Ottoneu: The Surprise Hitters Dropped at the Deadline

Real-life general managers face economic pressures of all kinds. It must be stressful to be in charge of it all; managing revenue, navigating relationships with the owner(s), the coaches, the players, the fans, deciding whether a player is “worth” the money he’ll likely win in an arbitration hearing, trying to figure out if you can fit in some greens to your diet. Ottoneu managers can face economic pressures too. For some reason, we actually enjoy fabricating the economic stressors that those real-world GM’s face. Why? Well, it’s fun to pretend. But also because we think we might actually be able to do the job ourselves. Be careful what you wish for, you may have to justify cutting a player like Freddie Freeman from your team because you thought it would be a good “economic” decision. Get your speaking notes ready for FanFest, prepare yourself for the press conference, ditch the greens, grab whatever’s still sitting under the heat lamp at the closest “Grab N’ Go!” It’s time to justify the offseason decisions you “had” to make.

The latest from RotoWire reports Freeman is not expected to be ready for spring training as he recovers from last season’s ankle injury. Still, it seems odd that so many managers cut Freeman. He just finished a season in which he dealt with injury and family issues, but still played in 147 games with an elite .282/.378/.476  slash line. “Is he showing signs of decline?” is an appropriate question to ask of a player heading into his age-35 season. The answer is, “No. Not really.” Here are some examples:

Statcast Barrel% (2024 MLB avg: 7.8%):

2023: 11.1% -> 2024: 9.1%

Statcast HardHit% (38.7%)

2023: 41.8% -> 2024: 41.6%

wOBA (.310):

2023: .408 -> 2024: 367

SLG (.399)

2023: .567 -> 2024: .476

That last comparison is somewhat concerning as Freeman’s slugging percentage dropped by nearly .100. But you can see from his rolling average chart that the decline is most likely related to that late-season ankle injury:

Freeman declined in every stat listed above between 2023 and 2024, but guess what? Each stat ended 2024 well above the MLB average. You shouldn’t be worried and projection systems aren’t either. When you have 14 seasons of above-average OPS and over 115 games played (not counting 2020) you know what you’ll get. From what I can gather, Freeman’s keeper deadline high cut rate can only be attributed to the fact that he’s an expensive player to roster and the ankle injury gave Ottoneu managers a reason to shed some salary. Expect him to be one of the first few players thrown out in auctions this spring. If you want in, get ready to open up those wallets!

Masataka Yoshida dealt with so much injury in 2024. It began early, on the first day of May when Yoshida was placed on the IL with a thumb injury. That kept him out for 44 days and when he returned in mid-June, he wasn’t the same player he was in 2023:

He clawed and scratched his wOBA to it’s 2024 peak only to be brought back down to earth with more injury. Any guesses as to when the shoulder injury started to affect Yoshida’s game in 2024? MassLive’s offseason reporting has detailed how quiet the team and Yoshida kept the injury, so it’s hard to say for certain, but the drop off a cliff towards the end of the season in the chart above may help visualize it. After offseason surgery, The Athletic reports that Yoshida is not expected to be ready for opening day. In roto-leagues, Yoshida should still be a target as his batting average projects to be anywhere from good (.271 – THE BAT) to great (.284 ZiPs), and in Ottoneu points leagues, Yoshida is still expected to be worth rostering. His combination of batting average and ability to slug just above average make him valuable, and he may be a steal in spring auctions if others aren’t interested because of the uncertainty in his playing time. Shoulder injuries, however, are challenging for ball players to come back from, so be sure you’re only taking the steals and not getting into any bidding wars.

Just like Freeman and Yoshida (above), Alex Bregman has been dropped due to uncertainty. But unlike Freeman and Yoshida, it’s not due to injury. He’s still a free agent as of this writing. Where he will go has been the talk of the last few weeks among baseball reporters. Yet one thing seems fairly certain and can be shown in the “Vol” statistic in his ATC projection. Bregman’s 1.48 Vol is a small number which means that all projection systems come close to agreeing with what he will produce in 2025. In other words, the “Vol”-atility among his projections is low. For context, if you only focus on players with at least 250 projected plate appearances for 2025, Bregman’s Vol ranks as the 17th lowest. That’s even before he’s been signed! What’s clear is Bregman will be Bregman in 2025 and all projection systems have him hitting more than 20 home runs and slugging (except for OOPSY’s .418) over .420. That means from a projected P/G standpoint he’ll be better than he was in 2024 and worth bidding for in spring auctions.

Ryan McMahon’s Vol stat is a little higher than Bregman’s at 1.94, but still reflects general agreement in his projections, especially in his home run output. So, why was he dropped in so many leagues? He had a down year in 2024 when you look at his slugging percentage of .397 compared to his career rate of .422. Beyond that, his counting stats were down in his RBI, R, and HR, but not significantly enough to be concerned. He had 262 plate appearances with runners in scoring position (RISP) in 2024 compared to 288 in 2023, and perhaps that quickly explains the decline. He actually hit better in 2024 (.279) with RISP than he did in 2023 (.237). He did struggle against right-handed pitchers in 2024 compared to seasons prior…

vs.R: 2022: .254 -> 2023: .260 -> 2024: .233

vs.L: 2022: .228 -> 2023: .191 -> 2024: .261

…but hit tremendously well against lefties (196 PA) if you consider his best overall career batting average came in 2021 when he hit .254. McMahon will have plenty of hot and cold streaks, but he’s an end-of-season sure-shot. If you’re a reader of Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster (which you should be), you’ll be able to turn to the pages in the back of the book titled, “Risk Management”. See at the top of the 3B group one Ryan McMahon with a reliability score of AAA which reflects a player’s “Health/Experience/Consistency”. He’ll be one of my most targeted players in 2025.

Spencer Torkelson can be found in the AAA section of the Tigers’ RosterResource page, but it’s interesting to see what happens when you assume 655 plate appearances as ZiPs projections do. If those plate appearances came, ZiPs thinks Torkelson could hit 27 home runs with a .228/.313/.428 slash line. Like wOBA? ZiPs thinks Torkelson is capable of .321. But ZiPs DC, which utilizes RosterResource for plate appearance estimates, doesn’t expect Torkelson to hit more than 9 home runs without the generous playing time allocation. Still, the slash line remains. The table above uses Steamer to project P/G and Torkelson isn’t expected to be above replacement level. In his 2023 season, he reached a career peak of 5.06 P/G and that was either the best he’ll ever do or only a peek into what can happen when it all clicks. That may not be worth the over $10 salaries he was rostered for before the keeper deadline, but springtime will tell us a whole lot about Torkelson’s future and 2025 Ottoneu potential.

Why, oh why, would someone drop Marcus Semien? The only answer can be that he became too expensive to roster. That’s it. This man has been above replacement level the past 10 years. Even if you bring the replacement level up to 4.00 P/G for 2B, Semien has been above that mark in every season starting in 2017. It shouldn’t be a surprise that a career-low .250 BABIP in 2024 brought his slash line down and you can see that most when you compare his career average to 2024’s final line:

2024: .237/.308/.391

Career: .255/.323/.440

But rest assured projection systems noticed and are predicting a positive regression for the Texas second baseman:

ATC: .248/.317/.414 with 21 home runs

ATC’s aggregated, “wisdom of the crowds”, system expresses the bounce back clearly. He likely won’t have a career year in 2025, but Marcus Semien should better his 2024 P/G mark (4.57) and provide plenty of stability to fantasy teams in 2025.

Lastly, the Tampa Bay Ray Ha-Seong Kim 김하성 will be looking to bounce back from a 4.12 P/G 2024 (still above replacement-level), and projection systems think he’ll do it by adding half a point to his P/G mark in 2025. In fact, he’s expected to improve all over, in his batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and wOBA. Beware, he may not be ready for spring training after offseason shoulder surgery. Like Masataka Yoshida, Kim will have to prove he can work his way back from injury and it’s likely the reason he was dropped in so many Ottoneu leagues. If the price is right, buy the bounce back.