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It happens every year: A bunch of players produce way above or below expectations, and we spend the entire offseason arguing over whether or not the improvement or decline was genuine. Separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to last year’s performances can be the difference between a championship season and bitter, abject failure for your fantasy team. After all, if you ain't first, you're last.
All week long, I’ll be taking a look at last season’s surprises, be they breakout or bust, and offering my thoughts on each player’s fantasy outlook for this year. Having covered last year's breakouts, it's time for last season's disappointments. Today, we'll talk about players who should rebound in 2016.
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2016 Bounceback Candidates
Lucroy entered last season coming off the best performance of his career, which was a sequel to the career year he had in 2013. Perhaps even more importantly for our purposes, he produced these numbers while playing virtually every day, a rare feat for catchers. And hey, check out this table:
| 2013-14 | AVG | OBP | SLG | R | HR | RBI | SB |
| Lucroy | .291 | .357 | .460 | 132 | 31 | 151 | 13 |
| Buster Posey | .303 | .368 | .470 | 133 | 37 | 161 | 2 |
Unfortunately, Lucroy missed about a third of the season with a broken toe and a concussion. When he did play, he failed to reach the level he had in the previous two seasons. The end result was a pedestrian .717 OPS and a 13th-place finish among catchers in the Yahoo game.
His batted ball data didn’t change much from previous years, though he missed more often on pitches outside the zone and had more trouble than usual catching up to fastballs. These led to an increase of nearly five percent in his strikeout rate, though he remained above-average in this area.
Given the steadiness of most of his peripherals and the fact that he’s still only 29, a rebound seems likely. Lucroy could also see a boost in value if and when the Brewers trade him to a contender.
I wrote about these two back in November and my opinion hasn’t changed. Both players struggled last season, when they were expected to become fantasy stalwarts. Both demonstrated improvement as the year wore on, and each players’ underlying metrics give reasons for optimism that they’ll beat their eerily similar Steamer projection.
Soler’s team context is significantly better, but Ozuna’s ADP of 305 suggests he isn’t even being drafted in the majority of leagues. Soler’s ADP is currently 177. Either outfielder would make for a fine buy-low opportunity.
Let's get the bad stuff out of the way. Werth is entering his age-37 season. He's averaged just 111 games per season since 2012 due to a variety of injuries. And 2015 was the worst season of his career. The end is nigh for my favorite active player; there can be no argument. Nothing gold can stay, after all.
That said, Werth was pretty awesome in the two seasons prior to 2015, hitting .304/.396/.491 with 41 homers, 19 steals, and 333 R+RBI in 276 games. Even last year, he maintained his typically excellent plate discipline and batted ball profile.
The driving force behind his struggles last season, besides the usual injury issues, was a .253 BABIP, 72 points below his career rate. This was only the second time he'd ever posted a mark below .300, and the underlying numbers simply don't support it.
Werth is basically a lock to get hurt and miss time at this point. When healthy, however, he’s a good bet to outperform his current ADP of 327.
Ramirez hit 10 homers in April and finished the month with a .999 OPS, helping the Red Sox to a 12-10 record despite awful showings from the pitching staff. A few days into May, he suffered a shoulder injury that appeared to hamper him for the remainder of the year. He hit just nine home runs from that point on, slumping to a .249/.291/.426 overall line. Combined with his disastrous defense in left field, Ramirez was worth nearly two wins below replacement level in the first season of a four-year, $88 million contract.
Boston can't put him back in left field without inciting a riot, and with fellow albatross Pablo Sandoval entrenched at third and David Ortiz refusing to age at DH, they'll have to stick Ramirez at first base unless they can find a trade partner. So for those scoring at home, he'll be learning a new position for the second straight year and coming off a major injury. Oh, and he's no longer eligible at shortstop
But as awful as he was last season, it seems fair to attribute much of that to the shoulder injury. He rushed back and it never quite healed. The Ruthian home run pace was never going to last, but his performance out of the gate seemed to vindicate those who anticipated a big year from him with the luxury of playing half his games in Fenway.
And over the prior two seasons, Ramirez put up a .308/.382/.525 with 33 homers, 24 steals, and 254 R+RBI in just 848 plate appearances. Steamer doesn't quite see him getting back to that level, but his projection (.284/.345/.475, 18 homers, eight steals) would make him a useful player in most formats.
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