Ian Desmond will now call the hitter-friendly confines of Coors Field home

My friends and I have a fun game in the offseason. We take the top free agents and rank the 10 most likely destinations for each one. The most accurate guy, determined by a complex formula that only I know (which is why I always win), gets a steak dinner paid for by the rest of us.

Ian Desmond has put us in a bit of a bind this year. Why? Because none of us had the Rockies listed as a possible destination. I mean, the Phillies even made one guy’s cut. But the Rockies? No way. Thankfully, according to my super-secret formula, I am awarded 10 points in such a situation, and am that much closer to expanding my waistline at no charge!

Check out our 2017 consensus rankings

Anyway, Desmond and the Rockies entered into a five-year, $70 million contract on Wednesday. On a personal level, I love this deal. Good for the Rockies, who had quietly built themselves into a stealth contender for 2017, for going for it and even surrendering a high draft pick. And good for Desmond, who took a one-year gamble on himself and now gets to cash in with some security.

So what does this mean for Desmond and his fantasy prospects? As with all hitters who join the Rockies, it’s pretty much entirely good news. First, according to Ken Rosenthal, the Rockies plan to play Desmond at both first base and outfield. Sure, we would have preferred a return to shortstop for position scarcity purposes, but in case you haven’t noticed, first base isn’t all that deep anymore. Dual-eligibility is always a plus, regardless of the positions.

Prior to 2016, Desmond had seen three straight years of decline in batting average, OBP, slugging percentage, and BABIP, coinciding with three straight years of an increase in his strikeout percentage. Not surprisingly, this led to a less than robust free agent market for Desmond, who settled for a one-year, $8 million deal with the Rangers last year.

Desmond bounced back in a big way, reversing his negative trends in each of the aforementioned categories. On the surface, Desmond’s final line (.285 batting average, 107 runs, 22 homers, 86 RBI, 21 SBs, with a .782 OPS) looks pretty great. But the warning lights are going off pretty hard here:

• 2016 Pre-All-Star Break: .322 batting average, 65 runs, 15 homers, 55 RBI, 15 SBs, with an .899 OPS
• 2016 Post-All-Star Break: .237 batting average, 42 runs, seven homers, 31 RBI, six SBs, with a .630 OPS.

In other words, Desmond’s rebound season was really much more of a first half rebound, and he looked a lot like the declining version of Ian Desmond fantasy owners had gotten used to in the second half. So, I wasn’t really planning to get too excited about him this season.

But enter the Rockies and good old Coors Field. Desmond’s slash line in 23 games in Coors Field is .379/.406/.611. Perhaps even more importantly, Desmond’s strikeout rate, which sits at 23.5% for his career, is just 18% at Coors Field. While that decline could be written off as a relatively small sample, because the thin air in Colorado tends to lessen the movement of breaking pitches, high strikeout sluggers generally see a decrease in their K-rate when they make Coors Field their home (see Reynolds, Mark).

So, what can we expect from Desmond in 2017? Well no, he’s not going to have that 1.000-plus OPS he has in Coors Field in his career – after all, he’s not going to be hitting against the Rockies’ pitchers every day. But can he maintain what he did last year? Yes, I’ll buy that.

Look, I understand that everyone wants to see Desmond hit 30 homers now that he’s playing for the Rockies. But, Coors Field, for all its glory, isn’t quite the home run haven everyone thinks it is. The park has spacious dimensions that offsets the thin air a bit (347/350 to left and right, 415 to center, 390/375 in the alleys). What it does help is batting average, because it decreases a batter’s strikeout rate and the spacious confines provide a lot of room for balls to fall in.

Basically, in a neutral setting, I would have expected a fairly sharp decline in Desmond’s numbers from last year. I’d rather trust the 3 1/2 years of mediocre/declining production rather than his first half last year. With a move to Coors Field, however, I’m willing to think that he’s able to hold his overall 2016 line, though it’s fair to expect his RBI numbers to increase a bit, while he drops a handful of steals (you can’t expect a 31-year-old who now has a comfy long-term deal to keep pushing the envelope on the basepaths, right?).

One last note is that for those of you who play in points leagues, Desmond’s value definitely gets a bump. He’ll have fewer strikeouts and more doubles and triples (spacious ballpark plus more balls in play equals more extra-base hits), which moves the needle significantly in points leagues vs. rotisserie leagues. But in either format, Desmond should provide solid value once again.

Dan Harris is a correspondent with FantasyPros. For more from Dan, check out his archive or follow him on Twitter at @danharris80.