I’m a sucker for cool comeback stories – at least enough that I don’t readily dismiss fringe players, former top prospects and those with supposedly newfound abilities for one reason or another who are the subjects of them. I can’t help but wonder if they’ll help my fantasy teams, so I do some research and give them a chance to convince me.

Of course, most of them don’t, just as most fantasy owners had suspected. But they’re worthwhile exercises to me, nonetheless. The rate of return in terms of quantity is low, but the potential rate of return relative to the investment can be great.

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The beauty of life as waiver wire fodder is that you don’t need to be great, or good, or heck, even a full-time player to gain entry into the club — you merely need to show up with a job opportunity to take center stage here. In the case of our two contestants this week, their long-term playing time is far from certain, but they’ve been given a chance in the immediate term to contribute in fantasy, and given their past success, that might be enough to make them worthwhile in deeper leagues.
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It’s always interesting to see the players who are often available versus owned in the fantasy baseball realm’s popular platforms. At least it is to me. I don’t know why I allow myself to be surprised. The masses flock to results, regardless of the level of talent and statistical support that come with them. That’s where FanGraphs comes in, at least for those who want to know even a little more of the why. I don’t feel as if I fit in, but I enjoy the chance to learn from the experience and hope to share a little something of value along the way.

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The beauty of playing in a mono league such as AL Tout Wars is that I am able to see first hand who the hot FAAB pickups are. Rather than scour my CBS league’s free agent pool to find players worth considering, I could browse through the players actually bid on in a deep league. Having said that, only one of the two players here were actually added this week. The other was drafted. I’m sure you could guess which is which.

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You’ll hear us talk about statistical stabilization here, and link to pieces like Russell Carleton’s or Derek Carty’s. The basic idea is that there are thresholds at which a stat moves into a decent sample and becomes more meaningful.

Maybe you’ll come away thinking that we’ve said that ‘x stat is stable so that’s what you’ll get the rest of the way,’ and if so, that’s on us. That’s not what stabilization means in this context.

What it means is that the r-squared number that correlates a player’s past stats with his future stats in that category has passed .50. That’s a mouthful, here’s another try: if you were to try and predict future work in a category, you’d regress their current work against the league average. At the stabilization point, you can use half their own number plus half the league average in your calculations.

One more try, in the most colloquial language possible: Stabilization is the point at which a number in a category tells us more about their future work than the league average.

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In my FanGraphs+ write up of Michael Brantley, I wrote, “Michael Brantley out-earned Bryce Harper this year. That is probably the last time I’ll be able to type that sentence, but it does give you a sense of how much value Brantley created compared to his cost.”

Brantley broke double digit home runs for the first time in 2013 and set a new career high in stolen bases, as well. He put up solid R and RBI numbers (more combined than Harper, for example) and his .284 average was enough to help any fantasy team. And 2014 is shaping up to be even better.

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If you’re participating in a fantasy baseball league and even paying moderate attention to what’s happening in that league, you’re likely aware that Charlie Blackmon is blistering the baseball and has proven to be one of the more unexpected stories of the early season. He’s currently hitting .410/.453/.692 and his .491 wOBA is second in the league (which should highlight just how crazy of a month Troy Tulowitzki, who is number one, has enjoyed in April).

Thus, fantasy owners have plucked Blackmon off the waiver wire in almost every league. He currently has a 100% ownership rate in ESPN leagues and is actually the number-one fantasy player in ESPN leagues — ahead of Giancarlo Stanton, Alexei Ramirez, Albert Pujols, and Adam Wainwright. He’s one of the few players who has contributed in all five standard categories. The 27-year-old has six stolen bases, five homers, a .410 batting average, 19 runs scored, and 16 runs batted in. To put that in perspective, here’s where he ranks in each standard category:

In short, Charlie Blackmon has been a top-20 player in all five offensive categories. No other player can claim that. Alexei Ramriez is the closest. The 32-year-old shortstop qualifies in four of the five categories, but he only ranks 27th in homers. Blackmon is the only guy who has been truly elite in every category, which is the paragon of a fantasy hitter.

Fantasy baseball analysis isn’t simply about looking to the past to explicate what has occurred. While that’s an effective story-telling tool, which is important in its own right, we’re much more interested in attempting to determine whether a player can be expected to produce at a high level going forward. Anyone can have a scorching-hot three weeks. It’s something else entirely for a fringe fantasy player to sustain an acceptable level of performance throughout an entire season.

In other words, should you be buying what Charlie Blackmon is selling?

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When I’m determining what I’m going to spend on players during my leagues’ FAAB runs, I think about the long term. We all do, right? In my experience, however, most fantasy players tend to base their bids on the here and now: The players on hot streaks fetch the most dollars. The exceptions include recently named closers and promoted prospects of great esteem, among others, but you get the idea.

I’ll talk more about FAAB strategy in future columns, I’m sure, but I wanted to plant the seed: Bid according to what kind of returns you figure to receive from the player for the rest of the season, regardless of recent performance. A player’s latest feats can factor in a little, sure, especially if characteristics of them indicate skills growth. In the latter instance, though, you’re already wisely influenced by possible long-term gains.

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Sometimes, you’re just way out in front. So when I called Lucas Duda “an okay flier in the deepest of leagues” in late 2011, and then made the bold prediction that Duda would outpace Logan Morrison in 2013, I was just a little early.

As an aside — It’s surprising that your bed can be made with such tepid endorsement. I became the Duda guy because I said he was a good dollar sleeper, an “okay flier” and made a bold prediction that he would be better than a bad first baseman. Lukewarm love if you ask me, but maybe Duda has only inspired hate.

Now that he’s the every day first baseman in New York, what emotions should Duda be inspiring? Other than the self-satisfaction of redemption, in my case, of course.

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You want deep? Then let’s drill, baby, drill, as injuries to a couple of established American League stars in Week 2 have opened up spots for some deep league fantasy options to get a chance to shine.
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