Yesterday was Leonys Martin day. In the introductory paragraph of that article, I noted that Martin was worth roughly the same $12 as Bryce Harper. So for today, let’s talk about Harper.

Let’s tackle the platoon issue first. Harper’s story has the same flow as Martin’s, albeit with massively different expectations. He’s shown substantial platoon splits, but it’s hard to draw any hard conclusions since he’s only seen lefties in 360 plate appearances. Martin is still young which led to the conclusion that he could learn to hit lefties passably. In Harper’s case, he’s incredibly young – he’ll be entering his age 21 season in 2014.

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It was a historically bad year for the Miami Marlins offense. Over the summer, Bradley Woodrum shared with us where the team ranked in history among the weakest attacks of years past. But at that time, the team’s wRC+ was 78. The team actually finished the season with a more pitiful 72 mark, which tied the 1981 Blue Jays for lowest mark in his last graph. Unfortunately, Giancarlo Stanton was part of this offense and this fact hampered his fantasy value. But breathe a sign of relief folks, I will not be using the words “lineup protection” anywhere in this post (besides in this sentence)!

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On the one hand, Leonys Martin represents the kind of tepid, five category production that owners in 12-team leagues can expect to find at some point on the waiver wire. On the other hand, he was worth nearly as much as Bryce Harper in 2013, clocking in at about $12. Which leaves us to ponder: what should we do about Martin?

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A fluke might not be repeatable, but it is nevertheless something that happened. And something that happened in 2013 was Raul Ibanez was pretty good — which not many people outside of the Ibanez family and maybe Jack Zduriencek thought was likely. It was such an oddity, it generated a post titled, “I’m Old and I’m Swinging For the Fences” which should win some kind of post header award in my opinion.

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The 2013 season was a season unlike anything we’ve seen from Coco Crisp. Rather than accrue the majority of his value via his steals, his stolen base numbers were cut nearly in half from his 39 bags in 2012 to just 21 this season. This year Crisp launched a career high 22 home runs, including his 100th career home run (where the present author can be seen celebrating at the 0:38 mark and again at 0:52. And yes, that is a Kurt Suzuki shirsey).

                 
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I’m not really sure what is driving the obsession here, but count me in here for a third time discussing Cardinals 1B/OF Allen Craig. The first time I wrote about The Wrench, back in late January, I questioned the almost unbearable hype he was getting that pushed his ADP to a level that almost ensured he wasn’t going to live up to everyone’s expectations. As I said back then, I wasn’t dogging him as a player as much as I was criticizing the hype machine and those who mindlessly followed it, ultimately driving his ADP to somewhere between the late third and early fifth rounds. I just didn’t see him as a player worthy of such a high draft choice, and certainly not at a position as deep as first base or the outfield. Read the rest of this entry »

If you had a fantasy playoff league, Shane Victorino helped you win RBI and any mythical HBP category, but he sure killed you everywhere else. While his (way) up and (way) down playoff run is likely what everyone will remember from 2013, the rest of it was certainly interesting from a fantasy standpoint.

Victorino’s first season in Boston was supposed to represent a bounceback from a 2012. His 93 wRC+ that year (his last year in Philly that also included a stopover in Los Angeles) dropped below 100 for the first time since 2007. Some of that was BABIP but it didn’t help that the power dropped (by a lot) and the BB% and K% rates trended the opposite direction. Cue suppressed value headed into 2013 drafts.

Signed by Boston to a somewhat controversial 3/$39 million contract in the offseason, Shanf took his antics to right field, a position he hadn’t permanently manned since 2007. His .308 wOBA during the first month of the season caused a degree of consternation in Beantown (and more fuel for the offseason skeptics), although he seemed to get better as the weather warmed up (.327 in May, .341 in June).

Most people (myself included) love to wonder “what would happen if (insert terrible switch hitter here) just gave up and started hitting from their better side, even against same-handed pitching?” Read the rest of this entry »

Detroit Tigers outfielder Torii Hunter continues to churn out effective seasons despite his age. The 38-year-old outfielder may no longer be in his prime, but that didn’t stop him from ranking 17th among outfielder in Zach Sanders’ end of season rankings. Hunter has always been slightly underrated in fantasy leagues, initially due to his strong defensive reputation. He continues to be underrated, now due to his age. The past few seasons, Hunter has paid off as a late-round fantasy flyer. As with most aging players, the major question is; how long can he keep this up?

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Once a speedy, excellent defensive center fielder with questionable offensive skills, Carlos Gomez has made himself into a five category fantasy contributor. And with the value of his glove added in, he was baseball’s fourth best player this year by WAR. Though his breakout began in the second half of 2012, he carried over his new found batting talents and had himself a career year, posting a .363 wOBA and going 24-40 to the delight of his fantasy owners. Of course, this type of performance has fantasy owners giddy and in a recent mock draft, he was selected 25th overall. Fantasy owners are notorious for valuing players based on a “what have you done for me lately?” philosophy, so let’s figure out if this time it is warranted.

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According to Zach Sanders’ unassailable list of outfield rankings, B.J. Upton scored dead last with a whopping negative $12 of value in 2013. A player in a different contract situation would likely be out of a job, but Upton has four years and $60 million remaining with the Braves. We’ll be seeing more of him in 2014.

Upton the Elder has been a solid fantasy asset since 2007 – back when the Rays were still consorting with the Devil. He was always a good bet for 50 home runs plus stolen bases, although the distribution of those counting stats was anyone’s guess. Batting average was usually a problem category, but a .240 rate is forgivable when it comes with plenty of home runs and steals.

As you know, 2013 bucked the trend. Upton struggled mightily, posting all kinds of terrible numbers. Most stomach churning for Braves fans and fantasy owners was the .184/.268/.289 slash (.252 wOBA) that resulted from too many strikeouts and a lot of bad contact. Some hopeful few will look at his career low .266 BABIP and .105 ISO and see brighter days ahead. But those days will need to be substantially brighter for Upton to help fantasy owners.

It’s at this point that I’ll remind you that there are two plays that generate near-automatic outs – strikeouts and infield flies. Upton went bananas for these two plays last season. He struck out 33.9 percent of the time and 19.3 percent of his fly balls failed to leave the infield. Combined, Upton made an automatic out in roughly 40 percent of his plate appearances. That fully explains the low BABIP and terrible triple slash line. Based on his outcomes, he wasn’t unlucky.

The low power numbers are a little trickier to analyze. Upton hit more ground balls and fewer fly balls than usual (despite the high infield fly rate) and posted his lowest HR/FB ratio since 2009 (because of the high infield fly rate). He’s always been quite inconsistent with his HR/FB, and we should probably expect that to continue. Taken together, it’s not surprising that his power numbers were poor based on his batted ball outcomes. It’s uncertain what we should expect in 2014, but regression to the mean is always the safe bet.

That’s what the Steamer projection system prophecies. Fewer strikeouts and more power lead to a .223/.301/.382 projection. That includes a five percent drop in strikeout rate (slightly above career norms) and 50 point boost in ISO. That’s still all kinds of terrible and a good reminder that paying for the privilege to own Upton in 2014 is foolish. Steamer is confused about his role next season, since the 430 plate appearance projection is more than a platoon bat but less than a full time player. For what it’s worth, Upton hasn’t shown much of a platoon split throughout his career.

The one area where owners can cast their hope is with his batted ball outcomes. Earlier, I mentioned that his season wasn’t fluky based on those outcomes. But it’s entirely possible that the outcomes themselves were fluky.

His infield fly ball rate was 10 percent above his career rate (and that career rate includes 2013). It’s possible that he’s seen a change in talent where he pops up more often, but it’s more likely that an additional 10 percent of his fly balls will go to productive purposes next season. More outfield flies probably means more HR/FB leading to more runs, RBI, home runs, and even a better batting average. Positive power outcomes will result in a better spot in the lineup, more plate appearances, and more opportunities to steal bases.

All of which leaves us in an awkward position. Talking about a positive feedback loop is one thing, actually getting value out of a guy who projects in the negative is another.

At the end of the day, we have a player with a long track record as a stolen base threat who can contribute to some other categories as well. That player bottomed out so heavily in 2013 that some owners can probably blame him for losing their league. Usually, this is a sign of age related collapse or major injury. Upton is entering his age 29 season and didn’t sustain a notable injury until midseason. So what do we believe?

This is the sort of situation where I recommend taking a flier and no more. If someone is willing to use a mid-round draft pick or more than a couple auction dollars to acquire Upton, wish them well. As the Steamer projection implies, even a good healthy dose of regression will see Upton perform similarly to Brandon Barnes or Vernon Wells. There were worth about negative $3 last season.

In other words, buyer beware.