As #1 overall picks go, Tim Beckham has undoubtedly disappointed. He went #1 overall to the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008, but didn’t log his first significant chunk of playing time until 2015 at age-25 and wasn’t exactly inspiring in those 83 games (91 wRC+, 0 WAR). He put up meager numbers throughout his minor league career (.712 OPS in 2889 PA), suffered a torn ACL in 2014, and appeared in just 64 games in 2016 despite spending most of the season on the MLB roster. The word “bust” was starting to be used more and more with Beckham. His early 2017 work did nothing to help that as he posted a 95 wRC+ in 87 games (including a 32% K rate) before the Rays finally decided to trade him to Baltimore in a move that was only really noticed because of his status as a former #1 overall.

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As somewhat of an ode to the will-be-missed Mr. Swydan, I want take a page out of Paul’s book to highlight a number of players I’m excited to watch in 2018 (this is part one).

Freddie Freeman

Having fun with some random comparisons, Justin Smoak finished a terrific 2017 with a career-high .371 wOBA (.270/.355/.529).  Freddie Freeman also finished the summer with a .371 wOBA (.291/.378/.513)…after spending six weeks on the DL with a broken wrist.  Before that DL stint, Freeman was arguably the best hitter in baseball, slashing .341/.461/.748 (.485 wOBA) over the first six weeks of the season.  He was essentially unstoppable during that stretch, and at the age of 28, armed with one of the most consistent batted ball profiles in the game and a full season of health (plus 3B eligibility in some leagues), Freeman has all the ingredients for a truly special season in 2018.

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I’ve never been on the Amed Rosario bandwagon. Growing up near Philadelphia gave me a lot of exposure to the Mets prospect dystopia. No fan base spends more time rosterbating about future busts. Anytime I hear a Mets prospect is supposed to be the next big thing, I’m instantly skeptical. Fernando Martinez forever! #FMart.

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“… pros were more likely to ride a wave of irrational exuberance than to fight it. One reason is that it is risky to be a contrarian. ‘Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally’” – Richard Thaler in Misbehaving

At the root level, fantasy baseball is about acquiring more undervalued assists than your opponents. Everyone wants a first-round talent for a last round price (e.g. Aaron Judge). With teams clamoring to acquire every advantage, they are insistent on wasting away an early draft advantage. In early 2018 drafts I’ve participated in, an early emphasis on middle infielders is inflating their value way beyond their projected production. Is the observation wrong? If so why? If not, how can an owner take advantage of this mispricing?

Note: For this article, I will lump second basemen and shortstops together into one middle infield position. Neither position has more talent than the other and the bottom players will be used to fill a middle infield position.

For those who have recently created mixed-league valuations, positional scarcity doesn’t exist besides with catcher. I use the method outlined in Larry Schechter’s book, Winning Fantasy Baseball to determine my values. I’m not going to go into the process’s exact details but it’s the standard procedure used by fantasy experts to prep for auctions. Even a couple years ago a small amount of positional scarcity existed but a huge influx of good middle infielders has raised the group’s overall talent level up to the other positions.

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Jonathan Villar burst onto the scene in 2016 with 19 HR and 62 steals. He was going 19th overall in 2017 NFBC drafts and was a huge disappointment when he hit posted a .293 OBP, 11 HR, and 23 SB. With 2018 drafts starting, I’ve seen his ADP (200) way below where he should go using his Steamer projection (~118). The disconnect is understandable but not to the current level. Opportunity exists for huge upside.

Just for reference, here are Villar’s basic stats from the past four seasons and his 2018 Steamer projection.

Of all the values which changed his value from 2016 to 2017 was the 76-percentage point drop in OBP. Less times on base meant fewer steals and runs scored. An OBP under .300 is kill for any hitter.

Besides the scoreboard stats, here are his 2nd order stats over the same time frame.

His plate discipline is the biggest discrepancy over the past two season seasons with his K%-BB% jumping from 14% to 23%. Even though he maintained similar power and groundball rates, the overall decline in contact rate while swinging more did him in.
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So the Angels are apparently going for it all, eh? First, they signed Shohei Otani, then traded for Ian Kinsler, and have now signed Zack Cozart, who figures to play third base with defensive stud Andrelton Simmons entrenched at shortstop. Moving out of the perceived hitter friendly Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati and into an environment perceived to be far more favorable for pitchers, let’s find out how the relevant park factors may impact Cozart’s performance.

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Let’s finish the infield by reviewing my 2017 Pod’s Picks at second base and shortstop.

We start with my picks at each of the two positions, those players I was significantly more bullish than the RotoGraphs Consensus:

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It appears to me, that since Mike Trout became, well, Mike Trout, the standard that young players are held to has risen dramatically. Maybe I’m showing my youthfulness, or maybe it has always been this way.

In 2017, we can look at the performances of young hitters like Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, or Rhy Hoskins to see current versions of this phenomena, or we can look at Byron Buxton over the past few seasons to see how perceptions can change (either warranted or not) when a top prospect comes up and isn’t an immediately elite talent (though Buxton has been doing quite well recently).

Today, I want to take some time to look at another prospect who have recently debuted, and see what his initial 100 or so plate appearances can tell us.

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I’m already thinking about 2018. It’s not that my teams are doing poorly; they’re fine, for the most part. It’s that the economist nerd in me, when thinking abut fantasy baseball, most often evaluates the disparities between perceived and actual values, and how long, if ever, it takes for the market (aka fantasy owners) to come to equilibrium, to use economic parlance.

For example: you may or may not be aware that Kevin Gausman, despite his atrocious start to the season, has been magnificent the last five weeks. In seven starts from July 2 onward, he’s posted a 3.24 ERA (supported peripherally by a 2.81 xFIP and 3.40 FIP) with 11.4 strikeouts and 2.6 walks per nine innings. The strikeout rate is fueled by a 15% swinging strike rate (SwStr%), which have come consistently, ascending into double-digit percentages in all seven starts (and in eight of his last nine). His strikeout-to-walk differential (K-BB%) by month: 2.0%, 8.8%, 9.2%, 23.4%, and, in one August start, 28.0%.

Meanwhile, he’s inducing ground balls almost half the time (49.5% GB). You could say he’s due for batting average on balls in play (BABIP) regression, and he probably still is. His BABIP constantly hovering above .349 does not inspire confidence, but few pitchers have ever been BABIP’d so hard in a single season — I discussed this phenomenon in regard to Robbie Ray. All said, while there’s no guarantee his BABIP regresses before October, Gausman still shows the promise we once expected of him — perhaps more — and it’s going largely unnoticed because of his downright repulsive first half. (He’s baseball’s #12 starter the last month.)

Such is the gist of this post, in which I’ll briefly touch upon players I anticipate to have average draft positions (ADPs) in 2018 that will lend themselves to relatively low-risk, high-reward opportunities in standard mixed leagues. Whether such expectations become reality is another story; that’s why I’m relying on ownership levels as a proxy for perceived value. All ownership levels likely retain some amount of draft day inertia, for better or for worse — in other words, leftover ownership (or lack thereof) in abandoned leagues — so take it all with a grain of salt.

Please note this is, by no means, an exhaustive list — just the first few players who come to mind, mostly because I’ve paid close attention to them all season.

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As a Marwin Gonzalez owner, I’ve considered writing about him several times over the season’s first two months. I took a $1 flier on him in a 4×4 ottoneu Classic league this offseason, and at the time my expectations could be roughly summarized as “There’s worse ways to fill out a roster.” In most fantasy formats, Marwin qualifies at every position except pitcher and catcher, and he was coming off a season that saw him produce 25 HR+SB. Like I said, there’s worse ways to spend a dollar on a bench player.

Every time I’ve thought previously about writing up Marwin this year, I got hung up on the fact that I had absolutely no idea if his breakout was for real, or if it was just a fluky hot start. Actually, if I’m being completely honest, the whole reason I decided to write this piece you’re currently reading is because I still don’t know. In the following paragraphs, I invite you to join me as I take a stab at figuring out Marwin Gonzalez.

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