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.