Archive for Ben Revere

Like the San Francisco Giants and Tampa Bay Rays, my fantasy baseball team is endlessly waiting for Buster Posey and Evan Longoria to be Buster Posey and Evan Longoria again. We’re past the half-way point in the season, so perhaps we’ll all have to wait until next year, at which point I’ll fire myself as the general manager of my fantasy baseball team.

I can’t separate fantasy baseball from, like, who I would want on a real baseball team I was in charge of, and I don’t really care about speed. However, in fantasy baseball, things like stolen bases matter. I have nothing against the stolen base or speed in general (full disclosure: I’m fast), but I just wouldn’t really want a guy like Ben Revere playing center field for my favorite team. He’s fast, but he doesn’t walk, hit for power, or get on base at an above-average clip. It’s fun to try to get a time on a fast guy down the line or on a stolen base attempt on your stop watch. One of the joys of watching the Giants over the past few seasons has been the speed of Angel Pagan when he’s in the lineup, which is becoming increasingly less of a common occurrence these days. Unlike Revere, Pagan has some slug to his game in addition to plus-plus speed.

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In last year’s Bold Predictions, I strongly advocated Jean Segura and Jarrod Parker, while steering people away from Starlin Castro. Those surely helped fantasy owners to various extents. However, we’ll ignore the fact that I predicted Brett Anderson to be a top-30 starter. Sorry about that.

Let’s get to the bold predictions for 2014.

(1) Chris Carter will hit at least 40 home runs and be a top-25 outfielder.

Earlier this offseason, I noted how Chris Carter’s hitting profile compared favorably to that of Chris Davis from a year ago, leading one to believe the power spike could be possible. Carter has also hit 39 homers in a single season before in the minors, so it’s not as if we’re worried about the requisite power being present. Furthermore, the 27-year-old slugger didn’t do the one thing everyone thought he would do last season: mash the baseball in Minute Maid Park.

Minute Maid Park is extremely friendly to right-handed hitters, largely due to the Crawford Boxes, and Carter did little damage there. If his numbers bounce back at home and he’s able to continue his power-hitting ways on the road, we could be looking at one of the biggest power breakout seasons of the year. Considering he’s currently going 193 overall in drafts — behind the likes of Jed Lowrie, Kendrys Morales, and Alejandro De Aza — I’m buying hard on Chris Carter as we head into the 2014 regular season.

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This is a subject I tackled last year, but the basic idea for this article is that people playing in leagues that use non-traditional roto categories may not be equipped with proper draft materials. Almost any set of rankings you can find online are compiled with the standard 5×5 roto categories in mind. Some sites may have rankings published specifically for leagues that replace batting average with OBP, but the vast majority assume standard categories. If you’re using a set of rankings from a site or magazine, you’re doing yourself a disservice unless those rankings were designed for OBP leagues.

I’ve compiled my own projections for 242 hitters to generate my own rankings, and I’ve generated rankings specifically for standard 5×5 leagues and leagues that have replaced batting average with OBP. I want to highlight the players who gain the most in OBP leagues and the players who are hurt the most when OBP replaces average. I base my rankings off a number Zach Sanders calls Fantasy Value Above Replacement (FVARz). Essentially I assign each player a value for each category and add them all up while adjusting for positional scarcity.

Below I’ve included two lists; one shows the players whose FVARz increases the most when OBP replaces average, and the other shows the players whose FVARz decreases the most. I’ve also included their ranking among hitters and auction values for both batting average and OBP leagues. Over on a site of which I’m the managing editor, TheFantasyFix.com, I’ve posted how the rankings and auction values change for all 242 hitters I have projections for when the switch is made to OBP. You can find that here. All values are based on 10-team leagues with 25-man rosters, 13 starting hitter slots and three bench slots. If you have questions about the methodology, the charts or anything else, hit me up in the comments. Read the rest of this entry »

As I look through the standings of my various roto leagues, the common thread that ties them all together is the ease at which points can be accrued just by boosting your stolen base totals. In one league, less than 10 stolen bases separate fourth place in the category from ninth place. In two others, 12 steals could make up an eight-point difference. If people love the strategy of streaming pitchers so often, what’s the harm in streaming in a stolen base guy for a week or two? Obviously, those who are left on your wire are, more or less, one-category helpers, but for just a temporary boost, who cares? There’s nothing wrong with a quick fix if you know that’s all you’re looking for. Take your steals and…pardon the pun….run! Here are a pair of guys who fit the bill perfectly… Read the rest of this entry »

Currently, I am playing in seven different roto leagues and if there is a common thread to be found in each one, it’s that just a handful of stolen bases can vault a number of teams up in the standings by an average of five points.  Unless you’re sitting at the top of the stolen base category or sitting in last by a ridiculously large margin, a boost in steals could mean the difference between languishing in the bottom third of your league standings and competing for the championship.  Here are a pair of outfielders who just might be able to help… Read the rest of this entry »

As Eno pointed out the other day, six of us from FanGraphs/RotoGraphs joined up with six writers from The Hardball Times to do battle in a 12-team rotisserie league for both bragging rights and charity.  The winner gets to donate the prize to the charity of his choice while the site for which he writes gets to reign supreme in the fantasy universe.  Sounds like fun?  Well, you weren’t there for the four-plus hour auction.

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As our own Zach Sanders astutely pointed out recently, the current state of the waiver wire, relative to quality hitting, is pretty grievous. Indeed, I find myself playing far more platoons with my offense and frequently scouring the rough in desperate search of that proverbial diamond. With this in mind, I wanted to highlight a couple players readily available in most standard formats that might be able to help your squad out: Ben Revere and Chris Johnson.

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