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April 4, 2008

Lies, Damned Lies

Picking the Under

by Nate Silver

It’s actually much more difficult to come up with an ‘anti-’ list than a ‘pro-’ list. Not only do I really feel like I have to bet against my own system, but it seems like I’m picking on individual players and teams. If it makes you feel any better, two of the eleven names you see below play prominent roles on one or another of my fantasy teams.

C Josh Bard, Padres: I don’t see any obvious targets at the catcher position, but I’m moderately skeptical about Bard, who has considerably outperformed his minor league track record over a couple of smallish, catcher-sized samples. I also worry about guys who rely a lot on talking walks when they don’t represent much of a power threat; there’s little reason for pitchers not to challenge Bard, especially in Petco.

1B Prince Fielder, Brewers: Something you probably didn’t know, or maybe you did—Fielder became a vegetarian this winter. In the long-run, that is probably a good thing for both his health and his performance. I saw Prince play at Wrigley on Wednesday and at first had the impression that he was bigger than last year, but realized that this was an artifact of his uniform looking baggier (it also might have been that I had much better seats than usual). I actually think that he’s lost some weight, but in the near-term this is potentially a pretty big change in his routine, and the worry I have is that the change was apparently not motivated by health reasons; Prince was persuaded by his wife that it was the right thing to do for ethical reasons. Perhaps worth noting is that Fielder was mediocre in spring training, hitting just one home run in 65 at-bats against Cactus League pitching.

2B Freddy Sanchez, Pirates: One theory I’ve had for a long time, but never really gotten around to testing, is that the easier time a guy has playing defense, the more he can relax at the plate and focus on his offensive game. There’s some evidence of this pattern with Sanchez—he had his best year in 2006, when he spent the entire year playing his best defensive position (third base). He’s not a good second baseman, and I’m not sure that the Pirates aren’t harming themselves both offensively and defensively by playing him there.

3B Mark Reynolds, Diamondbacks: I don’t entirely trust PECOTA’s ability to distinguish relatively high-strikeout guys who take their share of “healthy” Ks from the other extremely high-strikeout guys. Reynolds is an extremely high-strikeout guy, whiffing in more than a third of his at-bats last season, and managing to post a nice batting line only by maintaining a Manny Ramirez-like BABIP. Reynolds is aware of the strikeout issue, but literally gave up on a plan to revise his hitting approach midway through spring training. That might have been the right decision for him—each hitter has his own unique plate approach, and my guess is that most hitters have found the one that is pretty close to optimal for their own peculiar combination of strengths and weaknesses by the time they reach the majors. But that doesn’t mean the strikeouts aren’t a problem.