Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

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.

Last year Josh Hamilton missed two months of the season due to a thumb injury. He got hurt sliding into first base, which was a fluke accident. Towards the end of the year he missed 20 games with shoulder and upper-body injuries. In early February he had shoulder surgery to fix an AC joint. “He is expected to resume baseball activities in three to eight weeks, while a full recovery is estimated at six to eight weeks, the team said.”

Hamilton, who turns 34 in May, is a player who no longer has the physical tools to be a top 50 fantasy player, but if he can play 140-plus games the lineup around him could make him a tremendous value on draft day. The shoulder surgery probably makes unlikely he can play 140-plus games at this point.

When he’s active, he’s going to bat either fourth or fifth, which means he’s going to have a lot of RBI opportunities. You may be saying to yourself that he played 151 games in 2013 and he only had 79 RBIs. The reason why the RBI totals were low was because he only hit .224 with runners in scoring position, which is extremely low.

In regards to the power, the HR/FB rate has decreased year-over-year for three years. However, last year was the second to lowest HR/FB rate of his career so there should be some positive regression. That said, I don’t see 40-plus or even 30-plus home runs as a reasonable ceiling for him but I think he is capable for 25 if he plays in 140 games.

Last year he had a career high in strikeout rate and he was able to have .263 batting average with a .350 BABIP. Any time I see a high strikeout rate and high BABIP I immediately think regression. Last year he struggled a lot against fastballs. For example, last year he hit .285 with a 24.4% strikeout rate. From 2008-13 he hit .338 with a 16% strike out rate. These statistics can be one of two things: A) a decrease in bat speed or B) it’s a small sample size. I think it may be a combination of both. If the strikeout rate doesn’t decrease I see the batting average regressing to the .240s.

Since his 2014 numbers were so bad, his injuries last year and his current injury he may be a draft value. Two years ago he was one of the top five best players in baseball so it’s possible he could breakout. However, at the same time he has a low floor. If I’m in a shallow league I would take a flyer at the end of the draft.

My 2015 projection for Hamilton is 400 ABs, .242 AVG, 15 HRs, 65 RBI, 55 R and 1 SB.

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.

Victor Martinez is really good and as I wrote in last years fantasy guide we saw how good he could be during the last three months of the 2013 season. That said, I didn’t think he would hit a career high 32 home runs and .335 batting average. Usually when an older player (he turned 36 in December) has career highs in those categories the fantasy community will assume a major regression is coming, but I don’t see that happening.

Obviously there will be some regression in both the power and batting average, but it will not be significant. The image below shows his extra base hit percentage (XBH%) and his home runs since 2004. I did not include 2008 because he only had 270 PAs. The first thing I noticed was his home runs last year was a little fluky, but the extra base hit percentage suggests he was making a lot of hard contact and should be able to hit 23-28 home runs next year.

In regards to his batting average he hit .268 on ground balls, which is 25 points higher than his totals from 2009-13 so a regression in the batting average should occur. However, the batting average shouldn’t regress below .300 mark because he’s only hit below .300 once and that was in 2004 (.283 batting average).

In early February Martinez tore the meniscus in his left knee while working out. The extent of the injury is unknown. He could only be out a couple of weeks and still play in Spring Training. Another scenario is he begins the season on the DL. If begins the year on the DL it’s hard to not think he’ll get off to a slow start. He missed the entire 2012 season after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in the same left knee. In 2013 his numbers were pedestrian but he took off during the second half of the year.

This injury certainly doesn’t improve his fantasy viability, but it may lower his value to the point where he may be a draft day value. As of early February I have no idea how severe the injury is. In general I avoid drafting players already injured because there is a higher likelihood of repeat injury and a decrease in production.

For now I’m keeping my original projection before the injury. My 2015 projection is 570 ABs, .308 AVG, 25 HRs, 98 RBI, 88 Runs and 0 SBs.

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.

Wade Miley is really good, but most people don’t know that because his numbers have been inflated by the Diamondbacks ballpark. The table below shows his career home-road statistics (he has identical BABIPs at home versus the road).

Being traded to the Red Sox doesn’t necessarily help his fantasy value, but the Diamondbacks ballpark is a bad pitchers park so the change will not be very dramatic. What will be dramatic is he will not have a chunk of his starts in the friendly confines of the NL West (excluding Colorado obviously).

The reason why the strikeout rate improved was because of the increased usage of the slider (image below from BrooksBaseball.net).

His fastball can be flat so he’s going to be home run prone so the HR/FB rate could actually increase next year. However, among starting pitchers with at least 20 starts he threw the second highest total of pitches down in the zone last year. Therefore, the HR/FB rate could increase, but not by a lot.

The biggest positive about going to the Red Sox is since he’s a high ground ball pitcher and Boston’s defensive infield should be an upgrade, which will make him streamable at times (usually when he’s playing outside of the AL East). He’s never been on the DL since entering the majors, which means he should be able to provide 170-plus strikeouts, a sneaky option for 14-plus wins and an average ERA and WHIP.

My 2015 projection for Miley is 200 IP, 3.85 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 175 Ks and 13 wins.