Prorated 2018 Hitter Roto Values
I try not to miss examining players who had great, short seasons. An injury or time in the minors kept them off the end-of-season rankings. They flew under the radar but given a full season of playing time they stick out and could provide hidden value. Today, I’m going to start by examing the top prorated hitters.
I needed a way to value the hitters and decided to create an overall Standing Gain Points (SGP) formula from The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational leagues. The 13 15-team leagues were set up with 14 hitters (1 C, 2 Util), 9 pitchers, and used AVG. Tanner Bell and I will be providing this formula, along with several others, in our new book, The Process, available within weeks (shameless plug).
The full rankings (min 100 PA) are available in this Google Spreadsheet and here are the top 25 with my comments on some players I find interesting.
| RANK | NAME | PA | TGFBI SGP | AVG | R | HR | RBI | SB | SGP Adjusted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Adalberto Mondesi | 291 | 15.8 | .276 | 97 | 29 | 76 | 66 | 32.6 |
| 2 | Mookie Betts | 614 | 31.5 | .346 | 126 | 31 | 78 | 29 | 30.8 |
| 3 | Luke Voit | 161 | 8.0 | .322 | 112 | 56 | 134 | 0 | 30.0 |
| 4 | Christian Yelich | 651 | 30.8 | .326 | 109 | 33 | 101 | 20 | 28.4 |
| 5 | J.D. Martinez | 649 | 29.4 | .330 | 103 | 40 | 120 | 6 | 27.2 |
| 6 | Mike Trout | 608 | 27.0 | .312 | 100 | 38 | 78 | 24 | 26.6 |
| 7 | Trevor Story | 656 | 27.6 | .291 | 80 | 34 | 99 | 25 | 25.3 |
| 8 | Jose Ramirez | 698 | 29.3 | .270 | 95 | 34 | 90 | 29 | 25.2 |
| 9 | Javier Baez | 645 | 26.8 | .290 | 94 | 32 | 103 | 20 | 25.0 |
| 10 | Shohei Ohtani | 367 | 15.0 | .285 | 96 | 36 | 100 | 16 | 24.5 |
| 11 | Ronald Acuna Jr. | 487 | 19.3 | .293 | 96 | 32 | 79 | 20 | 23.7 |
| 12 | Francisco Lindor | 745 | 28.2 | .277 | 104 | 31 | 74 | 20 | 22.7 |
| 13 | Tyler O’Neill | 142 | 5.4 | .254 | 123 | 38 | 97 | 8 | 22.7 |
| 14 | Starling Marte | 606 | 22.3 | .277 | 80 | 20 | 71 | 33 | 22.1 |
| 15 | Whit Merrifield | 707 | 25.5 | .304 | 75 | 10 | 51 | 38 | 21.6 |
| 16 | Yasiel Puig | 444 | 15.8 | .267 | 81 | 31 | 85 | 20 | 21.4 |
| 17 | Max Muncy | 481 | 17.0 | .263 | 94 | 44 | 99 | 4 | 21.2 |
| 18 | Yoenis Cespedes | 157 | 5.5 | .262 | 76 | 34 | 111 | 11 | 21.1 |
| 19 | Nolan Arenado | 673 | 23.7 | .297 | 93 | 34 | 98 | 2 | 21.1 |
| 20 | Manny Machado | 709 | 24.9 | .297 | 71 | 31 | 91 | 12 | 21.1 |
| 21 | David Dahl | 271 | 9.5 | .273 | 69 | 35 | 106 | 11 | 21.1 |
| 22 | Ramon Laureano | 176 | 6.1 | .288 | 92 | 17 | 65 | 24 | 20.8 |
| 23 | Trea Turner | 740 | 25.7 | .271 | 84 | 15 | 59 | 35 | 20.8 |
| 24 | Mallex Smith | 544 | 18.6 | .296 | 72 | 2 | 44 | 44 | 20.5 |
| 25 | Jesus Aguilar | 566 | 19.3 | .274 | 85 | 37 | 114 | 0 | 20.4 |
Owners need to expect his valuations are going to be all over the place. The biggest issue, in my opinion, will be that one owner anchoring onto his 2018 stats. There is going to be one in every draft putting Mondesi’s average draft position in the top few rounds.
He’s not a player I’m going shy away from though as he’s got the power-elite speed profile of Trea Turner. The biggest question with Mondesi is how much his lack of any plate discipline limits his upside.
It was a great season for Voit but it’s tough to know if he’ll still play every day for the Yankees. The Yankees are likely to add one or two big name free agents, so he may get pushed to the bench.
Also, owners must understand his 41% HR/FB will drop. Hard.
With Ohtani, his 2019 value comes down when he can finally start hitting (eight-month rehab for hitters) and then how much his pitching rehab will affect his hitting. Will Ohtani just quit hitting to rehab? With he hit every few days as he rests his arm. The regular playing time just may not be there and maybe a roster headache.
The Cardinals had a glut of outfielders last season (Dexter Fowler, Marcell Ozuna, Harrison Bader, Tommy Pham) and O’Neill just didn’t get a chance to contribute much. But when he did play, his nine home runs in 142 PA look pretty. He’s likely to get overlooked but could be a decent source of 30 home runs for not much investment.
Yasiel Puig and Max Muncy
The issue with about any Dodger hitter is how much playing time will they get. Yasmani Grandal was third on the team with 518 PA. It’s tough to project any Dodger, besides Bellinger (and Harper), for over 600 plate appearances.
He’s starting to turn into Tulowitzki with all the injuries.
I have no idea what the Rockies are doing with their young players. None. I feel the Ian Desmond signing set this team back and they just can’t admit they screwed up signing him.
It finally seems like Dahl will get full-time playing time this upcoming season but who the hell knows. Even so, I have a notion he’ll be on a ton of preseason sleeper lists
The prorated numbers look nice. I was on Laureano before the 2017 season, but injury-related struggles did him in. I like his profile going into 2019 providing some batting average, power, and speed.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
Brad, usually like your work; but… really, what do you want your readers to take away from this? Why write it?
Stay at home mom Kelly Richards from New York after resigning from her full time job managed to average from $6000-$8000 a month from freelancing at home… This is how she done it
…….
▬▬☛USA~JOB-START
Jeff, usually like your work, but what do really say in this article. What as a reader am I to take away? You simply state the obvious…
Broken Bat, I usually am irritated by your comments, and nothing’s changed.
Thanks
I really enjoyed the article and found it helpful. Thanks, Jeff.
Hey Jeff. Great piece, as usual. I have a few questions about SGP and the formula used. It always occurred to me that these value over replacement, z-score type formulas tend to ignore replacement value (especially in an innings limit league). Consider the following example, simplified with only one category:
Player A (1B): 80 games, 50 home runs
Player B (1B): 160 games, 55 home runs.
According to the formula, Player B’s counting stats result in a higher SGP, but given a 162 game-max on first base, all you need is 5 home runs from your replacement to Player A to match Player B’s output.
Whenever I do my player valuations, I calculate a players value PER GAME and then multiply by games played/162. After subtracting my answer from 1, I multiply whatever number I have by a replacement level player’s stats, and sum my original players number with the replacement player to give me a combined total of a players value over a whole season, factoring in replacement.
My end of season rankings always appear slightly but noticeably different from FanGraphs writers, and I’m starting to think there is some huge flaw in my calculations that I cannot grasp. Is there a reason replacement value is ignored? Thanks!
For one, assuming replacement production can be tricky. If it’s a projected full time player who missed part of the season (injury, late callup, etc…) then it works out fine. But if the reason a player missed 600 PAs is because he’s a part time player it’s more difficult. If you’re looking at Dahl or Muncy, for example, and your league only lets you set your lineups weekly, then you’re looking at a guy who is going to give you a zero 2-3 times in that week.
If you’ve got a daily lineups league, then all bets are off. You can replace the zeros with true replacement, and platoon bats are more valuable.
Your league and league setting will be a huge factor like HappyFunBall (don’t taunt) said.
Our rankings and values would probably assume weekly lineups and the part-timers will take a hit.
You should trust but verify your values a creating league only values can be a huge step over your competition.
As for our EOS values, the calculator uses a PMV valuation but doesn’t know to add in replacement level for platooning or from missing two months.
Re: Dahl’s playing time, the Rockies just bought Parra out of the final year of his deal, so that should free up more lefty ABs in the OF for him. Although the Rockies remain hellbent on giving Desmond opportunities (played in 160 games!!!), Dahl started basically every game down the stretch so it’d be hard to imagine his playing time taking a step back given the fact that CarGo is likely gone as well.
Or maybe the Rockies trade for Hosmer and try and play him in right, who the fuck knows
Your first paragraph makes a lot of sense. Which probably means the Rockies will implement your idea in the second paragraph instead.
When calculating EOS player values, I often see people using Z-scores, which makes sense. That being said, would you derive the standard deviation/mean from every player in the MLB or would you use your leagues standings to find standard deviation/mean?
That is, would you compare each player to MLB league average or to Fantasy league average?
Seeing Mondesi top this list makes my stomach turn a bit. I traded him fairly cheap in a dynasty last season once he started to show something, presuming that it would be short lived (due to the aforementioned lack of plate discipline), but if he turns out to be one of those fluky, “how do they keep this up” players, that’s going to smart.
You are in for a rough offseason