The Big Picture - Fantasy > Reality

April 30, 2021

Pierre Camus examines the trend of fantasy-relevant players who aren't helping their team in real-life and vice versa in the 2021 MLB season. Which objectively bad players are still assets in fantasy and which quality players don't need to be rostered?

Reality doesn't always meet our expectations (not just talking baseball here). But in the fantasy world, we can make things play out however we want. A player is slumping? Cut or trade him and he's gone forever. Your favorite baseball team can't realistically pull that off midseason no matter how much you want Matt Carpenter to just retire, OK?

Oftentimes, I see fantasy analysts citing plate discipline as the alpha and omega for a hitter's worth as a Major Leaguer. I won't argue that striking out less is generally better and teams like to see a player get on base via walk but it just doesn't matter as much as it used to, especially for fantasy purposes.

That got me thinking about how some players are good in reality but not in fantasy and vice versa. This isn't a groundbreaking concept, of course. But it seems to matter less and less how effective a hitter is at the plate than it used to. A player isn't generally getting benched because he whiffs at a high rate as long as he's providing power. This has led to some huge discrepancies in the early going and I'd like to point a few of them out.

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Just a Whiff...

It used to be that a strikeout rate above 30% was unacceptable! This isn't an old man rant, it's a fact. Growing up watching baseball in the mid-80s, I recall sluggers like Rob Deer and Pete Incaviglia tying for the league lead in strikeouts with 153 and being ridiculed for their atrocious strikeout rates. These were the precursors to Joey Gallo as three-true-outcome players.

Deer and Incaviglia posted a K% of 32.8% and 32.9% respectively. Over seven seasons now, Gallo has an average 37.5% K% per season is working on a career-low 34.3% K-rate this season. He's been bested (worsted?) in the past by guys like Chris Davis, Miguel Sano, and Keon Broxton in that span too, so he isn't a huge outlier. Things done changed.

Over the past 50 years, we can see the meteoric rise of strikeout rates in the majors. Major League hitters are striking out at double the frequency as 1980 and things aren't slowing down. Meanwhile, the league walk rate has held fairly steady.

Since we like to pick arbitrary benchmarks for performance, 30% as a strikeout rate used to be considered terrible. As of April 29, there were 27 qualified batters above that mark in 2021 and most of them were relatively high draft picks in fantasy leagues: Eugenio Suarez, Keston Hiura, Matt Chapman, Joey Gallo (of course), and one of the subjects we'll examine more closely below.

To be clear, these players weren't just drafted high in the preseason and now ride the pine. These players are largely still in starting lineups, other than perhaps Hiura, because they are still providing some value in terms of power, runs, or even steals. There is fantasy value even if the reality is far worse.

We could get into duller stats like how teams don't lay down sacrifice bunts anymore to prove the bigger point but let's focus on whiffs and walks. Below we see the escalating mountain of strikeouts relative to walks continuing to pile up.

Aside from the fact that plate discipline is getting worse as the years go by, it's also interesting to note is that the current leaguewide .309 OBP is the lowest since 1968 even though walk rates are mostly the same. Back then, Bob Gibson was making batters look foolish and posted 13 shutouts along with a mind-blowing 258 ERA+ that netted him the National League Cy Young and MVP. Meanwhile, in the junior circuit, Denny McClain won 31 games, pitching 336 innings en route to the AL versions of both awards.

The league-average slugging rate of .390 is also at its lowest point since 1992. Many baseball analysts feel that the new, slicker ball is to blame for these trends. Time will ultimately tell, but for the time being, we can ascertain that hitters aren't performing as well early in 2021.

Would You Rather?

Now, let's take the Pepsi Challenge. If you saw these telling Statcast figures, which batters would you consider to be most valuable?

Remember:

"There are no wrong answers, only different perspectives. With that being said, some perspectives are certainly better than others." - Amanda Mosher

Players A & C have tremendous plate discipline with a K-BB of 0.3 and -0.5 to their credit. The in-zone contact rates are sky-high and chase rates are low. These players get quality at-bats nearly every time out.

On the other hand, Players B & D are allergic to free passes and make less contact. Player B might need an option to Triple-A to work on his mechanics based on this data. But how are they actually performing? Glad you asked:

In a 5x5 league, batting average matters but it doesn't outweigh the counting stats. How would you rank these players blindly according to who you would want on your fantasy roster?

According to Yahoo, Hitter A is ranked 157 overall, Hitter B is 24, Player C is 232, and Player D is 62.

To drag the reveal out further, take a gander at Player A's Statcast page:

Red and blue are balanced but in all the wrong places. Outs Above Average is a fielding metric and does nothing for us. Having a high sprint speed is a positive but only translates to fantasy value if the player is able to reach base consistently and is on a team that likes to steal. Fortunately for Player A, he's on the team that leads the majors with 1.54 SB attempts per game.

Striking out at a low clip is nice but unless you're in a points league, it doesn't matter in and of itself. If the hard-hit and barrel rates are low, that's when you should worry. Add a middling xBA to the mix and there's not much to get excited about here in fantasy.

Let's do one more. Here's Player B:

A near reversal of Player A, other than an even lower xBA. The Barrel% is elite but the K% and BB% border on nauseating. He can hit it hard but this surely must be a slugger who relies on the big fly to stay relevant.

OK, time to reveal our mystery players, in order of appearance:

You might have guessed Jake Cronenworth was one of these players from the get-go, for obvious reasons. I've said all offseason that I'm not interested in drafting him anywhere outside of a points league because he is a better real-life player than a fantasy one. He's really solidified that argument thus far.

I didn't guess that Javier Baez would be flirting with a 50% K-rate one month into the season or that he'd suddenly go crazy on the basepaths. I did assume he could improve on last year and still provide good pop at middle infield.

We've known about Nick Madrigal's hit tool forever but that alone isn't enough to make him rosterable. He isn't stealing bases (one this year), has no power to speak of, and is hitting at the bottom of the order. Even in a loaded lineup, he can be ignored.

Ramon Laureano has given fantasy teams un poquito de todo (a little of everything) but has mainly opened eyes with his league-leading eight thefts. He can't be said to be swinging a hot bat exactly but a player who was thought to have 20/20 potential may end up going 20/30 this year. Would you take that if a .225 average came with it? Hell yes.

A Word About Closers

Don't hate the players, hate the game. In this case, the game to which I refer is the 5x5 roto system which demands that you chase stats like saves that are harder to predict than ever. But we've already established that you can't trust closers!

Trust issues or not, I posit that nearly every potential closer holds some degree of fantasy value even though only a small handful are truly important assets to their team. Rafael Montero has blown four saves already but he also has collected three, placing him in the top-20 of that category. He's technically still the closer (for now) so he can't be dropped in fantasy yet as much as Mariners fans are ready to drop him from the top of the Space Needle.

Dodgers fans have been calling for the head of Dave Roberts for putting Kenley Jansen in for save situations because they just don't trust him, even though he's only blown one save this season.

The boo birds are out for Kenley Jansen tonight. #Dodgers

— Michael J. Duarte (@michaeljduarte) April 27, 2021

Kenley Jansen should’ve been off this team after 2017, argue with a brick wall.

— The Sports Guy (@Sp0rtsBurner24) April 27, 2021

me when Kenley Jansen enters the game ?: pic.twitter.com/W2kDugDahr

— AJ ⁶? (@aj_gonzalez16) April 27, 2021

The world if Kenley Jansen wasn’t the #Dodgers closer: pic.twitter.com/R003cD9Cen

— Julian (@JulianTheMedic) April 27, 2021

So far, he's got five saves, 13 K in 10 1/3 innings, and is one of the top relievers in fantasy. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Don't listen to fan bases, announcers, or especially social media when it comes to bullpen decisions. Follow the analytics and hold on to your Montero while you can.

Conclusion

Far too often, fantasy managers are led to believe that a "good" player is going to help their fantasy teams and it doesn't pan out. Jake Cronenworth is on pace to lead the majors in plate appearances, rarely strikes out, plays across the diamond defensively, and has been a great addition to the contending Padres. But he doesn't need to be in a starting fantasy lineup every day.

Javy Baez could set the world record for strikeouts and still be one of the best fantasy players out there. Joey Gallo, although he's not exactly in a groove right now, is always undervalued because drafters are scared of the batting average sink. With the entire league collectively seeing its average and on-base percentage drop, we might want to focus less on that anyway.

Any good draft strategy guide begins with the same message: Rule #1 - Know your league's settings. If it doesn't take strikeouts into account for hitters, don't make it a focal point of your player analysis. Successful fantasy managers can distinguish between good players and good players for fantasy.

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