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.