Updating the Rankings: Outfielders (OF2)
Time to update the outfielders! Commenters from last week might be happy to see that a certain someone wearing White Sox has dropped into OF2 territory. The offending OF1 rankings can be seen here.
Worst of the Best?
1. Manny Ramirez, Los Angeles (.377 wOBA, .409 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
2. Alfonso Soriano, Chicago (.427 wOBA, .371 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
3. Torii Hunter, Los Angeles (.356 wOBA, .366 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
4. Jason Heyward, Atlanta (.424 wOBA, .361 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
5. Bobby Abreu, Los Angeles (.348 wOBA, .360 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
Alex Rios and Carlos Gonzalez join the OF1s next time around, although I just remain skeptical of Rios and think Go CarGo could benefit from a few less swings. The first tier here consists mostly of uninspiring veterans that just don’t have the upside to really be solid OF1s, and then the king of Upside himself, Jason Heyward. Many will question why he isn’t on the OF1 list, but he’s in barely-charted water for a 20 year old, as David Cameron showed this week. If the strikeout rate continues to fall – showing his ability to adjust – he’ll be on the first list soon enough.
If You Squint Just Right They Could Still be an OF1, I Promise
6. Adam Dunn, Washington (.392 wOBA, .394 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
7. Adam Lind, Toronto (.300 wOBA, .349 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
8. Carlos Quentin, Chicago (.305 wOBA, .352 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
9. Carlos Lee, Houston (.243 wOBA, .351 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
10. Colby Rasmus, St. Louis (.375 wOBA, .341 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
11. B.J. Upton, Tampa Bay (.301 wOBA, .334 ZiPs Ros wOBA)
The first half of this tier includes a lot of veterans that were borderline OF1s going into the season. Well, perhaps Dunn has always had the scarlet letter of his batting average to hold him down, and maybe we should have seen Quentin’s low-batting average ways as his true talent level. His line drive rate does not mean we should expect a huge BABIP-fueled bounceback, as talented as he has seemed at times. Lee is heating up, and Rasmus is cooling down, but Lee may end up with the better batting average given their respective long-term histories.
Upside to be Solid OF2s
12. Shane Victorino, Philadelphia (.343 wOBA, .354 ZiPs RoS)
13. Denard Span, Minnesota (.357 wOBA, .344 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
14. Austin Jackson, Detroit (.378 wOBA, .308 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
15. Marlon Byrd, Chicago (.380 wOBA, .360 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
16. Vernon Wells, Toronto (.398 wOBA, .346 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
Span’s not a bad player and is probably a solid OF2 right now, but a .300 hitter with no power and 30 steals is pretty vanilla. It doesn’t look like it will get any better. A-Jax has cut his strikeout rate from 32.3% in April to 24.4% this month and has settled in with a .302/.348/.395 May after his squeaky clean April. That’s an improvement, but it doesn’t mean he’s not a risk to put up a mediocre batting average going forward. Byrd’s still not walking at all (3.2%) but his ISO survived the move. Adam Jones should take notice, cut his strikeout rate, and up his power to join the party. Wells would be more attractive if it wasn’t likely that we’ve already seen about half of his 2010 home run output already.
Upside to Join the Top
17. Franklin Gutierrez, Mariners (.374 wOBA, .333 ZiPs wOBA)
18. Jay Bruce, Cincinnati (.361 wOBA, .343 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
19. Adam Jones, Baltimore (.290 wOBA, .345 ZiPs RoS wOBA)
Now we’re about 36 outfielders in, so we’ve actually covered to OF3 in standard mixed leagues. And to be fair, you’d rather have these guys shuttling in and out of your final outfielder spot because they are streaky young players that are adjusting to the league. Gutierrez could be considered a solid OF2, but it’s not clear that he’s got the power (.148 career ISO, .150 is usually average) or speed (5.3 career speed score, 5 is average) to be relevant in mixed leagues as a second outfielder.
7
No Hunter Pence?
Where would you put Pence or Magglio? Maggs looks like he’s in the middle of a 2006/2008 campaign. Personally I’d take either of those guys ahead of Adam Dunn’s tier.
I assume you meant to write .346 ZiPs RoS wOBA for Vernon Wells, right? Otherwise, BUY BUY BUY!!!!!!
thanks hana. I don’t feel bad about keeping Magglio-O off the list. Pence should have gone in Victorino tier probably. He’s real streaky but he’s probably starting one now…
Hit .317 last year in a down year, and he finished the last two months with an OPS north of .900. His triple slash through 2 months is right in line with his 2006/2008 numbers. Odd that you write him off but give Soriano a pass after his 2009?
I just don’t believe he’ll push much past 20 homers. Maybe in a triple-slash league he’s an OF2, but in a traditional mixed league – .300 with 20 homers and 80 RBI (with the semi-reduced/platoon situation) doesn’t really tickle my fancy.
Why list the players wOBA and ROS wOBA if you’re just going to throw it out the window with Magglio? He currently has a higher one than anybody on that list past Heyward and his ROS projection is higher than any of them with the exception of Dunn. Plus you act like a .300 20HR 80RBI mark isn’t good from an OF. Wanna know how many of them did that last year? Only 5. Yet he isn’t good enough to even get worth a mentioning? Ridiculous.
Let me guess, you like JD Drew too? Listen, a case can be made for Magglio as a good OF2, but you’ll lose at-bats/r/rbi and home runs or stolen bases to other OF2s if you pencil him in every day. Magglio’s best value is as a 3/4, paired with someone like Drew, where you can play them both against righties.
If I’ve got Magglio as an OF2, I’d hope to have another OF2 on this list, even a struggling one on my bench. He was a waiver pick up, has a platoon split, and could just as easily hit 15 home runs as 20. You know how many OFs hit more home runs than Magglio last year? 53. There’s a Magglio ranking among OFs that’s just as arbitrary as the one you mention.
As for showing wOBAs, obviously there’s a fine line on this site. We use better metrics than most fantasy leagues, however we are trying to give advice about traditional 5×5 fantasy leagues. A player might easily have a better ZiPs RoS wOBA than another player and not be as valuable in fantasy.
Why do you keep bringing up a platoon split with Magglio? He’s played every game this year but 2 and has no problems with righties. The past 3 years he has an OPS of .879 against them with a .322AVG. I would imagine that is better than most other right handed OFs against righties.
And yeah he struggled last year but the guys wife was almost on her death bed and contrary to what some people think these guys aren’t robots. I’d imagine its hard to really concentrate when you’re wondering whats going to happen with your wife. It wasn’t no coincidence that he turned it on in late August and September after his wife was cured.
He’s got 2 guys in front of them that can get on base at a pretty good rate(well atleast Ajax has so far) so he should get plenty of RBI opportunities, and since you know he’s going to hit atleast .310 he should get alot of them. Then he has one of the best players in the game hitting behind him so there’s a good chance he’ll score alot too.
So the bottom line is right now the guys on pace for a .324avg with 24HRs, 111RBIS and 115 runs. I have a hard time believing that 40 OFs would finish with better numbers than that, or even close to that.
You make a well-reasoned argument and I will consider Magglio for the next OF2 rankings. That said, I still have reservations – in fantasy, if you don’t have good power and don’t steal bases, you are behind the eight-ball. If Magglio was your oF1, you would have serious power concerns.
I mentioned the platoon split because it was the stated reason (probably not the real reason) that the Tigers were sitting him some last year. I agree it’s not terrible, even if he is still more powerful against lefties.
I would also caution against pro-rating out that home run pace. I don’t think we will ever again see a season as good as 2007 even, judging from his general decline in the last three years.
Eno,
Part of the difficulty is that your OF1 is a huge list. I play in a couple leagues, a 10 team league and a 16 team league. Most of the guys you have here at OF2 would be OF3 or OF4 in my ten team league.
So personally I think part of the problem is that you can’t imagine Magglio as your second best outfielder, when in most cases we’re talking about him being 3rd or 4th on most teams, given league depth (but he’d still be on this list). I do have him in my 10 team league, as my 3rd or 4th OF (Crawford/Granderson/Pence/Magglio). On that team I’d put your entire list, Adam Lind and down, at my Utility spot after Magglio…so OF5, again in my case.
What I’m saying is maybe rather than think of it as OF1/OF2/OF3, you should just think of is as a running list and tier it off only based on skill gaps, since league sizes greatly vary. I mean, I wouldn’t put any of these guys at OF2 – the best of the bunch is likely hunter, who’d I’d say is a OF3 in both of my leagues…
Why do you keep listing Dunn with Chicago?
Because I have a problem.
Greatest response ever.
No Josh Willingham? I almost think he should be an OF1.
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=2103&position=OF
In an OBP league maybe. We probably say this about him every year in standard leagues, though, and he always goes through a batting average slump and reminds us why he’s hard to own.
Umm, Adam Dunn…
Seriously, though. Willingham’s career average isn’t all that bad (.266). His issue the past couple of years has been getting the plate appearances. He is getting them this year. I look for 25-30 HRs, 90 RBIs, and the same number of runs. If he does that then I don’t especially care too much what his average is.
I hear the comparison to Dunn. Dunn will out-homer Willingham by close to 10 homers, though. And the empty weeks are hard to predict with Willingham, he doesn’t have an easy platoon pattern to follow. I would not be happy with WHam has my OF2 in a mixed league.
Not even in the Fangraphs Ultra league, which uses wOBA as the sole statistic for offense?
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=of&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=1&season=2010&month=0
:)
Just seems kindof funny. Here we have a a guy who is a clear stud from a sabermetric standpoint, and he doesn’t even seem to rate on most people’s list of “good” fantasy players.
You may or may not be right. This is the kind of player, though, that I would expect to see “more” from in the future, as opposed to less. He’s walking more, strking out less (that in itself explains the average, as the BABIP is pretty much where it has always been). I don’t know about slumps. I suppose they matter in H2H leagues, but not so much in roto. If they even exist. I would certainly rather have him than some of the other guys on this list.
I own the hammer and generally pull for the guy regardless of my fantasy roster. with that said I’ve been trying to move him for anything i can get. i start him more weeks than not since i cant start McLouth or Rasmus against southpaws. His production has been great but theres plenty of sub mendoza line weeks ahead with this guy.
your outfielder lists are so bad, I’m now reading them for pure comedic value. upton, quentin and adam jones are garbage.
Thanks for reading. I move guys down slowly you might have noticed. I’m more on Shandler’s side – once a guy has shown me something for a significant amount of time, I believe he can do it again in the right circumstances.
Upton is showing power, just not his old patience. Quentin’s showing signs of life, he’s walking, he doesn’t strike out much, and ISO stabilizes over 550 PA. Jones is still young and is the last guy on the list. Pence will push him off. I don’t own these guys (ok Quentin once), I don’t love them, but I don’t think they are trash and I wouldn’t drop them yet.
Listen here. Shouldn’t [insert random OF here] be [rated much higher/be listen in tier X/be ahead of player Y]? You’re so biased against [team/player/the natural order of the universe] that you shouldn’t be allowed to [write garbage like this/exist/procreate] .
Cordially,
[faithful reader/random psychopath/monkey with keyboard]
EEP! I meant *listed*. /Flings poo across cage/
If Span is “vanilla” then make me a milkshake!
Seriously, man.
The thing is if you’re just going to give me speed and no power, then you better give me elite speed. I don’t see that from Span.
Span is also 4th in all of baseball in runs scored. So if you give me 100 runs, 30 SB and a close-to-.300 average, I’ll take that over Quentin, Lee, Rasmus and Upton any day of the week.
**4th for outfielders, sorry.
“I’ll take that over Quentin, Lee, Rasmus and Upton any day of the week.”
And I will in turn take Lee, Upton, or Rasmus and crush you? The issue with taking a guy with limited power is that it hurts you in two categories, not one. You’re going to usually do bad in HR and RBI with that player, and I don’t think Span is any exception. Combining that with the pure volatility in AVG, and Span seems like a limited commodity.
Lee especially seems like an unqualifiedly better player. He’s traditionally been a lock for 0.300, 25 HR, and 100 RBI. Even with his poor start, I haven’t seen many signs that his skills have really diminished. They’re almost evil twins actually. Span has 25 SB, 100 R. But given the ability to get new young SB sources throughout the year, I’d much prefer Lee.
Plus, if you really want SB, you can always just stream anybody with a hint of speed facing the Red Sox. ;)
WHERE’S ANDRES TORRES
Where’s Jeff Franceour??? He brings a winning attitude to my fantasy team. I’m pretty sure everyone else over performs because of his jollyness.
ha i laughed
Magglio is not in a platoon. Check his numbers since the AS break of last year, sure the HRs may not impress, but he’s hitting .360ish and producing runs. Don’t get me wrong, it’s your list, but I’d have him ranked far better, perhaps even on OF1.
You want to bump someone off? Take a closer look at Manny since last year’s AS break – and then consider that he has been rested about once every 4 days (while healthy) this year. Manny is the platoon player, not Mags.