Ryan Braun will not have to serve a 50 day suspension for performance enhancing drugs. While many ramifications may come from this ruling, I will get to the meat of the matter. How does the ruling affect his and his teammates fantasy value?

Ryan Braun

Ryan now jumps up from a late 2nd to 5th round pick with the suspension, to being one of the first players taken. Before the news was released, many people considered him the top pick in the draft. This high ranking should not change, but it may just a bit.

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After finally having somewhat of a breakout season in 2010, after showing little progress over the previous three seasons, Delmon Young disappointed once again last season, actually posting the worst wOBA of his career. He dealt with injuries to his oblique and ankle, which limited him to 473 at-bats and likely hurt his production. With the addition of Prince Fielder, let’s see if we should expect a rebound.

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In an effort to boost my post views and comment total, I went for the obvious to analyze my projections for next. Given the fact that Matt Moore has recently appeared on several 2013 Hall of Fame ballots, I thought it would be timely to determine just how worthy of a vote he may be. I present to you America’s Next Great Pitcher™. And yes, I have dibs on royalties if that becomes a future reality show.

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It is hard to believe that the perpetually disappointing Homer Bailey is still just 25. It feels like he has been around forever, continually failing to live up to all the hype he once garnered as a top prospect. I had once thought he was overrated and was not too excited about his prospects, but I have become cautiously optimistic, once again thinking this may finally be the year. Will it be?

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Today I continue on with the Pod pitcher projections, this time with AL Rookie of the Year winner, Jeremy Hellickson. I have written a lot about Hellickson over the off-season, all with similar analysis. As FanGraphs readers, you are all likely well aware of the huge disparity between Hellickson’s ERA and SIERA last year. I have speculated that he would improve his peripherals enough this upcoming season that his ERA would not balloon to a level close to his SIERA, and would instead settle into the high-3.00 range. Let’s see if my prediction from just eyeing the skills is right.

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It’s time for the first pitcher to experience the Pod projection process. Aside from Yu Darvish, Michael Pineda has probably been the most newsworthy pitcher of the off-season after the recent trade to New York. FanGraphs covered every angle of the trade, including speculation on how he might perform moving away from the pitcher’s haven in Seattle to the home-run happy Yankee Stadium. As such, I figured it would be appropriate to actually try to figure this out by mixing all the numbers together and spitting out a projection. But before you go any further, make sure you read my pitcher projection introduction.

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Although I am only about a third of the way through my hitter projections, I am already bored and have been itching to start up on pitchers. So after getting a taste of the methodology and process I employ in coming up with projections on the offensive side of the ledger, it’s time to look under the hood of my pitcher projections. The exciting part for you is that these projections will differ from the forecasting systems much more so than the hitter projections. So there is much more room for debate and of course having the fun of being right. Without further ado, it’s time to dive into how I project pitchers.

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The Mets are bringing the fences in at Citi Field and that sound you heard when the announcement was made several months ago was the champagne corks going off in the hitters’ households, as well as their keeper league fantasy owners. Ike Davis is certainly to be one of the primary beneficiaries of the change. With Prince Fielder and Albert Pujols‘ departure to the other league this off-season, the National League first base crop is looking mighty thing. That gives Davis the opportunity to actually be the second most valuable at the position, behind Joey Votto. Let’s see what he may do.

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For the past year-plus, Kendrys Morales has been an expert in worst case scenarios. Injure yourself in a walkoff celebration, miss a full year in the aftermath, and see your team promote a promising young stud and acquire the best player in the league — both at your position — and you can come to define the term.

Are things looking up now? Teammates like Peter Bourjos raved at the power Morales showed in his first live batting practice in over a year on Monday. What if he gets it together? What might a best-case scenario for the 28-year-old switch-hitting Cuban first baseman look like? How could things break just right for him?

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Here at FanGraphs, we are doing our best to make sure we publish as many articles about Prince Fielder’s move to the Motor City as possible. We want to ensure that there is absolutely no temptation to go anywhere else to find an angle that we missed (because we couldn’t have missed an angle, we covered them all!). So to continue on with the behind the scenes look at my projections, it is only fitting that Fielder is the next man in the spotlight.

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