Archive for Roto

Jesus Aguilar is the very definition of a prospect with more value in fantasy baseball than in real life. Our own Marc Hulet ranked him as the 11th-best prospect in Cleveland’s system last year, and left him out of the top 15 entirely this year. There are plenty of very good reasons for this exclusion, starting with the fact that Aguilar is a bat-only prospect; he has well below-average speed and doesn’t have much of anything to offer defensively.

Furthermore, the 23-year-old’s one plus tool, his power, has mostly been of the five o’clock variety throughout his minor-league career. Listed at 6’3″, 250 pounds (I’d bet my life savings on the over regarding his listed weight), he puts on one hell of a show in batting practice, hitting the ball out of the park to all fields. However, following his 23 homers in A-ball back in 2011, he hit just 15 dingers between High-A and Double-A in 2012, and 16 last year in Double-A.

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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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Something strange is happening in Tampa Bay. Matt Joyce is hitting in the month of April. Using monthly splits for analysis is a fool’s play, but throughout his career, May has been Joyce’s month to shine. Apparently, someone removed the month of April from his 2014 calendar because Joyce is off to a terrific start this season.

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These things happen every year. Last Thursday, I wrote about my renewed roto affinity for Edinson Volquez and how the Pittsburgh Pirates seemed to be rescuing him. (Jeff Sullivan did a better job of quantifying some of the real improvements in the wild northpaw’s game a day later.)

It’s fun when the subjects of comeback stories are useful fantasy players as well. Your opponents are waiting for what they perceive as overdue corrections to burn you. You’re wondering how much longer you should ride this wave of unbelievable fortune. Bartolo Colon is texting these dudes to welcome them to the club.

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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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Unless you play in a one-catcher league (bo-ring, to me, but I totally get why some people do it) or subscribe to a strategy that purports the selection of two top-rated catchers, you’re faced with the prospect of ownership of some serious crap at the position in at least one of your two C spots. We can’t all draft Devin Mesoraco. (Those who did may want to see what he’d fetch in a trade.) Some of us ended up with Alex Avila’s .175/.283/.250 and 58.3 contact rate through 47 plate appearances. (The Detroit Tigers tell us that he’s working through that awful start. Fingers crossed. At least he’s practically assured playing time.)

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Brad Miller is no longer taking walks or getting hits. That’s obviously a problem, because it means he’s killing your team in average, failing to drive in runs and not getting on base to score runs or steal bases. Entering the seasons as the Fangraphs consensus number nine at shortstop and not ranked by a single person as outside of the top-10, Miller has instead repaid owners with the 24th-best performance at the position, providing net positive value only in home runs (he has three).

The .187-7R-7RBI-3HR-0SB line is obviously troubling. The realities underneath it – specifically, his suddenly-anemic walk rate and sky-high strikeout rate – are even more troubling, though hopefully they represent a short-term issue.
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Another week, another crop of injuries open up spots for two waiver wire candidates. Me thinks there’s a pattern here. As we snorkel amid the waiver wire waters, our first contestant is no stranger to deep league fantasy owners, though his awful 2013 made him persona non grata in the vast majority of formats entering the season. Meanwhile, a Tommy John snakebite has opened up a spot in the Yankees rotation, potentially opening the door for an intriguing left-hander to aid fantasy owners.

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You can look at parts of Martin Perez’ profile and find yourself salivating over the upside. At the same time, there are parts of his profile that can make you question whether he’s a major sell-high candidate. Ranked around the 100-mark entering the season, Perez seems closer to proving doubters wrong but hasn’t yet validated believers.

To wit: Perez isn’t striking many batters out, but he’s not walking many, either; He’s improved his ground ball rate, but he’s also been gifted a 0.0 percent HR/FB mark; and he has a 1.86 ERA, one that’s surely helped owners early, and it’s backed by a healthy 2.42 FIP and 3.20 xFIP, but ZIPS and Steamer don’t like him any better than a 4.38 and 4.68 ERA, respectively, for the rest of the season.

The good-and-bad profile gets even tougher to figure out when you dive in deeper.
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In an industry league I joined this off-season, I inherited a team with Jean Segura as my starting SS and biggest trade chip. Having never been a Segura fan, I started shopping the Brewer speedster, and found myself relatively flush with offers. In a 20 team league, I think at least eight owners inquired, and deals were pretty solid.

This week, I finally traded Segura, and the return was not what it would have been three or four months ago. So what happened?

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