Fantasy Baseball-Off the Radar-Position Players to watch and avoid

In this post, I will find a MLB position player to watch and one to avoid, and then give a minor leaguer to watch and one to avoid. Most of this post will be driven by BABIP (batting average on balls in play), a stat that, for the most part, measures luck. I try to find players that had down seasons last year that may have to do more with luck that performance. That is to say, you can expect a bounce back in 2012.

For players to avoid, I do the opposite, trying to find players that had huge 2011 seasons that were largely BABIP related, something that you can’t expect this year. .300 is league average for BABIP, but some players, like Starlin Castro, Austin Jackson, and Drew Stubbs (basically speedy single hitters) have much higher BABIPs consistently. What should catch your eye is BABIPs that are way off career norms. If a player consistently has a .280 BABIP and then has a year or half a year of .370 BABIP, then you should expect (eventually) that the player will fall back to earth.

In this post I will be ignoring Super-Stars (for instance Evan Longoria and Mark Teixiera are due for huge 2012 campaigns) and instead looking at players that are often not noticed or considered second or third tier players.

Player to watch: Mark Reynolds

Sep 21, 2011; Boston, MA, USA; Baltimore Orioles third baseman Mark Reynolds (12) hits a home run against the Boston Red Sox during the second inning at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Mark L. Baer-US PRESSWIRE

Mark Reynolds is one of the world’s worst fielders. He has a D-WAR of -5.4 in his career, and a -2.5 D-WAR in 2011.The Orioles are really stubborn too, repeatedly playing him at 3^rd base and watching him constantly throw the ball away (he is not good at first base either, but at least he doesn’t have to throw it near as much there). So if you care about defense, find somebody else. However, if defense doesn’t matter in your league, or if you can DH him, he is an undervalued bat. The strike-outs (and he strikes out a ton) concern a lot of people and turn them off. However, Reynolds has had a successful offensive career (.815 OPS and 11.5 O-WAR according to Baseball Reference) despite having this crazy strike-out rate. If you believe (or your league values) batting average as your most important statistic, Reynolds is not a guy you want with a .238 career batting average, batting under the Mendoza line in 2010. However, he gets on base enough (.331 OBP and .351 Weighted OBA for his career) and hits for quite a bit of power (.246 Isolated Slugging). In 2011 he had about a league average OBP at .323 and had a BABIP of just .266, despite his career average BABIP of .310 (this is the warning I will give on Reynolds, besides the batting average and defense, his BABIP was even lower in 2010. Some might suggest that Reynolds strikeouts may be taking a toll on his offense, I disagree, but it may be a reasonable opinion), giving him a neutralized OBP of .351 (and Weighted OBA of .348). So Reynolds is a decent on base guy and can mash, I really like him if you don’t have to worry about his defense and you look past batting average.

September 21, 2011; Cleveland, OH , USA; Chicago White Sox center fielder Alex Rios (51) rounds third after hitting a home run against the Cleveland Indians in the game at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: Eric P. Mull-US PRESSWIRE

Honorable Mentions: Vernon Wells and Alexis Rios. They had the two lowest BABIPs in the MLB, expect some kind of improvement in 2012. However, they come with hefty price tags and they don’t walk much (which causes higher volatility in BA and OBP). Kurt Suzuki, a 5 million dollar catcher that gets on base just enough with some pop, but struggled with BABIP in 2011.

Player to avoid: Emilio Bonifacio

Sept. 19, 2011; Miami, FL, USA; Florida Marlins shortstop Emilio Bonifacio (1) at bat against the Atlanta Braves at Sun Life Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE

Bonifacio is the very definition of a guy who no one really paid attention to until one big season, in this case 2011. Bonifacio had an OBP of .309 and OPS + of 65 before 2011 in 260 games. In 2011, he all of the sudden had a .360 OBP and 115 OPS +. Previous to 2011, his BABIP was .317, but in 2011 it ballooned into .372. Put another way, his neutralized OBP was .303 in 2011 (right around his career norms. He also has no power (Baseball Cube has his power rated at 13 out 1-100), not hitting for an ISO of over .100 since 2006 in advanced A-ball. He is not someone you can expect to be an offensive weapon for you in 2012 (despite being a speed guy, 96 speed, he has just 43 contact with 40 patience and 58 batting).

Honorable Mentions: Michael Bourn had a similar BABIP number and is a pretty similar player to Bonafacio, just more established. His BA and OBP were both higher than his career norms, and he is fun to watch, but holds basically no power value. Casey Kotchman had a bounce back season in 2011, but it came with a BABIP that was about .050 points higher than his career norms, expect a regression in Cleveland. Finally, Melky Cabrera. Almost as a general rule, unless there is some good explanation (like a fix in the swing etc.), when a player has several mediocre years in the Majors and then all the sudden has a good one, you should avoid them like the plague. They almost always are overvalued, and it was smart by the Royals to buy low and sell high (I never thought I would say this, but you should be like the Royals).

 Minors:

Player to watch: Mike Bianucci

I tried to pick a player that didn’t appear on anyone’s top prospects lists, as that would defeat the purpose. Mike Bianucci was a big time bat guy at Auburn University with a .423 OBP, 1.036 OPS, .278 ISO and 11.3 BB %. He has got a big arm, having quite a bit of success as a high school pitcher. He reminds me a lot of Jack Cust. Cust had much better minor league statistics, but they similar power rating (according to Baseball Cube’s scouting rankings), and Bianucci has a better contact rating, along with a better speed. The only thing Cust is better at is patience and that is where the big difference lies. Jason Parks of Baseball Prospectus says Bianucci has big league strength but a minor league swing and doesn’t see him as a MLB player. In 2011, he spent the year in AA and had an OBP of just .302 and batting average of .243. Time to write him off right? Not so fast, as his BABIP was .268, one of the lowest in the league. Even though he strikes out a ton (very Cust-like), his career BABIPs have been pretty normal in the minors. His Weighted OBP was actually .332, a decent size improvement, meaning that his surroundings (such as ballpark factors) was affecting his numbers normally (his neutralized OBP was .331). Even with this, he still showed monster power, as he as 3^rd in the Texas League in homers, and 9^th in Isolated Slugging (out of players that had at least 230 PA). Every single one of the 8 above him in ISO had a better BABIP and 3 of them were older. To give you more context, lets compare him to Mariners’ top prospect Jesus Montero. Scouts and prospect writers rave about his power (I am in the minority that really question Montero, but I am a contrarian, I am not huge on new Athletic Yoenis Cespesdes either), yet when you compare Montero’s ISOs with Bianucci’s, Bianucci is the one that looks like a stud. Keeping in mind that Montero is 3 years younger, his ISOs have been .140, .166, .228, .222, .227, and .179. Bianucci’s has been: .219, .269, .278, .174, and .226. Montero walks a little more and strikes out a little less, but the power is very similar (with Bianucci having a larger peak so far).

Honorable Mention: Dan Johnson, the only reason he wasn’t my feature guy is because I profiled him in a previous post.

Player to avoid: Russ Canzler

The Rays sold Canzler to the Indians for a pretty small fee this off-season after designating him for assignment. This move shocked some people, as Canzler won the International League (AAA) MVP in 2011 with a .401 OBP and .530 SLG. There is a huge problem if you expect similar success in the future though, as his BABIP was the 2^nd highest in the league at .396. This was a career high, and when you look at his previous BABIPs, they are fairly normal. In fact, in 2 years in AA with a BABIP near .300 his OBP was .362, which is nice, but not the over-powering stuff we saw in 2011 (and it was in a lower level).

Tags: castro, Emilio Bonifaciio, Fantasy Baseball, Featured, Longoria, Mark Reynolds, Off the Radar, statistics, Texiera