Cincinnati Reds
Jay Bruce – Bruce has developed into a post-hype sleeper of sorts. He was the Reds’ top prospect heading into 2008, and he didn’t disappoint, blasting 21 HR as a rookie in 413 at bats. Last season, though, Bruce struggled at the plate and with injuries. As a result his power numbers seemed mediocre, 22 total HR, particularly considering the high expectations thrust upon him. More annoying to owners was a .223 batting average, which was the eight worst mark in the entire majors for players with at least 375 plate appearances. So, why should this year be any different? Well, let’s keep in mind Bruce’s age for starters. He will enter the 2010 season at the ripe age of 23. Also, his EYE last year showed dramatic improvement from his rookie season, moving from an awful .30 to an average .51. This improved patience along with some better luck (he had a horrendously unlucky singles average of .165 last season) should see Bruce have a marked turnaround in the batting average department. Meanwhile, if Bruce tops the 535 at bats that Fantistics projects him for, he has a real shot at hitting 30+ HR, possibly even approaching 40. At the ages of just 21 and 22 respectively, Bruce posted HR/FB% of 20.2 and 16.8 as well as ISO’s of .199 and .246, which shows you the immense natural power that he has. Meanwhile, last season, Bruce started putting the ball in the air more, an important step for a young power hitter. His FB% grew from 34.2% to 48.5%, and his XBH% grew from 8.6% to 10.1%. Fantistics has Bruce pegged for an improvement in 2010 with a .257 batting average and 28 HR, and although Bruce is still a risky pick (striking out nearly a quarter of the time) there is a lot of upside with those numbers.
Johnny Cueto – Fantistics is higher on Johnny Cueto than most other preseason fantasy publications, but it is not without good reason. In 2007, Cueto posted a 5:1 K:BB ratio in 161.1 innings spread over high A ball, AA, and AAA. That type of command is spectacular, especially considering Cueto was just 21 YO at the time. He did not have the same success in his first two major league seasons, as his K:BB ratio was 2.25, but even that is not all that poor for a 22-23 YO. Also, over the past two seasons, Cueto has shown signs that his skills are about to take off. For example, in several statistics measuring the various contact rates and plate discipline of the batters Cueto has faced, he has been above average. In total, Cueto has forced hitters to swing at pitches outside of the strike zone 25.9% of the time; the league average in 2008 and 2009 was 25.4% and 25.1% respectively. Batters made contact against pitches Cueto threw in the strike zone 86.7% over the past two seasons; over that same time span, the league average has been 87.8%. In total, batters have made contact when swinging at Cueto’s pitches 79.8% of the time while the rest of the majors have been making contact at a clip around 80.7%. These differences may not seem like much, but the fact that Cueto has at a young age beaten these league averages over 345 IP in two seasons is definitely an indicator that the best is yet to come, especially when his impeccable minor league K:BB ratio is taken into consideration. Fantistics has Cueto pegged for a 13 win season with 160 K’s, a 3.82 ERA, and a WHIP of 1.24, which has him good enough to be our 38th ranked SP. He should be a great draft day value; 6 of the next 7 pitchers in our rankings currently have ADP’s a minimum of 7 rounds earlier than Cueto’s ADP of 19.9.
Pittsburgh Pirates
Kevin Hart vs. Daniel McCutcheon – Right now it appears as if the Pirates last rotation spot is all but decided with the winner being Kevin Hart. Some Pirates bloggers are a bit perplexed, and I must admit I am as well. Neither have extensive major league experience, with Hart logging 119 innings and McCutcheon just 36. However, Hart has been a train wreck in his major league stints over the past two seasons. He walked 5.96 batters per 9 IP over 27.2 innings while pitching for the Cubs in 2008. Last season, he was not much better, walking 4.89 batters per 9 over 81 innings. All in all, Hart has a K/BB ratio of 1.18. Also, the best K/BB ratio he posted over his entire professional career was 3.41 in 2007 for the Cubs’ AA affiliate. Meanwhile, McCutcheon hasn’t done anything special, but he has at least shown he is less likely to blow up completely than Hart is. In 2008, McCutcheon had an impressive K/BB ratio 5.5 over 118.1 IP at AAA, and in his brief stint in the majors he walked just 2.72 batters per 9 IP, albeit with an ugly K rate along the way. Neither is that relevant to fantasy owners, but while Hart is a disaster waiting to happen, McCutcheon could find himself worthy of a spot in deep NL leagues if the Pirates came to their senses and gave him a rotation spot rather than Hart.
Ryan Doumit – Doumit is in line for a nice bounce back season. He suffered some bad luck last year as his play was marred by both a wrist injury as well as some bad luck on balls in play. He had a dreadful singles average of .215, which was way lower than the .269 and .241 singles averages he posted in the previous two seasons. This was partly responsible for his poor batting average of .250, as were his poor power numbers. Doumit’s ISO dropped from .183 to .164 and his XBH% fell from 10.5% to 8.6%. However the poor power numbers can be explained away by the wrist injury. Keep in mind Doumit is still just 28 YO, and he seemed to be developing into one of the more complete fantasy catchers prior to last season. In 2007 and 2008, Doumit posted XBH% of 10.8 and 10.5 respectively, while his good average over that span was driven by a good contact rate (84.68%) and a good line drive rate (22.4%). There’s no reason to not expect more of the same from Doumit since he appears to be heading into Spring Training fully healthy, and the Pirates to figure to roll out of their better opening day lineups in recent memory. If your league members pass on Doumit based solely on last year’s season, take advantage of this and nab yourself a bounce back player.
Colorado Rockies
Jason Hammel – Hammel is a pitcher a lot of people will forget about come draft day, but he might make for a decent reserve and possibly even better with some K rate growth. For starters, Hammel saw his K rate increase from .70 over the 2007-2008 seasons to .75 last season; at age 28, it’s possible that we can see another such leap. Also, Hammel demonstrated great control last season with a BB/9 of 3.17 leading to a 3.17 K/BB ratio that was 14th best in the NL among pitchers who logged at least 140 innings. His greatest asset, though, is his ability to get ground balls. Over each of the past two seasons, Hammel has had a GB% of over 46 percent. It paid off last season, when he gave up only .87 HR/9 IP. These numbers led Hammel to have an FIP ERA of 3.71 and an expected FIP ERA of 3.81, both of which were significantly lower than his 4.33 ERA. So, if Hammel’s K rate continues to climb, he could be a solid sleeper selection, but even if it does not, there’s a chance his ERA will drop based upon his 2009 FIP and xFIP ERA’s.
Ubaldo Jimenez – Ubaldo Jimenez was flat out dominant last season, as he made the leap to becoming an elite SP. Unfortunately, a whole lot of bad luck toyed with Jimenez’s final numbers, and while his 15 wins, 3.47 ERA and 1.23 WHIP were beyond solid, it could have been a whole lot better. For starters, Jimenez actually had an expected ERA of 2.98, and his deserved win total was 18. The reason for Jimenez’s dominant pitching was a combination of things, all of which continue to point to a bright future. First of all Jimenez continues to strike out more batters. His K/9 for 2007/’08/’09 is 7.46/7.79/8.17. Meanwhile, Jimenez by far demonstrated the best control of his career, leading to a 2.33 K/BB ratio. These improvements combined with Jimenez’s ability to get ground ball outs was the reason for his success. Jimenez’s GB% the last two seasons are 54.4% and 52.5%. Currently, Jimenez is our 11th ranked starting pitcher, and the only thing that may prevent him from repeating last season’s success is if his control, which has been an issue in the past, slips up.
Clayton Kershaw (LAD) – For those of you playing in salary cap leagues where you can afford to spot start even high quality starters, Kershaw has added value. His home/road splits are quite different. At home over his career, Kershaw has been much, much better. In 2008, he posted a 3.41 ERA with 59 K’s, 23 BB’s and 6 HR allowed in 60.2 IP compared to 5.36, 41, 29, and 5 in 47 IP on the road. It was much of the same story in 2009: a 1.83 ERA with 97 K’s, 47 BB’s, and 1 HR allowed in 88.1 IP at home compared to 3.81, 88, 44, and 6 in 82.67 IP on the road. Clearly, Kershaw demonstrates a better K rate, better control, and better ability to keep the ball in the park at home, and if you are able to nab him in a league where you can start him exclusively at home with some spot road starts, you are going to get some ridiculously good numbers out of Kershaw.
Asdrubal Cabrera (CLE) – Cabrera could reward owners in 2010 with a bit of extra pop. Last season, his XBH% grew from 6.2% the previous season to 9%. Not coincidentally, he stroked 42 doubles, a major increase over the 20 he had in 2008. Factor in that Cabrera enters the season at 24 YO, and it’s more than reasonable to expect a handful, if not more, of those doubles to turn into some round trippers. Thus, Fantistics has him semi-breaking out with 14 HR. It’s also interesting to note that Cabrera had a miniscule infield fly ball percentage of 1.9%, which means he hits very few pop ups, aka automatic outs.
Howie Kendrick (LAA) – There’s no doubt that Kendrick is a skilled batter, but those who keep making the call for batting titles on the horizon for Kendrick need to stop. He just does not have the plate discipline to accomplish such a feat. Kendrick’s career EYE is .21, never posting a better EYE than .28 over a season. Also, for his career he has swung at pitches outside of the strike zone a whopping 35.6% when the major league average is generally around 25%.
Ben Zobrist (TB) – Zobrist is currently being drafted after fellow 2B Robinson Cano and Brandon Phillips. Some people may look at Zobrist’s ’09 season and inaccurately jump to the conclusion that it was a fluke. I will concede that he is likely to drop some batting average points since he did receive some luck on balls in play in ’09. Outside of that though, Zobrist appears to be for real. In his first full season, he showed amazing plate discipline, with an EYE of .88, which lowers his risk factor and that cannot be said for Cano (.39 career EYE) and Phillips (.37 career EYE). His XBH% was a very solid 12.4, and the power is for real. Zobrist’s HR/FB% of 17.5% was nearly identical to the mark he posted the previous season (17.4%) in 227 at bats. That means Zobrist has a HR/FB% of 17.5% over 826 at bats, too large of a sample size to simply shrug off.
Ricky Nolasco (FLA) – Nolasco might have been 2009’s unluckiest pitcher. His BABIP was .336, a full 25 points over his career average. His LOB% was ridiculously low at 61%, especially considering that a.) Nolasco’s career LOB% is 67.9% (with ’09 factored in) and b.) Nolasco had a top level K rate of 1.05. Try to ignore that +5 ERA from last season, as Nolasco has the peripheral stats of a star in the making. To go along with his 1.05 K rate, he walked just 2.14 batters per 9 IP, allowing him to have a K/BB ratio of 4.43 for the second consecutive season.
Nick Markakis (BAL) – As it is mentioned in the projection notes, Markakis struggled a bit due to some lost patience at the plate. His BB% dropped from 14.3% to 8%. We expect Markakis to rebound in that area, which should have a positive effect on the rest of his statistics. Also, Markakis is entering his prime power years, and at the right time as the Orioles offense is improving all around him with Brian Roberts a mainstay to go along with emerging stars Adam Jones, Nolan Reimold, and Matt Wieters. This could be a career year for Markakis.
Ryan Braun (MLW) – Braun had an amazing season in 2009, and he should add some more power to those totals. Braun dropped off to 32 HR after blasting 37 in 2008, but Fantistics has him projected for 40 this year. The reason why is that Braun has increased his EYE two seasons in a row, while never seeing a HR/FB% lower than 17.5%. The fact is that the only reason Braun didn’t hit near 40 HR last season is that his FB% of 34.1% was much lower than the 44.9% and 44.1% marks he posted in the two years prior. That drop off in FB% can be attributed to some nagging injuries as well as random variance. Expect Braun’s FB% to move back towards 44% in 2010, which will make him a safe bet to approach 40 HR.
Dan Haren (ARZ) – Outside of the consensus top two pitchers, Tim Lincecum and Roy Halladay, Haren might be the safest fantasy pitcher available. In his two seasons since moving to the NL, Haren has walked just 1.58 batters per 9 IP. As astounding as that is, his K/BB ratios of 5.15 in ’08 and 5.87 in ’09 are even more remarkable. With those numbers, it is hard to have a letdown season even if a bit of bad luck does come your way.
Michael Brantley (CLE) – Brantley might be one of the safer rookie choices out there for fantasy owners, particularly if he wins the leadoff spot with Cleveland. He also comes at good value since there is not a lot of hype surrounding him. The reason I say Brantley is a safe choice is his plate discipline since day 1 of his professional career. Here are his EYE’s at three different levels of minor league baseball: A – 1.26 (686 Plate Appearances), AA – 1.52 (702 PA), and AAA – 1.23 (528 PA). And in 2009 at AAA ball, Brantley successfully stole 46 bases while getting caught just 5 times.
Andrew Bailey (OAK) – Coming off a ROY victory, Bailey has emerged as a top level closer. And while he is certainly talented, we shouldn’t expect an exact repeat of the dominance he displayed as a rookie. His LOB% was a bit high at 84.9%, although that is repeatable for a top flight closer. However, his BABIP of .234 is not sustainable, and we should see that rise nearly 50 points, which will certainly inflate that ERA and WHIP.
