Few players have been around the block to the extent that Danny Valencia has by the age of 31 years old. In 2006, the Minnesota Twins took Valencia in the 19th round of the MLB Draft. Things were good for the Twins back then.

Joe Mauer was coming into his own, and a veteran outfield with Torii Hunter and Michael Cuddyer and a pitching staff featuring names like Matt Garza, Francisco Liriano, and Johan Santana led to great optimism in Minnesota. The only real issue was the infield. The Twins acknowledged this fact and hoped that drafting a guy like Valencia would help.

Editor's note: Be sure to check out our 2016 fantasy baseball rankings dashboard, which is already loaded up with lots of great articles. Aside from staff rankings and ADP analysis across all positions, we also dig into MLB prospect rankings, and dynasty/keeper rankings as well.

Background

Valencia’s Major League career started off with a literal bang. After some time as a farmhand, Valencia was called up to the Twins in 2010 following the death of Cuddyer’s father. In his Major League debut, Valencia smacked a grand slam off of Zack Greinke; one of four hits he would register on the afternoon. In that year, he led the AL in average with runners in scoring position (.394), only playing in 85 games.

The next two seasons began the turmoil that sent Valencia to six different teams in four years. The Twins were down on Valencia after he hit just .205 in the opening months of the 2012 season. He was then shipped to the Boston Red Sox for an OF prospect. Boston moved him to Baltimore for cash consideration in the 2013 offseason. Next up was Kansas City, who sent David Lough to Baltimore for Valencia’s services in that same year. With the Royals, Valencia only managed 110 PA before being traded to the Toronto Blue Jays in 2014. But Valencia couldn’t stick in Canada either, as he was designated for assignment in late 2015 before being claimed off of waivers by the Oakland Athletics.

2016 Outlook

So, Valencia not only enters 2016 wearing the Green Collar, but he is projected to be the Oakland Athletics’ starting 3B. For such an inconsistent player, it is so difficult to form any sort of expectations for Valencia. However, there is enough of a body of work to identify Valencia as a player who can contribute a little bit of everything from a fantasy perspective. What about this body of work stands out? Let’s find out.

First, Valencia has improved substantially in three major offensive statistical categories. Barring the 2013 season with the Baltimore Orioles as an outlier (he only played in 56 games), we see positive trends from 2012-2015. Keep in mind that in each of the three years listed below, Valencia played for two different teams and was still able to focus on his game enough to improve:

 
That improvement is all well and good, but it is not enough to really trust Valencia as your every day 3B. His developing power, however, may be. Let’s look at Valencia’s BABIP and ISO in those same years:

 
In 2015, the year in which his power surge culminated, Valencia hit 18 home runs and accounted for 66 RBI in 378 PA. Seven of these home runs came in the hitter-friendly Rogers Centre in Toronto, and eleven came in a much bigger ballpark, Oakland’s O.co Coliseum. This production warrants a roster spot in almost all formats, and Valencia was able to achieve this in just 105 GP. Given a full season of opportunities and some sort of stability in his career, Valencia may be able to turn these trends into concrete performance, consistency, and ultimately, a contract that may keep him in one place for more than one season.

A closer look at Valencia’s power numbers show us that he can really crank it against righties. The average is a little higher against lefties (.298 against LHP vs. .285 against RHP) but 13 out of 18 home runs (72.2%) and 17 out of 23 doubles (73.9%) came against righties, and 61 out of 100 total hits (61.0%) came against righties in 2015.

Conclusion

With all of this information, we need to draw a formal conclusion on Valencia. Aside from his early days with the Twins, he really hasn’t been given a chance to show us what he can do. Almost at the age of 32, Valencia is still sort of proving himself to fantasy owners. His defense is solid enough to keep him around on any team.

Given recent trends, his offensive production is approaching that level as well but it is not there yet. Valencia only needs one more good offensive season to be considered a universal 3B option on fantasy rosters. An average in the high .200’s and double digits home runs are certainly within reach. If he happens to face more RHP than in previous years, expect even more.

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