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.

Starling Marte has a very interesting profile because he has a very aggressive approach and subsequently strikes out a lot, but at the same time he hits for a high batting average. He’s done this for two years in a row so it’s reasonable to say this is true talent level and therefore, can be repeated. Last year I wasn’t buying Marte because I thought he BABIPed his way to a good rookie campaign, but after last year I was clearly wrong.

The biggest question I have is there room for improvement with the power? He has a career 14.2% HR/FB rate on the road compared to only 9.7% at home so it’s possible the home ballpark (which is a very pitcher friendly park) is suppressing his power. Marte turned 26 years old in October so it’s possible there’s an uptick in power, but I don’t see it happening. Maybe he has a fluky HR/FB rate, but I wouldn’t bank on it.

In terms of the stolen bases his stolen base success rate was identical the past two seasons (73.2%), which is not high enough to be successful in the long term (80% is the minimum threshold to provide a positive run expectancy over a substantial sample size). That may be why his stolen base attempts decreased so much last year. He has the pure speed to steal 40-plus, but at this point I don’t think I can reasonably expect that next year. That said, stealing bases is a skill that can be learned and improved upon pretty quickly.