Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

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.

Victor Martinez is really good and as I wrote in last years fantasy guide we saw how good he could be during the last three months of the 2013 season. That said, I didn’t think he would hit a career high 32 home runs and .335 batting average. Usually when an older player (he turned 36 in December) has career highs in those categories the fantasy community will assume a major regression is coming, but I don’t see that happening.

Obviously there will be some regression in both the power and batting average, but it will not be significant. The image below shows his extra base hit percentage (XBH%) and his home runs since 2004. I did not include 2008 because he only had 270 PAs. The first thing I noticed was his home runs last year was a little fluky, but the extra base hit percentage suggests he was making a lot of hard contact and should be able to hit 23-28 home runs next year.

In regards to his batting average he hit .268 on ground balls, which is 25 points higher than his totals from 2009-13 so a regression in the batting average should occur. However, the batting average shouldn’t regress below .300 mark because he’s only hit below .300 once and that was in 2004 (.283 batting average).

In early February Martinez tore the meniscus in his left knee while working out. The extent of the injury is unknown. He could only be out a couple of weeks and still play in Spring Training. Another scenario is he begins the season on the DL. If begins the year on the DL it’s hard to not think he’ll get off to a slow start. He missed the entire 2012 season after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in the same left knee. In 2013 his numbers were pedestrian but he took off during the second half of the year.

This injury certainly doesn’t improve his fantasy viability, but it may lower his value to the point where he may be a draft day value. As of early February I have no idea how severe the injury is. In general I avoid drafting players already injured because there is a higher likelihood of repeat injury and a decrease in production.

For now I’m keeping my original projection before the injury. My 2015 projection is 570 ABs, .308 AVG, 25 HRs, 98 RBI, 88 Runs and 0 SBs.

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.

Wade Miley is really good, but most people don’t know that because his numbers have been inflated by the Diamondbacks ballpark. The table below shows his career home-road statistics (he has identical BABIPs at home versus the road).

Being traded to the Red Sox doesn’t necessarily help his fantasy value, but the Diamondbacks ballpark is a bad pitchers park so the change will not be very dramatic. What will be dramatic is he will not have a chunk of his starts in the friendly confines of the NL West (excluding Colorado obviously).

The reason why the strikeout rate improved was because of the increased usage of the slider (image below from BrooksBaseball.net).

His fastball can be flat so he’s going to be home run prone so the HR/FB rate could actually increase next year. However, among starting pitchers with at least 20 starts he threw the second highest total of pitches down in the zone last year. Therefore, the HR/FB rate could increase, but not by a lot.

The biggest positive about going to the Red Sox is since he’s a high ground ball pitcher and Boston’s defensive infield should be an upgrade, which will make him streamable at times (usually when he’s playing outside of the AL East). He’s never been on the DL since entering the majors, which means he should be able to provide 170-plus strikeouts, a sneaky option for 14-plus wins and an average ERA and WHIP.

My 2015 projection for Miley is 200 IP, 3.85 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 175 Ks and 13 wins.

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 a hot start to the season Brandon Belt was sidelined for eight weeks to a broken thumb after getting hit by a pitch. Then in July he was hit in the face by a baseball during batting practice. After the incident he dealt with post-concussion symptoms and subsequently missed 46 games.

Since his 2014 numbers and career numbers were underwhelming he may be a forgotten player for many fantasy owners, but do not be one of those owners. In 2013 his batting average, slugging and isolated power all ticked way up from the previous year. Before 2014 drafts some fantasy analysts were saying Belt was poised for a breakout. For the first 35 games he was poised to do just that as he hit nine home runs with a .264/.317/.504 slash line. After breaking his thumb it was a lost season for him.

In last year’s guide I said Belt has been very underrated because his home ballpark suppressed his numbers. The table below shows his career home-road spits.

For some reason he has a .356 BABIP at home in 760 plate appearances. Also, in the last three seasons his home BABIP has been below .347, which suggests he should have a higher than normal BABIP at home. It’s odd his BABIP would be so much higher at home because the ballpark is an extreme pitchers park and suppresses power for left handed hitters. The only explanation for this is he’s able to have a high BABIP is due to the fact he makes a lot of hard contact. That may sound counterintuitive considering his low home run totals, but his career 13.8% HR/FB rate tells me everything I need to know about the rate of hard contact.

What’s the most interesting about Belt’s 2014 season was he became more aggressive at the plate. Swinging at more pitches, but making less contact. It’s possible those numbers were due to after coming off the first DL stint, but before breaking his thumb he was striking out 27% of the time. That indicates his approach at the plate changed from the very start of the season.

Overall, I believe Belt is post-hype sleeper candidate. He’s not going to provide flashy numbers, but I can certainly see 20-25 home runs with a .260-plus batting average. He’s going to hit in the middle of the Giants lineup (either third or fifth) so he’s going to have a lot of opportunities to score and drive in runs.

My 2015 projection for Belt is 510 ABs, .265 AVG, 21 HRs, 85 RBI, 70 runs and 6 SBs.