The keystone position was once one lacking in depth. This year, that’s not the case. As a result, I see little reason to pay a position scarcity markup for some of the guys ranked in the top-70 players overall. Some of the top options are worth spending a premium pick on, but the quartet below doesn’t look like they’re worth investing in at their respective costs when you can get similar-ish production for cheaper.
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Brian Dozier (MIN): ECR No. 34
Dozier enjoyed a career year last season fueled by an insanely hot finish which I covered previously. The soon-to-be 30-year-old second baseman’s flyball percentage and hard-hit ball percentage have increased every season he’s been in the Majors, so a new high in homers shouldn’t have been a complete surprise. However, going from never hitting as many as 30 homers in a season to belting 42 was an unlikely leap, and it would be unwise to bank on a repeat.
Prior to last season, Dozier was the owner of a 10.8% HR/FB%, according to FanGraphs. Last year, he tallied an 18.4% HR/FB%. His career mark is probably an unfair comparison since his HR/FB% has increased every year in The Show as he’s hit the ball harder, but when he set his previous single-season high of 28 homers, he did so with just a 13.1% HR/FB%. Put another way, his increase of 5.3% in HR/FB% from 2015 to 2016 was greater than the increases he made from 2013 (9.9%) to 2015 (13.1%, a gain of 3.2%). Furthermore, of the 34 qualified hitters in 2016 with a HR/FB% matching Dozier’s or higher, only six players, including Dozier, had a hard-hit ball rate (Hard%) lower than 35%. He’s almost certainly going to give homers back this year, and 30-to-35 homers should be the healthy season expectation, not a repeat of surpassing 40.
Giving back some long balls will impact Dozier’s average. He hit .268 last year, a new career high. Doing some simple math, if you were to turn 10 of Dozier’s 2016 homers into outs leaving him within the 30-to-35 homer range I suggested is in reach above, his average would have dropped to .252, still representing a career high. Expecting Dozier to be much more than a .250 hitter with 30 long balls is ill-advised, and a little poor luck on his fly balls could result in him falling short of either of those marks — which isn’t out of the realm of possibility. He can swipe bags and stole 18 last year, and he’s a helpful contributor in the run production categories, but the total package after regression simply isn’t worth a top-35 pick.
Rougned Odor (TEX): ECR No. 45
Odor produced at a high level for a 22-year-old last year smacking 33 homers with a .271 AVG, 14 steals, 89 runs and 88 RBIs. Father time is on his side, and I can understand the appeal of investing in a youngster who’s already got such an impressive fantasy season under his belt. Having said that, there are plenty of flies in the ointment, and they present reasons to proceed with caution as opposed to projecting another step forward.
The young second baseman is an impatient hitter as evidenced by his 3.0% BB% last year. Among qualified hitters, he totaled the sixth highest chase rate (O-Swing) at 41.8% and the ninth highest swing rate (Swing%) overall at 54.3%. He was a hacker, to put it mildly. The hacking came with some swing and miss, and his 12.0% swinging strike percentage (SwStr%) was tied for the 30th highest among qualified hitters in 2016. His aggressiveness gave him multiple chances to put the ball in play despite the swing and miss in his game, but his 21.4% K% was still a pinch above the league average of 21.1%, according to FanGraphs. Such an aggressive approach has potential to be used against him by pitchers, namely by getting him to chase at their offerings out of the zone — something he clearly did quite willingly last season as the O-Swing% illustrated.
Odor stole 14 bases in 2016, but he was inefficient getting caught stealing seven times. The result was a 66.7% stolen base success rate. The success rate was a major step up from his previous seasons in the Majors (36.4% in 2014 and 46.2% in 2015), but he’ll need to improve the efficiency yet again or run the risk of getting the red light to steal bases. It’s possible he makes gains as a base stealer and makes a run for 20 steals, however, it’s not a given with a track record of inefficiency at swiping bags.
Odor’s a promising youngster with a likely bright future. If you own him in keeper and dynasty leagues, you should be happy. In re-draft leagues, though, I see more downside than upside to selecting him with a top-50 selection, and that’s the current average cost to draft him.
Ian Kinsler (DET): ECR No. 62
Second base is a position where players haven’t historically aged well. Kinsler will turn 35 in late June. Paul Swydan of FanGraphs did a great job of tackling second basemen aging and Kinsler in particular. It’s an excellent piece, worth a read and I don’t have anything to add to the age angle of concern surrounding Kinsler. Instead, I’ll point out that Kinsler jumped into the power surge the league enjoyed as a whole and hit 28 homers after failing to hit 20 or more in any season since 2011. The power was part of one of his best offensive seasons of his career.
If wRC+ is your offensive stat of choice, his 123 mark was tied for the second-highest in a season in his career. Since reaching the Bigs in 2006, Kinsler has five seasons of besting an 110 wRC+ and just three north of 120. In the three years before 2016, Kinsler totaled a 106 wRC+, averaged 13.67 homers per year and 13.3 stolen bases per season. The 28 dingers he hit last year were more than double his annual average for the three years before. Yeah, regression’s in order, but if the league-wide power surge carries over to next year, he could flirt with 20 taters again this season.
The 14 stolen bases Kinsler rattled off are in line with his recent work, so he could match that mark again. In fact, Steamer projects him to steal 10 bases and ZiPS projects him to steal 11, so double-digit steals are a decent possibility. Both projection models peg him for 17 homers, though, and the lack of homers is felt in his projected batting averages of .268 by Steamer and .275 by ZiPS. The veteran second baseman brings a decent well-rounded skill-set to the table, but after factoring in regression, he’s not much better than the likes of Jason Kipnis and D.J. LeMahieu, and that duo is going after pick 80 on average. I’d gladly take either Kipnis or LeMahieu at their respective costs before ponying up for Kinsler.
Dee Gordon (MIA): ECR No. 65
Gordon’s 2016 campaign was interrupted by a PED suspension that sidelined him from late April until late July. Prior to the suspension, he was hitting .266/.289/.340 with a 67 wRC+. After the suspension, he hit .268/.312/.333 with a 73 wRC+. He didn’t go from lighting the world on fire to cratering without his special helpers, but he was awful on the whole last year (72 wRC+ and .268 AVG). Even at his best, Gordon is a category killer in the home run department with only nine in 2,317 plate appearances in the Majors. He’s also a monster drag in RBIs hitting leadoff in a National League lineup, and his single-season high in RBIs is 46. His massive shortcomings in both categories puts huge pressure on his wheels, batting average and run contributions to pick up the slack.
Even at his best, Gordon has never scored as many as 100 runs in a season. If you buy into continued growth from Marcell Ozuna, continued excellence from Christian Yelich and Giancarlo Stanton staying healthy, the boppers could be there to bring Gordon around. Of course, he can’t be driven in if he’s not on base, and barely eclipsing a .300 OBP (.305 last year), isn’t going to cut it. He ripped off a .359 OBP in an excellent 2015 season, but he owns a career .325 OBP and his second best season features a .326 OBP. Steamer projects him for a .321 OBP and ZiPS has him down for a .322 OBP. After last year’s train wreck, hitting those projections should be viewed as a small victory.
In addition to being unable to be driven in if he’s not on base regularly, he can’t steal bases watching from the dugout. Speed is down across the game, and that drives up the value of elite base stealers. I understand the allure of Gordon. He stole 64 bases in 2014, 58 in 2015 and 30 in just 79 games and 345 plate appearances last year. Gordon’s a burner, there’s no question about it. He’ll need to steal over 50 bases to make up for his inability to help in homers and RBIs, and rostering him requires a lot of effort putting the right players around him to make up for his shortcomings. I’m not willing to build the roster necessary to accommodate Gordon, especially when I’m not convinced he’ll be an asset in batting average either after failing to best a .270 AVG this year. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze for Gordon’s SBs.
- Fantasy Baseball Busts: 1B
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- Fantasy Baseball Busts: C
- Fantasy Baseball Busts: SP
- Fantasy Baseball Busts: OF
- Fantasy Baseball Busts: RP
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Josh Shepardson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Josh, check out his archive and follow him @BChad50.
