Freddie Freeman is an Undervalued Roto Asset
While he is far from an elite first baseman, Freddie Freeman should be a big target for fantasy players on draft day this season. At just 23-years-old, Freeman already has two seasons of more than 20 home runs and owns a career 115 wRC+.
The biggest reason to be bullish in regards to Freeman is how he improved in almost every area you would want a second year player to improve in. His strikeout rate dropped from 22.4% to 20.8%, his walk rate rose from 8.3% to 10.3%, his ISO rose from .166 to .196, and his line drive rate jumped from 23% to 26% with his fly ball rate jumping from 34.6% to 36.9%. The big drop from a fantasy perspective was his average, which dropped from .282 to .259, a notable decrease that matters for leagues that still use batting average as a category. While his .339 rookie BABIP probably was a bit on the high end of what to expect, his career BABIP of .315 looks more reasonable than the .295 mark he posted last year.
With the notable improvements he made at the plate, his place in the Atlanta Braves lineup is more than ideal. He will bat behind two of the top outfielders in the game in Jason Heyward and Justin Upton, and he will bat before a player that led an American League East team in home runs in B.J. Upton. He scored and batted in more than 90 runs last year moving throughout the Braves lineup, and if he does lock down the cleanup spot for the full season as expected, 100+ runs and RBI are certainly attainable.
One note that also has me more bullish on Freeman than most is the eye issues he suffered from last year. His vision problems, which were caused by dryness and led him to be unable to create tears, hurt him from May 7 to June 12. During that stretch the young first baseman hit just .194/.269/.306 with two home runs in 108 plate appearances. After he came back from the injury, he hit .265/.367/.470. Prior to the eye issues popping up, Freeman hit .298/.320/.544. While not all of his poor performance during that stretch of the season can be blamed on his vision, there is certainly a correlation to be found between a serious lack of power and bat skills during the time his vision was giving him problems.
Freeman is not a tremendously attractive first option as a first baseman, although he does have massive appeal if you decide to wait on the position or if you want to plug him into the utility spot. The ZiPS projection of .274/.355/.476 with 26 home runs, 87 runs scored, and 97 RBI seems very reasonable, even though I believe it may be a bit light on the runs and RBI total. It is worth noting that ZiPS has Freeman with the most home runs and the highest wOBA on the Braves. With how good the team’s offense is expected to be, I will definitely be happy to own what arguably the best projection system expects to be the top hitter on the team.
Ben has been at RotoGraphs since 2012 and focuses most of his fantasy baseball attention toward dynasty and keeper leagues.
Agreed! I’ll be hoping to snag Freeman at a decent price while other managers get into bidding wars for the bigger names at 1B on auction day.
He’s like the 13th 1B on the list, his ADP is around 70 and so is his overall rank. How is he undervalued?
That is assuming the people drafting him know what he is going to be worth. Don’t you think it is possible that he will ovtpreform his draft position?
Agreed – Yahoo and Razzball have him ranked in the 70s while ESPN has him ranked in the 90s, next to Gallardo, Prado, Scherzer and Andrus. I don’t think he is undervalued anywhere….
This just in: Being valuable does not mean you are valued correctly. That is all.
i think his finger (or was it thumb?) problems hurt his almost as much as the eye issues, and that’s healed as well
he is a young vet. you know you are looking at larouche 2.0, and that is still a boarderline valuable player most year. Freeman has already reached his cieling. he is a 20 homer .280 hitter. The Braves will eventually move him to hit 5th or 6th where he truely belongs (heyward and justin should be hitting 3rd and 4th, with heyward cleanup since i think he has a much higher power upside.)
You’re basing this off of…? He’s young and he’s obviously still improving as shown in the article..
LaRoche broke into the majors at age 24……Freeman did it at age 20. There is very good reason to believe that Freddie will improve a great deal in the next few years as he matures. I’m not sure why you think his “ceiling” is that of a 20 home run hitter when he has done that in each of his first two seasons in the majors at this VERY young age.
This guy is confused and trying to rely on the consensus about freeman from 2 years ago when he was coming out of the minors.
Seeing as he’s averaged more than his “ceiling,” there’s no way 20 hr is his ceiling. He played in under 150 games last year too.
And Heyward hitting cleanup? Do you even pay attention? No 3 in the order is his to lose, and he’s going to have to play terribly to move from there. Freeman is much more likely the 2 than Heyward the 4
In my keeper league I have a ton of Outfielders and no firstbaseman to keep. Am I crazy to trade Adam Jones for Freddie Freeman?
yes
Not necessarily. It really depends on the makeup of your deep outfield. Does losing Jones’s 10-15 SB hurt your team more than adding 10-15 RBI from Freeman helps? Also, Freeman is 4 years younger than Jones.
The question was Jones for freeman. I wouldn’t do that…I own freeman in a keeper obp league. In for a great year but the power/speed combo with Jones is coveted. I agree with your comment RE SB but who cares about the age difference. Wait on 1b and take a flyer on a konerko/ morneau/ Rizzo. Use your surplus of OF to trade come July.
The question was addressed. If you are not considering other players on your roster when you consider a trade in a keeper league, which is what Paul is asking about, then you are not evaluating the trade properly.
Age difference matters in a keeper league for sure, as Jones is getting closer to the age where he will start to lose his speed and I don’t expect much growth as a player from him. Freeman has the potential to get better as he should not be done developing.
Good stuff here, I think you are right on.
Great opportunity to use the theory of xRBI, or the opportunity of an RBI. I think players like Freeman and Trumbo are both in great situations because of the OBP of the players batting in front of them and their respective resultant xRBI’s. See Eno’s brief NotGraphs post or Jason Mitchell’s Hardball times article on the subject for background. Even if Freeman ends up with an actual RBI/expected RBI ratio on the low end, he will still end up with a high number for RBI because his eRBI should be very high relative to league average. A good example of this would be Hunter Pence last year: 94.3 eRBI, 103 aRBI, 1.09 a/e ratio. (a=actual, e=expected) I wish there were projections for eRBI, and if there are and I just don’t know about them please let me know!
That doesn’t consider the runs total he could have as a result of batting ahead of BJ as Ben mentions in the article.
Our MAPP mimic’s ZIPs almost to a T as it relates to Freeman:
89-27-99-2-.278/.357/.483
G/F/L:37.25%;37.5%;25.3% – w/ this LD% rate and some luck in BABIP we can see .285+
HR/FB: 16% – w/ a 290ft. avg fb & hr dist. and a little more discipline and contact we can see 17%+
We have him as the 40th best hitter or better if you didn’t associate a slight position scarcity weight.
I feel like just because a guy is young doesn’t automatically qualify him as having a lot of room for growth. I actually agree with James here. Think he’s pretty close to his ceiling, albeit developed very early. Nothing wrong with .270-80-20-90 though. I’m not sure he stays in that cleanup role either, wouldn’t penalize him for that, but wouldn’t add extra points for it either. Lot of options in that Atlanta lineup this year.