Archive for Jacoby Ellsbury

Love ’em or hate ’em, they are the New York Yankees and they are still the face of American baseball. They are about winning, they are about hardware (or bling if that’s the word you prefer) and they are all about the big market spending. But we’re not here to judge right now. Whether you think this year’s plundering of the free agent market was more Brittney Spears “Oops, I did it again,” or more Urkel “Did I do that?”, it doesn’t matter, because this is the fantasy baseball section of FanGraphs and that’s what we’re talking here. Our assignment is to tell you who is in this team’s outfield and what that means to fantasy owners, so let’s bypass the small-market, crybaby tantrums and let’s talk game. Read the rest of this entry »

When the New York Yankees signed free agent outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury to a ridiculous seven-year, $153M contract, not only did they likely say adios to second baseman Robinson Cano, but they also reiterated the fact that they simply don’t trust Brett Gardner enough to be their regular center fielder or leadoff hitter. Is he not capable of playing well defensively out there? Can he not get on-base at a reasonable rate? Is he not fast enough to steal bases and set the table properly for the heart of the order? Apparently not, if the Yankees continue to push him aside for every over-priced marquee name that looks their way. Forget about the fact that last season, his first real opportunity to play center field and bat leadoff, he posted a .271/.344/.412 slash line and played a strong defensive game. In Yankee-land, that’s role-player material, at best, worthy of move to left field and trip back to the bottom of the order.

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Two years removed from an MVP-caliber season and coming off an injury-shortened campaign in 2012, Jacoby Ellsbury was a popular value-pick for many fantasy owners in the fourth-or-fifth rounds. His average draft position was 43.7 this spring, which placed him ahead of guys like Yoenis Cespedes and Matt Holliday. He was expected to produce, so when he hit .241/.303/.335 in his first 44 games this season, many owners were understandably frustrated.

Since that arbitrary point of May 20, though, Ellsbury has been one of the top-producing fantasy outfielders in all of baseball, torching opposing pitchers with a .382/.446/.532 slash line. In fact, in the last 30 days, he’s been the fifth-best overall player in ESPN leagues. Only Chris Davis and his home run binge has prevented him from being the number one fantasy outfielder in the past 30 days.

Many owners are not necessarily wondering if this hot streak is legitimate. It’s ridiculous to expect Ellsbury to continue hitting at almost a .400 clip throughout the remainder of the year. Instead, some are beginning to wonder if this impressive stretch at the plate is an indicator that the 2011 version of Jacoby Ellsbury is lurking around the corner. Because that would be a game-changer and perhaps even a reason for owners to buy high.

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Watch out, keeper league owners.  It’s that time of year again.  The hot starts have cooled down, the cold starts have heated up, your waiver wire has been picked clean, and you’re seeing a separation in your standings between the haves and the have nots.  The haves are trying to make deals to solidify their roster for a championship run while the have nots are already looking towards next year.  It doesn’t matter that there’s still almost four months left in the season and plenty of time to mount a comeback, there are those that accept defeat a little too easily and all they care about is which stud protect they can pick up just by unloading their roster to someone in the hunt for a title.  It’s time for the dump deal. Read the rest of this entry »

When he slid into second and immediately grabbed his knee, my heart dropped.  The sickening taste of bile crept up my throat and into my mouth as I anxiously awaited for him to stand up, dust himself off and signal to the trainers that he was fine.  When that didn’t happen and he gingerly limped off the field, immediate thoughts of a torn ACL raced through my head.  In three different leagues I grabbed Evan Longoria at the tail end of the first round and until that moment, I wasn’t giving third base another thought.  Now, with news of a partially torn hamstring and a six to eight week recovery period, I’m left here staring at my computer screen, feeling like Kramer when the Kenny Rogers Roasters sign was finally turned off. Read the rest of this entry »

Between all of the injuries and slow starts, it’s expected that everyone in your league is scouring the waiver wire and looking for players to fill in the gaps.  The trick though, is to do it on the cheap this early in the season.  There are far too many people blowing their FAAB budget too soon or wasting a decent waiver priority on a quick-fix band-aid that won’t be playing in a month’s time, so while you need to stay active, you need to be smarter than the next guy in the way you do it. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, since the last installment received so much attention — both positive and negative — I figured we should have another go-around here.  Only this time, in an effort to create more dialogue and draw even more of your ire, I took the advice from some of you and looked more towards the upper rounds of the draft.  Personally, I think telling you not to waste your time with a particular player in the lower rounds is a bit more helpful than this — sure, there’s less risk in the 19th round and you don’t care if you eventually drop the guy, but why waste the pick in the first place?  But alas, this is what you asked for my dear RotoGraphs readers and this is what you get… Read the rest of this entry »

Each year, there’s always one pick in the draft that always seems to cause the biggest stir amongst the fantasy community and leads to the greatest number of emails seeking added opinions.  It used to be closer to the tail end of the first round when an owner was deciding between whichever offensive treat was left or the number one overall starting pitcher.  This year, I’ve received a number of emails from people with the 4th pick.  People with the 8th and 9th picks are rolling their eyes right now, but truly, the 4th pick can cause quite the conundrum.

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For years I have preached about the immense depth at starting pitching.  You can find plenty of quality starters for cheap in your draft and, with the help of the waiver wire, can build a successful fantasy rotation without having to invest heavily in an ace or two.  With a nice complement of some quality relievers, you can go cheap on starters and, in turn, bulk up on better hitters.  In the end, your team dominates in the offensive categories, puts up a solid showing in almost all of the pitching categories, and leaves you at the top of your standings by season’s end. Read the rest of this entry »

A quick look at a post by Jack Moore at RotoHardball shows the benefit a change in lineup can make. In short, the difference between batting second and batting fifth can be as much as .33 plate appearances a game, or around 50 a season.

A quick look at the nearest newswire will show you that the Red Sox have managed to revamp their lineup in just a few short days. At issue is what the new lineup will look like, especially since the team is now so lefty-heavy. It may not mean the difference between a good and bad season, but 50 plate appearances is not something to sneeze at.

In the last week, Buster Olney famously submitted his new lineup and then Carson Cistulli updated it by using Baseball Musing’s lineup optimizer tool. These two lineups are pretty different, but there is one similarity worth discussing further from a fantasy angle.

Yes, both the stat-head lineup and the traditional lineup feature Jacoby Ellsbury in the nine-hole. Maybe one focused on his 6.7% career walk rate, and the other was looking at Ellsbury as the ‘second leadoff man,’ but the results were clear enough that they strongly suggest that’s where Ellsbury will end up. That’s not a good thing for those projecting a bounce-back for Ellsbury.

It’s not that he can’t have success at the bottom of the order. It’s just that we have to temper the plate appearances. In 2009, he racked up 693 plate appearances – and that would make the Bill James’ projection (674 plate appearances) seem reasonable. However, Ellsbury had 504 plate appearances in the leadoff spot that year, where the average player (per Tango’s The Book) has 4.83 plate appearances per game. In the nine hole, Ellsbury could expect to see 3.90 plate appearances per game. That’s almost a full plate appearance per game.

Let’s take that .93 PA per game away from his 2009 numbers then. That’s a full 150 plate appearances fewer, meaning Ellsbury might hope to approach 540 or 550 plate appearances should he play in the nine hole most days.

But we also know that this figure represents the best possible upside.

Judging from Chris Cwik’s column on Friday, Ellsbury, J.D. Drew, Mike Cameron and David Ortiz may be splitting some time in the outfield and at DH, provided the tam does not move one of the group in the next few weeks.

After considering this group, the best probable scenario has Cameron as more or less a fourth outfielder and Ortiz as a platoon DH. Ortiz did put up a .268 wOBA against lefties last year, his third straight year of below-average work against southpaws. That’s 200 PAs that could go to someone else next year. Drew has been injured off and on the last few years, and usually ends up around 550 PAs, which is about 100 PAs short of a full ride in right field and his position in the lineup.

Would Mike Cameron be okay with 300 PAs? That would allow Ellsbury to enjoy 550 plate appearances in center field. The team says that they rate Ellsbury’s defense as above-average, and Cameron’s defense fell off, but short-sample UZRs are not so useful. If the two of them instead split the 850 plate appearances – meaning everyone stays healthy and Cameron and Ellsbury are essentially sharing center and the leftover PAs in right and at DH – then you’re looking at 425 PAs for Ellsbury.

This is no science, but you’re looking at a range between 400 and 550 plate appearances for Ellsbury most likely, and a risk that he gets only 350 or so as the backup. That means the real best case scenario – 550 plate appearances – would have Ellsbury with 153 hits, 83 runs and 48 steals using Bill James projections. That could be helpful if his draft spot drops, but the risk – 350 plate appearances – is that he ends up with 97 hits, 53 runs and 30 stolen bases.

And those projections are all using Bill James’ numbers, oft thought to be the rosiest of the mainstream projections.

Edit: On Saturday, this came through the interwebs:

Red Sox manager Terry Francona expects to bat Carl Crawford second or third in 2011, with Jacoby Ellsbury leading off.
“I’ll sit down with Carl, I’ll sit down with Pedey,” Francona said. “Obviously, he’s going to hit somewhere in the top of the order, second or third. But we want to have some balance, as much as we can, with Adrian and Youk following and David (Ortiz) and J.D. (Drew). There’s some things to think about.” We doubt Pedroia will be dropped in the order, so we tentatively expect him to hit second and Pedroia to bat third.

There’s a lot of risk here. I’m not even sure that more information in Spring Training will remove that uncertainty. Draft Ellsbury at your own peril.