2010

2010 Adjusted ESPN Second Base Rankings

Second base has long been a black-hole for fantasy owners, but the position’s grown deeper in recent years.  Unfortunately, I have very little faith in the hands-down top second baseman, Chase Utley.  One number sticks out in my mind more than anything else about Utley:  1978, Utley’s birth year.

Utley will be 31 years old for the entire 2010 season, but the steroid-era has fooled us into believing that age doesn’t matter until you’re at least in your mid-30s.

You’ll notice in the BOXPLOT to the left, a good chunk of players are bunched above the median which means pretty much after Utley and Kinsler, there’s a load of talented guys that’ll produce around the same level.

With the larger spread in the 2nd-quartile, we’re dealing with a rather large drop-off as you get to the Cabreras, Polancos and Stewarts of the world.

Tiering this up with a histogram is pretty simple. As you can see, the histogram once again shows us that it’s Utley, then Kinsler, and then the rest.  There are seven projected players between 260 and 300, so you should be able to snag a decent second basemen even if you miss out on the top-tier.

AVERAGE	CAT	STDEV
91.000	R	11.5
20.800	HR	6.53
79.467	RBI	12.61
13.800	SB	9.03
0.286	AVG	0.02

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There’s the averages for the second-basemen and here are Z-Scores:

PLAYER_NAME	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	Total
Chase Utley	2	1.41	3.93	0.47	0.2	8
Ian Kinsler	0.78	0.8	2.98	1.68	-1.25	4.99
Brandon Phillips	-0.78	0.03	3.29	1.35	-0.55	3.34
Dustin Pedroia	1.65	-0.74	1.87	0.35	0.95	4.09
Robinson Cano	-0.09	0.49	2.9	-1.09	1.75	3.96
Brian Roberts	0.87	-1.04	1.55	1.57	0.15	3.1
Ben Zobrist	0.17	0.34	3.14	0.24	0.05	3.94
Aaron Hill	-0.17	0.64	3.29	-0.97	-0.15	2.64
Dan Uggla	0.17	1.41	3.29	-1.2	-1.55	2.13
Jose Lopez	-1.3	0.49	3.37	-1.09	-0.35	1.12
Asdrubal Cabrera	-0.7	-1.5	2.26	0.47	0.7	1.23
Ian Stewart	-0.61	0.64	2.58	-0.75	-1.3	0.56
Placido Polanco	0	-1.5	1.55	-0.97	1	0.07
Howie Kendrick	-1.57	-1.35	2.02	0.02	1.35	0.48
Rickie Weeks	-0.43	-0.12	0.04	-0.09	-0.95	-1.55

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PLAYER_NAME	POSITION	R	HR	RBI	SB	ESPNAVG	AB	A_AB	Hits	Tts
Chase Utley	2B	114	30	97	18	0.290	564	544.5	164	334.01
Ian Kinsler	2B	100	26	85	29	0.261	531	519.5	139	304.84
Brandon Phillips	2B	82	21	89	26	0.275	574	553	158	287.97
Dustin Pedroia	2B	110	16	71	17	0.305	569	564	174	286.99
Robinson Cano	2B	90	24	84	4	0.321	570	564.5	183	283.94
Brian Roberts	2B	101	14	67	28	0.289	579	565	167	283.64
Ben Zobrist	2B	93	23	87	16	0.287	436	442	125	273.28
Aaron Hill	2B	89	25	89	5	0.283	554	547	157	268.19
Dan Uggla	2B	93	30	89	3	0.255	555	533	142	264.37
Jose Lopez	2B	76	24	90	4	0.279	593	573	165	256.14
Asdrubal Cabrera	2B	83	11	76	18	0.300	475	470.5	142	243.84
Ian Stewart	2B	84	25	80	7	0.260	447	430.5	116	238.84
Placido Polanco	2B	91	11	67	5	0.306	552	550.5	169	234.14
Howie Kendrick	2B	73	12	73	14	0.313	448	427	140	230.55
Rickie Weeks	2B	86	20	48	13	0.267	408	347.5	109	215.11

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The Differences:

Robbie Cano and Brandon Phillips are essentially switched around in this model.  Once again, I’m completely puzzled how a .320 projected average tops a .275 average with 21 extra stolen bases.  The runs, home runs and rbi are almost identical yet Brandon Phillips ranks three spots behind Cano.

If you draft Cano as a MI, you’ve really got to stretch to find stolen bases elsewhere.  Looking at the top few tiers of second basemen, you’re almost guaranteed 20SB.

2010

2010 Adjusted ESPN First Base Rankings

First base always seems to be deep and this year is no different. There’s a handful of elite first-basemen with very few questions and the position’s about 14 players deep before questions start popping up.

The only problems you’ll run into with first basemen is getting enough of them before they start falling off the board into UTIL spots across your league.

The Box-Plot to the left contains a total of 27 first basemen, all of whom exceed the minimum required for a beneficial UTIL-spot.

You’re almost guaranteed to get 30HR out of your first basemen and should be planning a contingency plan if you’re drafting a light-hitting first-basemen like James Loney.

As ESPN refuses to allow us access to their H/AB and rather just throws us a bone with AVG, we have to use CHONE’s AB guestimates.

Presented below are the standardized total points (Tts) and as you can see, the difference between Pujols’ and Howard’s batting average is large, but almost eliminated by Howard’s impressive HR and RBI totals.

PLAYER_NAME	R	HR	RBI	SB	ESPN_AVG	Tts
Albert Pujols	114	43	122	11	0.34	393.86
Ryan Howard	104	47	145	5	0.27	365.91
Prince Fielder	100	45	127	2	0.29	351.05
Mark Teixeira	104	38	125	2	0.3	341.34
Miguel Cabrera	106	32	102	3	0.31	324.83
Adrian Gonzalez	96	41	106	0	0.28	315.53
Mark Reynolds	96	38	102	18	0.25	312.04
Kevin Youkilis	97	28	102	5	0.31	299.31
Justin Morneau	88	33	111	0	0.28	288.99
Joey Votto	85	31	92	7	0.3	286.08
Derrek Lee	96	27	102	2	0.3	283.86
Billy Butler	90	29	99	1	0.3	283.28
Kendry Morales	88	30	101	3	0.3	282.07
Carlos Pena	90	39	103	1	0.24	275.13
Adam Dunn	83	38	100	2	0.24	271.02
Chris Davis	77	35	97	2	0.27	266.73
Lance Berkman	88	26	91	7	0.28	265.9
Pablo Sandoval	85	24	88	3	0.32	265.2
Michael Cuddyer	84	24	86	6	0.27	251.75
Adam LaRoche	72	28	88	1	0.27	245.78
Victor Martinez	86	18	93	0	0.29	244.83
Jorge Cantu	72	21	93	4	0.28	239.4
James Loney	69	17	85	5	0.3	237.16
Carlos Delgado	76	25	94	2	0.26	233.12
Paul Konerko	71	28	81	1	0.26	232.17
Nick Swisher	87	27	78	1	0.24	231.11
Garrett Jones	71	21	78	7	0.26	224.2
Todd Helton	75	13	75	0	0.31	216.87

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As you can see in the Histogram to the right, there’s one or two players in each tier after 300pts.  At 300pts, it becomes a complete and total crap-shoot.  If you care to compete, you absolutely need to get a first baseman no later than this tier.

Kevin Youkilis, Justin Morneau, Joey Votto, Derrek Lee, Billy Butler, Kendry Morales, Carlos Pena and Adam Dunn are all very capable starters at first base.

The Differences:

In the ESPN Rankings, Ryan Howard is the fifth overall first basemen despite crazy projections.  It’s become fairly clear that ESPN over-values batting average and what a .270 Batting Average means in the overall scheme of things.

Assuming we have 9 positions with 600 AB each, the difference between Howard’s .270 average and Mark Teixeira’s .300 Average is about 20 Hits over the course of 600 AB.  With Ryan Howard as your first baseman on a team that hits .300 — You end up with a .2965 or almost a .297 Average.  With Teixiera on a .300 Hitting team, you end up with .300 obviously.  Whether or not you think 3pts in BA is equal to 9HR and 20 RBI is up to you…

Pablo Sandoval also takes a huge hit for the opposite reason.  In order to take advantage of Sandoval’s .323 Projected Average, you’ll have to live with the San Francisco Giants inept offense.  Sandoval’s ability to play third definitely helps his overall value, but in the first base rankings, he’s just too high.  I find it hard to believe that he hit line-drives less than 20% of the time, considering that he wasn’t smash-killing homers.

Teams made it abundantly clear that they have absolutely no problem pitching Sandoval outside the zone by throwing 60 percent of pitches off the plate.  Teams will continue to pitch Sandoval way out there until Sandoval actually stops swinging at ‘em:  Sandoval’s 41.5% swing rate on pitches outside of the zone is 16% higher than average and trails only Bengie Molina in the overall standings.   It’ll come down to whether or not you think Sandoval has the type of plate coverage to back it up.  I’m not sure if I throw Sandoval into the Guerrero/Suzuki realm of plate coverage at this point…

He did show the ability to take a walk last year, which is a good sign when you’re 2008 BB% was not even 3%.  In a nutshell, Sandoval absolutely kills the fastball-changeup combination.  Last year, he improved dramatically against the old uncle charlie, but that was more than likely statistical error in 2008– the kid can hit, but just how far he’ll chase pitches off the plate remains to be seen.  At this point, there’s just no reason to throw him anything even remotely close to the strike-zone.

Here are the averages and standard deviations from Pujols to Helton:

AVERAGE	CAT	STD_DEV
87.5	R	11.99
30.21	HR	8.66
98.79	RBI	16.05
3.61	SB	3.9
0.28	AVG	0.02

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With the Z-Scores, or standard deviations away from the mean, for just first basemen.   This is a great reference point for how much a first basemen will hurt vs. help you in any given category –  We’re assuming everyone get’s the same number of AB in this chart, which is different from the overall rankings which uses projections for AB.

PLAYER_NAME	Z-Score-R	Z-Score-HR	Z-Score-RBI	Z-Score-SB	Z-Score-AVG	Total
Albert Pujols	2.23	1.48	1.45	1.89	2.85	9.89
Ryan Howard	1.39	1.94	2.88	0.36	-0.6	5.96
Prince Fielder	1.05	1.71	1.76	-0.41	0.6	4.7
Mark Teixeira	1.39	0.9	1.63	-0.41	0.95	4.46
Miguel Cabrera	1.55	0.21	0.2	-0.16	1.6	3.4
Adrian Gonzalez	0.71	1.25	0.45	-0.93	0.2	1.68
Mark Reynolds	0.71	0.9	0.2	3.69	-1.6	3.9
Kevin Youkilis	0.8	-0.26	0.2	0.36	1.3	2.4
Justin Morneau	0.04	0.32	0.76	-0.93	-0.1	0.1
Joey Votto	-0.21	0.09	-0.42	0.87	1.15	1.48
Derrek Lee	0.71	-0.37	0.2	-0.41	0.75	0.88
Billy Butler	0.21	-0.14	0.01	-0.67	0.95	0.36
Kendry Morales	0.04	-0.02	0.14	-0.16	1.05	1.05
Carlos Pena	0.21	1.02	0.26	-0.67	-1.9	-1.08
Adam Dunn	-0.38	0.9	0.08	-0.41	-1.85	-1.67
Chris Davis	-0.88	0.55	-0.11	-0.41	-0.75	-1.6
Lance Berkman	0.04	-0.49	-0.49	0.87	-0.1	-0.16
Pablo Sandoval	-0.21	-0.72	-0.67	-0.16	2.15	0.39
Michael Cuddyer	-0.29	-0.72	-0.8	0.61	-0.45	-1.65
Adam LaRoche	-1.3	-0.26	-0.67	-0.67	-0.3	-3.2
Victor Martinez	-0.13	-1.41	-0.36	-0.93	0.5	-2.32
Jorge Cantu	-1.3	-1.06	-0.36	0.1	0	-2.63
James Loney	-1.55	-1.53	-0.86	0.36	1.1	-2.48
Carlos Delgado	-0.97	-0.6	-0.3	-0.41	-0.95	-3.23
Paul Konerko	-1.39	-0.26	-1.11	-0.67	-0.9	-4.32
Nick Swisher	-0.04	-0.37	-1.3	-0.67	-1.9	-4.28
Garrett Jones	-1.39	-1.06	-1.3	0.87	-0.8	-3.68
Todd Helton	-1.05	-1.99	-1.48	-0.93	1.45	-4