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Draft Buddy’s 2019 Fantasy Baseball Projections

February 28, 2019 By Draft Buddy Leave a Comment

Fantasy baseball projections

Draft Buddy has its own brand 2019 fantasy baseball projections. This is how we made it happen.

For the first time we have our own Draft Buddy brand fantasy baseball projections.

These projections are available in Draft Buddy draft software and Last Player Picked. They form the basis for our 2019 fantasy baseball rankings.

The projections are based on Steamer with our own playing time adjustments. Steamer projections from Fangraphs include playing time that is inconsistent with other trusted sources. This creates significant outliers in our ranking results.

If we improve the fantasy baseball projections then it ultimately improves the rankings output. That is the motivation for the Draft Buddy projections.

Steamer Base + Playing Time

Steamer is a proven solid resource for projecting hitter and pitcher metrics with its model dating back to 2008. There is little reason for me to pull Steamer apart.

However, the projected playing time is another story. Projected plate appearances for hitters and projected innings for pitchers is something to analyze for reasonableness, risk, etc. And, we can make changes to better reflect our best-educated guesses for the upcoming season.

Instead of “simply” going team-by-team through the depth charts and pegging a playing time projection for every player, I thought a better first exercise is to gather existing playing time data to review. This way, we can see the range of playing times for each player.

Fantasy baseball analysis naturally lends itself to a lot of number crunching. If you note a player you are particularly high or low on is at the opposite end of your expectations when you calculate his value against his projections, it may not be because he is a better or worse ballplayer than you thought. His underlying metrics may be right on par with your expectations. However, his projected playing time may be far different than you envisioned, suppressing or inflating his value.

If we review the range of projected playing times, then we can assess if a particular projection set is unusually high or low in expected playing time for a player. Once we determine our own playing time estimate for a player, we apply those to the Steamer projections to form our own projections set.

Collecting Playing Time Data

I began pulling projected playing time data from various sources. These were from projection sets already included in Draft Buddy: ATC, THE BAT, Steamer and Zeile from FantasyPros.

In addition, I collected playing time data from Razzball, by Rudy Gamble, who does a similar process for his projections, using Steamer and applying his own playing time adjustments. I also added Roster Resource, an excellent go-to for projected MLB depth charts and therefore a natural to estimate playing time.

After compiling this data in my baseball database, I produced playing time comparison reports by team for each of hitters and pitchers. Here is the Minnesota Twins hitters as an example:

+--------------------+------+-----+--------+--------+------+------+------+------+-------+-------+-------+------+-----+
| Name               | Team | Pos | Roster | batOrd | ATC  | BAT  | Razz | RR   | Steam | Zeile | Count | High | Low |
+--------------------+------+-----+--------+--------+------+------+------+------+-------+-------+-------+------+-----+
| Jorge Polanco      | MIN  | SS  | 25     | 1      |  617 |  614 |  635 |  656 |   641 |   606 |     6 |  656 | 606 |
| C.J. Cron          | MIN  | 1B  | 25     | 2      |  460 |  497 |  507 |  313 |   529 |   499 |     6 |  529 | 313 |
| Eddie Rosario      | MIN  | LF  | 25     | 3      |  623 |  635 |  654 |  604 |   622 |   599 |     6 |  654 | 599 |
| Nelson Cruz        | MIN  | DH  | 25     | 4      |  557 |  621 |  603 |  610 |   606 |   593 |     6 |  621 | 557 |
| Max Kepler         | MIN  | RF  | 25     | 5      |  600 |  607 |  579 |  592 |   594 |   569 |     6 |  607 | 569 |
| Jonathan Schoop    | MIN  | 2B  | 25     | 6      |  561 |  552 |  594 |  583 |   525 |   547 |     6 |  594 | 525 |
| Miguel Sano        | MIN  | 3B  | 25     | 7      |  506 |  586 |  573 |  565 |   545 |   544 |     6 |  586 | 506 |
| Jason Castro       | MIN  | C   | 25     | 8      |  307 |  410 |  311 |  367 |   339 |   296 |     6 |  410 | 296 |
| Byron Buxton       | MIN  | CF  | 25     | 9      |  479 |  517 |  488 |  512 |   484 |   504 |     6 |  517 | 479 |
| Ehire Adrianza     | MIN  | 2B  | 25     |        |  229 |  145 |  109 |   64 |   177 |   225 |     6 |  229 |  64 |
| Marwin Gonzalez    | MIN  | OF  | 25     |        |  511 |  595 |  516 |  515 |   542 |   523 |     6 |  595 | 511 |
| Tyler Austin       | MIN  | 1B  | 25     |        |  219 |  172 |  181 |  156 |   175 |   245 |     6 |  245 | 156 |
| Mitch Garver       | MIN  | C   | 25     |        |  313 |  171 |  267 |  176 |   208 |   279 |     6 |  313 | 171 |
| LaMonte Wade       | MIN  | LF  | 40     |        | NULL |    7 |   50 | NULL |     7 |  NULL |     3 |   50 |   7 |
| Luis Arraez        | MIN  | 2B  | 40     |        | NULL |    7 |   50 | NULL |     7 |  NULL |     3 |   50 |   7 |
| Lucas Duda         | MIN  | 1B  | 40     |        |  316 | NULL |  111 |    0 |  NULL |   312 |     4 |  316 |   0 |
| Michael Reed       | MIN  | RF  | 40     |        |   50 |   90 |   48 | NULL |    60 |   173 |     5 |  173 |  48 |
| Willians Astudillo | MIN  | C   | 40     |        |  293 |  125 |  276 |   97 |   186 |   272 |     6 |  293 |  97 |
| Ronald Torreyes    | MIN  | 2B  | 40     |        |   98 |  138 |  110 |    0 |   125 |   178 |     6 |  178 |   0 |
| Jake Cave          | MIN  | CF  | 40     |        |  289 |  193 |  179 |  193 |   198 |   272 |     6 |  289 | 179 |
| Zack Granite       | MIN  | CF  | 40     |        | NULL |   28 |   50 | NULL |    27 |    36 |     4 |   50 |  27 |
| Nick Gordon        | MIN  | SS  | 40     |        |   22 |   34 |   50 | NULL |    33 |    63 |     5 |   63 |  22 |
| Tomas Telis        | MIN  | C   | Minors |        | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |  NULL |    60 |     1 |   60 |  60 |
| Adam Rosales       | MIN  | 2B  | Minors |        |   20 | NULL |   82 |    0 |  NULL |   179 |     4 |  179 |   0 |
+--------------------+------+-----+--------+--------+------+------+------+------+-------+-------+-------+------+-----+
24 rows in set (0.01 sec)

There are some pretty big differences across our six data sets. Roster Resource is not on board with regular at-bats for C.J. Cron at only 313 as of late last week. This is updated to 354, but still a far cry from the 460 and up from other sources.

Nelson Cruz has a 64 PA difference, Jonathan Schoop almost 70 and Marwin Gonzalez over 80. Prospects are even tougher to peg because of the uncertainty when they will get the call up to the Majors.

Here are the Philadelphia Phillies pitchers:

+----------------------+------+-----+--------+---------+----------+------+------+------+------+-------+-------+-------+------+-----+
| Name                 | Team | Pos | Roster | Role    | Rotation | ATC  | BAT  | Razz | RR   | Steam | Zeile | Count | High | Low |
+----------------------+------+-----+--------+---------+----------+------+------+------+------+-------+-------+-------+------+-----+
| Aaron Nola           | PHI  | SP  | 25     | SP      | 1        |  197 |  194 |  197 |  213 |   194 |   198 |     6 |  213 | 194 |
| Jake Arrieta         | PHI  | SP  | 25     | SP      | 2        |  173 |  181 |  173 |  172 |   181 |   170 |     6 |  181 | 170 |
| Nick Pivetta         | PHI  | SP  | 25     | SP      | 3        |  162 |  169 |  149 |  143 |   160 |   155 |     6 |  169 | 143 |
| Vince Velasquez      | PHI  | SP  | 25     | SP      | 4        |  134 |  150 |  130 |  140 |   137 |   124 |     6 |  150 | 124 |
| Zach Eflin           | PHI  | SP  | 25     | SP      | 5        |  144 |  145 |  137 |  153 |   145 |   139 |     6 |  153 | 137 |
| David Robertson      | PHI  | RP  | 25     | CL      |          |   68 |   65 |   65 |   67 |    65 |    66 |     6 |   68 |  65 |
| Seranthony Dominguez | PHI  | RP  | 25     | SU      | 1        |   67 |   65 |   71 |   70 |    65 |    68 |     6 |   71 |  65 |
| Tommy Hunter         | PHI  | RP  | 25     | SU      | 2        |   61 |   55 |   55 |   55 |    55 |    61 |     6 |   61 |  55 |
| Juan Nicasio         | PHI  | RP  | 25     | Bullpen |          |   53 |   40 |   22 |   52 |    25 |    48 |     6 |   53 |  22 |
| Adam Morgan          | PHI  | RP  | 25     | Bullpen |          |   46 |   45 |   32 |   52 |    45 |    47 |     6 |   52 |  32 |
| Jose Alvarez         | PHI  | RP  | 25     | Bullpen |          |   49 |   40 |   25 |   45 |    30 |    45 |     6 |   49 |  25 |
| Hector Neris         | PHI  | RP  | 25     | Bullpen |          |   57 |   40 |   44 |   30 |    40 |    56 |     6 |   57 |  30 |
| Pat Neshek           | PHI  | RP  | 25     | Bullpen |          |   54 |   55 |   44 |   51 |    55 |    49 |     6 |   55 |  44 |
| Adonis Medina        | PHI  | SP  | 40     | SP      |          | NULL | NULL |    8 | NULL |     9 |  NULL |     2 |    9 |   8 |
| Jerad Eickhoff       | PHI  | SP  | 40     | SP      |          |   54 |    9 |    8 |   88 |     9 |    57 |     6 |   88 |   8 |
| Ranger Suarez        | PHI  | SP  | 40     | SP      |          | NULL | NULL |    7 | NULL |     9 |    16 |     3 |   16 |   7 |
| Drew Anderson        | PHI  | SP  | 40     | SP      |          | NULL |   19 |   26 | NULL |    19 |    16 |     4 |   26 |  16 |
| Enyel De Los Santos  | PHI  | SP  | 40     | SP      |          |   51 |   74 |   69 |   60 |    74 |    38 |     6 |   74 |  38 |
| Edubray Ramos        | PHI  | RP  | 40     | Bullpen |          |   31 |   20 |   19 | NULL |    10 |    34 |     5 |   34 |  10 |
| James Pazos          | PHI  | RP  | 40     | Bullpen |          |   37 |   40 |   29 | NULL |    35 |    46 |     5 |   46 |  29 |
| Victor Arano         | PHI  | RP  | 40     | Bullpen |          |   39 | NULL |   24 | NULL |    20 |    39 |     4 |   39 |  20 |
| Yacksel Rios         | PHI  | RP  | 40     | Bullpen |          |    7 |   20 |   24 | NULL |    15 |    21 |     5 |   24 |   7 |
| Austin Davis         | PHI  | RP  | 40     | Bullpen |          |   10 | NULL |   27 | NULL |    10 |    34 |     4 |   34 |  10 |
| Edgar Garcia         | PHI  | RP  | 40     | Bullpen |          | NULL | NULL |   24 | NULL |    10 |  NULL |     2 |   24 |  10 |
+----------------------+------+-----+--------+---------+----------+------+------+------+------+-------+-------+-------+------+-----+
24 rows in set (0.02 sec)

Pitcher changes are going to be very injury driven, so I expect to see less variation in projected innings than hitters’ plate appearances. I input the Roster Resource projections manually using a cut off of 75 PA and 30 IP, so there are additional players projected by RR but those numbers are not captured.

Draft Buddy Playing Time

Initial playing time values for the Draft Buddy projections are not a straight average of the available data. To me, that doesn’t make a lot of sense, in part because ATC and Zeile are averages themselves. Why take an average of an average?

Buddy numbers are unlikely to fall outside the range from the six sources. To start, they are a weighted average of some of the sets that I consider the most trusted. Going forward my plan is to manually review and adjust playing time by team. To help with this, individual team reports allow for news, research and comments about changes to playing time.

To produce the projections, playing time is applied to Steamer. The ratios such as batting average, ERA and WHIP should be the same (or close, due to rounding) between Steamer and Draft Buddy.

Jonathan Schoop has 525 PA per Steamer, but Draft Buddy playing time bumped him to 579. The image below from Schoop’s player page indicate AVG, OBP and SLG ratios are all the same.

Jonathan Schoop's player page

The Curious Case of Chris Sale

Steamer loves Chris Sale. I mean, loves him. This is a good example of a projection system unable to adequately account for different risk levels between players. Running Steamer through Last Player Picked with 15-team NFBC settings, Sale values at $49.

Chris Sale Last Player Picked

Maybe the pitchers as a group are ranked too high relative to hitters by LPP, but regardless of that consideration, Sale is way ahead of Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom and every other hurler. At issue is his projected ERA of 2.76 (2.94 for deGrom) and projected WHIP of 0.97 (1.03 for Scherzer). The differences really increase the value of Sale. Yet, few people would draft Sale ahead of Scherzer because of concerns over Sale’s relative probability of staying healthy.

Even reducing Sale’s projected IP, he still ranks very high thanks to the considerably lower ERA and WHIP projections. Instead of SP1, a more appropriate ranking for Sale is Top 4-5 among starting pitchers.

To accomplish that, I manually (subjectively) adjusted his dollar value and ranking. This is something that will happen with more players going forward, but since he is such a significant player I felt an early adjustment is warranted for him.

Missing In Action Players

One problem using the Steamer projections as a base is, what if they don’t project a certain player who we otherwise have projected playing time? This is not very common but it is worth noting the players this applied to. They are shown in the following two tables.

+-------+-----------------+------+-----+--------+-----------+-------+
| id    | Name            | Team | Pos | Roster | Positions | _PA   |
+-------+-----------------+------+-----+--------+-----------+-------+
|  6687 | Matt Joyce      | CLE  | RF  | Minors | OF        | 133.0 |
| 17584 | Mark Reynolds   | COL  | 1B  | 25     | 1B        | 116.0 |
| 18038 | Hunter Pence    | TEX  | CF  | Minors | OF        | 112.0 |
| 18599 | Drew Butera     | PHI  | C   | Minors | C         |  68.0 |
| 18961 | Adam Rosales    | MIN  | 2B  | Minors | 2B        |  51.0 |
| 19658 | Lucas Duda      | MIN  | 1B  | 25     | 1B        | 221.0 |
| 19658 | Lucas Duda      | MIN  | 1B  | 25     | DH        | 221.0 |
| 20351 | Brandon Guyer   | CWS  | RF  | 25     | OF        | 125.0 |
| 20573 | Isaac Galloway  | MIA  | CF  | Minors | OF        | 142.0 |
| 20911 | Ryan Flaherty   | CLE  | 3B  | Minors | 3B        |  69.0 |
| 21286 | Bryan Holaday   | MIA  | C   | Minors | C         |  71.0 |
| 22993 | John Andreoli   | SF   | CF  | Minors | OF        |  67.0 |
| 23731 | Jack Reinheimer | BAL  | SS  | 40     | SS        |  99.0 |
| 25060 | Charlie Tilson  | CWS  | LF  | FA     | OF        |  67.0 |
| 26247 | Daz Cameron     | DET  | CF  | Minors | OF        |  73.0 |
| 26249 | Mike Gerber     | SF   | CF  | Minors | OF        |  98.0 |
| 26284 | Bo Bichette     | TOR  | SS  | Minors | SS        | 101.0 |
| 26294 | Brendan Rodgers | COL  | SS  | Minors | SS        | 154.0 |
+-------+-----------------+------+-----+--------+-----------+-------+

+-------+----------------+------+-----+--------+-----------+--------+
| id    | Name           | Team | Pos | Roster | Positions | _IP    |
+-------+----------------+------+-----+--------+-----------+--------+
| 10758 | Jason Hammel   | TEX  | RP  | Minors | RP        |  63.00 |
| 10758 | Jason Hammel   | TEX  | RP  | Minors | SP        |  63.00 |
| 16352 | Homer Bailey   | KC   | SP  | Minors | SP        |  20.00 |
| 20478 | Tim Collins    | MIN  | RP  | Minors | RP        |  15.00 |
| 21787 | Oliver Drake   | TB   | RP  | Minors | RP        |  27.00 |
| 22380 | Danny Barnes   | TOR  | RP  | Minors | RP        |  33.00 |
| 22565 | Brandon Maurer | PIT  | RP  | Minors | RP        |  23.00 |
| 23058 | A.J. Cole      | CLE  | RP  | Minors | RP        |  28.00 |
| 23176 | Merrill Kelly  | ARI  | SP  | 25     | SP        | 138.00 |
| 23555 | Derek Law      | SF   | RP  | Minors | RP        |  36.00 |
| 26019 | Jared Miller   | ARI  | RP  | Minors | RP        |  16.00 |
+-------+----------------+------+-----+--------+-----------+--------+

The only player I truly feel should be included in our projections but is not at this time is Merrill Kelly. He will either show up in Steamer next time, or I will manually add him to our projections.

Final Thoughts

As a first attempt at creating our own projections, I am pretty happy with the results. Not that we want to ultimately create a rankings list that is the same as Average Draft Position, but there are fewer outliers as a result of odd playing time estimates. We have a good base to build on.

This process increased my already healthy respect for the work prognosticators put in to help us value players for fantasy sports. It is a lot of numbers and a lot of time, and a potentially never-ending saga making adjustments, trying different approaches, fine-tuning things, etc. Props to Ariel Cohen, Derek Carty, Jared Cross (and crew), Rudy Gamble, Jason Martinez and FantasyPros for their contributions to fantasy baseball that help this project.

It also drives home for me how pure number-generated rankings are not perfect (i.e. Chris Sale). The numbers help immensely, and then we also need to look beyond the numbers as a sanity check. A combination of quantitative analysis and qualitative risk-reward decisions is the best way to consider all angles and to ultimately draft the best fantasy baseball team possible.

Filed Under: Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Draft Buddy

ATC and THE BAT Projections Available for Draft Buddy

February 7, 2019 By Draft Buddy 2 Comments

Washington Nationals

High fives all around. Two new sets of 2019 fantasy baseball projections are now available for Draft Buddy – ATC by Ariel Cohen and THE BAT by Derek Carty.

Everyone likes more choice, am I right? With respect to that, I am pleased to announce we have two new sets of fantasy baseball projections for Draft Buddy. Draft Buddy is our custom rankings and draft tracker tool, and is free to download (free membership required). The projections are ATC by Ariel Cohen and THE BAT by Derek Carty.

Both sets of projections are available on FanGraphs, so I reached out to each of Ariel and Derek to ask if we could use them in Draft Buddy for our members. Each guy said, “for sure”. Awesome! Please give them a follow and thank you via Twitter @ATCNY and @DerekCarty.

ATC

ATC stands for Average Total Cost and it is an average of various baseball projections, but not a straight average, which is what I believe Zeile from FantasyPros is (already included in Draft Buddy). Ariel is an actuary so he is no stranger to crunching numbers and calculating probabilities. ATC weights particular projections from each system more or less based on their historical accuracy. For example, lets say Steamer has historically been excellent projecting stolen bases. ATC will then more heavily weight stolen base projections from Steamer in the average.

In Ariel’s article on RotoGraphs from 2017, introducing ATC, he compares his methodology to Nate Silver’s presidential election forecasting. I asked Ariel specifically about playing time, as this is an area of fantasy baseball forecasting I am paying more attention to lately. He said the playing time is derived in a similar fashion – a weighted average of playing time from other projections, based on historical accuracy.

Read more from Ariel at RotoGraphs, here and here.

THE BAT

Celebrating its second year at FanGraphs, THE BAT for season long is an extension of Derek’s original work, THE BAT created to project single game outcomes for daily fantasy sports. That is kind of like when I created Draft Buddy way back when for fantasy football, and then a bunch of you asked for a fantasy baseball version, and here we are today.

Derek is a sabermetrics guy, and as such, integrated many variables into his model. Whereas ATC is more like Zeile, THE BAT is more like (big picture) Steamer and ZiPS. Read his RotoGraphs article about THE BAT for more detail. I found this section particularly interesting:

Player stats are backwards-adjusted to account for all of the individual circumstances they’ve faced in the past in order to gain a truer estimate of a player’s underlying talent level. On the season-level, that underlying talent is then forward-adjusted based on the circumstances the player will face for the remainder of the season.

Playing time for THE BAT is similar to the Depth Chart projections at FanGraphs – based on projected lineup and staff input – plus some adjustments. Free agents are not currently included but should be soon.

If you are interested in THE BAT in-season, especially useful for DFS players, it is available at RotoGrinders.

Projection Pal

Now you are wondering how to get ATC and/or THE BAT into Draft Buddy. It is easy. Not as easy as selecting it off a drop-down list and clicking Update Projections in Draft Buddy, but the next best thing.

Did I mention Projection Pal is ready for the 2019 season? I did in last week’s baseball members newsletter, but otherwise this might be the first time. You can download Pal and use it to import projections to Draft Buddy.

Projection Pal is a necessary tool for importing projections to make sure the data you are trying to import matches the correct players in Draft Buddy. Otherwise, the prior year stats and other projections will be misaligned.

With respect to ATC and THE BAT specifically, I uploaded Projection Pal files that already include each of these sets of projections. Links to each are on the Draft Buddy download page. To get either set in Draft Buddy follow these steps:

  1. Download the Projection Pal file for ATC or THE BAT
  2. Open the Pal file, and open your copy of Draft Buddy
  3. Make sure the filename for your copy of Draft Buddy matches the filename on the setup tab in Pal (it should by default)
  4. Go to the hitters Raw tab and click the Copy to Draft Buddy button
  5. Go to the pitchers Raw tab and click the Copy to Draft Buddy button

After you click the Copy to Draft Buddy button for each of hitters and pitchers, there should be a short wait before it copies over the projections and takes you to Draft Buddy where you can review the imported projections. Then to use these projections in your cheatsheets, go to the options tab, adjust the default allocation key, and hit Compile Cheatsheets (action tab).

Projection Updates

ATC and THE BAT projections were pulled last Thursday, January 31st, from FanGraphs. I won’t necessarily be able to follow the same update schedule for ATC and THE BAT as the other projections, but it is pretty easy to update yourself. Download the latest CSV from FanGraphs, copy the data over the existing data in Projection Pal, check your row numbers and column headings, and click Copy to Draft Buddy, again. Or give me a nudge and I will see what I can do.

Thanks Ariel and Derek!

Filed Under: Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Draft Buddy

Manuel Margot Has Trea Turner Potential

March 23, 2018 By Giles Clasen Leave a Comment

Trea Turner Lite? Giles Clasen thinks we’ve got exactly that in San Diego Padres CF Manuel Margot, which could be a huge bargain for a 12th round draft pick.

Fantasy baseball is all about predicting the future. But this isn’t a game for psychics. Our game is about using past numbers and thoughtful analysis to try and predict future success.

I rely on projections this time of year, such as Steamer and ZiPS, but these resources don’t tell the whole story. Sometimes we have to look beyond projections and use our gut a bit to find the next breakout player.

This year my gut is telling me Manuel Margot will be a Top 25 fantasy player. He has the potential to be Trea Turner Lite.

Manuel Margot

Season AB R HR RBI SB AVG OBP SLG 5X5
2016 37 4 0 3 2 .243 .243 .405 $0
2017 487 53 13 39 17 .263 .313 .409 -$1
2018 (Steamer) 552 70 14 55 21 .259 .308 .402 $5
2018 (Zeile) 545 71 13 54 21 .266 .316 .413 $3
2018 (ZiPS) 539 65 12 51 20 .267 .315 .412 $0

I don’t say this flippantly. Trea Turner is one of the best players in fantasy and could top the ESPN player rater if he stays healthy. Justifiably, Turner is being drafted in the first round. So finding a player who can give you similar numbers in the twelfth round is extremely valuable.

When comparing Turner and Margot, I do recognize Turner hit the major leagues running, quite literally. In his first 73 games Turner hit 13 home runs, stole 33 bases and hit .342. Turner demanded our attention.

Turner followed up those gaudy 2016 numbers by swiping 46 bases in 95 games last year, while giving you double digit home runs and a solid average.

Trea Turner

Season AB R HR RBI SB AVG OBP SLG 5X5
2015 40 5 1 1 2 .225 .295 .325 $0
2016 307 53 13 40 33 .342 .370 .567 $10
2017 412 75 11 45 46 .284 .338 .451 $14
2018 (Steamer) 567 94 16 65 49 .296 .345 .462 $28
2018 (Zeile) 559 94 16 65 49 .293 .342 .462 $32
2018 (ZiPS) 514 78 14 62 45 .280 .330 .444 $21

Margot is a year younger than Turner and has taken a bit more time to reach his potential. Positively speaking, Margot still has a lot of room to grow. He had a solid rookie season last year, but few would say that Margot’s numbers suggest he can hold a bat to Turner. However…

The first thing to note is Margot’s speed. The guy is fast. Statcast measured Margot as the 10th fastest guy in baseball, a hair faster than Turner. Sure, stealing a base requires more skill than just speed, but Margot, in theory, has the raw ability to take a base whenever he wants to.

Margot also plays for the San Diego Padres. This may not seem like a good thing, but trust me, it is. Manager Andy Green lets his players run, which is a rare thing these days.

In 2017 the Padres were in the top third of teams for attempted steals. That is valuable, because more and more teams are holding back their players. Margot should be given the opportunity to run if he wants to. All of this suggests Margot will have 30 or more steals in 2018. Last year only 6 players stole 30 bases.

I believe Margot has the ability to hit for power as well, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see Margot hit 20 home runs this year. Margot showed a fair amount of improvement last year from the first half of the season to the second. His slugging went from .392 to .424 while slightly decreasing his strike out rate.

These numbers are slightly behind Turner’s, but if Margot can stretch his second half over the whole season, or continue to improve slightly, Margot could hit a few more over the fence than Turner in 2018.

In addition, Margot is hitting leadoff for an improved Padres team so his counting stats could also jump some from last year.

In 2017 we all watched Elvis Andrus go from being drafted outside the Top 200 to finishing a Top 20 payer. I believe Margot can accomplish the same thing.

At this time next year we won’t be talking about Margot as a regression candidate but as a player who finally arrived. Not quite Trea Turner, but not far off.

Filed Under: Fantasy Baseball

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    Detroit Tigers first baseman/third baseman Spencer Torkelson, the team's top prospect per MLB Pipeline, put on a show in batting practice at spring training on Monday during the team's first full-squad workout. Torkelson will get his first look at live pitching on Tuesday, and he could see quite a few at-bats when spring training games actually begin with Jonathan Schoop, Renato Nunez, Isaac Paredes, Victor Reyes, Nomar Mazara and Aderlin Rodriguez unlikely to be cleared to join camp until at least the weekend. Torkelson will work exclusively at third base in camp, unless the Tigers need an emergency first baseman. The 21-year-old slugger is a consensus top-10 overall prospect entering the 2021 season and is a must-own in dynasty/keeper leagues for his plus-plus power and hitting skills.

    Feb 22 · RotoBaller Tigers Spencer Torkelson
  • Brewers In The Mix For Jackie Bradley Jr. Show More

    The Milwaukee Brewers are one of about half a dozen other teams that seem to be considering free-agent outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr., Jon Heyman of MLB Network reports. Bradley is reportedly seeking a contract of more than four years and $50 million. Bradley is now 31 years old and is not going to develop the power/speed many foretold when he was younger. With that being said, his defense is elite and should keep him in contention for playing time. If the Brewers were to land Bradley, he'd likely be a platoon/bench player and likely wouldn't be relevant in terms of fantasy production.

    Feb 22 · RotoBaller Brewers Jackie Bradley Jr.
  • Jarred Kelenic To Start The Year In Minors Show More

    Seattle Mariners president and CEO Kevin Mather said that outfield prospect Jarred Kelenic will start the 2021 season in the minor leagues after Kelenic and his representation rejected the team's six-year contract extension offer with options. "We would like him to get a few more at-bats in the minor leagues, probably Triple-A Tacoma for a month. Then he will likely be in left field at T-Mobile Park for the next six or seven years, and then he'll be a free agent," Mather said. The No. 4 prospect in all of baseball, per MLB Pipeline, was frustrated that he wasn't called up last season after he hit .291/.364/.540 at High-A and Double-A in 2019 in 117 games while hitting 23 home runs and driving in 68 runs. While Seattle will hold him back a little longer to manipulate his service time, Kelenic should be a starting outfielder for the M's for the majority of the 2021 season.

    Buddy Take I recently added Kelenic as my fifth OF at pick 221 in a 10-team, best ball points league. That is right about bang on his NFBC ADP.

    Feb 21 · RotoBaller Mariners Jarred Kelenic
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