Fantasy Baseball Busts

Assessing Ervin Santana

Ervin Santana rewarded those who drafted him in the 19th round or picked him up off the waiver wire this season, posting a 3.92 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 169 strikeouts, and 17 wins over 222.6 innings.  It was a far cry from '09, when Santana posted a 5.03 ERA and missed a chunk of the season with an elbow strain.

How should you handle Santana, heading into 2011 drafts?  This wasn't a repeat of his '08 season, when he posted a brilliant 3.49 ERA (3.12 SIERA) and 1.12 WHIP with 214 Ks.  This time Santana had a 4.29 SIERA, 6.83 K/9, 2.95 BB/9, and 1.09 HR/9.  Those are not bad peripherals, but they suggest he belongs at the back end of a mixed league rotation.  Also, he was throwing a 94.4 mph average fastball in '08 and was at 92.5 in '10.

Don't forget that elbow issue, which makes you wonder if he can log anything close to 222.6 innings again.  If you're getting Santana around the 15th round, that works, but don't be too aggressive on him.

We don't have SIERA by month but we do have xFIP, courtesy of FanGraphs.  Santana never had an xFIP below 3.97 in any month, and his strikeout rate dipped below 6.0 in the last two.  Hard to say if that's a trend, but he could fall outside the realm of mixed league usefulness in 2011 if so.

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Time To Drop Grady Sizemore?

THURSDAY: Sizemore is on the DL indefinitely due to the knee bruise, and surgery hasn't been ruled out.  I'd suggest waiting for further information before cutting him, especially if you have a DL spot available.

WEDNESDAY: Grady Sizemore was chosen in the second round of many fantasy leagues, so dropping him is a difficult pill to swallow.  Is it time to move on?

Sizemore is getting an MRI on his bruised knee today.  He'll probably miss at least several more games, so cutting him won't hurt in the short-term.  However, the bruise happened on Sunday.  It's not the cause of his 2010 struggles.  As recently as May 13th, Sizemore told Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer he's healthy despite coming off a couple of September surgeries.

Sizemore has been a huge detriment in fantasy leagues, with a 2010 performance worse than any month he had in '09.  In fact, he was pretty good in July and August of last year before going down in September for elbow and abdominal wall surgery.  On May 11th FanGraphs' Dave Allen worked his magic to explain the problem: "He is swinging at more pitches he shouldn't and at fewer pitches he should."  Sizemore has been uncharacteristically choosing the wrong pitches to swing at and take in his 140 plate appearances this year.

If you have the bench space, you should stash Sizemore.  Assuming his knee checks out, his only real problem is an old-fashioned slump.  140 PAs is a concerning sample, but the guy's 27.  He probably didn't completely forget how to hit.  Those who stick with Sizemore will probably be rewarded with a solid power/speed combo from here on out.

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Your #1 Bust

We received 129 comments on the sleeper post, probably a record for this site.  Tons of great sleepers were named, and we'll look more closely at many of them.

Today the question to the readers: who is your #1 bust for 2009?  Again we define the term loosely: simply a player who is greatly overvalued in fantasy baseball drafts.  A few caveats though.  Fantasy bust does not necessarily mean real life bust, especially since most fantasy leagues don't consider the player's salary, OBP, or defense.  Furthermore, a bust for the purposes of our discussion might be a player who posts a valuable fantasy season in 2009 but not nearly valuable enough to justify his draft position.

My #1 bust, Adrian Gonzalez, falls into the last category.  His numbers in 2008: .279-36-119-103-0.  Fantasy players are drafting Gonzalez as if he's likely to repeat - his average draft position is 34.73, the late third round.  He's being chosen eighth among first basemen.

Say Gonzalez regresses a touch but still has a nice season: .280-30-100-90-0.  That's reasonable to me.  But that is not even close to third-round material.  Derrek Lee, Chris Davis, and Joey Votto are three 1Bs who can post similar numbers at much later draft positions.  Gonzalez is a three-category player at a non-scarce position.  And if Brian Giles is traded or his OBP comes back down to Earth, Gonzalez will lose RBI opportunities.

Let's open up the floor to the readers.  Who is your #1 bust (you only get one) for 2009, and why?

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Scott Kazmir In The Sixth Round?

Scott Kazmir is being drafted 12th among starters, in the sixth round on average.  I have Kazmir posting a 3.70 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, and 185 Ks in 170 or so innings.  There are definitely more than eleven starters I would take before Kazmir.

Kazmir missed April with an elbow strain, and he was mediocre-to-bad in the season's final three months.  His walks continue to damage his WHIP, and it wouldn't be a surprise to see him miss more time due to injury or post an ERA over 4.00 in 2009.  There is no way I would take a player this risky in the sixth round.  The latest you'll see him drafted is the ninth round, but even then he wouldn't be my top choice among starters.

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Carlos Quentin: Overrated?

Carlos Quentin is being drafted in the late third/early fourth round (position 37.76).  He's being picked 14th among outfielders.  Is this he a good pick at that point in the draft?

I'd say that if Quentin is able to muster a .290-30-100-100-5 season, he's worthy of being drafted in that spot.  Those are lofty heights, but the guy hit five home runs in his worst month this year.  If he wasn't coming off a wrist injury, I'd feel OK about him as the 37th pick.

Quentin has Jason Bay and Nick Markakis being taken before him, Alex Rios, Vladimir Guerrero, and Matt Kemp after.  Once again I really like Kemp.  He does it all, and should come close to 20 HR and 30 SBs.  I think Kemp has top five outfielder potential in 2009.

That's my other qualm with the early pick for Quentin.   I prefer to build my offense around power/speed guys, and Quentin doesn't bring the SBs.  I don't see him as a bust by any means, but I can't see myself taking him with my fourth-round pick.  It just seems like I'd be "buying high."

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A Look At C.C. Sabathia's Poor Start

Josh Kalk has been doing great work studying PITCHf/x data.  Check out his blog here and Hardball Times contributions here.  This guy's going to get hired by a team!  Josh kindly agreed to examine C.C. Sabathia's poor start in a guest post for RotoAuthority.com.  His post follows.

C.C. Sabathia has been one of the best pitchers in all of baseball for many years now.  Despite being around since 2001 Sabathia is still just 27 years old and should be entering the prime of his career.  Combine that with the incredible 2007 season he had and he was probably one of the first few pitchers to come off the board in your fantasy draft.  Unfortunately, Sabathia has had a very poor start to the season.  Let's examine why.

The real culprit here is lack of command, specifically with his fastball.  Sabathia only walked 37 batters in 241.3 innings in 2007 but has already walked 14 in just 18 innings.  That 241.3 innings doesn't count the extra 15.3 innings he threw in post season play which represents a large increase in his workload over previous years (210 innings was his previous high).  Could Sabathia be worn down?  Is there something mechanically wrong?

Sabathia says no, and indeed if we look at his PITCHf/x numbers they seem to back that up.  His fastball is averaging a tick over 94 mph, almost exactly what it was last year.  His slider still has a lot of bite and his changeup is still excellent (he is still exclusively throwing the change to righthanded batters).  So what has changed?  If he is still throwing the same fastball why can't he seem to find the strike zone with it?  Well, if we dig a little deeper there might be an explanation in the data.  Here is a plot with Sabathia's release point for his fastball in 2007 and again for 2008:

While the data looks similar it does appear that Sabathia's release point has dropped.  In fact, on average, Sabathia's release point has dropped two and a half inches.  I should now point out that while the 2007 data has gone through rigorous corrections we don't have enough 2008 data to determine if corrections will be needed so this shouldn't be considered definitive.  Still, if the data is correct this drop in release point appears to be the only difference between last year and this year for Sabathia.  Is two and a half inches enough to be causing him to be erratic?  I can't say for certain but it certainly is something to pay attention to as the year goes on. 

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Dissecting Oswalt's Struggles

Awesome post by David Golebiewski of The Transaction Guy.  He uses Pitch F/X data to figure out why Roy Oswalt has been struggling so far.

Golebiewski notes that Oswalt lost a little over one mile per hour off his fastball while also hanging his breaking stuff.  To me, the data is actually encouraging.  He might recover a little velocity, but he can probably be effective at 92 mph.  And I imagine he can get the breaking stuff sorted out if he's healthy.

I wonder if David takes requests!  Or maybe we can learn his Pitch F/X data methods.  Which pitchers need to be examined?

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Fallen Aces: Oswalt, Sabathia

We're three starts in.  Roy Oswalt and C.C. Sabathia, typically 4th-7th round ace starters, have been brutalizing their teams' ratios (especially Friday night).  What's the deal?

The "Avoid Oswalt" bandwagon was already full in the preseason, but I thought he provided good value in the seventh round.  I had him at a 3.50 ERA and 1.25 WHIP, and thought he could at least come close to those numbers (3.75/1.30).  It's no mystery he's on the decline, but that doesn't make him worthless.  Early on the damage has been the result of home runs and hits, not walks or a lack of Ks.

The hits are tied to a through-the-roof .431 BABIP.  Last year no full-season starter was above .339.  Improvement on hits allowed is a given.  Regarding the homers - his groundball rate remains solid; his home runs per flyball is an absurd 41.5%.  10-11% would be normal.  Again, regression there is a given.  The only concern is that Oswalt's biceps bothered him a week ago.  His owners have to just hope he goes to the DL if an injury is inhibiting him. 

Sabathia logged 253.3 innings in '07, an increase of more than 60 from '06.  There's cause for concern that the workload will affect him this year, a Cy Young hangover.  His strikeout rate's been fine, but his increased walk rate is worrisome.  With a .457 BABIP and 16.7% HR per flyball, better days are ahead on hits and home runs.  I would start to worry if his elite control (BB/9 of 2.0 or less) continues to evade him.  He's also not getting grounders like he usually does.  Still, as with Oswalt, his owners pretty much just have to ride this out. 

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Time To Worry About Rich Hill

After just two starts, one of which was solid?  Yes.  Because that's the Cubs.  Hill, whose problems often seem mental, always seems at risk of being pulled from the Cubs' rotation.  Given the presence of Jon Lieber, it's a very real possibility.  Ted Lilly has been worse than Hill this year, but Lilly is paid far too much to be pulled.  Plus, Hill had a severe case of the yips in Spring Training.

Despite being one of Hill's biggest supporters for a couple of years, I am concerned that he could become a major fantasy bust this year.  If you own him, there's nothing you can do right now. 

There's something to be said for giving some extra weight to a pitcher's "stuff" during your draft.  Normally I don't, instead trusting my dollar values.  But my gut says that I'd rather have the bat-breaking repertoires of Felix Hernandez and Johnny Cueto over the 89 mph heaters of Lilly and Hill. 

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Weeks' Stock Dropping

Rickie Weeks' hand is hurting, and he's had a terrible spring.  This is a breakout pick that's gotten a bit too trendy.  He's going in the tenth round, but I've seen people reach for him much earlier. 

Los Genius snagged him in the sixth round in the RotoAuthority League (not to question Los Genius' genius).  But picked that early, Weeks really needs to deliver.  I'd rather have Aaron Harang, Robinson Cano, Matt Kemp, or Javier Vazquez, who all went later than Weeks in our league.   I have Weeks hitting .261-16-49-90-22 in 445 ABs.  That's an AB level that Weeks has yet to approach in the bigs for various reasons.  He is a pretty risky pick right now.

Here's what's going to happen.  You grab my boy Kelly Johnson in the 14th instead of Weeks (unless that jerk Santa's Magic Janitor takes him in the tenth).  You get a five category leadoff hitter in KJ.  Weeks has a craptastic month or two in '08, and people start dropping him in droves.  Then you think about picking him up and letting him hang on your bench until he starts hitting.  Weeks might have that tantalizing 30/30 ability, but he can't hit for average or stay healthy.

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