHP) | Chris Heisey |
| CF | Joc Pederson | Chris Heisey | Andre Ethier |
| RF | Yasiel Puig | Andre Ethier | Chris Heisey |
It’s time for our Depth Chart Discussions to begin. In an effort to suss out every team, we’ve divided them into four parts (infield, outfield, bullpen, and rotation) and will begin breaking them down for you over the next few weeks. You can find them gathered here.
Eight different players saw time in the San Francisco Giants outfield in 2014 with most at-bats dedicated to Hunter Pence, Gregor Blanco, Michael Morse, Angel Pagan, and to a lesser extent Tyler Colvin and Juan Perez. Out is Colvin and Morse, Pagan now returns ostensibly healthy after back surgery, and in is free agent acquisition Nori Aoki. All three outfield positions seem to be pretty well locked down, assuming good health, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you ought to pencil them into your fantasy lineup.
I have never thought much about, or given much attention to, FanGraphs’ fan projections. It’s primarily a matter of stubbornness: I run my own projections, and I develop my own strategy, so why should I listen to you? At least there’s a trace of rationale behind it: I know how I created my projections (whether or not they’re any good is a topic for another day), but I have no idea how you created yours. Thus, I am more likely to blindly trust a computer-generated projection system such as Steamer instead of random fan projections.
Still, there is a sort of bizarre, secondhand wisdom to fan projections. For every person who is high on a particular player, there could be another person who is equally-and-oppositely down on him. Solicit and aggregate enough fan projections and you could produce a very reasonable prediction of a player’s performance by sheer chance.
Which is why fan projections intrigue me. If, for example, Steamer predicts the most likely outcome from a wide range of possible outcomes for a player, then the fans convey the anticipated outcome for a player. The difference between them, you could say, is what amounts to a market inefficiency (aka a price distortion). The larger the difference, the greater the inefficiency. We see these inefficiencies arise every year — 2014’s most prevalent example is probably Corey Kluber — and they typically manifest because of a lack of information about certain players.
It’s time for our Depth Chart Discussions to begin. In an effort to suss out every team, we’ve divided them into four parts (infield, outfield, bullpen, and rotation) and will begin breaking them down for you over the next few weeks. You can find them gathered here.
The Diamondbacks are coming off a dismal season. Discoveries in the outfield were one of the lone bright spots. A new season and health could give the club an opportunity to play spoiler in the NL West. Their outfielders will be a big part of any success.
You know that I develop my own player projections, of which I have lovingly dubbed Pod Projections. With over 500 players projected, I thought it would be interesting to compare them with the Steamer forecasts. So Steamer and I is a new mini-series in which I discuss a pair (maybe more, maybe less) of players who I have projected for dramatically different results than Steamer. To do this, I simply compared my wOBA projections with Steamers’, calculated the difference and then sorted.
The 2014 version of the Cincinnati Reds outfield experienced some level of disappoint. Both Jay Bruce and Ryan Ludwick hit below league average in 400 or more plate appearances and Chris Heisey‘s 77 wRC+ in 299 PA’s didn’t help. Questions about Billy Hamilton’s bat and contact skills turned into legitimate concerns as the speedy outfielder posted a poor 0.29 BB:K ratio, tied for 122nd among 146 qualified batters. There should be power to be had with Marlon Byrd joining the team and Bruce potentially bouncing back. Just be warned that the rate stats the Reds OF will put up won’t be too pretty.
Left Field
Marlon Byrd
Donald Lutz
Skip Schumaker
Center Field
Billy Hamilton
Jason Bourgeois
Right Field
Jay Bruce
Donald Lutz
Skip Schumaker
In the Minors
Yorman Rodriguez
Jesse Winker
There is, potentially, a lot to like about the Brewers’ outfield this season. After a second straight season with a wOBA over .360, Carlos Gomez has settled in as a top-10 option in most leagues, and close to a sure thing as far as production. Ryan Braun, on the other hand, seems to have gone in the opposite direction. Much of the Brewers’ value in the outfield will be based on whether Braun can get back to his mashing ways, and whether Khris Davis can regain his midseason surge. There’s opportunity for a fantasy bonanza here, but it comes with a fair amount of risk.
