Archive for American League

Your favorite AL specific outfield rankings here at FanGraphs is back! As usual, rather than boring Tier One or Tier Two, etc., today I’ll be presenting my favorite Kanye West albums. To be clear, I don’t actively dislike anything he’s recorded, but I certainly have my favorites. As a bonus, I’ll be adding my three favorite tracks from each album. I can’t defend what Kanye has said and done outside of the recording booth, but I’ll be damned if he can’t create magic with music and lyrics (warning, language, etc. on these videos).

As always, apologies if I accidentally missed a player.

The College Dropout — All Falls Down (runner up: Never Let Me Down, third place: Jesus Walks)

Mike Trout Read the rest of this entry »

Alejandro De Aza, Red Sox
After flirting with a 20-20 season in 2013 — coming three home runs short of the feat — Alejandro De Aza has seemingly taken a step back. The left-handed hitting outfielder has a pedestrian .260/.316/436 line this year, however opposing southpaws have picked on him this season, more than any other in recent years. In 38 plate appearances versus southpaws this year, De Aza has posted a 7 wRC+. Small sample size will of course play havoc with stats, but man, that is rough. Still, he is more than adequate in most formats when facing right-handers. Read the rest of this entry »

In my younger (read: teenage angst years), one of my favorite up-and-coming bands was a little known group out of Reno, Nevada called This Calendar Year. While the band never gained much notoriety, despite a couple solid tracks (warning: they’re a bit loud), the name always stuck with me. Today for the American League outfield beat, we’ll be looking at two names that could surprise you with their strong numbers since this time last year (minimum 450 plate appearances).
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My fondness of baseball should be quite well known at this point, and if it isn’t, what are you doing here on FanGraphs, but I also enjoy other nerd endeavors, namely video games and esports. In that vein and in honor of Fallout 4 being announced, today’s rankings will be reflective of my favorite games currently in my Steam Library. Take note these aren’t my favorite games of all time, but the ones readily available to play. As always, these rankings reflect what I believe the players will accomplish rest-of-season, not what they’e done to date in a standard 5×5 format. Read the rest of this entry »

After looking at base stealing options last week, today we’ll shift focus to the home run department. Both players on today’s list are mostly available, though they come with flaws attached to their home run potential. Without further ado, let’s take a look at Colby Rasmus and Chris Young. Read the rest of this entry »

In my constant search for stolen bases I tend to hit the waive-wire pretty hard. As such, I often find myself picking up players with sub 10 percent ownership. While some of these names are being pressed into service due to injuries to teammates, some have the potential to stick around for the season. Their rate stats may not be pretty, but most fantasy teams can survive one poor batting average or on-base percentage without losing too much ground. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I posted the AL OF tiered rankings for May and used my favorite films from 2014 as tier labels. In the comments section I briefly discuses with one reader, The Theory, about my enjoyment seeing fellow South Koreans get their shot in Hollywood. I suggest seeing The Good, the Bad, the Weird — currently available on Netflix — as I really enjoyed it.
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Get hyped for another round of AL OF rankings! As usual, these reflect what I believe the hitters will accomplish the rest of the season, not necessarily what they have done thus far. For funsies I’ll be separating the tiers by my favorite films of 2014. Our own Brett Talley thought last year was weak in films, and I strongly disagree.

I really liked a lot of what I saw, but of course I didn’t see everything and some genres aren’t for me. With apologies to The Hobbit and The Hunger Games for me failing to see them, lets dive right in. (Note: I really liked all of the films listed here.)

Whiplash
Mike Trout
Jose Bautista

I really don’t mean to be boring here. I just loved Whiplash and Trout continues and should continue to do Trout things. Bautista jumps up a level because his surrounding cast is incredibly strong. His counting stats could look bonkers at the end of the season, though I am keeping an eye on the uptick in his K%.
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An apology is due here, and I’m sorry. I whiffed on Seth Smith in my American League outfield rankings, even though those are mostly for 5×5 formats. I nearly blanked on him in my home league as I barely set my lineup in time, and it is an on-base percentage league! This type of mistake won’t happen again with Smith, mostly because he’s too productive to be forgotten.
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Time for another round of rankings for the American League outfield. As usual, the tiers and rankings reflect 5×5 redraft values for what the I believe the players will accomplish, not necessarily their present (or soon to be) numbers. For example, if someone starts slow, don’t expect them to drop too far. Without further delay, here are the tiers, represented by my favorite Nintendo 64 games.

GoldenEye
Mike Trout

A player in a tier by himself, a nostalgic game in a tier by itself. Instead of droning on and on about Trout —something I could easily do — instead here is a video of the first level accomplished via speedrun.
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