Fantasy Roundtable: Roundtable: Slow Starts

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

This is the weekly Fantasy Roundtable, where the writers of Rotoworld Baseball let the readers of Rotoworld Baseball in on a quick staff discussion. It’s water cooler talk … that we’ve decided to publish. Look for it every Tuesday.

Drew Silva: Let’s talk slow starts. Glancing at the bottom of the OPS leaderboard for qualified hitters, I see some big names — guys who were projected to carry considerable fantasy value in 2015 but haven’t produced so far. Chase Utley, Rougned Odor, Josh Harrison, Adam Eaton, Chris Carter, Carlos Gonzalez, Danny Santana … just to list a handful. Whom would you consider a good buy-low? And whose slow start is likely to continue into a down overall year? It doesn’t have to be from that group of names. There are a ton of underperformers here on May 12.

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D.J. Short: I advocated buying despite Adam Eaton‘s slow start a couple of weeks ago in Waiver Wired and I still feel pretty good about it. Yes, the batting average is very disappointing and he just collected his first RBI of the season on Monday night, but it’s not like he’s striking out more. His batted ball profile is pretty similar to what we saw last year, save for a couple of infield fly balls. He’s also still drawing walks at right around the same clip. One lousy month (during which he was sick for some of it) isn’t enough for me to give up on his potential. The 26-year-old outfielder isn’t going to hit for power, but he should score plenty of runs atop Chicago’s lineup and he might still have a chance at 20 steals. Hopefully his four-hit night on Monday is the start of some good things. Fortunately, it won’t cost much to buy low, as he’s available in 65 percent of Yahoo leagues right now.

It’s probably impossible for Chase Utley to be worse than he has been so far this season, but I’m legitimately worried. While everybody is focused on his historically bad start, keep in mind that he’s batting just .227/.302/.343 over the past calendar year, so this is actually a prolonged stretch of poor production. His .111 BABIP is perplexing and there’s really nowhere to go but up, but according to FanGraphs, only four hitters have made hard contact less often so far this season. At 36 years old, you can’t help but wonder if we are witnessing the rapid decline of a great player.

Ryan Boyer: Chase Utley, unfortunately, looks done to me. The 36-year-old batted just .232/.308/.351 over the final two months of last season and is off to a sickly .122/.205/.244 start in 2015. The BABIP (.111) is absurdly low, yes, but I’m not sure he’s been unlucky given that his line-drive percentage (16.9 percent) and hard-contact percentage (16.7 percent) are among the worst in the league. He’s just not driving the ball at all. I have a hard time seeing him being a mixed-league asset going forward.

Nathan Grimm: I’m still believing in Chris Carter. The guys at Fangraphs recently posted hard-hit rate for hitters and found a decent year-to-year correlation, suggesting it’s a skill that has some predictive ability. Carter has annually posted a hard-hit rate near the top of the league, but he currently ranks 83rd in the category this year. Assuming that takes a step forward — which will also help improve his unsustainably low .204 BABIP — and more of those hard-hit balls leave the Minute Maid bandbox, he should return to the low-average power hitter we know and love.

As far as guys I’m worried about, Carlos Gonzalez has been a losing bet since fantasy drafts. He just hasn’t been able to stay healthy in recent years, and eventually all those injuries break a player down to a shell of his former self. He’s stopped stealing bases altogether, and he doesn’t appear to have the bat speed he once did. There are plenty of 15-homer guys who aren’t constant injury concerns, so there’s no reason to mess around with CarGo anymore.

Ryan Boyer: I’ve got to believe Carlos Gonzalez will turn it around at some point. That’s assuming he’s healthy, of course, and there’s been no indication to this point that he’s not. He had a sub-.600 OPS in April, and that’s the first time his OPS has been that low over a full month since April of 2011. He had a .962 OPS the rest of the way that year. I could also see targeting Chris Carter if his owner is ready to give up. We’re all well aware that Carter is capable of going through these extended slumps, but his history suggests that an extended hot streak should come around at some point. I anticipate his numbers being about what we expected in the end.

David Shovein: One early-season disaster who seems like an incredible buy-low opportunity to me is Jay Bruce. Taking a cursory glance at his atrocious .171/.285/.362 slash line would have many fantasy owners doubting his mixed league relevancy for the remainder of the season. While he has certainly struggled, there are signs that better things are in store for the 28-year-old outfielder. His .194 batting average on balls in play is clearly unsustainable and nearly 100 points below his career mark (.290). He also ranks in the top 50 in all hitters in major league baseball with a 35.7% hard hit percentage. Bruce is also drawing walks at a nearly 14% clip, the best mark of his career. He could probably be had for pennies on the dollar from panicked Bruce owners at the moment.

One early-season laggard who I’m much less optimistic about is Brett Lawrie. Acquired from the Blue Jays this winter in a deal for Josh Donaldson, the 25-year-old has struggled mightily at the dish, slashing a pedestrian .260/.287/.350 with two homers and 14 RBI. While that doesn’t look disastrous at a glance, his mediocre line comes with a .358 batting average on balls in play which should regress closer to his career mark (.297). Furthermore, Lawrie has nearly doubled his career strikeout rate, whiffing 30.8% of the time which is the 12th worst mark in all of baseball. On top of that, he has drawn just three walks in 130 plate appearances on the season (2.3%) leading to an unfathomable 0.08 BB/K ratio.

Matthew Pouliot: I’m with Dave on Jay Bruce. I also think Jimmy Rollins is one guy I’d look to target in trades. He’s in such a productive lineup, he still has sufficient speed and power to contribute in those categories and the batting average can’t stay nearly this low. Even if he just hits .230-.240 the rest of the way, he’s a top-eight shortstop in this weak field. If he gets hot for a stretch and comes in around .260-.270 for the remainder of the season, then he’s probably in the top five.

I’m not as optimistic about a turnaround for Victor Martinez. If just doesn’t look like his bad knee is going to allow him to start hitting for power anytime soon, and while he’s good for singles and walks, he’s so terribly slow on the basepaths that it’s going to remain difficult for him to score runs, even with Yoenis Cespedes and J.D. Martinez hitting behind him. I’d hate to write him off completely, given that the knee could recover sufficiently to make him more of a threat in the second half, but he just doesn’t resemble much of a threat right now.

Drew Silva: I’m gonna rail against Danny Santana here for a minute. There was so much hype for the young Minnesota shortstop after he hit .319/.353/.472 with seven home runs, 40 RBI, 20 stolen bases, and 70 runs scored in 101 games last season as a rookie. But a simple peak behind the curtain shows he was playing way, way over his head. Santana is a .273/.317/.391 hitter in 2,352 career minor league plate appearances. How about that for a sample size? He’s nothing more than cheap speed now at the major league level, and his success rate in that department won’t be great. So far in 2015, he’s hitting .248/.267/.319 with two swipes in four tries. Yawn.

I’m with you guys on buying low on Eaton, Carter, and Bruce. CarGo is a tricky one. Such a littered injury history.

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I’m with you guys on buying low on Eaton, Carter, and Bruce. CarGo is a tricky one. Such a littered injury history.

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