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September 27, 2012

Resident Fantasy Genius

Revisiting the Foreign Imports

by Derek Carty

Prior to the season, I spoke with a number of scouts and talent evaluators to try to get a read on the various international imports fantasy players would have to make decisions on in their drafts. Today, I wanted to take a look back and see how well we were able to predict their performance here in the United States.

Yu Darvish | Texas Rangers | SP
Darvish was the most hyped international product to make the jump to Major League Baseball in years, and for the most part, I advised optimism in regard to his chances for success, and I even wound up drafting him on one team. As I summarized when I did my midseason check-in, my preseason Darvish sentiment boiled down to three main points: “1) He has ridiculous stuff and upside, 2) He has just average command, and 3) He has terrific makeup, which should help with the multi-faceted, often-difficult transition to MLB.”

Darvish wore this assessment like a glove. His stuff was absolutely ridiculous, leading to a 10-plus K/9. As billed, he threw a ton of different pitches, none worse than average. By Harry and Dan’s Brooks Baseball count, Darvish threw seven different pitches this year, and I see a second curveball in the data that they don’t have a label for, bringing the total to at least eight.

Of course, even with all those strikeouts, Darvish’s surface stats were slightly underwhelming thanks to some midseason struggles, and the control and command issues that we expected. Still, despite a mediocre 3.90 ERA, his 3.55 xFIP was still top 10 among AL starters and shows how good he really is. If he can take even a little step forward with that control next year, he could be a great fantasy asset.

Conclusion: Preseason evaluation was spot on.

Yoenis Cespedes | Oakland A’s | OF
Unlike Darvish, my preseason take on Cespedes wound up being pretty far off in some regards. My final evaluation read: “Despite the hype Cespedes has received, the consensus seems to be that he’ll merely be a solid regular to start off his MLB career and will be best-suited for the bottom half of the order. If he’s able to make the necessary adjustments, his upside is a veritable middle-of-the-order threat… Still, all of the hype Cespedes is receiving could drive his price up in fantasy leagues beyond where I’d be comfortable drafting him.”