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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As a RotoGraphs reader, I’ve always enjoyed Joe Douglas’s “Buying Generic” series. In past articles, he has compellingly compared “generic” players like Ryon Healy, Logan Forsythe, and Justin Bour to “brand name” ones like Jake Lamb, Jason Kipnis, and Carlos Santana.

The fantasy relevance of the exercise is obvious: Buying generic allows owners to acquire players cheaply and with relative ease, instead of paying a premium (whether in a trade or in a draft or auction) for a brand-name player.

For today’s comparison, we’re going to analyze two players who have played in parts of the last three seasons, but neither has eclipsed 350 plate appearances in any one year. Both appear on their way to full-time jobs in 2017 and beyond.

Here’s how Mr. Generic and Mr. Brand Name have fared since 2015:

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Back in early April, I wrote a Five Under 50% post in which I implored fantasy owners to invest in the likes of Nick Franklin and Dan Altavilla. I urged readers to steer clear of Marwin Gonzalez, and promised that Edwin Diaz’s job was as safe as they come.

Naturally, Franklin has a 38 wRC+, Altavilla has a 6.60 ERA, Gonzalez has a .419 wOBA, and Diaz is no longer the Mariners closer. Sorry about that.

Before you quit reading this post because, really, why should you trust me, just know that my predictions weren’t all terrible. I also forecasted success for Scott Schebler (.365 wOBA), Mark Reynolds (.419 wOBA), and Ryan Zimmerman (.469 wOBA), who have been among the best hitters in baseball this year.

Not every gamble will pay off. But when it does, it can transform a fantasy team. It’s been about a month and a half since my last Five Under 50% post, and with renewed confidence, I’m prepared to do it again now.

Below are five (actually seven; I cheated) players owned in less than 50% of Ottoneu leagues whom I think may be worth an add in most leagues. There’s no need to jealously yearn for these players later when you can win them now for pennies on the dollar.

1. Chris Taylor (2B/SS/3B; 39%) Read the rest of this entry »

The leaderboards at FanGraphs is a fun place to poke around. Behold this list of pitchers:

What do they all have in common? Aside from having thrown at least 20 innings, these are the only hurlers in baseball who rank in the upper half of the stats I first look to when evaluating pitchers. Namely, they all boast better than average K-BB%, GB%, Z-Contact%, and swinging strike rates. There are some obviously great pitchers on this list but I’m not interested in talking about Clayton Kershaw, Jon Lester, or Carlos Martinez. Though if you’re a little frustrated with Lester or CarMar, I both empathize and suggest exercising a little patience. Rather, I’d like to dive deeper into some of the list’s lesser-owned and lesser-known players who won’t cost nearly as much to acquire.  Read the rest of this entry »

If you follow great hair in sports as closely as I do, you already know about Taylor Motter. In Spring Training, he unleashed a hair flip so fantastic that it spawned the Mariners’ new between-innings “Hair Flip Cam.” Sadly, when I looked for footage of the Hair Flip Cam, I only found a handful of Twitter mentions. Trust me when I say that it exists and is awesome.

Acquired in a relatively minor trade with Tampa in November, Motter is a 27-year-old without a whole lot of prospect pedigree. Here at FanGraphs, Motter slotted in as the No. 11 Rays prospect pre-2016, and Seattle’s No. 18 guy this year. In short, he’s not the type of player you’d expect to be the subject of a fantasy column in April.

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It’s a little crazy how deep third base is this year. Perusing the NFBC average draft position list, there are nearly twenty players whom, in most years, I’d be happy to roll with in standard leagues. Most surprising though was seeing Nick Castellanos languishing all the way at 19^th off the board in NFBC drafts (Note: I had originally considered anointing him just The Greek God of Contact but unfortunately that moniker implies a certain frequency of contact that the 25-year old simply cannot be bothered with). Castellanos won’t win any OBP-titles but in 2016 he did one thing well. And that’s hit a baseball really, really hard.

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This post was inspired by Trey Baughn’s Bargain Shopping: Five for $5 from December. With just days remaining before the start of the 2017 baseball season, most fantasy auctions and drafts are completed. However, since some will take place this week, and since most fantasy owners are always interested in making savvy moves to improve their rosters, now is as good a time as any to talk about fantasy bargains. To qualify for this list, players must simply cost less than $6 on the Ottoneu Average Salaries page (sorted by “All game types”) and be beyond rookie status. Getting right into the list: Read the rest of this entry »

We all have guys we like more than others. That’s just the nature of the beast. Whether it’s guys coming off down years we expect to rebound or ones we’ve done extensive research on to forecast a much better than expected season, we all have our favorites. Sometimes, we even have them for even less legitimate reasons.

As we get knee deep into draft season, I thought I’d share with you some of the guys I like more than most at each position:

C- Yasmani Grandal (NFBC avg. 145, No. 8 C)

Scoring just 49 runs while hitting 27 home runs seems crazy fluky, but I like what Grandal brings to the table overall. He does a little bit of everything — though the average might hurt — and brings the kind of pop we don’t usually see associated with the catcher’s spot. He’s still young enough (28) to be reasonably on an upswing, and he was markedly better in the second half last year (.245/.356/.521) than before the break (.212/.323/.434). He had nothing much in the way of platoon splits last year as well. Right now I like him better than Salvador Perez, who is going about 14-15 picks earlier in drafts. Further down the list, I’m intrigued by Devin Mesoraco (No. 21 catcher, No. 298 overall) after seeing a video of him testing out his bum hip doing some pretty wild plyometric drills. He could be a huge value. Read the rest of this entry »

Drew Smyly has a unique fastball. Of pitchers to throw more than 1,250 four-seamers in 2016, Smyly’s fastball was second only to Marco Estrada in terms of vertical movement, meaning, the pitch has “rise”. If Wednesday’s WBC game between the United States and Venezuela was any indication, this pitch is becoming even more unique, as Smyly is now throwing harder than he ever has.

Jeff already wrote about this game on the main site, noting why the Mariners should feel pretty good about their pair of starters, and that (at least according to the telecast) Smyly was topping 94mph. However, today, I wanted to use Smyly as a branching off point to talk about another pitcher.

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As Paul Sporer noted last week, stolen bases are getting expensive in this year’s drafts. With players like Jose Peraza and Jarrod Dyson shooting up draft boards, it’s clear that fantasy owners are more than willing to pay for steals in 2017.

Personally, there is nothing I love more than a good bargain. I spent a good two minutes doing price comparisons on hot dog buns at the grocery store yesterday, before finding some off-brand buns for just 89 cents on the bottom shelf. I don’t care who you are, you don’t need to be spending big on hot dog buns.

This is the same approach I take to speed-only players in fantasy baseball (great transition, Scott). I don’t like to spend on speedsters in my leagues, partially because I know steals are probably going to be available on the waiver wire. There’s usually a handful of undrafted bench players or minor leaguers who end up swiping a significant number of bags.

Last year, Travis Jankowski stole 30 bases in 383 plate appearances. Keon Broxton swiped 23 in 244 PA. Dyson was another example, stealing 30 bases in his 337 PA. The aforementioned Peraza picked up 21 steals in 256 trips to the plate. It’s no coincidence that Dyson, Peraza and Broxton were the top three players Sporer mentioned last week when discussing rising ADPs.

I got to thinking about who those guys will be next year; the players who go undrafted in fantasy leagues this year, but end up in high demand in 2018 due to gaudy smallish-sample steal totals. I identified three players to keep an eye on for steals as the season progresses, or perhaps slot into a reserve or minor-league spot, if your league has those.

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