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.

It’s hard to forget Bryce Harper just turned 22 years old this past October. For a lot of top tier prospects they’re entering Double-A at the age of 22, but Harper is performing at the Major League level.

For two years in a row Harper has missed a substantial amount of time due to injury. What’s interesting is both of those injuries came on fluke plays. Last year he tore a ligament in his thumb sliding into a base and in 2013 it was because he ran into a wall while playing a fly ball. Usually I like players staying healthy in the future if the injuries are fluky rather than tissue-based injuries, but since he plays the game so hard the likelihood of him sustaining a fluky injury is higher.

Starting on April 26, 2014 he missed 57 games with the torn ligament in his thumb. For the first 25 games of the season he struggled, hitting only .232. When he came off the DL on June 30 it was obvious he wasn’t 100% when he came back from the DL because he was rolling over on a lot of balls he would’ve crushed. When August rolled around he caught fire. In the last two months of the season he hit .283 with a .805 OPS and ten home runs.

Also, his strikeout rate increased dramatically last year as it rose seven percentage points (from 18.9% to 26.3%). You may be thinking a lot of that increase occurred when he first came back from the DL, but he struck out 26.9% the last two months of the season.

If you look at his three Major League seasons he has hit between .270-.274 every year so it’s natural to project him to have a batting average in that range in 2015. However, last year he was able to hit .273 last year with an incredibly high .352 BABIP. The BABIP was fueled by a .333 batting average on ground balls. The two years prior he only hit .240 on ground balls. If the high strikeout rate continues to be north of the 25% may only be a .250 hitter next year.

Since Harper is so young and has missed big chunks of the past two seasons it’s hard to get a gauge what his current true talent really is. He has the raw physical tools to be the best fantasy player in baseball, which makes him intriguing on draft day. If he can play in 145-plus games he easily hits 26 home runs with room for more and if Matt Williams doesn’t bat him seventh all year he could have 90-plus RBIs.

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.

Judging by all the hype surrounding Yasiel Puig I thought he finished the year with at least a 20/20 season. However, he didn’t have more than 20 of either category. Judging by his first half performance (.309 batting average with 12 home runs and seven stolen bases) his fantasy owners were probably expecting a 20/20 season. In the second half of the season he played well, but his numbers were pretty empty as he hit .274 with only four home runs and stolen bases.

For his Major League career he has a 58% stolen base success rate, which is extremely low. Even though he was 4 for 4 in stolen bases during the second half of 2014, but the fact he only had four stolen base attempts is probably due to the low success rate for his career. I’ve clocked him at 4.06 home-to-first from the right side of the plate, which is really fast (plus-plus territory on the 20-80 scouting scale) so he has the raw speed to steal 20-plus bases.

Even though he’s really fast he has an extremely high batting average on ground balls, which doesn’t look sustainable. For his career he has a .366 batting average on ground balls. To put that into context let’s look at the ground ball batting averages of other high batting average players with a lot of speed when they were at their physical peak. You’ll notice there are three slappy speed hitters, but I also added Albert Pujols who had the same body type.

It is possible Puig continues to have a high batting average on ground balls, but the smart money says some regression should occur eventually. Since he hits the ball on the ground 51% of the time a regression in his batting average will occur.

From July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014 he hit 23 home runs with a 16.7% HR/FB (in 616 ABs), which best represents his true talent level. I excluded June 2013 because he had a .500 BABIP and was on fire. I excluded the last three months of 2014 because he only had five home runs with a 7.8% HR/FB rate. I know I’m picking arbitrary end points for this data, but with a small sample I have to make the best-educated estimate what his true talent level is. Last year he hit 133 fly balls and if he has a 16.7% HR/FB rate he’ll hit 22.2 home runs, which seems about right.

I project Puig to have 560 ABs with a .275 AVG, 22 HR, 11 SB and 90/90 R and RBI.

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.

Manny Machado has an inflated fantasy value within the fantasy community because fantasy owners take into account the elite defense he provides and neglect the subpar offense. For example, he’s never hit more than 14 home runs, stole more than six bases, drove in more than 71 runs or had a batting average greater than .283.

On top of the lack luster production he’s had two major knee surgeries within one calendar year. As of early November he is on track to be ready for Spring Training, but I have questions whether he can hold up for an entire season. If you watch how he got injured last year you’ll see the injury happened on a seemingly routine play, which indicates there’s a higher likelihood he’ll reaggrevate it again. Also, since he’s hurt his knee twice probably means he won’t steal bases.

When he got hurt he had 12 home runs and was on pace to hit 20, which could create optimism his power in 2015. However, I’m not buying it. First, his HR/FB rate was 14.8%. His career rate before 2014 was 9.3%. He’s still a high ground ball hitter (he hits ground balls 48% of the time) and in order hit 20-plus with a high ground ball rate he’ll have to have another career high HR/FB rate.

If he can play a full year he’ll perform slightly better than his 2013 numbers because he plays in a bam box and he’ll be a year older and stronger, but he’ll probably be over drafted again in 2015 and it certainly will not be me.

I project 500 ABs with a .278 AVG, 15 HR, 68 RBI, 71 R and 1 SB.