In life, they say that with age comes wisdom. Well, in fantasy baseball, they say that with age comes a decline in numbers and that it’s time to start looking elsewhere for a younger option with much more upside. While there’s some decent young talent out there at third, there are also plenty of seniors that are still hanging on that you may want to avoid. Just to mention a few… Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve done a fair amount of reading on third base rankings headed into the 2011 fantasy baseball season. While most prognosticators and enthusiasts recognize some elite talent at the tippy-top of the list, references such as “terrifying,” “black hole,” and, ahem, “talentless batch of hackers” have described the rest of the list, which I might venture to simply call not terribly deep. Third base will present many managers with a challenge, but I’m not so sure there aren’t some gems to be had in this list.
Here are seven players for your consideration to either acquire or send packing.
BUY
Shin-Soo Choo – The current owner may look at Choo’s .392 BABIP and figure this is as good as it’s going to get, especially since Updated ZiPS projects him to finish with 17 HR and 16 SB. But Choo has always posted ultra-high BABIPs so he may not drop off as far as some might predict. The current ZiPS forecast seems especially pessimistic, considering that he went 20-20 last year and is on a current pace for 22-32.
Chipper Jones – He is very brittle and currently carries an uninspiring .230-2-7-13-2 fantasy line. But Jones is not one to look at things through rose-colored glasses and he considers himself to be seeing the ball good and just experiencing bad luck. “When I’m drawing walks you know I’m seeing the ball good,” Jones told David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Everybody points to the RBI, but when there’s not a lot of opportunities you can’t help that.” Jones is 6-for-19 with two doubles, seven walks and one strikeout in his past six games. Health is always a factor but Jones feels good about himself and he has been on a mini hot streak. It could all add up to a nice pickup for a low price, especially if his current owner is concerned about Jones’ current groin injury.
Johan Santana – This marks the sixth straight season that Santana has seen a rise in his xFIP and his K/9 continues to fall, down to 7.56, his worst mark since he was a reliever in 2001. Santana’s average fastball velocity has dipped below 90 for the first time in his career. But so much of Santana’s poor overall numbers this year (velocity excepted) is the result of the horrific outing against the Phillies in which he allowed 4 HR and gave up 10 ER in 3.2 IP. In his other six games, Santana has a 2.61 ERA with 9 BB and 34 Ks in 38 IP. Now, you cannot just throw out starts that you do not like, but you should not panic about one bad outing, either. Check to see if his current owner is doing the latter.
SELL
Tim Hudson – While never a big strikeout pitcher, Hudson generally gave fantasy owners good numbers in the other three categories for SP. But this year his K/9 is down to a dismal 3.45 or nearly half of his lifetime mark. His ERA sits at a nifty 2.64 but both his FIP and xFIP are around two runs per game worse than that. Right now it seems on the surface to be a typical Hudson year where he is good in three categories. But it is unlikely that either his ERA or WHIP will remain this low going forward.
Jeff Niemann – Like Hudson, xFIP paints a much bleaker picture of Niemann’s early-season results than his ERA. Both his FIP and xFIP are nearly identical to 2009, when his ERA was 1.67 higher than his current 2.27 mark. Niemann is throwing his splitter twice as often as last year, and with good results, too. But it seems unlikely that his fine pitching early in 2010 has more to do with the change in his repertoire than Niemann simply being the recipient of good fortune.
Justin Upton – One of the first outfielders off the board in fantasy and likely gone by the second round in most leagues, Upton is off to a poor start. Whenever I recommend to sell a high draft pick not performing well, people comment that now is the worst time to trade him. Obviously, Upton will not be this bad the rest of the season. The key is to get more in return than he will produce the rest of the way. It seems to me his trade value is greater than the .274-20-70 that RoS ZiPS projects for him. In one recent CBS Sports league, he was dealt straight up for Matt Holliday, who seems likely to outperform Upton in AVG, R and RBIs going forward while it should be relatively close in the other two categories.
HUNCH
Nick Swisher – His BABIP is 56 points higher than his career average and his 17.5 HR/FB rate is 0.4 away from his career-best mark. But I predict that Swisher will keep up his strong performance throughout the season and exceed the Updated ZiPS marks of .264-28-94-92-1 at the end of the year.
It’s time for another episode of “You can get with that, but this is where it’s at,” boys and girls. This week, we take a look at the heroes manning what may prove to be the thinnest position on the diamond. Where shortstop had such frugal luminaries as Everth Cabrera, Ryan Theriot and Elvis Andrus, and catcher featured thrifty backstops like Miguel Montero and A.J. Pierzynski, we may have a harder time finding values at the hot corner.
As usual, we’ll start in the first tier. You can’t really fault anyone for going big with Alex Rodriguez (despite the hip and the age, 3.37 ADP), David Wright (despite the power outage, 14.76 ADP), Evan Longoria (I don’t see a problem here, 10.28 ADP) or Mark Reynolds (the king of the whiff, 20.17 ADP). Why is Ryan Zimmerman being drafted at the end of the third round (39.78 ADP)? I guess people are suspicious of his career high .233 ISO (and 33 home runs) last year. I take the view that nothing seems out of place for a 25 year-old top prospect with a .229 minor league ISO and a slowly increasing fly ball rate, who is also on the correct side of his peak. Sign me up for some of that in 2010.
The next tier has some svelte athletes (Pablo Sandoval, 44.83 ADP), some slow-footed plodders (Chone Figgins, 77.84 ADP) and some low-contact sluggers (Michael Young, 93.51 ADP). Scarcasm aside, why not take a player with possibly the same amount of risk (and yet bundles of upside) a little bit later than the fellow members of his tier? Gordon Beckham (93.87 ADP) had a good rookie season despite a low line drive percentage (16.6%) that kept his BABIP down (.294), and therefore his batting average (.270). But look at the good side, if you prorate out his stats, he had a 21-home run, 11 stolen-base kind of year, and his line drive rates were much higher in the minor leagues. Even if he just finished out the pro-rated string next year, he’d be an ADP value in his tier. Bend it like Beckham!
Let’s move past mixed metaphors to the final tier. This tier makes you realize how turdly third base truly is this year. You can gamble on next year’s Mark Reynolds with Ian Stewart (131.84 ADP) or put your grandfather Larry Wayne Jones (ADP 134.39) in the position and cross your fingers. The projection systems don’t like the bearded wonder Casey Blake (ADP 162.64) for good reason, as late bloomers are usually early exits. You could say the same about Mark DeRosa (ADP 246.44), really. Who’s to like in this tier?
The answer, in the immortal words of Homer Simpson, is “I… don’t… know.” I’d probably try to avoid the whole situation altogether by drafting a third-sacker earlier. But I think I might take a pair of players from the bottom, and those two might be Adrian Beltre (ADP 199.55) and Alex Gordon (245.03). Some may say that splits aren’t statistically significant, but perhaps that’s not true in Beltre’s case, who has a grand total of 3272 away at-bats away from pitcher’s havens in Los Angeles and Seattle. In those (probably significant at-bats), he’s put up a .287/.338/.488 career line (compared to a .726 OPS at home). I’d just cover my butt with a post-hype sleeper like Gordon, who had been making nice strides in walk rate, strikeout rate, ISO, line drive rate, and reach rate before injury sidelined him last year. I’ll be owning him more than once this year, I’d reckon.
Ah! Let me stop you right there. Jorge Cantu is ranked as a first baseman.
Since he got an everyday gig back in 1995, Chipper Jones has been an institution for the Atlanta Braves.
For a decade and a half, Larry Wayne Jones has scorched pitchers from both sides of the batter’s box. Chipper holds a career .404 wOBA, one point below the career marks of Hank Aaron , Duke Snider and Big Poison, Paul Waner.
Despite nagging aches and pains, Chipper has aged remarkably well. From 2006-2008, he compiled a .435 wOBA, remaining an on-base fiend capable of punishing pitches into the gaps and over the fence. In late March of 2009, the Braves came to terms with Jones on a three-year contract extension. The pact, covering the 2010-2012 seasons, will pay Chipper a total of $42M during his age 38-40 seasons.
On the heels of that extension, Jones turned in an offensive season quite mild by his lofty standards. He got off to a rousing start, but was a non-entity in August and September while battling groin, back and oblique injuries.
Overall, Chipper turned in a .354 wOBA, tied with his rookie campaign for his lowest full-season mark in the majors. Jones was patient as ever, drawing a walk in 17 percent of his PA and swinging at pitches out of the strike zone just 15.4 percent (25% MLB average).
His power, however, suffered:
Chipper crushed to the tune of .267 ISO in 2007 and a still-impressive .210 figure in 2008, but he dipped to a .166 ISO in 2009. That’s a bit above the .155 league average and .157 average for third basemen.
As you might have guessed from Chipper’s batting average dropping one hundred points from ’08 to ’09, his BABIP came down from its near-.390 mark in 2008:
Jones’s BABIP was .291 in 2009. Based on his rate of home runs, strikeouts, stolen bases, line drives, fly balls, pop ups and groundballs, Chipper’s Expected BABIP was .330. Even assuming all hits were singles, that would take Chipper’s triple-slash line from .264/.388/.430 to .303/.427/.469. That comes out to a wOBA around .401.
Of course, one could play devil’s advocate here, too. Jones is going on 38 years old, and while he has managed to stay on the field, he’s just about always nursing some ailment.
Perhaps you feel that Chipper’s bat speed is waning. His run value against fastballs, nearly +2.5 runs/100 from 2006-2008, dipped to +0.16 in 2009. Because these run values are based on actual outcomes, Jones’s values are dinged somewhat from the aforementioned low BABIP. But there’s still decline there.
According to Hit Tracker Online, Chipper’s dingers didn’t have quite the same force as in years past. His average speed off the bat was down a bit, and the Standard Distance of his homers dropped a fair amount ( Standard Distance is the estimated distance a HR would travel after accounting for wind, temperature and altitude).
Chipper’s speed off the bat (SOB) and standard distance (SD), by year:
2007: 104.5 MPH SOB, 404.8 SD
2008: 104.1 MPH SOB, 407.4 SD
2009: 103 MPH SOB, 395.2 SD
It’s extremely difficult to project a player like Jones, given his health issues and his age. The numbers are a mixed bag. On one hand, Chipper appeared to be hit-unlucky in ’09. But one the other hand, there are signs that he didn’t have the same punch as in years past.
For 2010, Sean Smith’s CHONE system pegs Jones for a .280/.377/.472 line. That comes to a wOBA near .373, and strikes me as a reasonable compromise between Jones’s actual .354 wOBA in 2009 and the .400-type mark that his XBABIP suggested.
Jones certainly comes with risk, but odds are he’s not done at the dish. Perhaps his days as an offensive force are coming to a close, but he still has enough lumber to remain a quality fantasy option at the hot corner.
Over the offseason we’ll take a look at each position on the diamond and see how the past season affected the positional rankings and where there might be some potential bounceback value picks going into next year’s drafts. (See shortstops, catchers, second basemen and first basemen.)
These rankings are for 5×5 rotisserie fantasy baseball. Eligibility was determined by where the player had the most at-bats last year.
To be absolutely precise, there should be down arrows next to Alex Rodriguez and David Wright because they used to be in a tier of their own and now have a little company at the top of the leaderboard. Despite his injured hip, Rodriguez basically replicated his 2008 season and an offseason of rest can only help. RJ Anderson and Dave Allen both covered David Wright and his power outage, and both agree the power should return. The only addition that I have, however crude, is that according to the hittracker, Wright would have only lost two of his 2008 home runs had he played in Citi Field that year. With power and speed, those two still rule the roost, if not as definitively as they have in the past. Ryan Zimmerman and Evan Longoria have joined them at the top and there’s not really much to say other than they just don’t boast the speed upside. They’re still pretty good players, though.
Aramis Ramirez used to be in the top tier. He could still be there. But last year just reminded everyone that he’s a 32-year-old third baseman that has dealt with injuries his whole career and is clearly post-peak. He’s fallen into a tier with some exciting names with risk attached. Pablo Sandoval is everyone’s favorite Panda, but as a BABIP outlier (.356 career, .317 career xBABIP) even his most ardent fan has to admit the risk that the batting average falls and leaves him as a slightly under-powered third baseman minus his best tool. There’s no risk with Mark Reynolds‘ power, but there’s also little likelihood of a nice batting average to go with his power/speed combo. As Dave Allen noted, he makes it work, but you’ll also need to make it work by making up for his batting average if you pick him. Dave Cameron showed how Chone Figgins has upped his walk rates through his career and made himself into a better player, but any 32-year-old that makes his living with his feet carries inherent risk. Plus, he offers no power. Gordon Beckham has a nice power/speed package going, but he’ll need to hit more line drives (16.6%) next year in order to get the batting average up. Michael Young doesn’t have the batting average problem, but he has power that oscillates from poor to mediocre.
The final tier is where the veterans go to finish their careers. Ian Stewart is the only upside play of the bunch, and he needs to strike out a little less (32.5% in 2009, 27.6% career) and hit some more line drives (14.1% in 2009, 18.2% career) so that the batting average can find its way to respectable. Obviously, he has power. Chipper Jones is the best of the post-peak guys, but he carries the most injury risk as well. Casey Blake, Mike Lowell, Mark DeRosa and Adrian Beltre can be picked out of the same bag using a blindfold. Admittedly, Beltre will cost the least, but getting him out of Safeco may mean that he will contribute similar stats to the other veterans in this tier.
In general, this is one of the more shallow positions in fantasy baseball. In a roto league, an owner betting on a final-tier third baseman is a step behind. The top two tiers offer some good value, but make sure you get your third baseman relatively early in 2010.
Is it better to be lucky or good? Annual injuries aside, Chipper Jones was both of these things in 2008 as he batted over .400 for the first two-and-a-half months of the season. How was he lucky? He was second in the majors with a .388 BABIP, which was 65 points higher than his career average. How was he good? His 17.0 percent BB% was the highest mark of his career since 1999 while his 13.9 percent K% was his lowest since 2000.
Ahh, but those injuries. Last year he missed time due to the following ailments: back spasms, quadriceps, eye, left hamstring, stomach virus, allergies, knee, back and shoulder. It was the fourth time in five years that Jones failed to reach 500 at-bats in a season.
Injuries and age have robbed him of his speed and some of his power. No longer is Jones a threat to steal 20 bases or hit 35 home runs. But three of his top five seasons for AVG have come since 2006, including last year’s monster .364 season. This combination makes Jones one of the tougher players to properly value in a fantasy draft.
In 2006, Jones was the 43rd-best fantasy hitter, according to the RotoTimes Player Rater. In 2007 he was the 15th best. Yet due to injury concerns, Jones had an ADP in the mid-60s last year, meaning he was a sixth-round pick in a standard 12-team mixed league.
Both the Bill James and the Marcel projection for Jones show similar results. They both expect him to match last year’s production in HR, RBI and R but suffer a 45-50 point drop in AVG. Those two forecast systems are projecting Jones to be roughly the fantasy player he was in 2006.
So, if Jones was a sixth-round pick one year after delivering second-round production, where will he fall after a season in which he delivered fourth-round value? It’s hard to imagine Jones being drafted earlier in 2009 than he was in 2008 in competitive leagues. If it is the eighth round and Jones is still available, you have to consider pulling the trigger. Just make sure to draft a competent backup on the late rounds because you know you will be playing him more than most reserves.