Love or hate him?
In other words, what follows is an objective look at who these experts love and hate, relative to all the other experts we track. Here are the players that stood out for our most accurate experts:
R.J. White, Fantasy Baseball Cafe
Q: You seem to like Brandon Beachy a lot more than most of our experts. In fact, your rank of #79 overall for Beachy is 34 spots better than his ECR of #113 (which makes you the president of his fan club). Why are you so optimistic about his prospects this season?A: “There’s a lot to love about Beachy. We know that dominant strikeout pitchers stand the best chance at being elite fantasy pitchers (no one ever groans despondently in a draft when Mark Buerhle comes off the board), and no one with at least 80 innings last season had a better strikeout rate than Mr. Beachy’s 10.74 K/9 rate. And he didn’t blow people away at the expense of control, as he walked less than three batters per nine. FIP and xFIP said that Beachy’s ERA should have been a half-run better than the 3.68 he earned. At 25 years old, this isn’t an elite pitcher? He may have faltered in the second half, but chalk that up to unlucky hit and strand rates. He’s become the Braves ace from a fantasy standpoint after just one season.”
Q: At the other end of the spectrum, it looks like Asdrubal Cabrera could be on your “players I hate” list since you ranked him a full 45 spots lower than our expert consensus. His ECR is #66 but you have him outside of your top 100 at #111. Aside from not having ‘Miguel’ as a first name, why are you so down on him this year?A: “As an Asdrubal owner last year, you’d think I’d be more bullish on him heading into 2012. Where did that power come from? I doubt even Cabrera himself knew, but after a strong first half (13 HRs, 12 SBs, .296 average), he started swinging for the fences and destroying much of his value (12 HRs, 5 SBs, .246 average). Averaged together, it looks like a very strong season, but when projecting for 2012, I tend to put more weight into the second-half performance. I actually feel safer with a guy like J.J. Hardy, who actually has a history of hitting home runs (albeit a distant history). I’m definitely not willing to pay a premium for Cabrera; in fact, give me Alexei Ramirez, a guy that could put up identical numbers (15-20 HRs, 10-plus steals and a average in the .270s) for half the price, if A-Cab suffers expected regression.”
Q: Another player you’re relatively down on is Ian Kennedy. Given his breakout year last year, what makes you think he’ll under-perform vs. his consensus rank of #72? You have him ranked 23 spots lower at #95.A: “I don’t know that I’m particularly down on Kennedy as much as I am high on several guys in the same tier as him, and he just happened to get the short end of the stick in my rankings. Guys the experts rank beneath Kennedy that I’d put in the tier above him include C.J. Wilson, James Shields, Mat Latos and, of course, Beachy. Then I have seven or eight guys, including Kennedy, that constantly move up and down in the same tier for me. Kennedy’s lower position in that tier (and subsequent low rating here) are a reminder not to pay for 20 wins or a sub-3.00 ERA again. I’m also not sure he can strike out more batters per nine innings than guys like Josh Johnson, Yu Darvish and Matt Moore. I don’t expect a particularly bad season from Kennedy, but if his fly ball rate rises back to former levels, he could see a not-insignificant jump in ERA. I’m perfectly willing to let someone else overpay for 2011 while I underpay for Beachy’s 2011.”
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Andy Behrens, Yahoo! Sports
Q: You currently have Jason Heyward ranked #53 overall, which is 48 spots higher than our expert consensus. In fact, you like him more than any other expert we track. Why are you so optimistic about Heyward’s outlook? Any cause for concern given his slow start in Spring Training?A: “In fairness to the person who wrote the question above, it was posed before Heyward homered off Stephen Strasburg on Wednesday. It’s as if we’ve all forgotten that Heyward was a best-in-game sort of prospect just two years ago, then delivered an 18-homer, .277/.393/.456 season at age 20. That’s plenty impressive. He’s still just 22 — young enough to retain prospect status if he weren’t already a veteran major leaguer — and he’s clearly much healthier than he was in 2011. To me, it seems crazy that the industry has bailed on this kid. The superstar-level skill set is still there. In a healthy season, you can pencil in Heyward for 25 homers and 10-15 steals with useful run production, and I think his upside is much higher.
With players like this, for whom there’s a wide range of potential outcomes, it’s definitely a challenge to place them within your ranks. In the current Yahoo! composite outfield ranks, Heyward is just behind Shane Victorino and Michael Cuddyer, two relatively easy players to forecast, assuming good health. Heyward is 22, mega-talented and trying to bounce back from a down year, so it would be fair to say he has a dangerous floor and an extraordinary ceiling — but we don’t get to rank “bad Heyward” and “good Heyward.” Somehow, we have to find a single rank (or tier) for this player that expresses his risk/reward potential. I’m obviously betting that good things will happen.”
Q: You are also 24 rank spots higher than our expert consensus on Brett Lawrie. You have him ranked 30th overall vs. our ECR of 54. What makes you so bullish about his prospects this season?A: “With Lawrie, you get an almost perfect collection of player traits for fantasy purposes: speed, power, plus an ability to hit for average. Since our questioner seems to care about spring stats, I’ll point out that Lawrie is 13-for-22 as of this writing, with six doubles, eight RBIs, four stolen bases and just one K. He’s an obvious five-category fantasy asset and a clear 20/20 candidate this season, with a shot to go 30/30. I don’t think it will take long for Lawrie to find himself hitting in the heart of the order for the Jays. I’ll gladly take whatever abuse comes my way for drafting this kid in Round 3 or 4.”
Q: On the other hand, you don’t seem to be expecting as much from Curtis Granderson as our other experts. You have him ranked at 35, which is 14 spots lower than his ECR of 21. There are only two experts that are more pessimistic about Granderson’s outlook. Given his breakout season last year, why do you think he’ll regress?A: “OK, let’s please acknowledge that an overall rank of No. 35 is not pessimistic. Let’s also note that the Granderson breakout actually happened in 2007, back when he was 26 years old. He’s now 31 and coming off a season in which the keys to his fantasy value were exceptionally high run and RBI totals: 136 and 119. In order for any player to repeat such crazy-high numbers, a lot of things need to go just right. You basically know that Granderson will be a liability in batting average — he’s just a year removed from a .247 season, and he hit .262 in 2011 — so he’ll have to be dominant in the other four standard categories if he’s going to deliver top-of-draft value.”
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Reggie Yinger, Baseball Press
Q: You’re a lot higher on Madison Bumgarner than most of our experts. You’ve ranked him 19 spots above his expert consensus rank of #71. Can you give us some insight on why you think he deserves an overall rank of #52?A: “Although Madison Bumgarner is plagued by an anemic offense and poor defense in San Francisco, he still showed great potential last season. MadBum didn’t produce terrific numbers in the first half of play (4-9 W-L, 3.87 ERA, 7.9 K/9) but showed reason to be excited in 2012 after posting a second-half line of 9-4 W-L, 2.52 ERA, 8.9 K/9. He’s a left-handed pitcher that has impeccable control, the ability to strike hitters out (8.4 K/9 in ’11) and keep the ball on the ground. A lot of fantasy owners overlook Bumgarner due to the presence of Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain, but that will change in 2012, as he’ll be just as good if not better than the two this season.”
Q: You’re a little less bullish on Pablo Sandoval than our expert consensus. Your rank of #56 is 10 spots below his ECR of #46. Let us know why you think he might under-perform vs. our expectations.A: “I like Pablo Sandoval at third base, but I think fantasy owners are “reaching” for him in most drafts. I see a guy who isn’t physically fit, battled injuries last season, and has only put together one really good season prior to 2011. There’s no doubt that Sandoval will have a batting average close to or above .300, but I’m not sure he will hit 20-to-25 home runs, or even be healthy enough to play in 150 games. Third base is a stacked position in fantasy baseball, and it’s also full of veterans like Kevin Youkilis and Alex Rodriguez. It would be hard for me to pass up an A-Rod type for a Pablo Sandoval.”
Q: Overall, your rankings seemed much closer to our ECR than the other experts we analyzed. Would you say that you just tend to agree with the expert consensus or do you consciously try to limit your outlier predictions to produce a more ‘conservative’ cheat sheet?
A: “I usually agree with what most “experts” say, but let’s be honest, no one knows what players are going to do. That’s what makes the game of baseball great. Every expert can say that Player A is better than Player B prior to the start of a season, but it may not happen that way when everything is said and done. The projections/rankings that I personally put together capture years of data along with injury information. I really think each fantasy owner is different, and while rankings/projections are a nice “check and balance” system, you ultimately have to play the fantasy baseball draft and go with your gut feeling.”
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I want to thank R.J., Andy, and Reggie for contributing their insights for this post. And for all of you that are juggling fantasy baseball with March Madness, good luck with both your league drafts and basketball brackets!
