Is Jason Heyward Being Properly Valued?
Currently, Yahoo! rates Jason Heyward as the 28th best fantasy outfielder. To me, that looks light, and as a huge Heyward fan I am doing my best in putting that out there without bias.
Last year was certainly an unproductive fantasy season from Heyward. He barely hit double digit home runs, did little in the way of runs and RBI, and his average/on base percentage were solid but not world-beating. Even with that poor year, he did manage to rank 28th among all outfielders. In terms of a full healthy season, last year looked like the floor for the new Cardinal right fielder.
The only St. Louis Cardinal hitter with a higher ZiPS projected wOBA than Jason Heywad is Matt Holliday. ZiPS has Heyward at .269/.348/.424 with 16 home runs and 14 steals. Additionally, Steamer has Heyward at .270/.355/.446 with 20 homers and 13 steals. If he is able to hit for that type of power, as he has in each year besides last year (on a plate appearance per home run rate), he should easily score more than 100 runs atop the Cardinal lineup. While even as an isolated player I believe Heyward is being under-drafted due to his appearance among most fans as a “bust” or close to it as a prospect, the fact that he will be hitting atop what should be a potent and balanced lineup in a contract year at age-25 is reason enough to roll the dice with Heyward earlier than most.
The concern around Heyward, in my estimation, is not a repeat of his 2014 season. I am rather confident that if he is able to keep his walk rate at or above 10% and keep his strikeout rate in check as he has the past two seasons that he will produce at a much higher rate than he did last year.
The concern to me is injuries and lack of production against left-handed pitching. While his defense is quality enough to warrant playing every day regardless of the handedness of the opposing starter, the Cardinals may be looking to avoid having a .169/.252/.225 at the top of the lineup against lefties. With prospects Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty as potential platoon options for both Heyward and Jay, he will have to prove to the Cardinal coaching staff that he is worthy of playing every day – either by virtue of playing top tier defense on a daily basis or by improving his skills against lefties.
However, those two concerns seem to be baked into his current price. With Heyward being a former number one prospect in all of baseball, being 25-years-old, hitting at the top of a quality lineup, and having three 120 wRC+ seasons already, the potential of Heyward having a breakout is well worth the risk of drafting him a bit earlier than average and him getting injured, being platooned, or performing poorly.
I like the odds of drafting Heyward with the expectation that he produces at or close to his ZiPS and Steamer projections, along with the potential for an outright breakout with 100+ runs and a 20-20 season. There just are not that many players with that type of upside and floor that can be had near his average draft position.
Ben has been at RotoGraphs since 2012 and focuses most of his fantasy baseball attention toward dynasty and keeper leagues.
A further question that relates to Heyward as it does everyone else, at what point do we officially notice that pretty much every player in MLB aside from Nelson Cruz did not hit for as much power as we thought before the 2014 season, so maybe not focus on the league-wide outage if it effected everyone?
It affected Heyward far more drastically than it did the rest of the league on average.
Plus it’s an overgeneralization to say the rest of the league was affected. Trout had a career high. Abreu exceeded expectations. Rizzo too. Stanton tied a career high. Todd Frazier and Brian Dozier went nuts.
Jason Heyward on the other hand had an ISO of .113, surrounded by names like Daniel Murphy, Nick Markakis and Solarte. 108 other qualified hitters had a better ISO than Heyward.
Heyward cannot get a free pass because offense was down. His offense was at an extreme low.
Inversely, Heyward is ranked as the 11th best OF in CBS, which seems too high (that’s ahead of Gomez, Springer, Holliday, Pence, and Harper). But the flawed rankings of CBS could be a story within itself.
Are you looking at points rankings instead of roto? I can see taking Heyward over Gomez and Springer if it were a league that penalized strikeouts. I could see Heyward producing similar value to Pence and Harper in points league, I wouldn’t take him with them on the board, but I’d pass over them and take Heyward a round or two later.
Yahoo’s ranks are pretty screwed up at the moment. I’m not even going to look at them until they do their overhaul that they usually do a few weeks before the season starts.
Heywad
The Bostonian pronunciation of Heyward
Hasnt “contract year” been pretty much debunked. You might as well say “in the Year of the Sheep at age 25”. I agree with the rest though. I think he was over valued in the past and he is now becoming under valued, at least in my circle of roto contacts. Sorry the contrct year thing is a pet peave thing. Good article.
Sounds like the “Science is settled”. Nothing is ever debunked or settled with any certainty. In the late 19th century scientists believed all the great discoveries had already been made, sabermetrics is following in the same foot steps.
Regardless of what may be true in terms of a populations average, individuals may deviate significantly from the population. Some players do have contract years, perhaps because they were motivated and did a better job of conditioning going into the contract year, although the disbelievers will simply write it off with religous fervor as luck, reminding me of religious types who say it was “Gods will”
Do you have any experience with statistical analysis? It doesn’t sound like you do.
A question I have that will have an impact to Heyward’s fantasy value is are we sure he is going to be atop the Cardinals lineup? If Heyward is not leadoff, but in the 2 hole, that will have an effect on his R/RBI. Rosterresource has him as #2 behind Carpenter. A leadoff vs #2 is different enough to consider when filling out your fantasy roster.
I’m pretty certain Carpenter will lead off next year. I’m not the manager of the cardinals so that isn’t written in stone but he’s been a good lead off guy the last two years and unless he totally poops the end he will have that spot back.
Heyward still retains great value as the #2 hitter. Can’t see who else would hit 2d.
M carp
Heyward
Holiday
Adams
Yadi
Peralta
Jay
Wong
Pitcher
I think that is a good looking lineup. I wish there were a way for Wong to work his way to the top!
Sure, I don’t think his value is hurt by being 1 vs 2, just different. His R/RBI will be slightly different which may impact how you fill out the rest of your roster.
Holliday??? 14 steals?? maybe 4.
Read that again. That’s for Heyward.
Carpernter
Holiday
Heyward
Molina
Adams
Peralta
Wong
Jay
Pitcher
seems more enticing
Here are the various projections all in one place, fwiw:
R HR RBI SB AVG
ESPN: 84 17 61 16 0.271
CBS: 89 18 64 22 0.274
Steamer: 79 20 69 13 0.270
FANS (37): 93 20 79 17 0.273
The fans likely overestimate his stats, but then that's also the case for other OF. His "rank" among OF using FANS projection might not be that different from his rank using the other ones.
Ugh. Closing tag fail.