Yesterday, Eno Sarris posted another installment of the RotoGraphs Ridiculously Early Mock Draft — Rounds 11 through 15. You had the usual opportunity to comment on picks that you liked or didn’t like and while your silence with regard to my selections tells me that no one thought any of mine were either reaches or wasted picks, I would still like to do a little crowdsourcing here and find out where everyone stands on particular players and where they are going in drafts from now through the start of the 2013 season. Welcome to Bargain or Bust. Read the rest of this entry »

Average draft position, or more commonly referred to as ADP, has become an important piece of information for snake drafters over the past couple of years. We here at RotoGraphs mention it in our articles all the time when analyzing players in the pre-season as we try to get a handle on where fantasy players are getting drafted. But, there are still fantasy owners out there who believe that ADP is useless and completely ignore it during their drafts. I think that’s a huge mistake.

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With a fair amount of attention paid to my Michael Bourn man-crush piece and so many of you saying how you prefer to grab power early and wait on speed, I decided to put your methodology into action and see where it took me. In another industry mock draft that took place just last night, I painfully resisted the urge to take Bourn, picked around the available speed and made a few different choices. While I cannot divulge the full results of the mock draft out of respect for the site that will be using it as part of its upcoming draft kit, I can discuss a few things in relation to my selections and this particular topic. Read the rest of this entry »

The text came in on January 1, 2013 at 12:01 AM.

“Happy New Year! Michael Bourn in the 4th round? Dubious.”

“Happy New Year! Last of the true burners. Still a good value in roto-based leagues,” I responded.

“Juan Pierre in Round 20,” was what followed. Read the rest of this entry »

This week the Mets exchanged Cy Young award winner R.A. Dickey for Blue Jays catching prospect Travis d’Arnaud (pronounced dar-no). The deal is logical for two teams moving in opposite directions. While the merit of the Blue Jays’ off-season moves are not above reproach, the Mets are in no position to compete in 2013 as evidenced by their attempt to field a team without a single outfielder. But, that’s of little consequence to us here at RotoGraphs. Here, we want to know who Travis d’Arnaud is and how this trade affects the prospect Comrade Newman called the best catcher prospect he has ever seen. Read the rest of this entry »

With Kevin Youkilis headed out the door and the third baseman market looking pretty bleak, the Chicago White Sox opted to go for the relatively cheap but always reliable Jeff Keppinger to fill their vacancy at the hot corner for 2013. He got a three-year deal worth roughly $12 million and word has it that his final decision was based on the fact that he was guaranteed a starting job as opposed to keeping a spot warm for someone else, as would have been the case with the Yankees. So what does this move to the Leroy Brown’s neighborhood do for Keppinger’s fantasy value? Is he worth drafting? Read the rest of this entry »

A big fuss has been made over the Royals considering dealing their top prospect, Wil Myers, for starting pitching help. And the fuss is for good reason. On the field, Jeff Francoeur’s totally unexpected demise left the Royals with a gaping hole to fill in right field. That reality coupled with owner David Glass’s frugalness – read the second half of this excellent bifurcated piece by Rany Jazayerli – has left many wondering why the Royals would trade almost seven seasons of a potential all-star right fielder for two years of an aging pitcher with a mortgage. But, the game played on natural grass is far different from the one that requires a username and password. Today, I’m here to tell you trading your prospects isn’t only okay, it’s encouraged in many formats. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to two excellent researchers, we have two different pitcher xBABIPs nestled within the posts on this site.

Matt Swartz has an xBABIP that’s part of SIERA. He was nice enough to re-run it with all pitchers with 40 innings pitched or more for 2003-12. He did not adjust for usage by weighting pitchers with high IP more heavily, but he did regress BABIP using factors that his research has shown to influence the number. His pitcher xBABIP formula is:

BABIP = .290 + .045*GB% – .103*K%.

Steve Staude used batted ball data to find a pitcher xBABIP in the Community Blog a while back. Of course, the weakness of a model using line drive percentage is the fickleness of that stat from stadium to stadium and year to year, but it does make a lot of sense intuitively: give up fewer frozen ropes and you’ll give up fewer hits. His regression led him to the following pitcher xBABIP formula:

xBABIP = 0.4*LD% – 0.6*FB%*IFFB% + 0.235

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The Marlins decision to overturn the majority of their roster on this week created ample opportunity for their minor leaguers to help your fantasy team earlier than expected.

In the outfield Giancarlo Stanton is the sole survivor of the team’s firesale leaving gapping holes center and left field. Top hitting prospect Christian Yelich will start the year at Double-A Jacksonville and his progression to be the Marlin’s everyday leftfielder will face little resistance. One can expect Yelich to post a high batting average, more than a dozen steals and moderate power. He’s an excellent player that fantasy owners in nontraditional leagues will love. I’m very high on Yelich and if it weren’t for the homerun suppression in Miami I would predict him to be a 25 homerun guy down the road. His swing is that pretty.

The best prospect the team received from Toronto was Jake Marisnick. Marisnick profiles best in a corner but their players’ lack of defensive ability has rarely stopped the Marlins from getting their bats in the lineup (See, Morrison and Coghlan). Marisnick struggled mightily in 247 Double-AA plate appearances so I expect him to return to Double-AA as Jacksonville’s centerfielder. However, he did play well in the Arizona Fall League so while its unlikely it wouldn’t be out of the question for Marisnick to breaks camp with the Fins. Ultimately, I question how good he will be. He’ll be playing outside his optimal position in a park the suppresses power. In addition to his general athleticism, power is his best attribute but his hit tool is lacking, leaving me questioning his ability to tap into his power.

The final outfielder stationed in Jacksonville will be Marcell Ozuna. I haven’t seen Ozuna play so it’s hard to comment on him other than saying his power could be very enticing to the punchless Marlins.

The Marlins could go in many different directions for their new infield but I expect Yunel Esobar to play shortstop and the recently signed Kevin Kouzmanoff to play third. Kouzmanoff, 30, is hardly special so he’ll face pressure from former first rounder Zack Cox. Cox was a standout at the University of Arkansas but I’ve long been on record as one who doubts his ability. Still, he has far more upside than Kouzmanoff if he can put things together.

This trade left the quality of the Marlins’ rotation in shambles. Josh Johnson and Mark Buehrle were swapped out for Henderson Alvarez, leaving the rotation will little depth and experience. Top prospect Jose Fernandez wasn’t challenged during his short Jupiter stint so he too should be in Jacksonville. The Fish will cap his innings somewhere below the 165 mark but he could provide a very boost to your August and September statistics should be as impressive as many predict him to be.

Watching Justin Nicolino this year I saw a deceptive lefty with good control but not an impact fantasy asset. His upside is a number three starter but I project a back of the rotation innings eater. Helpful for the Marlins, not so much for you.

There are many other prospects who were affected by this deal too but there isn’t enough space to discuss them all. With so much youth and uncertainty on this roster fantasy owners should keep a close eye on the Marlins and similar teams.

Short and simple. Using slash 12’s batted-ball-based xBABIP, updated by Jeff Zimmerman, I pulled together the 2012 xBABIPs for all players with more than 300 PAs. I’ve posted them below, sorted from ‘luckiest’ to ‘least lucky,’ and the full document is also here on a google spreadsheet for your use.

Enjoy!

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