Figuring Fielder’s Fantasy Fallout
Prince Fielder. Dude is big and powerful and it’s not surprising that the Tigers’ signing of the younger Fielder made a large splash in the wading pool that is the American League Central right now. The splash actually covered much of the first round of next year’s fantasy drafts and impacted leagues in three key ways. Let’s enumerate.
1) Prince Fielder’s Power
Fielder can hit em out of any park, but he did have ten Just Enough home runs last year, second-most on the Brewers. He also hit as few as 32 home runs just last year, so he shouldn’t be put in 40-homer pants without at least a glance at the respective park factors.
Uh-oh.
Milwaukee augments home runs by lefty batters 18%. Detroit suppresses the same by 12%. You can’t just shave 30% off of Fielder’s ISO, but you do have to think some of those Just Enoughs won’t leave the yard next year. For those that point out that the Cell in Chicago augments lefty home runs 27%, yes that’s true. But the rest of the division is actually less friendly to lefty home runs than the National League Central was. In fact, if you weight the different park factors appropriately, Fielder hurts away from home too. Check out this handy chart put together by Chad Young:
| Games | LHB HR PF | |
|---|---|---|
| Milwaukee | 81 | 118 |
| Cincinnati | 8 | 120 |
| Chicago | 8 | 119 |
| Houston | 8 | 107 |
| Pittsburgh | 8 | 99 |
| St. Louis | 8 | 82 |
| Rd Weighted Average | 105.4 | |
| Games | LHB HR PF | |
| Detroit | 81 | 88 |
| Chicago | 10 | 126 |
| Cleveland | 10 | 107 |
| Minnesota | 10 | 91 |
| Kansas City | 10 | 71 |
| Rd Weighted Average | 98.75 |
No matter what, Fielder should see a less friendly offensive environment. Push his runs and RBI up a notch if you want, but cut a home run or two off your projections just to be safe.
2) Miguel Cabrera’s Position Eligibility
It’s hard to believe it will work because of a lack of previously successful comps, but Miguel Cabrera might play third base this year. Let that sink in. Returning a .300+ hitting, 30+ home run launching machine to third base would push Cabrera even further towards the number one fantasy pick in the nation.
Albert Pujols moving from a homer-suppressing park to one that is less homer-suppressing makes him, as always, a threat for the number one pick, and Jose Bautista is a third baseman in most leagues, and will hit more home runs than Fielder. But Bautista won’t have as nice a batting average as Cabrera, and Pujols won’t play third, so you can make an argument for Cabrera to go first in most formats.
The sad underside to this story is that if Cabrera doesn’t hack it at third base, and instead ends up DHing, his fantasy value would likely take a hit. Players that have played in the field and at DH have been observed to have about a 10% hit in production — similar to the ‘pinch-hitter penalty,’ the drop-off is probably associated with coming off the bench cold. Since Cabrera could easily see some BABIP regression (.365 BABIP, .347 career), and will be 29 next year, it’s not all roses for him.
Call him a high-variance first rounder next year.
3) National League First Basemen
Wow, NL-only leagues took a hit this offseason. With Pujols and Fielder suddenly gone, Ike Davis and Lance Berkman are suddenly fighting for third-best in the league, and there’s a bit of a tier behind them. Gaby Sanchez is, in other words, far off in the rear-view mirror when compared to either Berkman or Davis. At 28, the Marlin has almost no power projection, and even if he hits .280, his overall upside won’t approach a healthy Davis or Berkman. Ryan Howard is probably fourth ahead of Sanchez, but his health, declining power and bad batting averages make him an iffy pick himself. Freddie Freeman has unclear power upside. Mike Morse is older than you might think and has such a unique story that there’s doubt with him too. I’m sure our first base positional correspondent Mike Axisa will suss out the ranking change soon in more detail, but it’s clear the position is in turmoil.
If you want a lock at first base in the National League in 2012, the list begins and ends with Joey Votto suddenly.
regarding Prince’s Power…
You forgot to weigh the fact that Prince will see significantly more right handed starting pitching in the AL Central and these RHSPs are not as good as the RHSPs he saw in the NL Central last year.
Carl Pavano, Jason Marquis, Scott Baker, Nick Blackburn, Roberto Hernandez Heredia, Derek Lowe, Justin Masterson, Kevin Slowey, Josh Tomlin, Jeanmar Gomez, Luke Hocheaver, Felipe Paulino, Aaron Crow, Jake Peavy, Phil Humber, Gavin Floyd
This is a weak group.
The only projected LHSPs in the AL Central are Francisco Liriano, Bruce Chen, Jonathon Sanchez, Chris Sale, John Danks
He saw better pitching in the NL Central last year.
Prince will batting behind Miguel Cabrera. In 2011 Cabrera’s OBP .448 > Braun’s OBP .397. Braun is good but Cabrera is better. He will also have better protection behind him than he did in Milwaukee.
One could argue that the AL pitching is better overall than the NL but your data in the post above is strictly regarding stats within the division.
There are more HR friendly parks in the AL anyway.
The reason I ignore pitching matchups is this: it’s virtually impossible to predict which one of those starters he will see in one year. The pitching is, once you control for the DH, actually a little better in the AL last I checked. But knowing who he will see?
Also, as for the other parks, sure they make a difference. But! included in that table up there is 121/162 games. That’s pretty good, without going through the schedule and doing every stadium.
I should make clear, in the bottom row in each chart (“Rd Weighted Average”), the “Rd” stands for Road. So what we are looking at is 81 games with a massive park factor impact (118 -> 88) and 40 more with a not-massive-but-definitely-meaningful impact (105.4 -> 98.8).
If the rest of the AL has more homer-friendly parks on average, that might balance out the 40 divisional games away from Comerica. But (without doing the math) I am not sure that is the case – San Diego, Miami, San Francisco are balanced by the likes of Seattle, Oakland, and Tampa. Texas, New York, and Toronto are balanced by Colorado, Philly, and Arizona. Just seems like NL Central to AL Central is a bad move for a power-hitting lefty.
i agree with G. while i’m a huge fan of your work, i feel like if you’ve missed an important point in the evaluation of hitters switching leagues, which is not only using PFs but quality of SP competition.
specifically, i’m thinking of your rosier-than-most outlook on a guy like quentin. quentin may have unactualized upside–a definite reason to buy low on him–but the PF argument feels incomplete without a discussion of SP.
All of the hitters with lots of home runs have 10+ just enoughs. For example Miggy with 16, Longoria with 14, Morse 13, Pujols 13, Howard 13. How does Fielder’s 10 scare you? His average home run distance is longer than most other power hitters meaning he will be less affected than most. Also he hits a lot of opposite field home runs, its not like all left handed prospects hit all their home runs to right field.
The JE’s he had in Milwaukee (home games) won’t reach the wall in Detroit.
Oh is that how it works? Guess we can dock him 10 home runs then… you’re right
Yeah, the absolute number of each home run type is rather useless. I look at the percentage of total home runs each type comprises. So 10 JEs for Fielder last year is normal.
Actually right field in Comerica is shorter than Miller Park. Not accounting for wind currents/temp etc, it seems a left handed dead pull hitter would hit more HR in Comerica than Miller. Someone mentioned that Prince hits a lot of HR to the opposite field so maybe he isnt a dead pull hitter. Also it would seem to me that Park Factors are inherently affected by the quality of pitching in that division/league/etc so I dont think we need to make seperate adjustments for any difference in pitching.
It will be interesting to see how all of these factors relate to Fielder’s real world production. He has been a mainstay of my lineup for years…one might say its a bit of a mancrush.
I have to say as far as 1Bs go, if Miggy is a failed experiment at 3B, I don’t see how Fielder doesn’t absorb some of that DH issue. Neither are quality 1Bs defensively. And lets face facts: Fielder is only one year younger than Miggy. Its not like Detroit has to deal with Pujols here and try to accomodate the ‘older’ stud while giving the young one what they want. Plus, let us not forget that Miggy also played LF for Florida. Not like people never try to hide their bad fielders in LF either (cough, Manny Ramirez, cough). Given previous OF lineups, I don’t see Leyland having an issue with this scenario either.
All this to say, I still like your write up :)
JE’s could also be caused by wind, bleacher farts, hangovers, etc.
Prince will be a monster in the D, solidify the lineup, and help push the Tigers into the WS.
It is also possible that VMart could heal enough to DH in September and October if all goes well with rehab, etc. The lineup would be scary good offensively and interesting defensively. I just hope Leyland doesn’t use a lot of late inning defensive substitutions for Miggy at 3rd.
Austin Jackson
Brennan Boesch
Miguel Cabrera
Prince Fielder
Victor Martinez
Delmon Young
Alex Avila
Jhonny Peralta
Ryan Raburn / Ramon Santiago
just think if Miggy has 1B, 3B, LF, DH availability next year
id take him 1 overall
How many “just missed” HR caliber hits did he have last year that would be out of the park in Comerica…? Another factor that isn’t being discussed. He may lose some HRs on one side of the field, but he will gain some more on the other side… he simply has enough power to compensate (statistically) for the switch.
And I agree that the caliber of opposing pitchers will certainly have an impact on the change. I mean which AL Central starting pitchers are honestly going to give him fits?? I’m looking, but not seeing the downside of this switch in this respect.
If anything, substituting Fielder for (the aging) VMart in the lineup might also be a boon to the starting pitcher’s win category.
Pitchers in the AL, on the whole, are better: bit.ly/zVA673
Just a thought, but no matter how I slice it, the parks won’t be as forgiving to Prince next year. 50% of a 88 HR PF, 25% of a 98 HR PF, pus 25% of 100 HR PF gives you a .95 HR PF, down from 50% of 118, 25% of 105, 25% of 100 = 1.10 HR PF.
I’m looking at 2010 numbers for Prince, plus a few homers.