Archive for Roto

Episode 177

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

Eno Sarris and Nicholas Minnix discuss end-of-season shortstop rankings, which went up this past Monday, as well as the 2015 outlooks for many of them, including: Starlin Castro, Xander Bogaerts, Jean Segura, Andrelton Simmons, Wilmer Flores, and Brad Miller, with plenty of comments about the bigger names thrown in there.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions so that we may answer them in our next episode.

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This probably wasn’t the type of year most fantasy baseball players who drafted or bought Andrelton Simmons expected from him. The Atlanta Braves’ shortstop finished with a .244 average, a mere seven home runs, and a measly four stolen bases. Even in a year of depressed offense and especially at a position starving for some of it, the third-year player failed to be replacement-level in the average mixed league, according to Sr. Zach Sanders’ shortstop standings.

Simmons seemed to have the makings of an underrated fantasy asset coming into this year. He hit .248 in the previous season yet struck out in only 8.4% of his plate appearances and hit .247 on balls in play, so he appeared to be destined to be a plus – or at least not a minus – in batting average. He swatted 17 long balls, demonstrating that he could be a power player. And he’d stolen as many as 26 bases in a season on the farm, so the possibility of more speed tantalized. None of those things materialized, unfortunately.

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There’s nothing terribly sexy about Alexei Ramirez as a fantasy baseball player, despite his 2014 line. He batted .273 with 15 home runs and 21 stolen bases this past season, but we know that power isn’t a big part of his game anymore. This year’s homer total clearly pushed some of that volume in RBIs and runs scored.

Come to think of it, there’s nothing terribly sexy about Ramirez, period. He’s listed at 6-foot-2, 180 pounds (incidentally, also my dimensions). Look at him. He’s a stick. Granted, some people find men like him extremely attractive. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I’m confident that folks in that demographic don’t make up the majority. He doesn’t exactly fit the image of the prevailing notion of a hot slab of man beef.

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It’s been more than a decade since Jose Reyes broke into the majors, and for this Mets fan, who grew up in Shea’s baseball wasteland of the ’90s when the likes of Jay Payton, Paul Wilson and Rey Ordonez were paraded around as can’t-miss future superstars, the teenaged shortstop’s arrival was indescribably refreshing and exciting. Here, at last, was a homegrown all-star who was a natural leadoff hitter, excellent fielder and stolen base machine whose energy, smile, youth and awe-inspiring talent seemed to spell the coming of better days in Flushing.

Eleven years and two teams later, it’s still a bit unsettling to talk about Reyes as an aging ballplayer, though his injury history and 31 years of age make it unavoidable. But the star power continues to shine, as Reyes this year finished second among all shortstops in Zach Sanders’ end of the year rankings, first at the position in standard CBS formats and 36th overall on ESPN’s Player Rater, re-establishing his credentials as an early-round candidate after an injury-marred 2013 campaign.
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The headline on this column may not feel particularly bold, seeing as Ian Desmond finished 2014 as the No. 1 shortstop in fantasy. Still, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume he’ll be behind the likes of Troy Tulowitzki, Jose Reyes and Hanley Ramirez in the majority of 2015 preseason rankings.

In a way, this is completely fair. Both Tulowitzki and Hanley have higher ceilings year-to-year than Desmond, while Reyes has been a top option at the position for nearly a decade. What sets Desmond apart is his ability to stay on the field, compared to his competition among the top few shortstops.

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Nolan Arenado certainly proved a whole lot of people wrong this year. Just two years ago, Arenado’s media perception took an unreasonably large hit. A rumor floated around that he was unhappy about not being promoted, he put up a bad month, and suddenly he was labeled as a whiner. He now had “makeup issues.”

Even if it was fair to be asking questions about his character, Arenado’s fall from grace in the eyes of the baseball media was nothing short of amazing. MLB.com dropped him from their top 50 list, ESPN dumped him from their top 100, Baseball Prospectus bumped him down a full 37 spots on their list, etc. The point here is not to single out any of these outlets. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The point is to illustrate how pretty much everyone took the “makeup issues” narrative and ran with it.

One notable exception? Our own Marc Hulet, who kept a level head, writing in February 2013 that “questions have been raised about his maturity level, but most young men his age (21) have questionable behavior at times, so he probably deserves a mulligan.” This is exactly what I didn’t understand at the time. What 21-year-old doesn’t have some maturity issues? (For example, when I was 21, I still thought that mixing box wine with Mt. Dew was an acceptable practice.) Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 176

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

Eno Sarris and Nicholas Minnix discuss end-of-season third basemen rankings, which went up on Monday, as well as what they think of 2015 prospects for some of them, including: Anthony Rendon, Josh Donaldson, Todd Frazier, Trevor Plouffe, Nick Castellanos, and Brett Lawrie. The analysts also respond to a couple of holdover requests for some talk about Christian Yelich and Jorge Soler.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions so that we may answer them in our next episode.

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Fantasy baseball players can, at this point, feel pretty safe in making the judgment that the 2012 season represents an outlier in Chase Headley’s statistical ledger.

The switch hitter went yard 31 times and led the National League in RBIs with 115 that year. He tied a career best with 17 swipes, to boot. He also played in 161 games for the second time in his lifetime; that much playing time isn’t exactly baseline performance level, either, although it’s hardly the No. 1 factor in his limitations both before and after that career year. He posted extremely similar rates in each of the past two campaigns, and they aren’t much different from the three he produced before that legendary rotisserie line.

The object at RotoGraphs is to point out the obvious, so, case closed. Please surf the Interwebs safely. Don’t forget to tip your cloud.

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I find third base the most interesting position in terms of eligibility in fantasy. It seems to be the crossroads that connect all other positions. Shortstops with poor range often end up at third. Third basemen with poor arms often end up in the outfield. Carlos Santana tried some third this season to get him out from behind the plate, and many future first basemen try to survive at third so teams can add an extra power bat to their lineups.

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It figures. He’d entered the two seasons prior amid expectations that he’d emerge as his club’s regular third baseman, but he failed to lock down the position. Lonnie Chisenhall didn’t have a regular place to play for the Cleveland Indians in this past campaign, however, so, naturally, he produced early on and, thus, elbowed his way into the lineup. He finished with a .280/.343/.427 slash line and 13 bombs in 533 plate appearances.

Did Chisenhall truly experience a breakthrough? After a hot start to the 2014 season, his output declined pretty steadily. As a left-handed batter, he wouldn’t need much good fortune in order to exceed expectations. But he also made some gains which suggest that he began to establish a new baseline performance level. The magnitudes of those gains should be pretty telling.

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