In lieu of a chat today, we’ll answer some questions over the course of the afternoon. This will allow us to answer more detailed questions, so make sure you give us the relevant information in your comment so we can help you. The RotoGraphs staff is here to help!

Oh, and ottoneu arbitration voting ends at midnight ET on 10/31 so remember that and ask us about those votes if you want.

While working on my 2B rankings, I kept seeing Dustin Ackley and Jason Kipnis ranked low. The rankings were a combination of 2011 stats and ZIP preseason projections. While they both hit good in 2011, the projections seemed low. I decided to look into players that had similar rookie seasons and how they performed the next year.

I took all rookies from 1991 to 2011 that had between 150 and 400 PA and an OPS between 0.750 and 0.850. I chose to use OPS, because it is an encompassing stat that is available in the options at Baseball-reference’s Pay Index. Twenty-eight players made the list. Besides Ackley and Kipnis, two other rookies from 2011 where on it, Paul Goldschmidt and Eric Thames. In the end, I had 24 players to use in the comparison.

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Back in September, Bill Petti at Beyond the Boxscore took a look at the year-to-year correlations of a set of hitting metrics. Some of the stats you’d expect had no year-to-year staying power (AVG, BABIP); some you would think are skill based turned out to vary greatly (Line Drive Rate); while some metrics proved to be remarkably consistent (Contact Rate, Swinging Strike Rate).

What jumped out to me was that First-Strike Rate had only a .56 year-to-year correlation for batters, while all of the stats I’d expect to directly impact First-Strike Rate (Swing Rate, Contact Rate, etc.) were quite consistent. First-pitch strikes make a huge difference in any at-bat, and the high year-to-year variation in this stat suggests that, over the course of a season, some hitters may have very good or very bad luck in this area. After looking at Petti’s analysis, I looked deeper into the phenomenon of F-Strike% and have three posts coming – starting with this one looking at my methodology and the basic information I found.

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Hey let’s talk about everything! Baseball, ugliness, burgers, beverages.

Pitchers tend to induce different types of batted balls. Some are fly ball pitchers. Others induce ground balls. While there are always pitchers at the extremes, a few pitchers go beyond the norms on a yearly basis. Today, I am looking at pitchers whose 2011 batted ball data was outside the normal range of values.

To get the extreme baselines, I took the the top and bottom values for a pitcher with over 400 IP total over the past 3 years. Here is a look at some pitchers that may be in store for some batted ball corrections in 2012

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Baseball is a grind. It’s 162 games played nearly every day over a six-month period. By extension, then, the fantasy version of this unending onslaught of a sport can be — and often is — just as overwhelming.

Look, it happens: Late-summer hits and the portion of your brain that was tending to your fantasy baseball team on a regular basis instead shifts its focus to other things, like vacation, fantasy football or the hot chick named Tiffany who spent the summer as a lifeguard at the local beach and hung out all the time at your favorite bar.

That’s why, unless your team was good enough to be in contention all the way down to the stretch run, chances are, you missed out on a few things as the season wore on, particularly into August and September. That’s when the non-contenders tend to check out (if they haven’t done so weeks before), but it’s also about the time that even those chasing after that elusive championship start suffering from tunnel vision as their eyes become focused solely on the prize.

Now that we’re a couple weeks removed from the crush and rush of the final days of the fantasy season, allow me to point out a batch of American League outfielders who performed better than you might have realized, thanks to end-of-season surges or new opportunities. There just might be a nugget or two in here that you didn’t notice the first time around. You know, while you were too busy ogling Tiffany.

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In my first two parts of this series, I looked at the stats to be examined when evaluating hitters and projecting Runs and RBIs. Today, I am going to take a look at projecting plate appearanes (PAs) and stolen bases (SBs).

Plate Appearances

With projections, I find the most error and room for improvement is with playing time. An owner needs to have a hitter playing and accumulating as many PAs as possible. The more PAs, the more counting stats they can hope to generate.

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Last week, I tried to provide insight on strategies for arbitration voting in ottoneu, but with almost four weeks left until votes are due, I thought I would add some color to that lecture with a couple examples. I’ve identified a couple teams from the original ottoneu league that I think include some pretty interesting arbitration cases.

We’ll start with this year’s champion: Last Years Leftovers.

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Prior to the All-Star break, four RotoGraphs writers — Eno Sarris, Jeff Zimmerman, Howard Bender and me — engaged in the just-for-fun activity of drafting Pick Six-style teams, with the pool of players limited to those available in 10% or less in ESPN leagues (at the time of the draft).

Given those parameters, the exercise proved to be challenging, but if you paid attention to our picks, you may have managed to snag a useful fantasy player or three off the waiver wire — no matter what kind of league you play in.

I took the temperature of our picks back in August, but now that the season is finished, let’s tally up the scoring to get the final results. And while we’re at it, we’ll rank the players based on their fantasy impact in 2012.

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There’s a pretty good schedule of games tonight, let’s take a look at some of the better value plays for your daily Pick Six

Kelly Shoppach ($0.50)

Much of the ire Rays fans have toward Kelly Shoppach was greatly diminished in game one of the ALDS when the pudgy backstop hit two home runs and drove in five against C.J. Wilson. To the astute viewer it shouldn’t come as that big of a surprise, however. Despite his poor overall numbers – .176/.268/.339 – he hit well against left handed pitching, something he’s done over his whole career. His .788 OPS and .349 wOBA against southpaws this season were the lowest figures of his career, and they’re still above average. Today he’ll face Matt Harrison, another lefty. Harrison has a pretty pronounced platoon split for his career (4.56 FIP vs RHB, 3.98 vs LHB) but the number against right handed batters have improved dramatically this season (3.57 FIP). With a K/9 under 7 and a GB% of 47 he doesn’t have overpowering stuff. He’ll work low in the zone to try and induce weak contact and Shoppach will try to take advantage of any mistakes Harrison happens to make. For the low, low cost of $0.50 the reward outweighs the risk.

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