If you like what you’re reading then you will like my 2015 Fantasy Baseball Guide! Last year’s fantasy guide was more than 150,000 words and had 440 player profiles (of hitters and pitchers). My approach to player evaluation is to ask questions about what the player has done in the past and what he may do in the future. I certainly provide a narrative on how I feel a player will perform, but I also ask a lot of open ended questions that I hope will get you thinking about the information I’ve provided.

The biggest question I had about Chris Archer heading into 2014 was would he be able to finally negate lefties. The table below shows his career numbers against lefties.

By looking at the table it looks as though he’s found a way to mitigate lefties. The question how was he able to do that and is it repeatable? Archer is basically and two-pitch pitcher (fastball [four and two seam] and slider). In general, the slider is a divesting weapon against righties because the pitch is thrown down and away from the batter (i.e. away from the fat part of the hitters bat). However, against lefties that pitch is thrown right into the wheel house of a lefties bat. Last year I thought if the changeup improved he could breakout because the changeup is thrown down and away (i.e. away from a left handers bat). Last year he threw his two-seam fastball a lot more to lefties (image below from BrooksBaseball.net) and used that pitch to generate a lot of ground balls and weak contact. Last year his command improved in general. There would be a few starts where he would lose command and not pitch very well, but there were would be other times where he looked amazing. The biggest change from 2013 is he had more amazing starts and less bad starts. It’s not uncommon for young pitchers to be up and down with their command and do not forget 2014 was his first full year in the majors. From the scouting reports I’ve read he has the makeup, athleticism and most importantly, stuff to get even better in 2015. My 2015 projection for Archer is 195 IP, 3.35 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 175 Ks and 12 wins.