Last week, I compared my Pod Projections to Steamer and calculated which hitters I was more bullish on and more bearish on for home runs. Today, I’ll do the same for stolen bases. Similarly to homers, I’m going to calculate a PA/SB rate first and then extrapolate that projection over 650 plate appearances so we’re only comparing stolen base projections and playing time forecasts don’t factor in.
Our undervalued player series continues now with the final offensive scoring category for 2020 – Runs Scored.
For those of you that are new to this series – in each article, we uncover potential undervalued players by comparing the Steamer projections to the current NFBC ADP. So far I have gone through undervalued speedsters, power bats, outstanding batting average players as well as possible RBI Bargains.
In 2019, there were 60 players who scored at least 85 runs. There were 41 players who exceeded the 95 runs threshold, and 20 hitters scored at least 105. Four players managed to eclipse the lofty 120 runs plateau. Leading the majors were a pair of Red Sox – Mookie Betts (135) and Rafael Devers (129). Ronald Acuna Jr. of the Braves followed them with 127 runs.
Once again, just as in runs batted in, prospective projections are far more conservative than the final season long distribution. Steamer only projects one player – Mike Trout – to score more than 120 runs. Only four additional players are projected to score over 110 runs (Francisco Lindor, Mookie Betts, Christian Yelich and George Springer).
Teams that win fantasy leagues are often highly correlated with the runs scored category. Finding a few undervalued players that can help pad your fantasy team’s run totals is a worthwhile exercise. For this year’s analysis, I will focus on all players with a Steamer projection of at least 85 runs. This should give us several helpful players.
Every year, I pit my Pod Projections against the Steamer projections in various categories. Today I’m going to continue the annual smackdowns by calculating AB/HR rates and then extrapolating them over 600 at-bats. At that point, I’ll compare how many home runs each system is forecasting, given a 600 at-bat projection. I’ll start by sharing the names of hitters Pod is projecting for significantly more home runs than Steamer. Many of these players figure to be part-timers, so consider them sleepers in deeper leagues.
The Pod Projection process sharing continues! The 2020 forecasts are now available and include over 500 player lines. As usual, I’ll dive into my projection methodology (detailed in Projecting X 2.0) by sharing my process on several hitters and pitchers.
Finally, it’s Pod Projections time! The 2020 forecasts are now available and include over 500 player lines. As usual, I’ll dive into my projection methodology (detailed in Projecting X 2.0) by sharing my process on several hitters and pitchers.
Over this off-season, I have uncovered potential undervalued players by comparing the Steamer projections to the current NFBC ADP. So far I have gone through undervalued speedsters, power bats and outstanding batting average players. The exercise now continues for runs batted in.
In 2019, there were 57 players with least 85 RBI. There were 28 players who exceeded the 95 RBI mark, and 17 with at least 105. Anthony Rendon of the Nationals led all of baseball with 126 runs batted in. Jose Abreu led the American league with 123. Following them were NL East first basemen Freddie Freeman (121) and Rookie of the Year Pete Alonso (120).
As we have seen in batting average, prospective projections are more conservative. Steamer projects J.D. Martinez to lead baseball in the RBI category with only 119. Only six players are projected to knock in more than 110 runs.
For this year’s analysis, I will focus on all players with a Steamer projection of at least 85 RBI. This should give us a group of players who can greatly help your team’s RBI totals in the upcoming fantasy season.
For today’s draft value comparisons, I look at:
This series is moving weekly. Just too much to keep up with to go any longer than that.
• While Orlando Arcia will start the season as the Brewers shortstop, the team plans on Luis Urias taking over the role once healthy.
Luis Urías vs. Orlando Arcia for Opening Day shortstop duties was supposed to be Milwaukee’s marquee battle when Spring Training gets underway Wednesday. That changed after Urías underwent surgery Jan. 28 for a broken hamate bone in his left hand, a procedure expected to sideline him from games for eight weeks.
With Opening Day set for March 26 against the Cubs at Miller Park, and Urías certain to need some exhibition games to get ready for Major League competition, it’s unlikely he will be active to start the season. So, Arcia will get a head start on what was expected to be an intriguing matchup of young players with much to prove.
“We’re certainly going to give Urías every shot to prove he can play shortstop for us,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said in January, before the ill-timed setback. “That’s why we traded for him.”
I got a simple request for a study, are good players (i.e early draft picks) more reliable for steals than worse hitters (picked later in drafts). Through my work with The Process, I’ve found around a .650 OPS to be the production level where players start heading to the bench/minors/waiver wire. The person remained persistent and asked for an expanded look so here it is.
One of the first items to understand is that any comparison of recent projected versus the actual stolen bases will be negative. From 2010 to 2019 (extent of my historic projections), stolen bases are down from 2959 to 2280 or a drop of 23%. And for this analysis, we are concentrating just on high stolen base guys. Here are the players projected for 20+ steals and those that reached that number in the past ten seasons.
| Season | Projected | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 46 | 35 |
| 2011 | 35 | 50 |
| 2012 | 38 | 48 |
| 2013 | 18 | 40 |
| 2014 | 28 | 39 |
| 2015 | 22 | 30 |
| 2016 | 19 | 28 |
| 2017 | 20 | 29 |
| 2018 | 19 | 28 |
| 2019 | 19 | 21 |
The number of hitters projected for 20+ steals has been cut in half over the time frame. In a fifteen team league, a team is going to get one, maybe two hitters projected for and actually reaching 20 steals. So when aiming for steals, which players should be targeted?
Read the rest of this entry »
I’m like everyone else out there, grinding away from every little nugget to gain an edge. The following players I’ve heard something intriguing about during various podcasts or discussion. While I should trust the analysts, I don’t. I prefer to verify what they said and see if I’ll need to adjust my projections.
Hampson was a late-round darling in the previous draft season for those hoping to get some late steals. He did nothing until September when he went off with a .903 OPS and nine steals. Several people mentioned a swing change and a quick search later, I found out about the toe tap.
“I was thinking of way too much mechanically in the box this year,” Hampson said. “What (the toe tap) has allowed me to do is just be way more in rhythm with the pitcher and (get) started, and my hands and everything else are natural from there. I don’t think about what my hands are doing. There’s a lot of things that weren’t synching up with my leg kick, and now they seem to synch up more naturally.”
…
Beginning with that Aug. 25 game, Hampson has hit .344 (21-for-61) with a .397 on-base percentage and a .905 OPS in 22 games (16 starts). His 19 percent strikeout rate during this span is a marked improvement from earlier. And Hampson has two homers, six RBI, 10 runs scored – he scored 23 runs in his previous 74 games – and six stolen bases without being caught during this stretch. Indeed, with 11 stolen bases in 14 attempts, Hampson is the sixth Rockies rookie with at least 10 steals in a single season and the first since Eric Young Jr., in 2010.
So what did the top tap change in his profile Here is his season divided up into three sections with his demotion on May 12th is the first division and the August 25th game mentioned in the article being the second. Try to find a smoking gun.
During the offseason, I caught up on the news every couple of weeks. The news is picking up so I’m going to have to now go weekly. This article is too long but I didn’t want to cut anything useful. Sorry for the length and I try to keep them shorter.
• Teoscar Hernández will start the season with full-time at-bats.
Even though he’s managed to improve there in each of his three seasons with the Jays, it seems likely Hernández’s ceiling as an outfielder will never be higher than below average. Still, his big second half of 2019 (142 wRC+), and the fact that his platoon splits were even over that span (144 wRC+ against left-handed pitching, 141 against right-handers), means that he should be playing every day — at least until he proves that was a mirage. In a perfect world, he’d do so at DH, but that would force one of Alford or Shaw to the bench against right-handers, which isn’t ideal.
• Mitch Haniger will be out six to eight weeks because of hernia surgery.
“He’s gone through his surgery and we think it was successful,” Dipoto said. “We’re just fingers crossed. We have no expectation on his timeline until we actually see him live [at Spring Training]. We’re not going to push him. Mitch will return at his own pace. Whether that is some time around Opening Day or sometime around the middle of the season, I have no idea. We’re going to see where it takes us.”
Haniger was expected to miss at least 6-8 weeks after feeling an issue in his core muscles while ramping up his hitting program two weeks ago in Menlo Park, Calif.
Dipoto indicated at that time that Haniger almost certainly would still be sidelined at the start of the regular season in late March, but he was less specific on Tuesday as the team edges closer to the start of Spring Training.
