Will Zimmerman Fly Under Radar?

by
December 30, 2008

Heading into the 2008 season, Ryan Zimmerman was a Top 10 fantasy third baseman according to most cheat sheets. Then he suffered a shoulder injury that caused him to miss 47 days during the year. Prior to the injury, Zimmerman was having a poor season. He posted a .257/.291/.427 line in 220 plate appearances before hitting the DL. Upon returning to the active roster, Zimmerman went .306/.370/.455 in his final 245 PA. And there has been no reports of lingering problems with the shoulder in the off-season.

Zimmerman hits for a pretty good AVG but does not offer the slugging one would expect from a top 3B. His HR/FB% has been remarkably consistent the past three seasons, with last year’s 11.5 percent a tenth of a percent higher than his previous two campaigns. The problem is he doesn’t hit enough fly balls. Last year his FB% was just 34.1 percent.

Since we know Zimmerman is not going to be a big HR threat, he needs to maximize his other categories in order to be an elite player at the hot corner. A .300 AVG is not out of the question nor is 100 RBIs and Runs.

If Zimmerman can hit those targets, he could be a top 10 3B even with a HR output in the low 20s. One thing to keep in mind is the depth of the 3B position, which gets a big boost from players at other positions (like Kevin Youkilis, Aubrey Huff and Christopher Davis) who played mostly elsewhere in 2008 yet still surpassed the 20-game mark at the hot corner. It’s not a given Zimmerman will be a starting-quality 3B.

But fantasy owners can’t simply allow Zimmerman to fall off the radar, either. Because of last year’s injury problems and his lack of big HR numbers throughout his career, he’s likely to be under-valued in many drafts. And with a decent chance to approach triple-digits in Runs and RBIs, Zimmerman offers a lot of upside for a player apt to be available in the bottom half of most drafts.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.




 

Comments are closed.