Archive for OF

A month before the season started, I introduced a model that predicts a Minor League hitter’s chances of Major League success based on his statistics during his most recent AAA stint. I will use that same model now to update the list of the National League’s top MLB-ready outfield prospects, the key term here being MLB-ready, not prospect — the goal is to identify players who scouts may not love but stats do.

The model looks at how a hitter once performed in AAA and compares it to his known career outcome, ultimately calculating probabilities that a certain career outcome will occur. These probabilities can then be applied to current Minor League players in order to project their currently unknown career outcomes. I discuss the model’s nitty-gritty, as well as its similarities with and potential shortcomings to Chris Mitchell’s KATOH, in the link provided in this post’s first sentence. Both models share the same goal and their methodologies are almost identical, so their results can be considered comparable; mine simply takes a more subjective approach, as I will explain shortly. This is not a turf war.

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We gather here today to mourn the loss of one of our dearly beloved. Jorge Soler‘s chances of earning the National League Rookie of the Year award recently walked off into the sunset, fading into a distant memory, albeit a fond memory at that. In light of Joc Pederson’s performance thus far, however, we maybe gather here today to mourn something that never existed. My heart struggles to understand how we could have possibly loved but never lost.

It seems like just yesterday that Soler was the Chicago Cubs’ safest prospect. As much was argued — nay, commanded — by our very own Scott Spratt. Indeed, another of our Scotts, surname Strandberg, once spoke of the Cubs’ embarrassment of prospect riches by leading with Soler’s name rather than Kris Bryant‘s or Javier Baez‘s or Addison Russell‘s or Arismendy Alcantara‘s or Albert Almora‘s or Kyle Schwarber’s. I think that the fault is neither Scott’s nor Scott’s; the greater fantasy baseball community had its eye on Soler. Indeed, I tabbed Soler as my NL ROY favorite. So, too, did Eno. We are all fallible.

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The economics of keeper and dynasty leagues intrigue me because no two owners value the future equally. Given my primary league is of the keeper taxonomy, I am always thinking about the future. Given the especially miserable state of my team in said league, I’ll soon reach a point where I am only thinking about the future.

A segue of remarkably poor quality: Joc Pederson is good at baseball.

Another segue of questionably better quality: he reminds me of George Springer for reasons not entirely surprising.

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NL OF Tiers: May
NL OF Tiers: Preseason

I love Bob’s Burgers. That love stems from a love of H. Jon Benjamin, which stems from a love of Home Movies. However, I do not find Archer all that funny. It is the lesser show, and that’s that.

I’m sorting the tiers by secondary characters in Bob’s. It’d be too easy to rank Bob’s family. Or would it? Should I? No, I won’t. I’ll stick to the game plan.

Aside from the top tier, the rest of the hitters are ranked loosely in their respective tiers. An argument could be made for all of them to move up or down a couple of spots.

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It is fashionable to ridicule a fantasy owner for panicking in April. It’s early, they say. Something about small sample size, they say.

Yet here I am in late May — which is pretty much June to the common antiestablishmentarian — watching y’all sit stoically with your coveted, probably somewhat expensive shares of Matt Kemp (96% owned in Yahoo! leagues) and Carlos Gonzalez (94%) as they flounder in the batter’s box. That was condescending, yes, but I know I benefit from the luxury of not facing such painful decisions (nor enduring the mighty struggles of once-established sluggers).

I recently discussed CarGo and Kemp here and here, respectively. Unless you can get a decent return on name value from someone who thinks he’s buying low, it may be time to cut bait. I’m here to remind you: it’s OK to let go, to start anew. It’s just hard sometimes, I know. I’m here to help you transition.

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NL OF Tiers: March (Preseason) 2015
Also, David Wiers’ AL OF Tiers: May

This is my second ever installment of tiered rankings so, I admit, I’m still figuring out how to properly balance a hitter’s present and future values. It’s too easy to rank them by, say, their current ESPN Player Rater rankings, but it would be foolish to still rank them simply by expected end-of-season value, as I did in March.

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If fantasy baseball were a marathon, we’d all have run about a mile and a half. Most races don’t even have their volunteers stand with trays of water cups this early on, so you’d better pace yourself if you’re already tired. I think I forgot to stretch.

Here’s an obligatory sentence reminding you about the caveats about small samples while attributing a shred of validity to them. OK, now that the formalities are out of the way, let’s talk ownership trends. National League outfielders are a promising bunch, especially in regard to the youth movement. I’ve been sold on a handful of them prior to the start of the season, and I’m surprised by their meager ownership numbers. They aren’t completely unowned, as my misleading title alleges, but they’re close enough.

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Every year, we here at RotoGraphs publish tiered rankings for every position and update them throughout the year. What you will read below are, more or less, my end-of-season projections for National League outfielders, since the season hasn’t started yet. However, these rankings will change as the year progresses, and I would be a fool to tell you the tiers below will look the same in September.

No doubt, this is a contentious matter, and you can tell me how much of a moron I am in the comments.

Without further ado, here is the 2015 season’s first installment of tiered rankings for NL outfielders.

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An unambiguously true fact: Matt Holliday is an old man in baseball years and in dog years. Another unambiguously true fact: Holliday has been remarkably consistent throughout his career. Hear ye:

• He has hit at least 20 home runs in nine straight years, a streak currently matched only by David Ortiz and Miguel Cabrera;
• His walk rate has hovered between 10 and 12 percent for the better part of a decade, and his strikeout rate has always resided in the mid-teens;
• He has averaged 647 plate appearances per season dating back to 2006;
• And honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a batted ball profile so absurdly consistent.

Yet a slight dip in power and a career-worst batting average (.272, aka what some players can only dream of hitting) in 2014 couldn’t have come at a worse age, and it all has fans and projection systems alike running for the hills, as shown below.
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