Toronto Blue Jays
Post Hype Sleeper
Brett Lawrie 3B - Last week I talked about Eric Hosmer of the Royals as a post hype sleeper, and this week I am going to talk about Lawrie. I love drafting guys like Hosmer and Lawrie because of how the general fantasy community approaches them. Both of these guys entered 2012 with high expectations, and owners drafted each player based on what they could do, rather than what was most likely to happen (in the case of Lawrie, I was guilty). As a result they were overvalued. However, after disappointing years out of each player, it's amazing to see that now they are being drafted based heavily on their 2012 performances (not on their upside), when with another full year of at bats it's more likely each will hit the potential that had everyone overvaluing them in 2012. Okay, enough with my rant, let's look at some numbers. After a monster (and power-filled) debut in 2011 (9 homers in 171 plate appearances, .287 ISO), Lawrie's power numbers took a severe hit last year. He hit just 2 more homers despite earning 365 more plate appearances and posted a very disappointing .132 ISO. The lack of power can be directly attributed to Lawrie's GB rate growing from 38.1% to 50.2%. I think that was just a symptom of a bigger problem, though - Lawrie's over aggressiveness. Lawrie swung at 48.3% of the pitches he saw last year, compared to 40.1% in 2011. In particular, he swung at 9 percent more pitches outside of the strike zone and also made more contact on these types of pitches than he did in the year before. In other words, he was putting pitcher's pitches in play, and the result was a lot of harmless ground balls. Given Lawrie's astounding 2011 season (had a .308 ISO in AAA before getting called up) and his career minor league walk rates (always at least 1.5% points higher than the 6.2 mark he posted in 2012), it's way too early to write the 23 YO off. He's not going to hit his ceiling right away in 2013, but a nice bounce back is in store. Look for Lawrie to adjust his approach at the plate and be more patient, with an across the board improvement revolving around that. We have Lawrie ranked as the 9th rated 3B projected for a .288 BA, 85 RS, 19 HR, 71 RBI and 18 SB. I think there's some potential growth in the RBI number depending on where he hits in the Jays' lineup.
Legit or a fluke?
Edwin Encarnacion 1B/DH - Edwin Encarnacion broke out in a big way in 2012 and there are a variety of reasons to believe it was not a fluke. For starters, Edwin has always had a power profile that screamed upside. His career FB rate is 45.3%, and he has a career HR/FB rate of 13.1%. Also, Edwin's plate discipline has been improving each year with the Blue Jays as he has posted EYE's of .48/.56/89 over the last three seasons. Given Encarnacion's propensity to hit fly balls, the Rogers Centre being extremely favorable for right handed homers and his improving plate discipline, he should once again post really solid power numbers. However, a full on repeat is unlikely. While it's possible Encarnacion maintains the 49.5 FB rate from last year, that number is likely at its peak. Meanwhile Encarnacion's HR/FB rate of 18.7% was also likely a career high given that his career mark is 13.1% and previous high (not counting shortened rookie season) was 15.1%. In terms of batting average, Encarnacion has settled in at an 85% contact rate over the past 3 seasons which is very favorable for a power hitter. This should help him from tailing off too much, but there will be some regression. For example, Encarnacion's abnormally high infield hit percentage in 2012 (13.4%, career mark is 7.5%) inflated his BA by about 18 points.
Kansas City Royals
Moose Tacos
Mike Moustakas 3B - Moustakas' sophomore year was a mixed bag. On the negative side, he failed to improve upon his below average 6% BB rate and actually saw his K rate grow by 6 percentage points. He also saw his LD rate drop by 4 percentage points. On the positive side, Moustakas made strides in his power skills. He saw his ISO increase from .104 to .171 thanks to a shrinking GB/FB rate (dropped from .93 to .68) and increased HR/FB rate (more than doubled from 4.2% to 9%). Overall, the positives outweighed the negatives. So what to expect in 2012? I think we see an across the board improvement. Given Moustakas' past, I believe that the contact rate improves which should help the BA. In the power department, Moustakas is already elevating the ball enough to be successful, and as our projections software notes, there is room for improvement in his HR/FB rate. We have Moustakas pegged for a .270 BA to go along with 27 HR.
Undervalued Closer
Greg Holland RP - We have Holland ranked as a top 10 closer this year. He may be undervalued in some drafts as he does not come with much fanfare, and often times we remember how a player starts (11.37 ERA in April) more so than how he finishes (2.96 season ERA). From a skills perspective, Holland is pretty elite. He has posted FIP's of 2.21 and 2.29 the past two years, a product of posting back to back seasons with a K% higher than 31%. Right there we see Holland's dominance, but the thing that sticks out to me is that Holland is not particularly risky for a power pitcher. He is GB neutral, posting GB rates right around 45% each of the past 2 seasons, and his HR/FB rate is just 6% for his career. And while he is a little wild (4.57 BB/9 last year), Holland did post a 2.85 BB/9 mark in 2011 and has a career K/BB ratio of over 3. Fantistics expects Holland to post his 3rd consecutive sub-3 ERA and to lead all relief pitchers in K's. Also, look for his WHIP to drop as his disappointing 1.37 mark from a year ago was heavily inflated by an unlucky .346 BABIP.
Tampa Bay Rays
Elite Evan
Evan Longoria 3B - If Longoria can put together a fully healthy season, I think we see him challenge for 40 homers. He has always generated good loft (consistently around a .90 GB/FB ratio), and his HR/FB rate has bounced back the past 2 seasons after a down year in 2010, giving him 3 year marks of 11.1/17.6/19.5. Longoria is a patient hitter (always posting double digit walk rates), and I believe his contact rate last season (80.4%) is his floor given his 2011-12 contact rates, below average chase rates and league average swinging strike rates. Given this profile I completely agree with our projections software which notes that Longoria, heading into his age 27 season, is primed for a career year. I see very little performance risk here, and the only downside is some health risk (has hit the DL in each of the past 2 years).
The Price is Right
David Price SP - Heading into last year, many of the Fantistics writers told our audience Price would be undervalued, and sure enough he provided a heavy return on investment. One thing that did catch me by surprise was Price's vastly improved ability to generate ground balls (GB rate grew from 44.3% to 53.1%). This ability was the result of Price adding a cutter to his repertoire. According to pitch/fx data, Price threw a cutter 9.7% of the time after not throwing one at all the previous 3 seasons. The pitch was extremely effective, rating as 1.82 runs above average per 100 pitches - his second best pitch (curveball). Perhaps the best news about Price's increased GB rate is that it did not come at the expense of other skills. In fact, his 24.5 K% and 7.1 BB% were nearly identical to 2011's respective marks of 23.8% and 6.9%. Price's 2012 looks pretty repeatable given his skills, but you should expect some rise in ERA (LOB% was 5 points higher than his career mark) and consequently a few less wins.
Around the League
Oscar Taveras OF (STL) - Taveras hit a grand slam yesterday off of Jacob Turner. While I don't put much stock into Spring Training stats, I figured it was a nice segue to talk about our awesome Prospect Central. Members get top 50 prospect rankings for both hitters and pitchers from David Regan and in depth prospect profiles from Lou Blasi. Taveras is currently our 4th ranked prospect hitter. David believes Taveras, who hit .321/.380/.572 at AA last season, will start the season at AAA but should arrive sometime this year, noting that he has All-Star potential.
Carlos Santana C (CLE) - I am extremely high on Carlos Santana heading into this year. I think there's a lot of growth in his BA given an improved LD rate in 2012 (19.1%) and an extremely mature batting EYE (.90). He also cut his K% down from 20.2% to 16.6%, and in particular he struck out just 13.1% of the time over the season's second half, during which he hit .281 with a .217 ISO. If Santana builds upon that second half and sees an uptick in HR/FB rate, which I think is possible given that his 2012 mark was actually 2 percentage points below his 2010-2012 mark, you could see a .275-30 homer season.
Joey Votto 1B (CIN) - From a skills perspective I think the only safer bet in 2013 than Joey Votto is Miguel Cabrera. Researching for this upcoming season, I was in awe over just how dominant he is. Pre-injury last year, Votto posted a .337 BA that wasn't luck related as he had a 1.11 EYE and a singles average that was actually in line with his career marks. Oh and he had a 30.2 LD%. That is just shocking, and it's not a fluke. Votto posted a 27.5 LD rate the previous year. His grasp of the strike zone is just amazing. His 21.2 chase rate and 6.9 swinging strike rate, mean that Votto is being very selective and when he gets his pitch he isn't missing it. I'm so confident in Votto's abilities that I actually think our current projection (.319-32 HR) is a safe one as Votto has more upside beyond those numbers than he does downside below it.
Matt Garza SP (CHC) - Temper your expectations for Garza a little bit. He was originally expected to be ready by Opening Day but in comments he made yesterday it sounded like Garza would start the season on DL. Garza has been very solid performance wise since moving to the NL, posting back to back years with a K/BB ratio of at least 3 and moving from a FB risky pitcher to neutral/slightly a GB pitcher (46.3 and 47.3 GB rates the past two seasons).
Carlos Beltran OF (STL) - I would be really cautious on where you choose to draft Beltran. He tailed off significantly last season, posting a .313 wOBA in the second half after a really hot start (.388 wOBA in the first half). Given that drop off and his age (36), expect Beltran to regress. For instance, his 19.9 HR/FB rate was way higher than his previous 3 year marks (10.8/9.6/12.9) and is likely unsustainable.
Freddie Freeman 1B (ATL) - I always thought Freeman would just be a so-so first baseman: serviceable but not that special. Well, I was wrong. Looking at Freeman's skills there is a lot of potential here. He absolutely scorched the ball last year (26 LD rate) and saw his GB/FB rate dip down to 1.01 from 1.23 the previous season, while maintaining a solid 14.8 HR/FB rate. Those three factors working in conjunction give Freeman the power potential I previously didn't think he had, and his improving plate discipline (simultaneous increase in walk rate and decrease in K rate last season) limits his chances of busting.
Jered Weaver SP (LAA) - I am not as high on Weaver as our projections software is as I'm a little scared by his big ERA-xFIP gap (almost 1.5 runs difference) and concerned over a declining K rate the past 2 seasons (25.8%/21.4/19.2). With that said, I feel like I've written this blurb about Weaver each of the past 2 off seasons only to have him put up ace numbers time and time again. I'm just more comfortable with the other top 10 pitchers.
Ivan Nova SP (NYY) - If you are looking for a late round upside flier at SP, Nova might be your guy. Despite an ugly 5.02 ERA, he flashed decent skills (20.5 K%, 2.73 K/BB ratio) which gave him an xFIP of 3.92. He's also someone that you can play splits with. Nova's Achilles heel last year was the HR ball. However, his HR/9 of 1.27 on the road was much better than his dreadful 1.77 mark at home in the hitter friendly Yankee Stadium.
Jon Lester SP (BOS) - Lester is the type of bounce back candidate I like to take a chance on if the price is right. The reason for this is Lester has more than one "out" so to speak. There's room for a bounce back in skills as his K/9 of 7.28 was much lower than his previous three year marks: 9.96/9.74/8.55. Clearly there's a downward trend so a full bounce back isn't expected but a spike may still occur. Even if his skills don't bounce back, though, Lester's fantasy stats should improve. Last year he was unlucky in all three "luck" categories: a LOB% 7.2 points below his career mark, BABIP 11 points above his career mark and a HR/FB% 3.8 points above his career mark. Lester's xFIP of 3.82 actually wasn't far off from his 2011 xFIP of 3.62, although it should be pointed out that some, but not all, of Lester's failures in the "luck" categories can be attributed to his decreased dominance.
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