What I’m positing is: Don’t draft Denard Span at 2014 prices in 2015. I’m sure there are some daily matchups where he makes sense. And he’s a decent real-life player. But I’m not going to belly up to this bar. Not after he played to a top-20 outfielder season.
And by does it, I mean that he doesn’t. Unless we’re talking about disappointing fantasy baseball players, in which case: repeat performance. The Tampa Bay Rays’ center fielder hit .244 with 10 home runs and 15 stolen bases in 542 plate appearances in a dull campaign. He finished the season on the disabled list, of course, so if we extrapolate to 600 PAs, which is about how many he accumulated in the season prior, then he’d have recorded 11 homers, 71 runs, 40 RBIs, and 17 thefts, all of which are about … worse than how many he accumulated in the season prior.
Why does Desmond Jennings continue to disappoint? It’s a valid question. It may not have a simple answer. But, just as well, it might.
If you hadn’t heard of 27-year-old David Peralta entering the season, you can be excused. The left-hander pitched briefly for the Cardinals organization back in 2005 and 2006. He promptly left professional baseball after a couple lousy seasons. After dominating the Indy leagues, the Diamondbacks gave him a call in 2013 with an offer to join their system. He quickly rose through the ranks.
Over the next few months, we’ll find out if the Cubs plan to contend in 2015. Team president Theo Epstein teased as much during a press conference at the end of the season, and if a pitcher like Jon Lester or Max Scherzer joins a rotation that has already dramatically exceeded expectations thanks to the breakouts of Jake Arrieta and rookie Kyle Hendricks, there will be little reason to doubt him.
I don’t think that there’s much to analyze about Leonys Martin the player. The Texas Rangers’ center fielder isn’t a great player. On offense, he’s not even a good player, at least in terms of his weighted value as a hitter. He’s just a player, one who happened to be, based on his ADP (according to Fantasy Pros and his RotoGraphs preseason rank) compared to Zach Sanders’ end-of-season standings at the position, properly “valued” this past season.
Martin the fantasy baseball asset is a slightly different case. He batted .274 with seven home runs and 31 stolen bases. He earned about $12 this season in a typical 12-team mixed league. Judging from his typical cost in CBS leagues and the NFBC as well as the rankings of a couple of folks on the RotoGraphs preseason rankings panel (see here), some fantasy baseball players had hoped for a bit more, it seems.
This is the type of player who’d be on my secondary or tertiary target list next season. Here’s why.
In many ways, Yasiel Puig was sensational this season. His .296/.382/.480 line in 640 plate appearances marked him as one of the best hitters in the game. He posted a 92/16/69/11/.296 fantasy line worth $22 per Good Man Sanders. Puig averaged a $26 draft price according to FantasyPros, so he did represent a slight loss. That’s fine, you’re usually going to lose a few dollars when you purchase top talent.
Free-agent outfielder Torii Hunter has aged pretty gracefully. At an age where most players find themselves out of the league, Hunter has managed to put up decent offensive numbers. While he’s clearly fallen out of his prime, he can still be a useful piece for clubs. Teams will have to debate how useful Hunter can be this offseason, as the 39-year-old is freely available. Given his offensive numbers, and reputation as a strong clubhouse guy, it seems certain Hunter will get another deal despite his age. The real question is whether he can continue to defy the odds as he approaches 40.
It’s hard to believe it, but Yoenis Cespedes just completed his age 28 season. Because he was a Cuban defector and came to the States later than others who have come here, he’s much older than one might expect given that he has just three full seasons under his belt. So the question is certainly valid as to whether Cespedes has peaked. His trends don’t paint a very pretty picture.
I wanted to go with a title that likened Matt Holliday to the smokin’ Diane Lane. But I don’t really look at Holliday the way I do the smokin’ Diane Lane.
Anyway, that Holliday ended up as the 18th-ranked outfielder in Zach Sanders’ end-of-season rankings for the position might surprise some fantasy baseball players. The St. Louis Cardinals’ regular left fielder hit .272 with 20 home runs and four stolen bases in 667 plate appearances. OK, not bad, those marks seem good enough to place him 18th. But he hit a mere six home runs in 339 at-bats (400 PAs) prior to the All-Star break, so he appeared to be on course to fall short of 20 bombs for the first time since 2005, his second year in the majors. It might just surprise some folks to find out that he recovered so well.
If I had my way, I would field a team of hitters who can play a variety of positions and contribute steadily across all five fantasy categories. Carlos Gomez meets the second of those conditions. His 95/23/73/34/.284 line made him the seventh most valuable outfielder and 12th ranked player overall per Zach Sanders’ accounting. FantasyPros says he cost $24 on draft day, and Sanders’ method has him returning $30 of value. That’s a nice profit on a high value player.