Picks and Pans

There Is No Fantasy Baseball Guide 2023.

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Try Rotoman’s Fantasy Baseball Guide 2023 instead.

Supply chain, paper costs, inflation, whatever, the magazine’s publisher couldn’t see a way to break even on The Fantasy Baseball Guide 2023 and cancelled it.

So welcome to Rotoman’s Fantasy Baseball Guide 2023, where you’ll find player prices, projections, Rotoman’s Picks and Pans (hundreds of player profiles), a Rookie preview, and position by position cheat sheets. Online.

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Check out Rotoman’s Fantasy Baseball Guide 2023.

Historical Picks and Pans: A correction

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In this year’s Fantasy Baseball Guide 2020 (out now!), we received some bonus Picks and Pans from longtime contributor Kevin Cook and his son Cal. The Cooks imagined the Hall of Fame cases for Shoeless Joe Jackson, Pete Rose and Barry Bonds, written as Picks and Pans. I liked the idea so much I included them in the Guide’s editor’s letter. And I hoped that readers would come up with their own, which we would publish here.

That hasn’t happened, but I did hear from a reader named Steven McPherson, who knows a thing or two about the Eight Men Out. He wrote:

In regards the arguments made for Joe Jackson belonging in the Hall of Fame in the Letter from the Editor in The Fantasy Baseball Guide 2020.  It states “he handled 30 chances without an error and threw out five baserunners.”

You are mistaken.  He was credited with 16 put outs and one assist.  The assist occurred in the sixth game when Jackson threw out Cincinnati second sack Morrie Rath at the plate in the fourth inning.  The play-by-play in the Spaulding’s Official Base Ball Guide reads:

“Rath tried to score on Daubert’s short fly to Jackson.  He was doubled at the plate as he slid into Schalk and knocked the little catcher over.”

In fact, a photo in the same publication suggests that Jackson made a poor throw up the first-base line, forcing Schalk to retrieve the poor throw and then dive back towards home plate into Rath’s flying spikes to make the tag.  Great effort by the catcher who was not involved in the fixing of the Series.

BTW, the number of putouts by Jackson are meaningless anyway since, for example, in one inning he could misplay or misjudge five flyballs and still make three putouts.

I think Jackson probably did give his best effort in most of his plate appearances because he was, after all, playing for next year’s salary; however, it should not be overlooked that he did not run the bases particularly well: he was thrown out at least once trying to steal, doubled off at least twice after failing to tag up, and fell down at lest twice trying to advance on the bases.

Additionally, his public and legal versions of events changed radically so much so that in 1923 the Judge in his civil trial charged him with perjury.

In his 1920 Grand Jury testimony, he stated he had been promised $20,000 and received only $5,000 for his part in the fix.

FYI, you might enjoy the link below.  There are also references to more updated research on this subject at this link.

Steve

PS- I agree with the takes on Barry Bonds and Pete Rose.

I know there are competing views about Shoeless Joe, so I forwarded Kevin Steve’s letter. He wrote back:

He’s right about the assists–that’ll teach me to accept a stat on Wikipedia. But putouts aren’t the same as chances handled. There were hits he fielded cleanly that he could have booted. I should certainly have been more careful about throwing out five baserunners, an awfully high number; I still think Joe still belongs in the Hall.

So there, an acceptance of a correction and a refutation. The debate will doubtless continue. Maybe it’s time for me to develop an opinion.

Rating the Picks and Pans

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Every year I’m asked by quite a few people why we don’t rate the Picks and Pans from the Guide. There are two answers:

  1. There isn’t time. There are more than 300 of these comments in the Guide in any given year, and to do a fair evaluation each has to be looked at closely. Many Picks suggest modest gains for very marginal players, and many Pans concede good but not great performance for stars. Two comments, one pick and one pan, can predict the same things.
  2. It would be a little rude. I ask a lot of smart fantasy baseball people to participate in the fun of the Picks and Pans. When we first pick up the Guide after its January release, it’s hard to resist the lure of who’s picking/panning who. “Rick Porcello, 11 Pans! Incredible!” We all get some right, and some wrong, but the fun comes from the jokes, the word play, the odd stats, that crop up in the comments. I’m afraid putting them up on a scoreboard, from which reputation could be inferred immediately would spoil things. Everyone would be obligated to be more exacting, less free wheeling, or possibly suffer for it. That’s no fun!

But Don Drooker, the Rotisserie Duck (not a la orange), grades his own picks at his excellent blog, rotisserieduck.com. Maybe because they’re so good, or so much fun. This is something I endorse. Reading his comments and then his explanation of why he graded the P+Ps as he did is almost as informative as reading the original predictions.

Good work, Don!

ASK ROTOMAN: Who Picks/Pans Best?

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Dear Rotoman,

I always get the Fantasy Baseball Guide.  Can you please be objective and tell me which of the analysts are the best with their picks and pans?  Thanks very much in advance.

“Judge or Jury”

Dear JoJ:

If I was going to be objective I would go over the Picks and Pans each year and grade them. Was the writer right? Or wrong? On every single opinion.

In fact, every year some readers suggest I do exactly that. But I can’t.

I invite all these writers to my magazine, to participate in an exercise that I hope is as fun for them to write as it is for readers to read. I believe it is, since so many of them have contributed for years and years and years.

Screenshot 2014-02-13 22.39.58

 

 

 

 

One of the reasons they find it fun, I think, is because the guidelines are loose. The writers choose which players to write about, how many to write, and what a pick or pan is. Sometimes a pan is a slam of a bad player, but more often it’s a reminder that the market on this mid-level hitter or that superstar pitcher is likely to run too hot (and his skills aren’t likely to keep up) so you should stay away.

Sometimes a pick will contain serious analysis, and sometimes it is really a premise for a good joke or a bad pun. The degree of difficulty varies wildly from Pick to Pan and back, from any single writer and between all of them, and that’s how I think it should be.

I understand wanting a scorecard, I think it might be a good idea for someone to do objective polling of preseason player analysis, but I’m not the one to provide it. I host of nearly 30 top fantasy baseball analysts at what I hope feels a bit like a party, and I think it would be rude for me to give them marks.

Grading would also goes against the Picks and Pans premise, and that of the entire Fantasy Baseball Guide, which is to present data and ideas and conversation about players and strategies, in order to help the reader make up their own minds.

To better the conversation, I want the writers to be loose, willing to experiment and have some fun. I fear that in a contest, maybe more of the picks and pans would be “correct,” but that we’d lose a little of the loosey-goosey playfulness that makes these short bits genuinely enlightening sometimes.

But I am curious. Whose comments do you find most useful, and why? Because that certainly is part of the ongoing conversation.

Thankfully,
Rotoman

The Overachievers (or are they?): What to expect from the first half’s most surprising hitters

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The challenge on draft day is to buy a guy at his price, what everyone expects him to earn, and then get all the production that comes with a breakout season. In other words, much more than you paid for. This year, the biggest breakouts on offense have been Jean Segura, Chris Davis, Josh Donaldson, Nate McLouth, Everth Cabrera, Daniel Nava, Manny Machado, Domonic Brown, Matt Carpenter and James Loney (with honorable mention to Yasiel Puig and Carlos Gomez). What should you expect from them going ahead?

Jean Segura. He cost $15 in Tout Wars and earned his owner $41 in the first half. After a hot start hitting with power his SLG has declined each month, but his July BA is .314 after a .277 June. It was expected his wheels would earn him his pay, and they have, but it was the power surge that bumped him to the top of this list. He’s got 24 steals with only four CS. Given our expectations going into the season versus his red hot first two months, it seems reasonable to expect about a .300 BA with four homers and another 15 steals. That’s a very good shortstop.

Chris Davis. Cost $20 in Tout Wars, and earned $45 in the first half. After a couple of promising seasons in Texas, Davis failed for long enough that just about everyone became skeptical about him, but now after proving himself as capable last year, he’s pushing into new territory for just about everyone this year. He was on pace for 62 homers at the midway point, and has hit six more since. The big issues here are gravity and opportunity. Can he remain aloft for much longer? And will he get fewer chances to hit, as teams work around him? He’s hitting more fly balls than ever, and hitting homers on 36 percent of his fly balls. That’s not sustainable in the long run. Still, even if his homer per rate falls to last year’s rate he’s got something like 20 homers coming the rest of the way. (Note: He tore a callous during the HR Derby, an event which has a history of messing up power hitters. The injury isn’t supposed to be a big deal, but anything that affects a hitter’s hands shouldn’t be ignored.)

Josh Donaldson. Went for $10 in Tout Wars, was earning $22 at midseason. Expectations were low because he really didn’t produce last year and with the addition of Jed Lowrie playing opportunities appeared to be limited in Oakland. Instead, Donaldson has confidently established himself as a power hitter, with an increased walk rate and a decrease in strikeouts. His BABIP and HR/FB are higher than ever before, and it seems likely he’ll end up hitting .280 rather than .310, but it also appears he’s made the adjustment to big league pitching. Now it’s up to the pitchers to block him back. Unless they succeed, look for 12 homers and a .275 BA the rest of the way.

Nate McLouth. Only $3 in Tout Wars, at the midway point he was earning $25. For those who noticed his strong September in 2012 and picked him up for a song this spring, April was very sweet. Since then, he’s been a bargain for the price, but not one of the best offensive players in the game. That’s the player you should expect the rest of the way. His past history has a $30 and $20 season in it, but those were a long time ago. Expect him to hit less than .260 with four homers and 14 steals.

Everth Cabrera. He went for $17 in Tout Wars, and was earning $33 on July 1 despite spending time on the DL. Last year he had a low BA with a high BABIP, which seemed to be a warning, but this year he has the same BABIP and a good BA. His basestealing skills are for real and are rare. He still led the league in steals after missing three weeks with a hammy strain. He’s stolen three bases in the week since he returned, so all seems to be okay on that count. Expect 25 to 30 steals and a BA somewhere between .250 and .300.

Daniel Nava. Was taken in the reserve round in Tout Wars, by Larry Schechter, and at midseason was earning $20. When he was pressed into action in 2012 he impressed at first, but then inevitably slumped some and his season ended in injury. Nava, who is 30 years old, was forgotten after the Red Sox signed Victorino and Jonny Gomes. We would do well to remember that when teams sign someone like Gomes, a power platoon player, they also create an opportunity for someone else. Nava got his chance and ran with it this year, with additional chances because of Victorino’s injuries. Nava has been much the same player this year as last, a mature hitter without special skills, who will hit with a little power (figure six homers) and post a .765 OPS (and .265 BA).

Manny Machado. He cost $14 in Tout Wars last March, and was earning $32 after the first half of the season. Promoted aggressively last year, he’s bloomed this year as a hitter. He’s a free swinger who makes plenty of contact, which thus far has led to a high BABIP and nice BA. The danger here is not that he isn’t capable of making contact and running for a good BA, at least for a while, but it’s a hard thing to pull off for an extended period because pitchers are always looking for a way to exploit your aggressiveness. He should hit another 6-8 homers, with a batting average that could range from .250 to .300 or so, though I would plan on the lower end of the range and hope to be pleasantly surprised.

Domonic Brown. He went for $14 in Tout Wars, and had earned $31 at the halfway point this season. He was a can’t-miss prospect, the scouts said a few years ago, but to those of us who saw him hit (and didn’t see the projectability), he looked like a looming bust. And that’s the way he continued to look the last two years, with dismal stints in Philadelphia punctuating not-great stints in Triple-A. But when I saw him in spring training early in March he struck me as a different hitter, with a shorter stroke and a willingness to go the other way. Others saw the same thing, and though his role was entirely clear he went for a decent price for a guy who had lost his prospect luster. A slow start got everyone doubting, but when he exploded he blew up and by the end of May he was earning $28. He’s improved that in June, and though July has been quieter one senses we’re simply waiting for the next hot streak. If has just one more, look for 14 or so homers the rest of the way, but he’s a prime candidate for a huge September when rosters expand in September.

Matt Carpenter. Tout Wars went to $14 for him, and in the first half he’s earned $25. Questions about playing time kept his price down a little, and had some of us thinking his Tout price was an overbid. Wrong. Carpenter was rightly given the job at second base (when David Freese is able to play) and he’s pretty much performed as he did last year, only with middle infield eligibility. He’s got a higher batting average and a smidge more power, but that should be expected with more experience, shouldn’t it? Figure the BA will come down to .290-.300 the rest of the way and otherwise expect more of the same.

James Loney. Tout Wars price: $8, with midseason earnings of $25. Please indulge my personal grouse here: The last two years I bought Loney for what seemed like discount prices given his history of earnings, and he failed me. This year I let him go for cheap to the Tampa homer, and Loney’s back to being the dude he always was (and the Tampa homer is in first place by a lot). I hate that. Actually, Loney has been more than he’s been in the past, showing more power in Tampa than he had in LA all those years. He’s actually hitting fewer fly balls and more line drives this year, but his percentage of balls leaving the yard is up to a healthy 11 percent. My guess is that this reflects a better more aggressive approach, and as long as he stays focused and motivated earnings in the $20-25 range are sustainable. That means another six or seven homers, but probably with an average closer to .290-.295.

Two Short Notes:

Yasiel Puig‘s hot start is an illusion. It’s fantastic fun, but obviously he’s not going to hit .391 while striking out 24 percent of the time. It’s really hard to tell where he’s going to land, however, and how hard he’s going to fall. Based on the strikeouts and ground balls, I’d expect him to hit .270 the rest of the way, with 10-12 homers, but that’s really just a WAG. If the pitchers figure out the swing sooner he could be in the minors just like that.

Carlos Gomez has added power the last two years, is still fast, and is way over his head right now in BA. Line drive percentage suggests he should perhaps be hitting for a slightly higher average, but he’s currently got a BABIP .040 points above his career number. The power and speed are real, but his batting average should come down closer to .260 the rest of the way.

Reviewing Your Work: Mike’s A Moron Edition

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My friends at Roto Think Tank put out a first-rate website full of servicey advice and strategic insight. RTT’s Mike Gianella has been a contributor to the Fantasy Baseball Guide for a number of years now, and today posted his comments about his Picks and Pans in the 2012 edition. How’d they work? Not so hot, which is why he gets to use the funny title. Though he’s way too hard on himself for Bonifacio and a couple others.

What I love about Picks and Pans is that it’s a blank slate. The experts are encouraged to pick and pan whoever they want, which usually means they meant it when they said it. So you get a somewhat objective view of a group of peoples’ subjective judgments about the upcoming season, before the season. And afterwards we get to see just how easy it is to be wrong.

Bravo to Mike for manning up.