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.

After 2013 I questioned whether or not Christian Yelich could repeat the batting average next year because he had a high .380 BABIP with a 60% ground ball rate. Last year his BABIP dropped to .356 and the ground ball rate was 60%, but he was able to have a similar batting average as 2013.

Even though he only had nine home runs there is room for growth. First, his age; he played the entire season at the age of 22. Usually power comes later as a player matures. Second, the home ballpark may be suppressing his power. He has a career 3.8% HR/FB rate at home compared to 19.3% on the road. We’re still dealing with a small sample size (933 PAs) so we’re not at the point where we can make a more definitive conclusion.

According to some of the scouts at Baseball Prospectus there is room for him to grow into this power:

• Jason Parks: “As he continues to mature and learns the nuances of power, his doubles will start to turn into home runs and he could be a true middle-of-the-lineup threat”
• Nick J. Faleris: “He could reach 20 home runs a year once he is fully matured.”

The question is when will he fully mature into his power? Last year his average home run distance was 412.9 feet. To put that number into context lets look at the average home run distances for players in 2014 (table below).

Based on this data he ranks somewhere in the top 10% of average home run distance among hitters, which indicates when he gets into ball he can really drive it. That said, we’re dealing with only nine home runs so the sample size is small. I think he can grow into some power, but since his ground ball rate is so high the ceiling on the home runs is small. For example, last year he hit 81 fly balls and 272 ground balls. He needs to increase the number of ground balls by at least 20% for him to more than 12 home runs.

Next year I’m projecting him to hit .285 with 12 home runs, 58 RBI, 91 runs and 21 stolen bases.

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.

Yesterday the White Sox signed Adam LaRoche to a two year $25M contract to serve as the DH. On draft day LaRoche is not going to get a lot of ooooh’s and awwww’s by your opponents but you’re going to be getting a player who won’t win you your league and most importantly, won’t lose you your league.

For career he’s basically averaged 25 home runs with .259-plus batting average for pretty much for his whole career and I do not see any indication he’s going to stop in 2015.

After his worst fantasy season (where he played a full year) he had a nice bounce back season in 2014. The strikeout rate decreased four percentage points and was the second lowest of his Major League career; also, the contact rate was the highest its been since 2008.

In regards to the power he should see an up-tick in power because he’s moving to one of the best home run parks in the majors. In the last two years he’s hit 162 fly balls and he has a career 15% HR/FB rate. Last year his HR/FB rate was 16% so even if that stabilizes in 2015 he’s going to hit 26 home runs again (and with room for more).

LaRoche struggles against lefties. Since 2008 he has a .233/.288/.413 slash line against lefties (in 1,060 PAs) so he’ll likely be platooned, which would increase his fantasy viability because he would hit 30-40 points higher.

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.

In late September Brandon Moss revealed he played much of the year with torn cartilage in his hip. To quote from the article, “He [Moss] didn’t want to blame his second-half numbers dip on the problem but Moss said that he does not have much range of motion or strength in the joint as a result.” In late October Moss had the torn labrum repaired as well as a clean-up procedure to an impingement in his hip.

I don’t know when the injury started to bother him, but I’m guessing it started to occur sometime in June. My guess is based purely on his statistical data and he started to trend significantly down in June.

Moss’ season was so bad you could break down his 2014 season and create a narrative based on that data. The next two tables will provide two different cuts of his 2014 season to give you some perspective.

The first table looks at is his performance for the first two months of the season compared to the last four months.

The second table shows his performance for the first three months of the season compared to the last three months.

Some fantasy owners never believed in Brandon Moss to begin with and they could have the belief that his spiral in the second half of the season was due to the regression that was bound to happen. However, if you compare his first three months of 2014 and compare them to his 2013 season they look eerily similar (table below).

I have no idea how much the injury effected Moss’ play on the field but the poor performance in the second half of the season suggests it had a major impact on him. Assuming he’s healthy and looks good in Spring Training I’m going to believe Brandon Moss can bounce back to the player he was in 2013.