Projo Fantasy Sports Blog

By Michael Salfino

One of the things that makes us human is the ease with which we spot patterns, whether or not they actually exist.

When a baseball player comes off great or lousy season, we quickly conjure convincing reasons why that trend will continue. But why can’t the last year’s bums highlighted below, for example, merely be the product of some random performance variance?

Here’s where general managers (real ones and their fantasy counterparts), writers and even run-of-the-mill baseball fans screw up. A player who is in his 30s has a bad year and suddenly we notice how his on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) declined mildly the two years before. Now we have a pattern. Slugger X is done. At a minimum, there is but a lottery-ticket’s chance he recaptures past glory.

Or a highly regarded player bursts on the scene only to struggle mightily, or even falters from the start. That guy is labeled a toolsy bum who almost certainly will never amount to anything. Think Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips, just before he put up two-straight All-Star caliber seasons.

Almost all big leaguers are capable of stretches of greatness that can last weeks, months or even a full season. And great players can perform terribly for similar stretches due to minor physical problems or the inability to make relatively slight mechanical adjustments. The psychological aspect of performance is largely unchartered territory. But who would doubt that a crisis of confidence resulting from an extended slump can be quickly lifted with just a few lucky bounces, even if a trip to the shrink doesn’t work?

Of course, we must look deeply at the stats to spot trends that may provide the foundation for future performance. Skills, though, can never be ignored. The right stats, such as those we highlight here each week, place a brighter spotlight on skills than the common averages and counting categories we see in boxscores and in our fantasy standings.

I will stipulate there’s good chance the following players will continue to disappoint. Perhaps that’s even likely. But the odds are closer to a coin flip than we think. Many of these guys get discounted as if there’s only some nominal chance they will rebound. And almost all of the handful of optimistic projections are still depressed because they are based on that terrible 2007. There’s a decent chance, though, that last season’s bottom line will be largely irrelevant.

So let’s put a “Buy” on all of these bums:

Ronny Paulino, C, Pirates: His line-drive percentage declined more than five percentage points, from 22.6 percent of batted balls to 17.2 percent. Almost all line drives are hits. That 2006 figure is well above average. Paulino’s other numbers were remarkably consistent relative to ’06. His power spiked significantly without hitting more flyballs, thus not affecting his batting-average prospects.

Carlos Delgado, 1B, Mets: He’s a great slugger: 37th all-time in homers. Last year, his rate of homers on fly balls declined from about 24 percent to 13. Jim Thome went from the low 20s to the 12s back up to the mid-20s, right around Delgado’s age. Many of the sluggers around Delgado on the all-time homer list rebounded at or past his age, and few of the others were done at 35.

Rickie Weeks, 2B, Brewers: The walks are closing ground on the strikeouts. But he’s hitting more flyballs, which hurts batting average. If he moves his line-drive percentage back up to the 20 percent it was in ’05 and ’06, and nothing else changes, he hits about .255.

Miguel Tejada, SS, Astros: The ground-ball rate is up, rate of homers on fly balls down. So it’s wise to be skeptical of projections of more than 20 homers. But he continues to hit well with runners in scoring position and can again rise well over .300 if his line-drive rate spikes to 2006 levels (22 percent).

Billy Hall, 3B, Brewers: The homer rate in 2006 (19.2 percent of fly balls) looks like the outlier for sure. But Hall should just now be entering his power peak at age 28. No one is giving him much more than 20 homers, so you don’t have to pay anything for the chance he again pops 30-plus.

Jason Bay, OF, Pirates: The speed looks shot and the plug has been pulled on the power: homers on just a league-average 11 percent of fly balls last year (20 percent in 2006). He always was well above in generating hits on batted balls, but was below last year.

Barry Zito, P, Giants: He was above to well above average always in stranding baserunners. Last year, he was below: just over 30 percent of them scored. I’m sure there was some bad bullpen luck in there. He’s in a great pitching environment, so expect him to perform as he did for the A’s, minus the wins because the Giants can’t score.

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