You’ve read the title. Hold that thought.

The Toronto Blue Jays acquired second baseman Devon Travis from the Detroit Tigers last offseason. Having never played above Double-A prior to 2015, the Jays thrust Travis into major league action in a trial by fire. He held his own and then some, hitting a robust .304/.361/.498 with eight home runs and three stolen bases in only 238 plate appearances.

Travis may have experienced some good luck, benefiting from a .347 batting average on balls in play (BABIP) as well as a 16-percent rate of home runs per fly ball (HR/FB) — an impressive rate for a 5-foot-9, 195-pound 24-year-old. The 50-percent ground ball rate (GB%) and somewhat lowly 27.8-percent hard-hit rate (Hard%) don’t help his case in regard to the latter, either.

So Travis’ .194 isolated power (ISO) may not hold up under duress of the 2016 season. But he did post decent ISOs in the minors — .210 at High-A in 2013, .161 at Double-A in 2014 — and although the quality of competition pales in comparison to the real thing, it wouldn’t be unheard of for Travis to develop a modest power stroke. Kid’s something of a doubles machine, which would be a boon to any stat line.

Read the rest of this entry »

Robinson Cano was a usually considered a first round pick for years until he signed with the Mariners. This past season, he came in as the 7th best 2B according to our end-of-season rankings. While not horrible finish, he was consistently in the top few for several seasons. After looking over Cano’s season, I think the 2015 results will be more of the same going forward.

Several factors have been limiting Cano’s potential since leaving the Yankees. Some under his control, some not. I will start with his drop in home runs. After peaking at 33 home runs in 2012, he has hit 14 and 21 the past two seasons. While he did have just an 11% HR/FB% in 2014, he put up a 16% value in 2015 which was 3rd highest career value. His 2015 Hard Hit% was at 32.4% was almost the same as a career 32.8%. Cano’s power doesn’t seem to be taking a nose dive. His power is down for one reason, fewer flyballs and the not spacious Safeco field.

Before signing with the Mariners, he had a career 31% FB%. In his two years with the Mariners, it is 25%. I think he has got it in his head that he can’t hit the ball out of Safeco, so he isn’t trying but should. He hasn’t been affected by the stadium with 21 HR hit in Seattle and 15 away. If I was going to look at one time for Cano to improve on in 2016, I would like to see him put a little more loft on the ball.

With the decline in home runs, he will have a lower number of Runs and RBI. The drop in home runs explains some of his drop in Runs and RBI, but the biggest cause has been the anemic Seattle offense. Here are Cano’s last R+RBI totals along with his team’s overall runs scored per game over the past 5 seasons.

Season: R/G, Run+RBI

2011: 5.35, 222
2012: 4.96, 197
2013: 4.01, 188
2014: 3.91, 159
2015: 4.05, 161

A drop of 60 R+RBI is huge while even the drop of 30 from 2013 is nothing to sneeze at. If Cano gets around 25 HR, the Mariners lack of hitting talent will limit his upside.

The final noticeable change was his drop in BB% from 9.2% in 2014 to 6.4%. The cause for the drop can be attributed to a drop in his intentional walk rate. Here are his overall walk rates and non-intention walk rates for the past four seasons.

2012: 8.8%, 7.4%
2013: 9.5% 7.4%
2014: 9.2%, 6.4%
2015: 6.4%, 5.7%
Career: 7.7%, 6.4%

For people worried about a declining plate discipline, don’t. His real walk rate is in line with his previous values. Those owners in OBP leagues, the drop may be permanent and taken into account.

For 2016, I think 2015 Cano is the floor. His AVG could increase after it was at his lowest level since 2008. His power could jump by hitting a few more home runs. Also, the Mariners offense could regress after scoring the 3rd lowest amount of runs in the AL last year. I am a small bit more optimistic that his Steamer projection (18 HR, 157 R+RBI, .285 AVG) with 20 HR, 165 R+RBI, a .300 AVG. I really see this past season as a floor and he could see quite a bit more upside.

2015 Visualized: First Base
2015 Visualized: Catcher

* * *

For the next few weeks, the RotoGraphs staff will devote an entire week to each defensive position, including spotlights on particular players as well as trends throughout the 2015 season. This week, we’re highlighting second basemen.

I don’t claim to be a Tableau (or data visualization) whiz by any means, but I thought it would be cool to visually represent the second base landscape in 2015 — with some analysis sprinkled in.

Steamer and ZiPS represent premier player projection systems; FanGraphs’ Depth Charts combines the two, and the writing staff allocate playing time accordingly. The playing time part is less important relative to the combined projections, as aggregated projections tend to perform better than standalones.

I compared projected wOBA (weighted on-base average) from the preseason to actual wOBA (1) by team and (2) by player within team. Unlike WAR, wOBA is a rate metric, so it does not need to be scaled according to playing time.

Read the rest of this entry »

Logan Forsythe came out of nowhere for the Rays last year. There he was: 28 years old and suddenly 15% better than he ever was before, in twice as much playing time as he’d ever had in a season, no less. There’s some power growth, some added patience, and some of the best batted ball luck and defensive numbers of his career. What part of this do we believe going forward?

To answer that question, we should probably try to find the source of that growth. That’ll help us suss the likelihood that the growth sticks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Heading into the season, Addison Russell was ranked as the Cubs’ second best prospect and third best prospect in baseball. After finishing last year at the Double-A level, he figured to open the year at Triple-A and remain there for the majority, if not all, of the 2015 season. But that didn’t happen.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s second base week on RotoGraphs and that gives me the opportunity to perform the first review of my 2015 Pod Projection breakdowns. Anthony Rendon enjoyed a breakout year in both real and fantasy baseball in 2014 and given his previous top prospect pedigree, was then highly valued heading into this season. At the time of my Pod Projection, Rendon was being drafted 13th overall in NFBC leagues. Unfortunately, a knee injury that was supposed to only keep him out for a week or two to begin the season dragged on and on. He didn’t make his 2015 debut until early June and then missed another month with a quad strain. Ultimately, he finished ranked 35th in value…among just the second basemen!

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2015 fantasy baseball season has come to a close, so it is time to look back at the season past and determine which players were the most valuable at each position. After looking at catchers last week, we continuing moving around the diamond and focus on second basemen.

The players were ranked based on their 2015 production, using the evaluation system explained and updated on this site some time ago. The valuations are built for $260 budgets and standard 5×5 roto fantasy leagues, where only one catcher is started. Players are listed only at their primary positions from 2015.

One important thing to note is the premium (or lack thereof) placed on the position a player occupies in your lineup. For example, while a first baseman may be able to accumulate superior overall numbers, the availability of such production lower in the rankings severely dampers the amount the player was worth. These rankings are meant to reflect a player’s value should he have occupied this spot in your lineup for the entire year. A player who missed time due to injury but put up great numbers during his time on the field would be worth less.

Read the rest of this entry »

How do you mark the beginning of autumn? You have your choice: Labor Day has come and gone, football season is upon us and the Jewish calendar has already ushered in a new year. And the air is already starting to feel a bit chillier here in the northeast.

But we know the real indicator: it’s fantasy playoff time. Forget the sleepers, the stashers, the upside plays, the aching bodies recuperating on the injured reserve; all we care about now is who is available in deep leagues who can help the cause. Good thing we have two candidates available in a plethora of formats who fit that job description.

As usual, the players listed in this space are typically better suited for mono leagues, and the ownership percentages are by way of CBS.
Read the rest of this entry »

…and it is delightful. Coming up with a topic to write about with only a couple of weeks left in the season is tough. So in the search for an idea, I fall back on my typical activity — leaderboard sorting! Though I routinely shake my head at any analysis that includes monthly or half-season splits, the performance numbers over those time periods aren’t always meaningless. Just the vast majority of the time they are. And since the vast majority isn’t quite 100%, I decided to check on the ISO leaders in the second half of the season, hoping to find a surprising name near the top. Sure enough, I found him sitting at sixteen. His name is Rougned Odor and he smells wonderful.

Read the rest of this entry »

Usually, when you see a headline like this, as a reader you expect the article to answer the question posed. That might not be the case here. I’m writing this because — as of this moment — I have absolutely no idea what the answer is. Hopefully, by the time you’re reading this, I will have reached some sort of conclusion.

As so often happens when I write about baseball, I had no plans on writing about Anthony Rendon today. While researching another topic — which I will save for a later date — I went down the Rendon rabbit hole. The number of unanswered questions I found there interest me far more than any easy answers, so let’s talk about how the heck anyone can assess the future value of a player like this.

Read the rest of this entry »