More Love for Cameron Maybin
It might feel like it was forever ago, but Cameron Maybin was once one of the most coveted prospects baseball. The type of prospect who co-headlines a package for a young Miguel Cabrera and not-yet-awful Dontrelle Willis. From 2007-2009 he ranked in the top-10 prospects in all of baseball by Baseball America. His power and speed projections lent themselves to thoughts of a possible 30/30 outfielder who would be drafted near the top of fantasy drafts. Now, he’s 600 games into his big league career and has hit 37 homers and stolen 99 bases. He does have a 40 stolen base season on his resume, but the power never truly showed up in his game and his .247/.312/.369 slash line leaves a lot to be desired. Very little was made of his inclusion in a blockbuster deal for Craig Kimbrel on opening night of the season. It appears, though, the 28-year-old outfielder is breaking out. Colleague Alex Chamberlain took an in-depth look at Maybin yesterday, and his piece is a great read. I’d like to further enhance the case for rostering the center fielder.
Maybin’s best fantasy season to date came back in 2011. He played in 137 games, totaled 568 plate appearances and hit nine homers with 40 stolen bases and a palatable .264 batting average. Unfortunately, his 2012 campaign failed to build on his momentum and resulted in eight homers, 26 stolen bases and a .243 batting average. From 2013 through 2014, Maybin played in only 109 games and hit two homes with eight stolen bases and an ugly .222 batting average. He missed time due to injuries and suspension for testing positive for an amphetamine. The San Diego Padres decided to move on and acquired Wil Myers, Justin Upton and Matt Kemp in the offseason before jettisoning Maybin and the remainder of his contract ($15 million with a $9 million dollar team option or $1 million buyout for 2017) in the aforementioned deal for Kimbrel.
Understandably, much of the fantasy community moved on from dreaming about Maybin being a fantasy asset. The formerly highly touted prospect was the owner of a 7.7% BB, 22.4% K and poor .249/.311/.367 triple slash line entering this year. His batter ball profile was rather unimpressive as well with a 16.3% LD, 55.2% GB and 28.5% FB, and 23.4% soft, 48.7% medium and 27.9% hard contact. Maybin has made nearly across the board improvements in Atlanta.
We’re at the point in the season where plate discipline numbers should start being taken seriously, and the center fielder has a strong 12.7% BB and has whittled his punch outs down to a 19.4% K. He’s exhibiting extreme patience with a 25.6% O-Swing (30.5% is the league average this year) and 57.5% Z-Swing (66.1% league average). Couple that with improved contact (80.5% this year and 75.9% in his career before this season) and you’ve got yourself an improved hitter. His contact rate is actually better than the league average of 79.3% this year.
But wait, there’s more! While batted ball data should be taken with a grain of salt at this point since the sample isn’t large enough to normalize it all, he’s tallied a 32.6% LD and has a 16.7% soft contact, 54.4% medium contact and 28.9% hard contact. I’m not trying to suggest he’ll maintain his currently staggering line drive rate, but it’s a huge improvement over his pre-2015 rate, and he’s cut his soft contact rate by nearly seven percent. As a more physically mature person, he should be stronger and making harder contact. This is a logical improvement, and I’m willing to buy into him being able to sustain at least some of his gains even after his line drive rate suffers from some regression.
His patience and hard contact have resulted in an ascension to the two-hole in the order for the Atlanta Braves. Maybin has hit .261/.361/.435 and contributed power, five homers, and speed, six stolen bases in nine attempts. It’s also possible he’s been a tad bit unlucky. His .298 BABIP this year is below his career mark of .313 before this year despite the improved contact. Of course, part of that is the fact he’s reached the seats five times and those aren’t considered balls in play.
ZiPS and Steamer aren’t yet ready to completely buy into Maybin’s production, but they both have him pegged for five more homers in 271 and 275 plate appearances, respectively. Assuming Maybin continues to play on an everyday basis, he’ll receive more plate appearances than ZiPS and Steamer project and should best their home run projections. Both projection systems are prognosticating a .249 batting average. I’m expecting more, and I think his present average of .261 is a reasonable expectation. Maybin hasn’t been efficient stealing bases this year, and frankly, he wasn’t last year either (four stolen bases in seven chances). I don’t foresee him making a run at his career high 40 stolen bases posted in 2011, but 20-to-25 feels within reach if he can tighten up his base stealing efficiency just a bit (78.57% success rate before this year). Maybin is widely available with a 27% ownership rate in CBS leagues, 11% in ESPN leagues and 7% in Yahoo! leagues. He’s a viable fourth or fifth outfielder in standard leagues who is under owned.
You can follow Josh on Twitter @bchad50.
Am I crazy to think Maybin outproduces Rusney Castillo and Gregory Polanco the ROS? Both Polanco and Castillo might have way more raw talent, but Rusney has way more playing time competition and seems stuck towards the bottom of the Boston lineup. Polanco has been sitting against lefties and is getting more AB’s taken away due to Kang forcing Harrison to the OF at times.
I don’t think that’s crazy at all. Opportunity is uber-important, and Maybin has a less threatening group of outfielders competing with him for playing time.
Would you drop Leonys Martin for Maybin? More broadly, is Martin worth holding onto in non-keeper standard 12-team?
Depending on what your wire looks like, I think you can drop Martin. I think he will hit better going forward, but the threat of Deshields stealing even just 2-3 starts a week from Martin is going to hurt his value quite a bit.
I would make the swap and dump Martin for Maybin.
I have Soler, Ozuna & Rusney Castillo (behind JD Martinez, Brantley, injured Corey Dickerson and Mookie Betts) in a 5 OF 5×5 redraft league. Is Maybin a good bet to out produce any of them?
I think Maybin could outproduce Castillo. They profile somewhat similarly with Castillo obviously having significantly more upside, but my main concern with Castillo is the highest he is probably going to hit in the Boston lineup is 7th. Barring injuries, Betts, Ortiz, Napoli, Panda, Hanley and Pedroia are all pretty much locked into a Top 6 lineup spot. It’s hard to be a dynamic fantasy player if you are locked into a bottom of the order spot most of the time. Add in the fact that Castillo could lose a few AB’s to Brock Holt or Shane Victorino and I’m not overly high on Castillo this year. Long term, I think he has a chance to be super dynamic, but much like Polanco, fantasy stardom may be a year away.
Chances are you paid/drafted Ozuna and Soler much too high to simply cut or trade them for pennies on the dollar. I would ride both of them a bit longer and see if they can turn it around.
In a redraft league, I’m completely fine with you dropping Castillo for Maybin.
Ive been watching maybin for a month now. My outfielders are Bautista, Betts, Reddick, Moss, Kemp, and Myers. What do you guys think?
Stick with the guys you got.
It really depends on needs. If you are uyp there in the RBI/HR categories but are in need of SBs, I would dump Brandon Moss for Maybin with little hesitation. Moss has only one tool (power), and loses two starts a week due to his inability to hit LHPs. Meanwhile, Maybin plays every day and flashes 5 tools.
I wouldn’t cut any of them unless you are in desperate need of stolen bases in a roto league.
“Am I crazy to think Maybin outproduces Rusney Castillo and Gregory Polanco the ROS? Both Polanco and Castillo might have way more raw talent”
I agree and disagree. I believe Mabin will produce something like a .265-18HR-28SB-80R-68RBI season as long as he avoids the DL, however I disagree with the notion that Polanco and Rusney are superior talents. Maybin has every bit as much raw talent as both Polanco and Rusney. While it’s certainly true that Maybin has largely disappointed thoughout his career, he was once an even more ballyhooed prospect than either Rusney or Polanco and there’s no telling as to whether or not Polanco or Rusney will experience more success than Maybin did in their initial 7-8 MLB campaigns Maybin’s only 28 and has grown into his formerly-skeletal frame (Maybin resembled a sickly-looking Spiderman during his largely forgettable Tigers/Marlns days), so a career-high in HRs is almost certainly in the cards. I would opine that there’s far less risk of a faceplant for Maybin than there are for Polanco and particularly Castillo, who has yet to exhibit any sustained period of success as a pro. In my opinion, Maybin has a higher ceiling and floor than both Polanco and especially Rusney.
The move to the #2 spot is huge and is essential to Maybin’s value as a 12-team mixed league outfielder. Atlanta is one of the worst offensive clubs in baseball, a fact that is no more evident than their HR total of 28 (2nd worst in the game). Teams that are power-deficient tend go into every game knowing they’ll need to scratch and claw for every run, so it stands to reason that Maybin has the green light to take as many bags as possible. As of this writing, Maybin is projected to steal 20 bags, along with 17 HRs, but that projection fails to take into account the fact that Maybin began the year on the wrong side of a loose platoon with EYJR, who he supplanted 2-3 weeks into the season. The best has yet come for Cam Maybin and now that Fangraphs and other websites have caught on, it shouldn’t be long before his ownership rates experience a huge increase.
Thanks for the input guys. I actually dropped Chris Heston for Maybin.