Archive for freddie freeman

Last week we did bold predictions. As a commenter on my post pointed out, the majority of the staff’s predictions were of the positive nature. More “player x will reach or exceed y” than “player x will fail to reach y.” My predictions were ten guys who I think could give you starter-level production in 12-team mixed leagues despite not being ranked as a starter by a single expert whose rankings are compiled by FantasyPros.com.

Today I’ll do the opposite and identify at least one hitter from each position who is ranked as a starter by every FantasyPros expert that I think might not end up with starter-level production. To be clear, these predictions do not come with the claim of being bold, although I think some of them are. And I’m also not of the opinion that most of these will come true. But even if these guys don’t turn out to be busts, they are candidates to underperform and are guys I’ll likely be avoiding.

If you’d like to see my personal ranks, both overall and positional, I’ve got them in a Google doc here. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s official. 100% of my value is bothering @jeffwzimmerman to run data and then use that data for said content. I did just that this morning for updated shift data. I believe the last time he posted related content on RotoGraphs was here back in May looking at: Early Hitter Shift Data.

It was because of this post and his balls in play (groundball and pop-up rates) that led me to believe Albert Pujols was going to drop off/continue his downward trend. I guess I pushed out the fact that he was the best hitter of his generation. While the .375 BABIP (from the above link) against shifts did not last, he’s at a very respectable .284. Between this and additional discipline (best contact rate since 2008 and hacking less at stuff outside of the zone), he is able to hover around a .280 BA, which remains elite in conjunction with 30HR, 90R and 100+RBI.

Read the rest of this entry »

Note: All stats are as of August 31, 2014; Labor Day stats are not included. Although, considering the Braves were collectively no-hit by the Phillies, there wouldn’t be much to change, anyways. 

Let’s back up a few months: In March, Freddie Freeman was a borderline third round pick, according to ESPN’s draft data. He was coming off a fantastic season, in which he set career highs in batting average, on base percentage, and RBI, while tying his career high in home runs by swatting 23 home runs. Freeman’s power ceiling was in question: How many home runs is a reasonable expectation? Can he possibly get near 30? His contact ability wasn’t, though. The latter has been fine; the former, not as much. But maybe that’s alright.

In Freeman’s first 114 plate appearances – taken from March 31 through April 30 – he hit six home runs, posting a .416 wOBA. In the 492 plate appearances since May 1st he’s left the yard only 11 times, posting a .370 wOBA. Make no mistake about it, Freeman has still been good. But his power – which was already in question compared to his peers – has taken a step back. So, the question is: What should we do regarding Freeman next year? Read the rest of this entry »

In the leagues I run that have inexperienced and/or casual team owners, I always use the standard 5×5 roto categories because I feel that it would give me and the other experienced players an advantage. I know that the casual players in my leagues are using the rankings provided by the website on which we’re drafting or some other set of rankings from a major industry source. And almost all of those rankings are based on standard categories. If I replaced, for example, home runs with slugging percentage, I would be able to identify the players whose valuation or ranking would change with the different category. But the noobs would be using rankings made with home runs in mind.

I polled my Twitter followers to find out the most common uses of non-standard categories so that I could determine the players whose valuation/ranking changed the most when non-standard categories are used. The most common answers were OBP replacing batting average (which I covered here), slugging percentage replacing home runs, and OPS being added as a sixth category to the standard five hitter categories. Sorry if your league has a different non-traditional format.

Below are charts showing the biggest changes in SLG and OPS leagues. For an explanation of the methodology used, check out the OBP piece I just linked to. And if you’d like to see how all 242 hitters that I have projected are affected by SLG replacing HR or OPS being a sixth category, you can find the SLG list here and the OPS list here.

First up, guys who get a bump when slugging percentage replaces home runs.

Miguel Cabrera and Paul Goldschmidt are even more valuable in slugging percentage leagues, and they close the gap between them and Trout in auction leagues. Joey Votto shows up on this list just as he did in my OBP post. He’s obviously excellent, but the standard categories aren’t the best measure of his excellence.

Unsurprisingly, we see a few young first basemen here who haven’t reached the ‘power potential’ some thought they might. But really they just haven’t put up big home run totals. Freddie Freeman and Eric Hosmer may never settle in as 30+ HR regulars or even 25-30 HR regulars, but if you play in a slugging percentage league, their power plays. And Brandon Belt gets the biggest boost by switching to SLG. It’s possible his ballpark has something to do with it, but he’s very much in the Freeman/Homser mold. The only non-1B/DH player on this list is Yadier Molina who was 4th in the league in doubles last year.

Now the guys who you would prefer in a home run league. Read the rest of this entry »

Amongst the exciting young sluggers in the game, it’s easy to overlook Freddie Freeman. He’s not overly flashy and lacked the benefit of the hype machine while in the minors. However, he’s only 24 years old and was nearly a five-win player in 2013. His .387 wOBA ranked 13th in all of baseball, and he was the third-ranked first baseman in ESPN leagues.

It’s crazy to ponder the fact that Freeman will be 24 years old for the vast majority of the 2014 season, as well, because he’s already been one of the best young first basemen over the last 20 years. Since the strike, only two first basemen have connected with more home runs through their age-24 season than Freeman.

The above chart certainly puts Freeman’s early-career performance into perspective, but it also indicates few first basemen acquire starting roles in their early-20s. Not factoring in position, Freeman has the 28th-most home runs of any player through their age-24 season since the labor strike — which is still impressive, but not nearly as noteworthy as being number three.

Read the rest of this entry »

As Bryan Grosnick pointed out on Tuesday, the home run is king in daily contests. In Draftstreet scoring, a home run will get you a minimum of seven points (one point for each total base plus 1.5 each for the R and RBI). So I wanted to give y’all a list of the pitchers who allow the most home runs per plate appearance. The cut off for the reliability of HR/PA is 1320 batters faced (per @pizzacutter4) Here are the pitchers above that cut off that are on an active roster with the highest HR/PA (one or more standard deviations above the mean) against both left and right handed batters. Read the rest of this entry »

So you take your Prince Fielder or Adrian Gonzalez, you select Evan Longoria or Jose Bautista and breathe a sigh of relief that you have first base and third base covered, now let’s see about building something of a respectable pitching staff. And then around the 15th round it occurs to you that you have that pesky corner infield situation to tend to (not to mention middle infield, and for those of you in such leagues – one or more utility slots — but that’s for another post).

I have fallen into a false sense of security before during drafts where I select a player and feel a little like Ed Norton in Fight Club regarding his couch – that is, “I’ve got that sofa issue handled.” We know there’s more work to be done on the offense side of the dish, yet we might fail to plan as diligently as we did for the respective positions.

This post is a little strategy that might be quite “101” to some, but it was born out of comments about the need to plan for the flex positions in our leagues. The context is standard 5×5, 12 team, non-keeper roto leagues.

Read the rest of this entry »

Obviously it depends on the roster size and depth of your league, but it never ceases to amaze me when you see veterans who have produced in the past, yet started off the season slowly, begin to heat up and still get left out on the waiver wire.  Maybe the rosters are far too loaded up or maybe owners are just not paying close enough attention.  Either way, if you’ve got a corner infield spot that’s lagging or just need to balance your team via the utility spot, here are a pair of vets you might want to look up. Read the rest of this entry »

“Freddie Freeman looks stiff. Freddie Freeman looks uncoordinated. Freedie Freeman looks awkward. Freddie Freeman can still hit.” Jason Grey, ESPN.com

It seems that there are few reasons to poo-poo Freddie Freeman’s minor league record. He usually walked at an average rate (7.6% overall), never struck out in as many as 20% of his at-bats, and the only time he hit below .300 above rookie ball he had a terrible BABIP, especially for the minor leagues (.263). As a bonus, Freeman was always young for his league. That .896 OPS he just hung on Triple-A? He was 20.

But watch him play, and some doubt creeps in. The word stiff does come to mind. Then you look at his isolated power as he progressed through the minor leagues (.112, .206, .145, .094, .200 in order), and you wonder a little how much boom his stick will have – especially given his position. Last but now least, you might realize that the Braves just traded for another infielder, and counting Freeman now have five. You might get a little nervous.

In the end, his 2009 season may teach us more about Freeman than his excellent 2010 season at Triple-A. At 19 years old, he showed he could handle High-A, and his .145 ISO, paired with a 16.1% strikeout rate, was good enough to promote him to Double-A. There, the average age was 24.4, and perhaps it wasn’t surprising that Freeman struggled some against players five years older. Sure, his slugging plummeted to middle infielder levels, but the league-wide slugging percentage in the Southern league that year was .380, so it wasn’t the most slugger-friendly of leagues. Bryan Smith rated it as perhaps a touch pitcher-friendly when he showed that the league-wide ISO was .127.

2010 did happen. He put up a .200 ISO in a league where the average was .147, and Justin Inaz at The Hardball Times did not have the International League as a particularly hitter-friendly. What we can see is that there’s a chance that Freeman struggles at first when he gets to the majors next year, as he struggled when he first got to Double-A. He’ll be seven-and-a-half years younger than average when he joins the Braves, and the leap from the minors to the majors is similar to the leap from High-A to Double-A.

Eventually, he should get it right. That’s what he’s always done, and no matter how stiff and uncoordinated he looks, he can hit. But fantasy owners looking for a 2011 sleeper in a re-draft league may want to hold on to some of their skepticism. It may not happen right away, and the Braves do have a beefy glove-second second baseman with first-baseman-type power now. They have options and they may have to use them before the year is through.

With the end of (fantasy baseball) days coming, some owners will need to look towards next year. Here are three first baseman who are widely available, and could provide some spark for you in the coming years at a very cheap price.

Brandon Allen | D’Backs | 1% Owned
Allen’s game is very simple, and reminds you of another Arizona slugger. He will hit home runs, and strike out more than any human being should, and will have an average walk rate. The hope is that he can keep the batting average above .250, allowing him to at least have some value to your team. Allen’s not playing everyday…yet. Adam LaRoche will likely try to find another home this offseason, freeing up the first base job for Allen and his stick. If he can stay healthy next year and get the bulk of the playing time, I wouldn’t be shocked to see at least 20 homers with a batting average hovering around the .245 mark. It’s not great, but if you’re a rebuilding team, it’s a step in the right direction.

Freddie Freeman | Braves | 0% Owned
While Freeman’s minor league numbers are nothing to laugh at, just glancing at them on the surface doesn’t make you want to scream “top prospect!” However, Freeman’s minor league career consists of hitting well at levels that are advanced for his age, something that cannot, and should not be overlooked. He doesn’t walk as much as you’d hope, but he has limited the strikeouts nicely and has provided enough pop to have Braves fans dreaming about him in next year’s lineup. Freeman’s only 20, so he still has lots of room to develop as a player, and the Braves may not be ready to have him make the next step. Keep an eye on him (and Derrek Lee) this offseason, but Freeman is a nice guy to keep stashed in your system.

Justin Smoak | Mariners | 3% Owned
We don’t have much new information when it comes to Smoak, except an update on how he’s done in a new minor league system (and ballpark). Smoak has a .271/.377/.481 line as a Rainier, hitting seven dingers in only 159 plate appearances. If he can work on limiting his strikeouts, his line drive stroke and pop will translate over beautifully into the big leagues. The Mariners are going to give him plenty of chances to play everyday next year, and it could be a big one for the Smoak Monster.