Archive for Michael Young

In a response to my post on Jeff Keppinger on Wednesday, reader “binqasim” said, “I am considering playing without a 3B given my options.” While extreme, and perhaps not advisable, this just made me rather sad. This is, after all, supposed to be fun. This is fantasy baseball. When the third basemen of your universe have become so completely useless that you would rather just punt the position than see them drag your batting average down without contributing anything in the remaining counting stats, the fantasy gods weep for you. I weep for you. And so, if you’ve found yourself in a similar position of desperation, maybe one of the following players can pitch in.

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We’re plowing through the rest of the Depth Chart Discussions (<– excellent link to them all on one page!) this week as we continue our preparation for the numerous drafts we have in the coming weeks. And with that, it’s now time to bust out your AARP card and make sure your Blue Shield policy is up to date, because we’re talking Phillies infield now. The average age is 34, considered prehistoric in relative terms, and the total number of trips to the DL can only be rivaled by the number of gray hairs you find once you wash all the Pomade out from Chase Utley’s hair. Sure you’ve got some quality players but risk/reward is the game you’re playing here. Read the rest of this entry »

In May, Michael Young was the #9 consensus ranked third baseman. In June, he hit .257/.306/.327 with zero home runs and zero stolen bases, which was really only slightly worse than the .280/.306/.372 he demonstrated up until that point. He was still scoring runs, but you could put Carlos Maldonado on second base for the Texas Rangers offense and he’d still score 120 runs in a season.

For the second half consensus rankings, Young’s stinker of a June only dropped him down to a consensus #15 ranking. At 15, he’s still ahead of an ailing Evan Longoria, Chase Headley, David Freese, Kevin Youkilis, Trevor Plouffe, Will Middlebrooks, and a goodly number of other bodies occupying the hot corner who you could probably make a better case for.

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We’re about a third of the way through the season, and while the proverbial gloves aren’t going to come off, I think I’ll stop coddling some and for others, I’ll be giving credit where credit is due. I wouldn’t say this is a “if the draft were held today” kind of list, but perhaps some amalgam of ranking based on current performance and anticipated performance for the rest of the season. I’ll do my best to tease out a rationale for the higher tiers.

The top tier of third basemen has historically been quite small, in large part due to the dearth of real superstars at the position. But since Jose Bautista has been acting like he might actually be mortal, it’s left room for some others to join him at the top.

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Just a month in and we’ve seen players like Danny Valencia and Lonnie Chisenhall lose their jobs, kids like Kyle Seager and William Middlebrooks defy expectations, and we’ve seen big guns like Evan Longoria and Pablo Sandoval go down to injury, among others. Third base has had a degree of volatility that has made it a particularly difficult position to manage.

While I’ve typically been more conservative in May in the past, there are definitely some movers early on. I wouldn’t say this is a list that represents “if the draft were held today” kind of a sentiment, it’s more a melding of injuries, expected future performance, but also performance to date.

Tier one is pretty unsurprising.

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Tiers seem to unearth the mighty wrath of fantasy baseball enthusiasts, but since we’ve already seen the third base consensus rankings and my general reactions to them thereafter, it’s time to categorize the gentlemen at the five into tidy little compartments of descending desirability.

As you well know, the tiers are not hard and fast — they change (sometimes dramatically) over the course of the first few months of the season. In fact, there’s been movement in these tiers even before I had a chance to publish them! It’s important to remember that these are not keeper tiers — they simply attempt to arrange rough approximations of value in standard 5×5 leagues as you prepare for what might be your final draft(s).

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Monday featured the third base version of the ongoing consensus rankings project and the results actually did reveal a pretty good amount of consensus from our four great minds, but there were some details and departures in opinions worth pointing out.

First of all, and this was teased out in the comments, it’s fairly likely we’re going to see names like Miguel Cabrera, Hanley Ramirez, and Mark Trumbo on the list of the third base eligible come May (for most league formats, probably much earlier). In the case of the former two, it would shake up the rankings in the top five considerably, and there’s a good chance many of you are targeting Cabrera as the overall #1 pick given his new digs in the infield.

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We rely on mock drafts to help guide us on trends without necessarily acting as the definitive voice. They’re somewhat like exit polls in politics — we’re just trying to get a pulse on public opinion before we see the actual results, with the exception that in mock baseball drafts, we can’t be entirely assured that a human being actually made the pick.

The problem being of course, is that mock drafts across formats is a lot like exit polls in Wyoming versus New York. So much depends on context. For instance – if you’re targeting Ian Stewart for any particular reason, Yahoo would suggest that you should expect to see him taken in the 20th round. If you trust Mock Draft Central, he is drafted at roughly 442, should anyone ever get to that round awake.

Stewart is an extreme case but it’s worth pointing out the differences in systems. As you well know, how a player is ranked in the draft room almost inevitably impacts where they are ultimately drafted — and some of the differences are so big that it could dramatically alter your draft approach.

Focusing solely on third base — here are some of the players that have a pretty major difference between Mock Draft Central and Yahoo’s current ADP. For the heck of it, I threw in any notable percentage changes in trend at MDC in case recent news has them moving up or down, and I tossed in the rankings of Eric Karabell over at ESPN (those that made his top 100 anyway).

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As you well know by now, some dutiful readers of RotoGraphs took it upon themselves to virtually duke it out in an online mock draft, putting to test what we have repeatedly analyzed in the past several weeks — that is, just exactly where should we expect some of our favorite players to be taken?

There is of course a great deal of risk in relying solely on one source for your average draft positions, and while the draft was conducted in Mock Draft Central, having some well informed individuals making the selections instead of what could be third graders and well trained monkeys for all we know, provides us with a nice window for analysis.

For today, third base will be under the microscope.

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To recap the third base keeper series, we had Jose Bautista and Evan Longoria comprising the first tier, which probably could have been just one player, but nobody likes to attend the party stag. The second tier was far more crowded with Brett Lawrie, Pablo Sandoval, Ryan Zimmerman, Adrian Beltre, David Wright, Aramis Ramirez, and Kevin Youkilis.

Now, perhaps Alex Rodriguez leading off the third tier is a little unfair, but we’re talking keepers here. While he’ll likely occupy a space in the second tier for fantasy drafts, his being relatively old (36) and fragile (hasn’t played a full season in four years) makes him a risky play — and considering most owners have him in high rounds or own him for big money, keeping him is may be unwise. Should you be in a very deep league and the remaining options are just downright putrid, perhaps paying the premium for his services makes some sense. If Rodriguez remains healthy all year and gives you 650 plate appearances, you can practically guarantee yourself 25 home runs and 100 RBI. But this is the fourth season of decline relative to wOBA and should that decline remain or continue either because of injury or ineffectiveness, he’s not worth the top shelf price tag.

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