Mmmm Give Me Some More Kool-Aid
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If I see one more mainstream article about how Carols Gomez and Michael Bourn are going to steal 60 bases this year, I might just have to trade Chris Young or Justin Upton for one of them.
Or not.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t win most of the fantasy leagues I play in. But, if you’re playing with good competition, you shouldn’t win your leagues any more often than an MLB team wins the World Series or a poker pro like Dan Harrington wins the WSOP. Good competition breeds parity, but consistency still exists. I consider good fantasy owners to be more like the Harrington’s of the world, consistently finishing in the top 3rd of their leagues, sometimes winning and sometimes not. Always giving themselves a chance to win, but never bottoming out.
Carlos Gomez has a very real chance of bottoming out this year. Michael Bourn has an even greater chance. I say that not because I have this Karabell-esque 6th sense and just feel like its going to happen, but because the evidence just trends in that direction. Gomez had 8 walks in 139 at-bats last year with the Mets. Now that he’ll be facing guys like Justin Verlander, C.C. Sabiatha, Fausto Carmona and Jeremy Bonderman 3 times a month to say nothing of guys like Wang, Hughes, Kazmir, Beckett, Halladay and Bedard the chances of him increasing his short-term walk rate against elite MLB pitching is a tall order. It won’t be long before MLB teams get a book on him, and AL pitchers will eat him alive. He might do well against mediocre pitching and mediocre defenses, but he won’t see enough of either in the AL Central.
Bourn’s chances for success are even slimmer. He’s four year’s older than Gomez, doesn’t have the former’s pedigree, is 160 lbs soaking wet, and can’t slug a lick. His walk rates are decent, but because he can’t whack the little round orb with authority, don’t expect him to maintain that walk rate in the show. Why not?
Because MLB pitchers know that Bourn can’t hurt them with the bat, so there’s no reason not to throw him more strikes. They’ll start to challenge him more and more, knowing that he can’t do much damage when he takes his toothpick of his shoulder. He might get his 60 steals by virtue of getting 650 at bats as the leadoff hitter on a craptastic team destined for nowhere, but even if he does what has your team accomplished? An extra 5 points worth of steals and maybe +2 in runs? The only upside is that you might be able to flip him to another team who thinks they need steals. The downside is that he doesn’t get on base enough to get the steals, and you could spend half-a-season waiting for them.
These two guys are examples of very high risk, medium-reward type players. They could get to 60 steals if only because they’re almost guaranteed not to lose their jobs no matter how terrible their hitting gets. But why risk it? 60 steals for 600 at bats of a .250 AVG, .325 OBP, and maybe a .350 slugging? One category of good for three categories of awful. Just like a 2nd catcher, these guys will drag down your overall stats like an anchor.
You’re in a fantasy league that uses statistics to measure success. You should be using statistics to measure the potential of success as well. Whatever’s happening in the major leagues right now is too small a sample size to mean anything. It’s all a mirage, like Matt Holliday’s 1 for 14 start. If you want to see a real projection of what players have a chance of doing this year, you need to stop reading guys like Karabell and Olney and start reading guys like Sheehan and Silver. Actually, I take that back. Its not that you shouldn’t read mainstream media I read lots of it every day and I especially enjoy Olney’s stuff - it’s just that you shouldn’t put too much stock in predictions that aren’t based on statistical evidence or scouts evaluations.
Are you looking for an impact fantasy player? The one with the greatest immediate upside? Then go read something like Baseball Prospectus, read their analysis and study their projections. Go to Google News and type in a player you want to find out more about. See if you can find local articles on them, many of which don’t make the wire. And look high and low for what scouts are saying not GM’s, other players, or for God’s sake sportswriters and us bloggers. We can toss out names of future stars and breakout bandits like the rain and wish cast any numbers we want, but if you want to really find out what a player’s capable of for your fantasy team start with the mainstream to get an idea, and then seek out the experts before you drink any more of Karabell’s Kool-Aid..
For the first time in his professional career, [tag]Shane Victorino[/tag] is going to be given the opportunity to patrol the [tag]Philadelphia Phillies[/tag] outfield for a full season. Why should you be thinking Victorino, who’s a corner OF with no pop? Well, he’s the fastest guy on the team. And new hire base coach Davey Lopes thinks Victorino could swipe 30+ bases this season. He’s notched 40+ SB’s twice in his minor league career, so there is some history of success there.
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