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Fantasy Baseball Projections
Can David Wright Bounce Back?
Mets third baseman David Wright will most likely be drafted between the 12th and 18th pick in your 2010 fantasy league. If you have a pick or two in that range, your decision whether to draft him could affect your team's chances greatly. In 2009 drafts Wright seemed like a safe choice at 3rd overall, yet his .307-10-72-88-27 line had some labeling him a bust at year's end.
Was Wright truly a bust? According to ESPN's Player Rater he ranked 7th among third basemen and 64 among all players. Obviously he was a letdown in the power categories, but if you blame this pick for losing your league you're just making excuses.
More importantly, what can we expect from Wright in 2010? You may recall that Wright was struck in the head by a Matt Cain fastball on August 15th, an injury that he admitted remained in the back of his head a month later. Wright told Newsday's Anthony Rieber, "You see a ball that kind of comes up and in, it makes you flinch a little more than normal." The symptoms from that injury caused Wright to dip to 535 ABs in '09, so we'll assume he jumps back to his typical 600. As for the mental aspect, we can only guess whether the time off will straighten him out. Wright had his worst month of the season after returning from the beaning in September.
Projection systems don't know about the mental side of the Cain beaning. They also can't tell us whether moving to Citi Field got into Wright's head. Assuming 600 ABs, here are three projected lines:
- Baseball HQ: .295-20-96-103-23
- Bill James: .302-23-99-100-24
- CHONE: .305-24-104-102-21
Very similar results...they're all just penalizing him for '09 by predicting fewer than 25 HRs. But more simply, Wright averaged 29 HRs in the four seasons prior. A return to 30 HR is entirely within reach for the 27-year-old. Any logical forecaster is going to say Wright's power will return and his strikeouts will come back down in 2010.
On the other hand, Citi Field isn't going anywhere. Greg Rybarczyk of Hit Tracker Online has suggested Wright lost nine home runs to the new park in 2009. If he'd hit 19 bombs and driven in 85, it would've been easier to write off '09 as a blip.
We've learned that Wright is likely to bounce back to some extent, though he's riskier than ever. In my tentative batter rankings, Wright is 17th. I am not one to spring for a pitcher in the first few rounds, so my question is how many hitters I'd rather take than Wright who will not be there for a subsequent pick. Though my early rankings have 16 hitters above Wright, Holliday, Reyes, and McCann may be available with your following pick. There are nine players - Pujols, Hanley, Braun, A-Rod, Utley, Kemp, Howard, Cabrera, and Fielder - I'd have to take before Wright. Beyond that, I'm not convinced that Teixeira, Longoria, Lincecum, Mauer, Kinsler, and Crawford need to go before Wright.
There's my current debate - Teixeira, Longoria, Lincecum, Mauer, Crawford, and Kinsler vs. Wright. One point in Wright's favor is that he's projected to give balance - above-average contributions in all five categories. Drafting exactly 12th (in a 12-team league) might make the decision easier, as you could take Wright and one of the six back-to-back.
2009 Fantasy Baseball Projections
Click here to download our 2009 fantasy baseball projections, with dollar values for a 12 team 5x5 mixed league. The dollar values reflect 23-man active rosters: C, C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, MI, CI, OF, OF, OF, OF, OF, DH, and 9 pitchers. The categories used are AVG, HR, RBI, R, SB, ERA, WHIP, W, SV, and K.
It's easy to filter by position within this spreadsheet. If you want to see all the 1Bs with 20 games played, click the dropdown next to 1B, go to Custom..., and change it to greater than or equal to 20. Boom, your first base rankings. If you want to see all the MIs, hit the MI dropdown and go to y.
I suggest using these or any other projections as a guide, tweaking the numbers to fit your own beliefs. I tinker with these often, and feedback on individual players is welcome.
I used Art McGee's SGP system for the dollar values. Go buy his book.
Everybody Loves Wieters
You'll be hard-pressed to find a baseball analyst who doesn't love Baltimore catching prospect Matt Wieters. Statheads talk about his historically awesome 2008, while scouts rave as well.
Orioles beat writer Jeff Zrebiec talked to Eric Stashin about Wieters' likely call-up date:
It’s hard to say when he’ll be recalled and that probably depends on how he’s performing against Triple-A pitching. If he’s dominating it like he did in Single and Double-A, I think you’ll probably see him make his big league debut in mid to late May.
If Wieters debuts in mid-May, I'd put him around 375 big league ABs for the season, maybe a bit less since Gregg Zaun is pretty solid. In 375 ABs Wieters should be good for .296-17-63-58-2, a $12.84 value.
To account for this, drafters are taking Wieters in the 11th round, a bit after Ryan Doumit. The good thing is that you'll have some kind of warm body taking ABs at catcher for the first 45 days of the season if Wieters is in the minors. Let's say this guy is Rod Barajas, who is about replacement level in a 12-team, two catcher mixed league. Adding in 100 ABs of Barajas I get this composite:
.285-21-76-70-2 in 475 ABs, worth $17.11. Wieters/Barajas is the fourth-ranked catcher, behind only the big three of McCann, Martin, and Mauer. But, you only have to use a 10th or 11th round pick to get this value.
Joba Chamberlain's 2009 Innings
Recently a reader pointed out a bold projection from Ron Shandler and company at Baseball HQ: 199 innings for Joba Chamberlain in 2009. Most forecasters agree that Joba's ERA, WHIP, and K/9 will be very strong in '09, but with that innings total you'd have to consider him a top five fantasy starter. Mock drafters are taking Chamberlain in the 9th round on average, indicating concern that his innings will be limited by the Yankees, his health, or a midseason move to the 'pen.
I asked eleven of my favorite baseball writers to predict Chamberlain's 2009 regular season Major League innings total. Here are the results:
- Will Carroll, Baseball Prospectus: 175
- Peter Abraham, The Lohud Journal: 160
- Ken Rosenthal, FOX Sports: 155
- Peter Gammons, ESPN: 145
- Joe Pawlikowski, River Ave. Blues: 142
- Jerry Crasnick, ESPN: 142
- Ken Davidoff, Newsday: 141.6
- Rick Wilton, Baseball Injury Report: 140
- Rob Neyer, ESPN: 137.6
- Keith Law, ESPN: 125
- Jon Heyman, SI: 109
The average comes to 142.9 innings. If Joba pitches 143 innings, I'd rank him 18th among fantasy starters - after Cliff Lee but before Rich Harden. It's quite conceivable that Chamberlain could have more fantasy value (in just 143 innings) than John Lackey, Felix Hernandez, Scott Kazmir, and Daisuke Matsuzaka, who are all being drafted before him.
As we mentioned in the Max Scherzer post, Chamberlain will probably pitch well if he's healthy and hit the disabled list otherwise. If he's on the DL, you can take the best available waiver wire arm. 143 innings from Joba plus 50 from the waiver wire probably equals a top ten starter. Scherzer, Harden, and Randy Johnson may be underrated in a similar fashion.
Stephen Drew Examined
Diamondbacks shortstop Stephen Drew is a popular undervalued/sleeper pick this year. He's being drafted sixth among shortstops, typically in the 8th round. Drew, 26 in March, posted a fantasy line of .291-21-67-91-3 in 611 ABs last year. What's more, his second half production, if replicated over 600 ABs, would come to .326-20-76-96-2 (a $16 value).
If Drew does manage to replicate his second half work over a full season, it'd be hard to argue that he'd be the fourth-ranked fantasy shortstop.
I have a safer projection for Drew: .277-18-72-80-4 in 565 ABs. This line has him ranked 13th at the position, worth less than $4.
If you think Drew is more capable of something like .290-20-75-85-5, then he is creeping into Michael Young/Derek Jeter value. Drew is right around his peak age, so there is something to be said for taking the upside guy over these two declining veterans (or an injury risk, Rafael Furcal). I would like to see Drew run more. Otherwise I remain unconvinced that I can't get similar production from Miguel Tejada, Jhonny Peralta, Troy Tulowitzki, and J.J. Hardy later in the draft.
I should add that Alexei Ramirez slots in as my fourth-ranked SS if his 16 games played there in 2008 cuts it for your league. Certainly can't go wrong with him at 2B though.
If you're picking top four, you can probably get Jose Reyes or Hanley Ramirez. If you have the fifth through ninth pick, you can take Jimmy Rollins. Those three are so far above the other shortstops that I make every effort to get one. Beyond that trio you have to settle for a shortstop that is flawed in some way.
Kenshin Kawakami Examined
One pitcher I haven't paid much attention to this year is Kenshin Kawakami of the Braves. Ditto for Koji Uehara, but I'm less intrigued with him pitching in the AL East.
Mock drafters are taking Kawakami in the 19th round. By comparison, Hiroki Kuroda went in the 25th round last year. So there is increased awareness for mid-level Japanese import starters.
To project Kawakami, we head over to BaseballProjection.com, home of CHONE. They project Kawakami for a 3.88 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 8 wins, and 113 Ks in 123 innings. Looks like the makings of a sleeper, especially since the Braves probably are looking to get 180+ innings out of him. It will be interesting to see a few other projection systems weigh in on Kawakami, who posted a 2.30 ERA and 1.06 WHIP in 117.3 innings in Japan last year.
Scouting-wise there is reason for skepticism. Here's what Keith Law had to say:
Kawakami posted solid strikeout rates in Japan, but without a clear out pitch he doesn't project to miss as many bats in MLB. His fastball is fringe-average, and he'll likely have to change his approach and pitch more with his offspeed stuff. Like all pitchers coming from Japan, he'll also have to adjust to the larger baseball used here.
So we shouldn't count on that projected 8.27 K/9. Law believes Kawakami will be HR-prone as well. CHONE has Kawakami's HR rate at 1.02 per nine. Law believes he will be prone to the four-bagger, so it may be safer to put him down for 1.1 or 1.2.
19th round, though...go for it. He's a nice guy to snag as the sixth starter on your fantasy team.
Chris Davis Projections
Most projection systems see big things for Rangers infielder Chris Davis after he smacked 17 home runs in 295 ABs as a rookie. Davis qualifies at first base, and also at third if ten games played cuts it in your league.
Assuming 550 at-bats, here are the projections for Davis:
- Bill James: .302-39-115-104-8.
- Baseball HQ: .285-36-104-94-3.
- CHONE: .265-29-102-89-6.
So we're looking at something like .284-35-107-99-6 on average. Davis is currently being drafted in the ninth round, 15th among first basemen (behind Carlos Pena, Derrek Lee, Carlos Delgado, Joey Votto, and James Loney). None of these guys have anything on Davis aside from experience. Here on December 19th he looks like a great sleeper at position 105.25, but we'll see where that average draft position is in March.
A 3.35 ERA For Phil Hughes?
I've been having fun with the Bill James projections, which you can purchase for $9.95 here. Today let's take a look at some interesting starters they project to post an ERA under 4.00 in 2009.
- Barry Zito - 3.94
- Tim Wakefield - 3.91
- Jonathan Sanchez - 3.90
- Jorge Campillo - 3.86
- Pedro Martinez - 3.36
- Phil Hughes - 3.35
A few of those are quite bold. Hughes may be the Yankees' sixth starter heading into 2009, but they have him third in ERA in the American League. How do they think he'll pull this off? With an 8.8 K/9, 3.3 BB/9, 0.65 HR/9, and 7.92 H/9. Hughes has not demonstrated those skills in his 106.2 big league innings.
As for Pedro, projection systems can't understand he had major surgery and isn't the same pitcher. Most of you incorporate gut feel when crafting your fantasy teams, and this is a great example why that's necessary.
A Look At Travis Snider
Today let's take a look at Blue Jays outfielder Travis Snider.
Snider was drafted 14th overall out of high school in 2006. He ascended very quickly, starting 2008 in High A ball and making it to the Majors. Only 20 years old, he hit .301/.338/.466 in 80 big league plate appearances.
More importantly than his brief Major League stint, let's look at Snider's Major League Equivalent. This is a translation of his minor league work in Major League terms. That line: .277/.358/.485. 23 HR in 480 ABs. In a way, that's what we might've expected if he spent all of 2008 in the bigs. Would've been a phenomenal rookie season for a kid so young.
Scouting-wise, Baseball America loves Snider. They say he has the tools to hit for average and power, but has below-average speed.
Much like Jay Bruce in 2008, Snider's '09 opportunity is in question. At present, the Jays are undecided at left field and DH. However, they could sign a DH-type and continue trying Adam Lind in left. Assuming Lyle Overbay stays, Snider could be in line for more Triple A seasoning (he's only had 18 games at the level, and keeping him there for a few months could delay free agency by a year).
Last spring Bruce was drafted in the 27th round on average, so in a 12-team mixed league you could've waited til the reserve round or picked him up midseason. It figures to be a similar situation for Snider, and he's not the double-digit steal threat Bruce was. Snider is certainly a top keeper, a guy who could hit .300 with 30 HR in 2010. But for '09, he seems like more of a 20 HR type with playing time questions. Worth a flier, nothing more in non-keeper leagues.
ZiPS Analysis
ZiPS projections are up for the Brewers, Cardinals, and Cubs. A few possible sleepers for 2009:
- Angel Salome, C. .277-11-51-48-2, but Jason Kendall has the starting job.
- Yovani Gallardo, SP. 3.73 ERA, 1.33 WHIP. Could slip due to a lost '08. I'm a bit disappointed by the WHIP projection.
- Ryan Braun, Rickie Weeks, and Manny Parra have definite upside for sleeper fantasy seasons. Yes, even Braun (he could hit 50 HR).
- Ryan Ludwick, OF. ZiPS is a believer, calling for 31 HR if Ludwick can reach 538 ABs again.
- Rick Ankiel, Ludwick, and Adam Wainwright are the upside picks. A sub-3.00 ERA for Wainwright, perhaps? 35 HR for Ankiel in his walk year?
- Geovany Soto, C. Another big year projected: .294 AVG, 25 HR, 91 RBI.
- Tyler Colvin and Sean Marshall have a bit of upside - 20 HR is possible for Colvin (somehow given full playing time), and Marshall could find his way to a sub-4.00 ERA.
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