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Baltimore Orioles v Minnesota Twins

FANTASY BASEBALL – AL Central Fantasy Preview: High on Phil Hughes


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Most Underrated: Going into drafts there is always a market adjustment from season to season – the key is finding the discrepancies that beget value. For instance, unlike most pitchers, whose values are derived from ADP drops following a career-worst season, Phil Hughes is coming off a season that redefined, possibly saved, his career and the public hasn’t adjusted enough. Yes, Hughes has gone from undrafted in 2014 to a 16th Round pick in 12-team standard leagues (184th overall) this spring, yet that’s not nearly high enough for a pitcher of his caliber. A middle of the road strikeout pitcher will always go higher than a ratio stabilizer – this is just an undeniable truth, but it’s not as though Hughes is Doug Fister and it’s the Twin’s impeccable control that allows him to stay within respectability. In fact Hughes’ 7.98 K/9 in 2014 was the highest of his career as a starter and the product of a steady incline the past three years. Now while this might not seem like much, and it is just slightly above average, consider that Hughes’ 186 strikeouts ranked 19th overall in baseball last season simply because the veteran was able to consistently work deep into starts. Armed with the league’s only BB/9 below 1.00 at an ungodly 0.69, the former Yankee top prospect also led the MLB with a 72.5% first pitch strike rate and an 11.63 K/BB ratio that broke Brett Saberhagen’s 21 year-old record. The beautiful aspect of constantly pounding the strike zone, aside from the conserved pitch count, is that hitters begin to adjust to you and, really, the only way to combat Hughes is to literally swing all the time – which is what happened. Hughes not only had baseball’s best opponent O-Swing at 38%, but his 57.1% overall swing rate was noticeably higher than Clayton Kershaw‘s second-place figure at 52.8%. Obviously, Kershaw generates far less contact on those swings, but Hughes is allowed to fly through outings averaging just 3.56 pitchers per plate appearance, the fifth best mark in baseball with his 1.13 WHIP lower than the four pitchers above him. Phil Hughes isn’t a sexy pick by any means, his move from New York to Minnesota just a microcosm of that idea, but an elite ratios pitcher is hard to find – especially one who generates the poor quality of swing Hughes does.

Most Overrrated: Accepting who a player is sometimes proves difficult for younger players who might not have reached the heights bestowed upon them years ago. Top draft picks are given multiple chances, usually by multiple organizations, to thrive while pitchers able to light up the radar gun never quite seem to run out of lives. Yet, the most prevalent of these archetypes might just be the foreign-born player – the perceived ceilings are always higher when the player is more mysterious. Sadly, this seems to still be the case with Yoenis Cespedes. To be fair, after posting 16 steals and a .292 average in his rookie campaign, a season, again, without context, it would be hard to believe that the then 26 year-old Cuban would not continue to get better – but he hasn’t. In the two seasons to follow, Cespedes has hit .251 in 1,129 at bats and has stolen just 14 bases in a modest 23 attempts. Now, the former Athletic has cemented himself as a proven power hitter averaging 23.7 home runs a year through his three MLB seasons with the fly ball tendencies to back it up (Cespedes’ 48% mark in 2014 was the fifth highest in all of baseball). Also, his 9.6% HR/FB ratio suggests growth in 2015 considering his figures in 2012 and 2013 were both above 14%. However that’s all he’s really bringing to the table, even when a porous .199 average versus left-handed pitching normalizes. Much of Cespedes’ value in 2014 hinged solely on his impressive 100 RBI total, something that will happen when you have the third most plate appearances (203) in baseball with runners in scoring position and an uncharacteristic .333 BABIP in those circumstances, something in no way sustainable with a 27.8% ground ball rate – power has it’s repercussions. I’m not suggesting Cespedes won’t finish 2015 as a Top 30 outfielder, but as he currently flirts with Top 20 at OF21, he’s a definite loss on return.

Situation to Watch: If I were to pose the question: who is the only player in baseball with 200 steals since the beginning of 2010, the answers, understandably, would be a bit varied. I’d assume some would guess Elvis Andrus, I mean, there needs to be some reason he’s making $120 million, right? Some might go with Jacoby Ellsbury thinking the outlandish totals outweigh the somewhat troubling tendency to oft spend weeks at a time on the disabled list. Heck, some might just go with the one and only Covelli Crisp – but you’d be wrong on all accounts. The correct answer in Rajai Davis at 211 stolen bases. Impressive, no? Especially considering I can’t remember the last time Davis’ ADP had him anywhere close to a Top 35 outfielder. The journeyman is currently projected at 237th overall, just inside the Top 60 at OF57. The reason for this is actually somewhat different in 2015, though a general apathy for the 34 year-old remains, but with the addition of Anthony Gose it appears as though Detroit will be utilizing a platoon of the dynamic speedsters – at least for now. It’s easy to speculate that Davis overachieved last season in a role few assumed would be thrust upon him, with his .282 average representing his highest output since 2010. Still, the .320 BABIP was just two points off his career .318 number and though the veteran’s .356 average specific to left-handed pitching (which trailed just Jose Altuve and Victor Martinez for player with at least 150 PAs) is unsustainable, a .304 career rate is nothing to scoff at either. The problem was his performance against righties where, even in the context of the light-hitting Davis, his .247 average, .080 ISO, and .277 wOBA were quite underwhelming. That’s not to say Gose has ever proven in even the slightest he can’t hit at the major league level – he’s a career .234 batter in 616 plate appearances, but his .241 average versus right-handed pitching is 33 points higher than his southpaw split. Now, a prolonged slump in spring training could spell the end of any of this platoon talk, yet with Gose the far superior defender, the Tigers clearly have a desperation beyond offence to fill their centerfield slot. If Gose, whose 9.1% walk rate is actually sort of appealing, can nail down the left-handed hitting platoon spot and theoretically garner 65%-70% of the plate appearances – he’ll steal 30 bases as a steal himself at a current ADP of 353. Regardless of who gets the at bats, if either can also hit atop the Detroit lineup, they instantly become dual category threats. It’s just a matter of who.

Value Play: Sticking with 34 year-old outfielders with little to no power – Alex Rios, ladies and gentleman! Well, at least that seems to be the overriding theory after a terrible 2014 season. The popular statistic with Rios is the 2.9% HR/FB ratio he posted last year. Obviously it won’t be this poor again, but the question is: how much of a rebound are we to expect? Realistically, the perceived cliff the veteran has fallen off has come a little quickly. In fact, from 2005 to 2013, Rios was never worse than a 10 home run/10 stolen base player, going 15/15 in seven of those seasons with his strikeout rate never higher reaching 20%. Even if the power doesn’t reach the heights it once did, and it won’t, the veteran won’t go 130 plate appearances between long balls again in 2015 and I’d be shocked if he finished the year with fewer than double-digits. Though the disparity of ADP’s year-to-year mean very little, Rios was the 33rd overall selection in drafts just 365 days ago – he’s now sitting at pick 185. Yes, a move from Texas to Kansas City doesn’t bode well for a power surge on the surface, but don’t overlook the fact that the Royals led baseball in stolen bases last season, generating 31 more than any other American League team. Clearly Rios is trending in the wrong direction in terms of his career, but the former first round pick has the upside of a low-end OF2 on your fantasy team and with his current draft position, he doesn’t have to do much to garner value.



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