Archive for OF

At 1 pm EDT, we will begin to chronicle September call-ups and their potential contributions in a running post organized by David Wiers. Stay tuned.

NL OF Tiers: August
NL OF Tiers: July
NL OF Tiers: June
NL OF Tiers: May
NL OF Tiers: Preseason

What’s most interesting about September, from a purely statistical standpoint, is small-sample volatility. Just like the unpredictability of April, anyone can go off — or fall flat — in the home stretch. If I’m contending, I’m trying to maximize playing time, although I will stream or start certain specialized players if I’m chasing a particular category.

I’m in a head-to-head standard roto league with two weeks of regular-season play left before two one-week rounds of playoffs. In the last four weeks, my team has roared back from a miserable 9th place to a legitimately-contending 6th, and I’m already off to a strong start this week. In other words: a lot can happen in a month, so certainly half of a lot can happen in two weeks. Hang in there.

I drafted one of my fantasy football teams this weekend. My tiers shall assume the names of my six most expensive players.

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Kyle Schwarber gets double-duty this week. Yesterday, Mike Podhorzer discussed Kyle Schwarber’s 2016 potential. He mentions he read a post in which the author allegedly considered Schwarber in the second round of a 2016 mock draft.

I found the whole thing intriguing, primarily because we’re working with a small sample — slightly more than 150 plate appearances. I tried to draw meaningful conclusions on a comparably small sample size for Carlos Gonzalez, and now I’m pretty sure hired assassins are tracking me. Alas, what follows is not a disagreement with Pod (because his analysis is excellent) but an unauthorized biography extension of his post.

In June, I compared Joc Pederson to George Springer, two blossoming young stars to each of whom I alluded as “evolving juggernauts.” In fact, I think Schwarber is not particularly dissimilar from Pederson. With another two months of baseball in the rear-view mirror, that comparison is especially illuminating, given we’ve seen just how tumultuous Pederson’s rookie campaign has been.

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Three weeks ago I offered three (or four) starting pitchers for your consideration. In it I highlighted three starters who did not exceed various thresholds of ownership in Yahoo! fantasy leagues. Ken Erdedy liked it, and while I can’t tell if his name is real, it seems his sentiment was.

I anticipated returning with three hitters in a similar vein. However, I couldn’t help but highlight a particular hitter owned in an absurdly low percentage of leagues. (Alas, I got distracted, as I am wont to do.)

I’ll retain the format of my original post for kicks, but I have decided to point the spotlight entirely on him.

Sub-20% Ownership: Second Base

Delino DeShields Jr. (17%)

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In the past 30 days, Michael Taylor — the current National, not the former Athletic — has hit four home runs and stolen six bases to go with seven runs and 16 RBI. Mike Podhorzer tabbed Taylor as a sleeper in March. In the post, he notes his own projections largely validated Steamer’s and ZiPS’ projections for Taylor, although his anticipated better than 10-homer power across 600 plate appearances.

Now at 10 homers and 14 steals through 345 plate appearances, Taylor seeks to make all his projections look silly. His counting stats currently pace out to 17 home runs, 24 stolen bases, 54 runs and 80 RBI for a full season.

At 24 years old, Taylor appears poised to contribute legitimately to fantasy teams not only now (considering the possibility Denard Span does not return this season) but also for years to come. Indeed, his tools inspired a bold prediction on his behalf, of which he fell short but for which he kindly did not embarrass the author.

Amid my lauding of his past 30 days, however, I deliberately omitted an important detail: Taylor is batting .214 with a sub-.250 on-base percentage (OBP) thanks to strikeout and walk rates of 33.0 and 2.9 percent. Despite his toolsiness, both present and past — in 2014, he hit 23 homers and stole 37 bases, mostly at AA — it’s evident why Taylor doesn’t have garner prospect coverage the way George Springer and Joc Pederson once did.

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Edit (12:59 pm EDT): Left out a bunch of dudes (Cespedes, Pederson, Moss) and wrongly included a bunch of dudes (Gomez, Revere). I basically I forgot all about the trade deadline, so if notice another name omitted, leave it in the comments. Thanks (and sorry)!

NL OF Tiers: July
NL OF Tiers: June
NL OF Tiers: May
NL OF Tiers: Preseason

Prior to writing for FanGraphs, I never took time to systematically reevaluate players. That’s not to say I never evaluate players after draft day — of course I do. But I typically only concern myself with the players I own and compare them to those on waivers. Occasionally, if my team is wildly imbalanced, I’ll evaluate other owners’ players for potential trades.

Because it’s tedious to thoroughly re-rank all the players at one position, let alone in all of Major League Baseball. I can’t complain, though, becauseI’ve learned something new with every re-rank, the most prominent lesson being baseball players exist to humiliate you. I’m being hyperbolic, and perhaps Carlos Gonzalez is, too, but his recent results speak volumes: CarGo more than doubled his home run total between my July re-rank of National League outfielders and now.

I also learned I need to learn to stand my ground. After mindlessly over-ranking Carlos Gomez in June, I slotted him at the top of the fourth tier (roughly 20th overall) in July. I got slammed for it and I backpedaled on my stance a bit when responding to comments, but, like clockwork, Gomez has continued to underwhelm, hitting .230/.373/.410 with two home runs and nary a stolen base. Sure, the 17.3-percent walk rate (BB%) the last 30 days is nice, and it brings him back up to normal Carlos Gomez levels, but his batted ball profile continues to resemble the generally uninteresting pre-breakout Carlos Gomez.

Anyway, iers will conform to my ranking of feature-length films directed by Hayao Miyazaki, with emphases on directed and feature-length. To not see a Miyazaki (or Studio Ghibli) film is to ignore a cherished corner of cinematic history. Like my hotly contested Coen Brothers tiers, these will be very difficult for me to rank.

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It’s time for another monthly analysis of Carlos Gonzalez’s tumultuous 2015 season. When we first tuned in, Carlos Gonzalez was bad. Like, really bad. Despite peripherals that suggested some bad luck, the rest detailed a hitter struggling mightily.

When we last tuned in a month later, Eno Sarris determined CarGo had been unlucky up to that point, but only slightly. Things had started to turn around, but it was hard to be optimistic.

We tune in now, another month later, to find Gonzalez falling short of his previous levels of production but still performing admirably considering the circumstances. To paint a fuller picture, observe CarGo’s statistics at the time we published each of the aforementioned posts:

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(A: Both.)

Disclaimer: I wrote this post about Gerardo Parra yesterday afternoon because that’s how things work over here on the West Coast. Between yesterday and this exact moment, Eno Sarris and Paul Sporer posted their most recent episode of the Sleeper and the Bust during which, at around the 45-minute mark, they coincidentally discuss Parra. (Er, Parra is the coincidence, not the podcast.)

Basically, Sarris and Sporer say pretty much everything I write here but in fewer words. So if you want to hear a couple of smart dudes discuss Parra’s rest-of-season prospects, tune in. If for some reason you’d rather engage in in what will be a more verbose, occasionally visual, absolutely not visceral experience, proceed:

* * *

For this post, I will let my deluded ramblings — what my National League outfield analysis eventually and ostensibly becomes pretty much every time nowadays — devolve into stream of consciousness. Because this is a sentence I actually wrote but deleted: “I want to talk about Gerardo Parra.” An alternative I considered: “Let’s talk about Gerardo Parra.”

Point is, I’ve started thinking too hard about simple things and my brain is grinding to a halt. Whatever — let’s just talk about Parra. Let’s have an open dialogue about the guy who, for all intents and purposes, is having a career year this season from an offensive perspective.

Parra’s 129 wRC+ (weighted runs created) easily vanquishes his previous high (106) set back in 2011. It marks only the second time his bat has rated better than average, so you’d be lying if you told me his production thus far in 2015 hasn’t surprised you. To attest: a man who, for six years, averaged eight home runs per 600 plate appearances has hit nine in almost half the time.

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I’m always looking for new angles on National League outfielders. There are only so many of them, and only so many things can be said about the same few juggernauts.

For example, I discovered just now that Randal Grichuk has recorded the fourth-highest wins above replacement (WAR) per plate appearance for NL outfielders behind only Bryce Harper, Giancarlo Stanton and Andrew McCutchen. It certainly surprised me, and while that’s a storyline in itself, Karl de Vries assessed Grichuk here last month, highlighting reasons for optimism and concern. (For example, his batted ball profile validates his power display but thinks his batting average deserves to drop around 45 points.)

In this same vein, it may surprise you to know the infrequently discussed David Peralta ranks seventh in WAR per plate appearance among NL outfielders with as many plate appearances as him (275) and 10th in aggregate WAR. Those figures account for his defense that, according to the metrics, rates average at best, so his value is driven primarily by his bat.

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For all intents and purposes, Chris Coghlan is having a pretty good season. Drafted in the supplemental first round of the 2006 June amateur draft, Coghlan earned National League Rookie of the Year honors in 2009, hitting .321/.390/.460 with nine home runs and eight stolen bases.

Then he slid into a prolonged funk, floundering for the Marlins (ha… floundering… because the mascot… is a fish… uhhhhhh) before revitalizing his career with the Cubs. After a relatively successful, but still lackluster, 2014 campaign, it seems Coghlan has finally rounded into form in 2015 at the ripe age of 30. Better later than never.

I planned to investigate Coghlan’s success independently. David Laurila, however, transcribed a recent interview with Coghlan during which they talked hitting and posted it yesterday. In it, Coghlan laid bare his philosophy and approach to hitting with refreshing honesty and transparency, creating a unique opportunity to see if Coghlan practices what he preaches as well as how or why it currently works for him.

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NL OF Tiers: June
NL OF Tiers: May
NL OF Tiers: Preseason

I’ll own up to it: ranking Carlos Gomez first last month was careless of me. I blindly assumed production from him when his peripherals advised otherwise. Josh Shepardson recommended cutting bait in keeper and dynasty leagues. Frankly, the long-term outlook at this moment isn’t great.

Also, I’ll own up to undervaluing Justin Upton. That was also a strangely careless oversight. Frankly, I love five-category contributors, and so should you, so I don’t know why he didn’t excite me more.

I’m going to undertake the impossibly difficult task of creating tiers by Coen Brothers films. This will probably be harder than ranking the outfielders, so go ahead and have your “so the guys in the bottom tier are actually the best?” jokes locked and loaded.

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