The Long Bad Buy (Canto II)

Back to our NFBC slow draft: 15 teams, 50 rounds, no post-draft transactions–a league that journeys beyond the merely deep to the abyssopelagic. Join us now as we relive our plunge into the second half of the draft.

Much of what we did was so boring it defeats all efforts at amusing commentary. We picked up too many high-strikeout no-save relief pitchers (Zach Duke, Shawn Kelley, David Carpenter, Tony Sipp, Shae Simmons[!]); some fourth-outfielder types whom you don’t have to squint at too hard to see decent playing time and some upside (Dayan Viciedo, Rymer Liriano, and [except for the upside] Jordan Schaefer); starting pitchers who could be good (Jose Urena), show signs of being good (Chase Anderson), have been good (Brett Oberholtzer), or whom we don’t actually remember drafting, much less know why we did (Jeremy Guthrie).

But there are a few guys who deserve comment.

With pick no. 368, we took T.J. House (NFBC Average Draft Position 406), and we were tempted to take him sooner. Before the draft, we looked at the 153 pitchers who threw more than 50 innings as a starter last season. For each of these, we computed a version of the pitching Holy Trinity—call it the Holy Quaternity. We started by calculating each pitcher’s (1) Ground Ball plus Infield Fly Percentage, and (2) Strikeout Percentage minus Walk Percentage. No mystery as to why those numbers might point to good pitchers, right? We then took the 39 pitchers who were in the top 50% in both those categories, looked at the Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) for each of them, calculated (or the one of us who knows what he’s doing calculated) xBABIP (expected BABIP) based on the mix of batted balls (line drives, ground balls, flies) allowed by the pitcher, and (3) compared those BABIP numbers to come up with 10 “unlucky” pitchers, whose xBABIP was better than their BABIP. Cory Kluber and Madison Bumgarner are on the list, but some surprises and half-surprises too: Hyun-Jin Ryu, Gerritt Cole, Cliff Lee, Brandon McCarthy, Marcus Stroman, Zach Wheeler, Wade Miley, and T.J. House. Meanwhile, we took the original group of 153 pitchers and also (4) found the top 50 in what let’s call “Weak Contact Percentage”: Pitchers whose pitches are hit hardest least often. And this left us with six guys: No-brainers Kluber (ADP 33), Bumgarner (ADP 28), and Cole (ADP 90); some-brainers Stroman (ADP 165) and Wheeler (ADP 161), and…House.

Then there’s the Colorado angle. With the 488th pick, we took Ben Paulsen (ADP 650). Why is this guy not getting more attention in Fantasyland? He’s a left-handed hitter in Colorado who hit four home runs in 66 plate appearances with the big club last season and figures to hit 20 with anything like regular playing time. And all that stands between him and regular playing time is a healthy Justin Morneau—essentially, in other words, a coin toss.

We also took Colorado second baseman DJ LeMahieu (ADP 368) with the 338th pick. If you’re playing in a league with daily transactions, or even one like ours (where you get to make substitutions to your starting lineup of hitters twice a week), we think he’ll outperform this draft position. What we think, more precisely, is that a platoon of LeMahieu, playing only in Colorado, and a similarly humble second baseman who has significant home/road or left/right differences (Scooter Gennett, say, who obliterates left-handed pitching) will outperform far pricier individual second basemen sufficiently to offset the use of two roster spots, and thus let you spend your big money somewhere else. Yes, that’s right: the two guys aren’t actually platooning; sometimes they’ll both be playing in good situations, and sometimes neither will be. We’ll do a full and detailed blog, and maybe more than one, on this subject down the road, but for now, please just trust us: it’s a promising approach.

Now for prospects, of both the tested and the untested varieties. As to untested prospects: we have nothing against them. We took Miguel Sano (ADP 470) with the 458th pick, though that was mostly as Trevor Plouffe Insurance—a phrase that is new to the language, we believe. But really top prospects are generally no bargain, and frequently disappoint. If you want Kris Bryant (ADP 104) or Joc Pederson (ADP 203), you’re welcome to him. (The small-minded among you will point out that we ourselves took Jorge Soler, but we think he showed enough with the Cubs last year to move out of the “untested” category.)

No, mindful as always that there’s no success like failure, we have a completely unproven theory about prospects that we call The Brandon Phillips Hypothesis. Phillips’s heartening saga you are no doubt familiar with: top prospect with the Indians; good minor league record; handed their second-base job at the start of the 2003 season, with grisly results (.208/.242/.311); spends the next two years toiling in the minors, doing nothing that prompts more than token late-season call-ups; traded to Cincinnati at the start of the 2006 season, whereupon he has a superb season and a fine career that continues to this day, albeit in gradual but dignified decline.

The underlying idea is that the people who devise top-100 lists know what they’re doing, and that good stats at a certain level of play betoken good stats in the major leagues eventually. So we went looking for players who: (1) were top 100 prospects back in the day; (2) performed well enough in the high minors to suggest that they’re more than merely “projectable,” as the scouts say, and that their native ability translates into actual performance; (3) did poorly in non-trivial major-league auditions, whereupon they were (4) exiled to the minors, where they spent (5) at least one full season; (6) are now affiliated with a different major league team than the one they auditioned with, (7) are on the sunny side of 30, and (8) have a more than microscopic chance of decent playing time with that new team. Behold Matt Davidson (578th pick in our draft, ADP 673), whom the White Sox would like to be their starting Third Basemen, and outfielder Joe Benson. The latter was the 743rd pick in our draft, and so completely obscure that he wasn’t even to be found on NFBC’s putatively comprehensive player list. He has a shot at playing some left field for Atlanta; let’s see how spring training goes.

Passing lightly over our remaining selections, we come to Raisel Iglesias, ADP 579, whom we were craftily able to steal with the 593rd pick in our draft. He’s a 24-year-old Cuban defector, signed by the Reds last year to a 7-year contract worth $27 million. We’ll discuss him in the next post or two, as part of an inquiry into how we might translate the likelihood of greater success by a Reality Baseball team into individual Fantasy Baseball sleeper candidates.