Mailbag: June28, 2012

It’s Thursday, so it’s time to answer the questions you’ve sent me at the BaseballGuys’ Twitter account.

Mike Stanton for Bryce Harper/Trevor Plouffe/Andre Ethier?
@wekings007

Reality check everyone. As great as Stanton is and will one day be, he’s merely an impressive power hitter right now. The best hitter on the planet in May, he’s been pretty darn blah the other two months of the season. In the end he’s on pace to hit .274 with 35 homers, 100 RBI and 90 runs. Those are impressive totals indeed, but they are not the jump off the page I’m going to win a fantasy championship because of them numbers. Did you listen when I told you to back down from expectations before the season started?

I know that Ethier injured his left oblique Wednesday, and that there is no clear cur answer as to how much time he  is going to miss throwing his value up in the air, but do you know what his current pace is for the Dodgers? How about 291 with 20 homers, 115 RBI and 75 runs. Is that really that far off of Stanton’s pace? Harper has slowed a bit but he’s still hitting .281 with a .841 OPS and a pace that would lead to a 20/20 season over a full slate of games.

Plouffe is the wild card. Over his last 10 games he has hit .243 with one homer, a far cry from the insane pace he set early in the month when he blasted nine homers with 16 RBI in 12 games. The power is legit, he’s gone deep 25 times in 512 career at-bats, but he’s also hit .232 with a mere .299 OBP – not exactly the stuff of legend. Still, he qualifies at shortstop and third in all league, and in most he’s also eligible in the outfield and possibly even second base.

If Ethier was healthy this would be a killer deal. Even with him injured it’s certainly not an awful haul, even though Stanton is the most exciting player in the group. I think the question becomes which two players would you need to drop since you’re adding three players and only sending one away? Add in those two players and the deal likely won’t make sense.

Where is Wil Myers going to play if KC promotes him? How long before promotion?
@The_Real_Ray_D

I get this question all the time, and here is my standard answer.

Alex Gordon will be playing everyday in the outfield.

Jeff Francoeur, unless he is traded (the club is probably hoping they can move Frenchie), will be playing everyday in the outfield.

Lorenzo Cain, slated to start in CF this year before injuries struck (remember when he was killing it in the preseason leading to people drafting him as one of the potential breakout starts of 2012?), is closing in on a return to the big leagues as his rehab work (hip issue) was shifted to Triple-A this week.

Billy Butler is the DH and Eric Hosmer is the first baseman.

Where can Myers fit in there? He can’t is the answer. The Royals will need to trade Francoeur, or Cain will have to stall out in his recovery to give the power hitting Myers a chance to play everyday in the bigs (Myers is killing it hitting .325 with 35 homers and 65 RBI in 75 minor league games this year). As I wrote last November in my AFL – 2011 Review column, the guy is gonna be a star – we’re just going to have to wait a bit longer.

Any chance Logan Morrison will have a decent second half?
@peterjpappas

After hitting 23 homers with 72 RBIs last year there was some hope that LoMo would take his game to the next level this season as a prime time run producing force. He hasn’t. His average is down .020 points to .227 and his OBP has dropped to .305 (career .340). He’s on pace for about 18 homers and 55 RBI. He’s also walking less than he did in either of his two previous seasons. Toss in a sickly .241 BABIP, some .041 points below his career rate, and there really isn’t much to get excited about here at all. I can’t envision a player of his skill set being this bad all year long, but there’s nothing going on here that screams to me that LoMo is going to be a significant player in the fantasy game the ROTW.

Jon Lester and Michael Bourn for Justin Verlander?
@franksyanks23

Lester has a 5-5 record, 4.53 ERA and 1.34 WHIP. After years of upper echelon work those are terribly disappointing numbers. Still, he’s tossed 5-straight “quality starts” as he slowly seems to be rounding into form. Oddly, Lester has lost more than a batter off his K/9 rate while also dropping a batter off his BB/9 rate. The result us a 2.93 K/BB ratio that would actually be a three year best if you can believe it. He’s also produced a 1.76 GB/FB ratio that is better than his 1.44 career rate. The real issue is that his he’s been getting hit hard. Currently his line drive rate is 23.3 percent, an unheard of level for a guy with a 19 percent career mark that has kept that mark under 21 percent each of the past four years. I’d expect his effort to continue to improve.

Bourn has been an elite performer — just like I said he would be. Oddly though, he’s accomplished it in a bit different way that was expected. After hitting seven homers the past three years he has gone deep seven times this season. Clearly this is one of those random things that just happens sometimes (don’t expect him to go deep 15 times this year). However, after 3-straight years of at least 52 steals he has “only” 20 thefts this year. He’s still on pace for a fifth straight effort of 40-steals, but it would be nice to see a few more stolen bases. Still, you can’t complain when Bourn is hitting .309 with 50 runs scored in 74 games.

Verlander is as good as it gets. His ERA is up a tenth from last year to 2.52, his WHIP is up less than a tenth to 0.97, and his K/9 rate is down three tenths to 8.64. Wow, he’s really fallen off. He’s the pinnacle of the elite. Period.

The deal is pretty fair for both sides. Most people don’t want to give up the “best player” in a deal, but the return here is significant – an elite outfielder and a solid hurler who is slowly rounding into form.

I was offered Chase Utley or Billy Butler for Derek Jeter? I have Jose Reyes to play SS and Allen Craig to play 2B.
@NY_G123

Pull the breaks on the hype train. Utley returned to action, and homered in his first game, but there is NO way you can take him for Jeter straight up, even if you do have Reyes to fill in at shortstop. None. Utley missed nearly the first three months of the season with knee issues, this coming on the heels of seasons of 115 and 103 games played. You know the Phillies aren’t going to play him every day the rest of the way either (he’s resting Thursday). I’m all for taking a shot on Utley because I think he will still be an effective hitter when on the field, but you’d be better off pouring soap in your eye and trying to read a smutty novel than doing this deal.

The Butler offer does make sense. Though everyone always likes to put the guy down, or just flat out overlook him for some reason, Butler is a hell of a hitter. Not only is he hitting .297, he’s hit at least .291 each of the past three years, he’s also on pace for a career best in the homer category with 15 through 72 games (his previous best is 21 homers). I don’t think he’ll get to 30 homers, it’s not likely that he’ll be able to keep his 22.1 percent HR/F rate given that it’s double his career rate of 11 percent, but that doesn’t mean a .300-25-100 season can be ruled out for the Royals’ hitter.

In this situation, with Reyes ready to take over at short, I’d take Butler in the deal. Jeter has solid all-around numbers (.305-7-25-40-6) but he’s had only 12 RBI and hit a mere .269 over his last 50 games played after his tremendous start to the year.

Ray Flowers can be heard daily on Sirius/XM Radio on The Fantasy Drive on Sirius 210 and XM 87 from 5-8 PM EDT, Monday through Friday.

Around the Horn: June19, 2012

(1) R.A. Dickey – is he the best pitcher in baseball?

(2) Mike Trout – is he the best player in fantasy baseball?

(3) Royals OF situation is muddled. When will we see Wil Myers?

(4) Josh Hamilton should return to starting lineup Tuesday.

(5) Jason Marquis, strikeout artist for Padres?

(6) Aaron Hill on fire of late. A top-10 2B?

(7) Astros coaching staff destroys Brett Myers with moronic usage.

(8) Mark Prior — he’s baaaack? Close to return for Red Sox?

By Ray Flowers

Player Profile: Delmon Young

In 2010 Delmon Young was a star. Not only did he finish one hit from a .300 season, he also bashed a career best 21 homers and socked 46 doubles. Young also knocked in 112 runs, the 8th highest total in baseball, more than Robinson Cano (109), Mark Teixeira (108), Ryan Howard (108), Evan Longoria (104), Ryan Braun (103), Matt Holliday (103) etc. So how is it that Young is currently going off the board as the 65th outfielder taken with an ADP of 233 overall according to MockDraftCentral?

The most obvious answer as to why Young is being drafted after guys like Lorenzo Cain, Seth Smith and Lucas Duda is that Young failed to follow up his breakout 2010 effort last season. Young slumped to a career worst .268, hit only 12 homers, scored just 54 runs and nearly saw his RBI total cut in half as he produced just 64. As I talk/write about all the time, people have really short attention spans at times. However, one would hope that if a formerly impressive performer struggled but turns things on toward the end of the year, that people would remember that. Apparently that is not the case with Young. After joining the Tigers Young, who had four homers and 32 RBI in 84 games with the Twins, went on to blast eight homers with 32 RBI in 40 games with the Tigers. Delmon isn’t going to hit 32 homers with 128 RBI this season, but that hot finish should have spurred some interest in Young, but alas, it really hasn’t.

One of the biggest issues with Young has always been expectations. I say that because Young has never become the superstar that people expected he would be when he was taken first overall in the 2003 draft. Go back and look at prospect reports and you will see that Young was ranked as the number one prospect in baseball for multiple seasons. He’s only had one effort in five full seasons that is worthy of that designation though, an as a result I would bet you that people are burying Young as a “failure” instead of realizing that he is a pretty solid performer – once expectations are thrown out the window.

What Young isn’t is a power hitter. He never will be. It’s possible he might hit 25 homers one day, but 30 homers is likely a pipe dream, hardly a surprise given that he has averaged 14 homers a season the last five years. The reason for the lack of long ball power is that Young has never learned how to lift the ball. The major league average fly ball rate is about 37 percent. For his career Young’s fly ball rate is 33.6 percent. If he isn’t hitting a lot of fly balls then he’s going to need a big HR/F ratio to give him homers (like Ryan Howard). Unfortunately, Young is the owner of a 9.2 percent HR/F rate, right on the major league average. He’s never going to be a big time power bat.

Young also will never lead his team in thefts. He does have two seasons with double-digit thefts with a career-high of 14 back in 2008, but over the last three seasons he’s stolen a total of eight bases while being caught nine times. That’s just pathetic.

However, Young is a strong hitter in terms of his ability to produce hits. Young owns a career batting average of .288 and prior to last season he had never hit below .284 in a season. Why the slump last year then? Though he had an 18.3 percent line drive rate in 2011, one tenth above his career rate of 18.2 percent, his BABIP was a career worst .320 (some .026 points below his career average). A few more of those batted balls should fall for hits in 2012, and with those hits, his batting average will return.

As stated, Young has his limits. He’s never going to be a power hitter, and 2010 might go down as the best RBI campaign of his career. He’s also never learned how to take a pitch, his career BB/K mark is hideous at 0.24, so he will likely have plenty of dry spells throughout the year (being such a free swinger might limit him to being a .285 hitter versus a guy who could hit .315 if he just showed some patience). Regardless of the holes in his game, Young would appear to be a fantastic bargain at his current ADP level. If he’s your 5th outfielder in a mixed league your team will likely be in pretty good shape for the coming season.

By Ray Flowers

Giants, Royals Deal

The Giants added a bat, something everyone knows that they need, while dealing away a problem child who might have had the best arm on the team. The Giants also managed to do something that I always tell people not to do in the fantasy game. What boner did they pull? The sold low and bought high. Maybe they should spend some more time reading my stuff.

The Deal:
Giants Receive: Melky Cabrera
Royal Receive: Jonathan Sanchez and Ryan Verdugo

Cabrera had the best season of a rather undistinguished career in 2011 as he hit .305 with 18 homers, 20 steals, 87 RBI and 102 runs scored. He also racked up 201 hits to impress everyone. However, this is what I see. Cabrera had success because of the copious plate appearance total. I mean, he had 706 of them (the 11th most in baseball). As a result, he was able to post career bests in RBI, runs, hits, doubles (44), homers etc. In terms of his ratios, his BB-rate of 5.0 percent was a career worst. His K-rate of 13.3 percent was a career worst. His .339 OBP was only .008 better than his career rate. His 1.44 GB/FB ratio was just off his career mark of 1.52. His line drive rate of 20.3 percent was only slightly above his 19.4 percent career mark. He also posted a career-high of .332 in the BABIP category, .033 points better than his career average and the first time he had a mark in the .300′s since 2006. It was a strong year in terms of his fantasy value, but in terms of his real world performance his success was largely a factor of those 706 PAs and not because of growth in his game.

Sanchez was a strong performer in 2010 when he went 13-9 with a 3.07 ERA, 1.23 WHIP and 205 Ks in 193.1 innings. Last season he regressed. Not only was he limited to just 101.1 innings with issues with his elbow, he also saw his K/9 mark go down half a batter (it was still an impressive 9.06), while his terrible BB/9 rate (4.47 in 2010) shot up well past pathetic into the realm of atrocious (5.86). So instead of trading him coming off his best season, the Giants held on and ended up having top deal him at his lowest point in four years. Great move guys. Sanchez still owns dominating stuff, but until he does a better job of throwing strikes it just won’t matter. If he were able to get his walk rate under control, and to this point the best BB/9 mark he’s ever had is 4.27 in 2008 – a full batter above the big league average mind you – Sanchez would be one of the better left-handed starting pitchers in baseball. Unfortunately, he’s shown little consistency in his career and the results are a mediocre WHIP (1.39) and ERA (4.26). At this point he’s mostly potential and little substance.

Verdugo is a left-handed starter much in the same mold as Sanchez. He throws hard, his K/9 mark is in the double digits during his minor league career (11.1), but he’s also walking far too many batters leading to 4.5 BB/9 mark. When he’s locked in few can hit him, but far too often he ends up beating himself. He’s not a lock to contribute with the Royals this season either as he has thrown just 130.1 innings at the Double-A level.

If everything comes together for Sanchez the Giants will rue the day they made this deal. It will also end up looking bad if they (a) fail to sign Cabrera to a long term deal (he’s a free agent after the 2012 season), or (b) if Cabrera returns to being the hitter he was for his entire career prior to 2011. As stated, much of what Cabrera accomplished in 2011 was the result, NOT of improvements in his game, but because of all those extra plate appearances an a rather fortuitous BABIP mark. The data seem to favor a regression in the batting average (career .275), in the homer category (he’d never hit more than 17 homers in back-to-back seasons before hitting 18 in 2011), and in the steals department for Melky (he’d never stolen more than 13 bags in a season, and with 10 caught stealing last year in 30 attempts he really didn’t add anything to the offense). The Giants needed a bat and Cabrera fills that need, but let’s hope the Giants realize that they would be lucky to get a repeat effort out of Cabrera in 2012 so they still have a lot of work to do to bolster an offense that was the club’s undoing in 2011.

Final Notes

The Giants’ outfield might be Cabrera in center, Nate Schierholtz in right and ??? They could be interested in bringing back Carlos Beltran and/or Andres Torres/Cody Ross, but for now the look of the outfield is one of a second division club. If it’s Aubrey Huff in left and Brandon Belt at first base, would that make you feel any better? Me neither.

Lorenzo Cain will likely open the 2012 season as the Royals starting center fielder. After hitting .312 with 16 homers, 81 RBI, 84 runs and 16 steals at Triple-A in 2011, he’s someone to remember in the later rounds of mixed league drafts – he’s got the skills to offer a substantial season in 2012.

By Ray Flowers

Do Sleepers Exist?

There was an article posted today at Fanball called 2011 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers. First off, I have a huge problem with the term “sleeper.” It’s so ingrained in our minds that when it is left out of a draft guide or preseason preview we get tons of emails asking how we could be so stupid as to not including such an article in our coverage.

Honestly though, what good is a “sleeper” article? In 1994 there was a point to it, but that time has long passed. In the “old days” before the internet blew up, data was hard to come by. Only those that really attempted to ferret it out were able to find it. However, information is everyone at this point. You can get it online for free – just like you do here at BaseballGuys – and you can find information everyone on the internet if you want to pay a few bucks. There are also shows on television dealing only with fantasy baseball, and I host a daily radio on Sirius/XM Radio where we talk about fantasy sports three hours a day (5-8 PM, EDT). The point is, with the data available in virtually every medium you could think of, there really are no true “sleepers” anymore. By draft day every player has been analyzed and worked over, so much so in many instances that a guy who was a sleeper in early January ends up being drafted in the 10th round in your mixed league draft in late March.

I think the best we can do is to put forward a list of players who are likely to be undervalued on draft day, though again, that value is completely arbitrary and will be determined totally based upon how those in your league value the players (if you buy Daric Barton in New York he might cost $7, but try purchasing him for less than $10 if you live in California).

Here are the names that were on the “sleeper” list I refered to at the top of the piece. In what follows I give my own thoughts on each (each writer took one player and gave his reasons why that guy should be a draft day target in the original piece).

Pedro Alvarez: He hit a combined 29 homers last season between Triple-A and the majors, but he also struck out a shameful 187 times. With such a poor approach at the dish, Alvarez is much more Adam Dunn than he is Ryan Zimmerman. Still, he has a shot to be a top-10 third basemen.

Mike Aviles: In his two healthy seasons he has hit better than .300. Do you know how many .300 seasons that Chase Utley has? Try two. Aviles seems capable of going 10/10 as well, and though his run producing is suspect, only nine players hit .300 with 10 homers and 10 steals in 2010.

Homer Bailey: He still needs to work on his secondary stuff, but Bailey pitched really well over his last 10 starts with a 3.55 ERA, 1.27 WHIP and 59 Ks in 58.1 innings. He seems locked into a starting role with the Reds, and despite seeming like he has been around forever, Homer is just 24 years old.

Jay Bruce: He is a huge breakout candidate after his dynamic finish (.338-15-29 over his last 43 games) in 2010. However, that finish will have Bruce on everyone’s list of breakout candidates in 2011. There is no disputing that the youngster could be a huge run producer, and he has seen his walk rate improve each year, but the strikeouts are a concern.

Lorenzo Cain: He hit for average and flashed speed in 43 games after hitting .317 with 26 thefts in 84 games in the minors. Cain has hit .291 in the minors in his career, but it’s hard to envision him continuing to hit so well in a full season of work. The Royals believe in him as he was part of the package of players they received for Zack Greinke.

Starlin Castro: He was awful on the base paths with a 56 percent stolen base rate, and he closed out the year on a down note hitting .232 over his last 23 games. Someone will likely pay top dollar for a guy who might be merely solid in 2011 though he did hit .300 last year while not being able to legally pull back on a bottle of Jack.

Chris Coghlan: While his production was down in year two you can take solace in the fact he closed strong hitting .312 over his last 42 games. As a result, he is slated to start the year as the Marlins leadoff hitter. The knee he injured in a post game celebration should be fine for the start of games, but I worry about his ability to handle center field, the position he is currently slated to play.

Aaron Hill: This is the player in the review I referenced. Here is what I wrote.

“Let me construct this rather obvious case in three steps. (1) Even though he ‘struggled’ in 2010, Hill was tied for fourth amongst second basemen in homers with 26. He has 62 homers in the last two seasons, second most at the position (Dan Uggla has 64). (2) Hill has 176 RBI over the past two years, third most at second base. Clearly he is an elite power option. (3) From 2006-09, Hill hit at least .286 three times and he possesses a career .270 average. However, he hit just .205 in 2010. What in the hell happened? Hill owns a career line drive rate of 18.5 percent, slightly below the big league average (20 percent), but somehow that number dropped to a mere 10.6 percent last year. That’s roughly the equivalent to Adam Dunn hitting about 21 homers. Hill had the absolute worst LD-rate and BABIP (.196) in baseball, and there is about as much chance of that happening again in 2011 as there is of me getting a mid-season call up to the Giants. If he maintains his power from the last two years, he’ll go deep 31 times with 88 RBI, while matching his career .270 average would given him one hell of a season. Hello, Dan Uggla.”

Jonathan Niese: He made 30 starts for the Mets posting a 4.20 ERA. However, that’s somewhat deceiving; Niese had a 3.76 ERA after 28 starts before he was tanked in his last two outings (*12 ER in 8.1 innings). His numbers were sort of Doug Davis-ish with a 1.46 WHIP, 148 Ks and 62 walks in 173.2 innings. If he can locate his pitches, and keep the walks down, his ERA could easily be in the 3′s in 2011.

Jordan Zimmerman: A potential ace who is coming back from Tommy John surgery, Zimmerman is the classic “sleeper” who everyone will talk up to the point that he won’t be drafted like one. He should be 100 percent this season, and with a 8.76 K/9 and a 3.05 K/BB over 122.1 big league innings his future is definitely looking plenty bright.

By Ray Flowers