You remember baseball, right? You know, the small, round, white one with seams instead of laces that players don't just throw and catch but hit?*
OK, so you suddenly became interested in it again Tuesday night, but for the last month or so of the 2015 season, you weren't, understandably. The season was winding down, you had nothing more to play for, and all of your bandwidth for enjoying sports was redirected elsewhere.
But all those things that happened in September, they still matter. They still counted in your league, and they still mean something for next year.
I don't know exactly what yet, but I have some ideas -- my first thoughts on the last of what happened, if you will, or simply my closing thoughts for 2015.
Have at 'em!
• Shelby Miller ended the season in fitting fashion, breaking up a 15-start stretch with a 4.47 ERA and 1.48 WHIP that made me want to wash my hands of him completely with eight shutout innings against the Cardinals. So is he on the right track or ... not? I mean, the upside is impossible to deny, but the across-the-board inconsistency -- from the innings to the walks to the strikeouts -- has me betting against a Chris Archer-level breakthrough.
• Remember Shin-Soo Choo? Yeah, so did he, batting .352 (63 for 179) with eight home runs and a 1.019 OPS over his final 48 games, bringing his final numbers to something close to the ones he had in his glory years with Cleveland, aside from the stolen bases. He ended up as a top-20 outfielder in Head-to-Head points leagues, ranking ahead of Justin Upton, Jason Heyward and Brett Gardner, so at worst, he'll be a middle-round pick next year.
• Choo's 36-year-old teammate, Adrian Beltre, showed he had a little something left in the tank, too, batting .427 (38 for 89) with five home runs and 11 doubles over his final 22 games. In fact, over the final 28 days, he and Choo were Nos. 1 and 2 in Head-to-Head scoring among hitters. His power numbers declined for a third straight year and he's reached the point where he's not going to reverse that trend, but we'll still be drafting him as a starter next year.
• Rich Hill may not have a spot in the Red Sox's starting rotation next year, but he'll be a fun little sleeper if he can latch on somewhere after ending the season with four dominant starts, which included a shutout and three 10-strikeout efforts. Longtime Fantasy players may remember the 35-year-old from his perfectly serviceable 2007 season, when he averaged nearly a strikeout per inning in 32 starts for the Cubs before losing control of his sweeping curveball. Well, that curveball is back and better than ever.
Hill's rebirth reminds me a little of Mike Fiers' last year, but after an even longer period of irrelevance. And while you might say Fiers disappointed this year based on preseason expectations, he still had pretty nice numbers.
• Speaking of sweeping curveballs, Twins rookie Tyler Duffey demonstrated a dandy of his own down the stretch:
The result was a 1.95 ERA, 1.11 WHIP and 8.6 strikeouts per nine innings over his final five starts. He wasn't much of a prospect, so he'll probably slip through the cracks on Draft Day. But he's sure to get a late-round look from me.
• Remember when Maikel Franco's season ended in mid-August with a fractured wrist? Yeah, that was a big lie. He returned to start the final two games of the season and actually homered in one to continue his uncommon display of big power and high contact for a 23-year-old rookie. He actually averaged more Head-to-Head points per game than Kris Bryant, but he'll probably go off the board a good 6-to-8 rounds later.
• And we all know Bryant is better, so it's not too much of an outrage even if it undersells Franco a bit. How do we know? Well, he hit .323 with 12 home runs, 15 doubles and a .967 OPS over the final two months, and while strikeouts remain his one wart, he actually finished one shy of 200 for the season after seeming like a lock for that dubious distinction most of the year. So as promising as his rookie season was, the big breakout when he ascends to first-round caliber numbers is just around the corner. I rank him behind only the three obvious first-rounders at the position -- Josh Donaldson, Manny Machado and Nolan Arenado -- for 2016.
• Three of the players who I'm most interested in seeing if they'll still have jobs to begin 2016: Travis Shaw, Danny Valencia and Justin Bour. Shaw, who backed into the majors with a .674 OPS in 77 games at Triple-A Pawtucket this year (his worst minor-league showing, but still), never really slowed down, hitting six of his 13 homers over his final 26 games, but his strikeout rate, a strength early, turned out to be pretty ugly. Valencia, a 31-year-old journeyman who had seemingly found his niche as a platoon player, excelled in what was presumed to be a stopgap role for the Athletics, batting .284 with 11 home runs and a .886 OPS in 47 games. The A's are all about filling openings on the cheap, so they may just let him play his way out of the job. Bour homered 23 times in 409 at-bats, including 11 in his final 125, and looks like a good bet for 30 with a job from start to finish, but presumably, the Marlins are going to look to upgrade wherever they can this offseason.
I'm pretty sure Greg Bird won't be starting with Mark Teixeira locked in at first base and Alex Rodriguez at DH, but if either succumbs to injury, you have to think he'll be first in line. And I'm more bullish about him than any of these others long term.
• If you look at the home run leaders in the NL, one name should jump out of you: Khris Davis tied with three other players with 27 even though he had only 392 at-bats. He hit 20 in August and September alone but was so all-or-nothing that he still batted less than .260 during that stretch. Still, that's an impressive enough power display for me to wonder for the first time if he has the upside at age 27 for the kind of year Albert Pujols just had.
• OK, so a second name should jump out at you. Tied for eighth on that list with 28 is Matt Carpenter, who hit 19 of them in the second half and seven in his final 16 games. It's like he kept gaining momentum as a power hitter once he figured out he could hit the ball over the fence, and it's going to make his going rate next year one of the most fascinating stories of the draft season.
• And then there's that other Chris Davis, who ended up winning the home run title with 47 home runs. And he saved his best for last, batting .318 with 12 home runs, a 1.211 OPS and 24 walks compared to 33 strikeouts in September. I don't know that we'll be drafting him in the first round again or even the second, but maybe his disappointing 2014 showing was more the outlier than his near-MVP 2013. I had hoped he would merely split the difference.
• Jerad Eickhoff was presumed to be just a throw-in in the Cole Hamels deal, but he gave the Phillies starting rotation an even bigger boost down the stretch than hot-shot prospect Aaron Nola did, allowing a combined three earned runs on 17 hits in four seven-inning starts to end the year, with 10 strikeouts in each of his final two. He wasn't even as highly regarded as Duffey coming into the year, ranking outside the Rangers' top 30 prospects according to Baseball America, and his fly-ball tendencies in hitter's park make him harder to trust as well. But once again, the curveball makes all the difference.
That pitch is looking like a real inefficiency in the starting pitcher market today.
• If you last checked in a month ago, at the start of September roster expansion, you would have thought Corey Seager had taken our milk money or something. Yep, we were pretty pessimistic about his chances of making a Fantasy contribution, assuming he had no place to play since the scouting reports had said all along he wasn't cut out to man shortstop in the majors. Well, he did such a good job filling in for an injured Jimmy Rollins there -- batting .337 with a .986 OPS, and with a positive defensive WAR, according to Baseball-Reference.com -- that he's going to keep the job right through the playoffs and presumably cruise to NL Rookie of the Year honors next year. Already, I can't imagine taking a shortstop other than Carlos Correa or Troy Tulowitzki ahead of him, and he's only 98 at-bats into his major-league career.
• But there's another name in the discussion. Francisco Lindor was so good after taking over as Indians shortstop in mid-August that some pundits are actually calling him the AL Rookie of the Year over Correa, which would have seemed blasphemous just six weeks ago. But sure enough, with a .345 batting average, 10 home runs, 11 stolen bases and .930 OPS, he was the highest-scoring shortstop in Head-to-Head points leagues after the All-Star break, ahead of Correa and the shortly eligible Manny Machado. The jury's still out on the power -- though it's worth noting Rafael Furcal and Jose Reyes emerged as 12-to-15-homer types only after reaching the majors -- but it's pretty clear he's a big part of the shortstop resurgence in Fantasy.
• You want a returning name to the list? After looking like he was benched in early August, Starlin Castro ended up just flip-flopping with Addison Russell up the middle and hit .378 (31 for 82) with five home runs and a 1.080 OPS in his final 25 games. And in doing so, he probably redeemed his trade value enough to start for some other team next season. At 25, he's fully capable of bouncing back and could be a nice late-round sleeper, depending where he lands.
• Once again, Mookie Betts was at his best to end the year, but while last year's strong finish put him on the map as a breakout candidate, this year's .340 batting average, eight home runs, eight stolen bases and .941 OPS after he returned from a concussion Aug. 11 cemented his place as one of the elite outfielders in Fantasy. And frankly, he was that valuable even when he was getting burned by BABIP with a batting average in the .260 range. You compare his numbers on Baseball-Reference.com in his first full season ...
Year | Age | G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2015 | 22 | 145 | 597 | 92 | 174 | 42 | 8 | 18 | 77 | 21 | 6 | 46 | 82 | .291 | .341 | .479 | .820 |
... to Andrew McCutchen's (who was a year older, by the way) ...
Year | Age | G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2010 | 23 | 154 | 570 | 94 | 163 | 35 | 5 | 16 | 56 | 33 | 10 | 70 | 89 | .286 | .365 | .449 | .814 |
... and you can understand the hype.
• Of all the prospects the Braves acquired in Stage 1 of their rebuild this year, Matt Wisler was the most highly regarded, so three consecutive starts of seven innings or more and two earned runs or fewer to end the season deserves a mention. He has good velocity but profiles as more of a Jordan Zimmermann type than a true Fantasy ace, so he may avoid the sleeper hype.
• While the end of the season offered plenty of reasons to be encouraged about the future at shortstop, it created some doubt about the future at second base, with Brian Dozier and Jason Kipnis the two main culprits. Both were genuinely elite in the first half, but Dozier hit .210 with a .639 OPS after the break and Kipnis hit .261 and .684 OPS. Both are still in their primes and clearly two of the higher-upside players at the position, but given that their 2014 seasons weren't so steady from start to finish either, there's reason to wonder if they'll be worth the price tag.
• Matt Moore did enough in his final four starts to convince me he's all the way back from Tommy John surgery, compiling a 1.35 ERA, 1.01 WHIP and 7.8 strikeouts per nine innings. He has always struggled with walks and may not have a low WHIP as a result, but he's worth drafting as sort of a poor man's Francisco Liriano with upside. And he wasn't even the most impressive Rays pitcher working his way back from injury. Drew Smyly, who missed three months with a torn labrum in his shoulder, averaged 11.3 strikeouts per nine innings go along with a 2.50 ERA and 1.11 WHIP in six September starts.
• With only two quality starts in his final 10, Michael Pineda lost all his effectiveness down the stretch, and it's not so clear why. He did, though, miss about a month with a forearm injury just before then, and that's often a first sign of elbow ligament damage, which typically coincides with -- that's right -- an inexplicable loss of effectiveness. It'd be a huge blow for a player who has already lost so much of his career to shoulder woes, but I think it has to be part of the conversation for Pineda heading into next year.
• A four-inning start at the end of the year typically doesn't even register in Fantasy, but for the White Sox's Frankie Montas, who struck out seven while touching triple digits with his fastball, it was an eye opener to those who had even half an eye on baseball. And look, he didn't even get any of his strikeouts with it.
I have a hunch he'll be the young pitcher who gets us salivating next spring, kind of like Taijuan Walker this year, Yordano Ventura last year or Julio Teheran the year before. Remember the name.
• Corey Dickerson missed most of 2015 with a plantar fasciitis and then broken ribs, but when he finally got a chance to contribute down the stretch, he was as good as ever, batting .318 (14 for 44) with four home runs in his final 10 games. The lost season should make him affordable again in Fantasy, and as a third outfielder, he's a steal.
• Joc Pederson never did scale that rookie wall, batting a horrific .171 (22 for 129) over the final two months after looking like a runaway pick for NL Rookie of the Year honors in the first half. In fact, I'm guessing his poor finish left such a bad taste in Fantasy owners' mouths that he'll be even more affordable than he was as a rookie. All you need to do to understand the ability he possesses, though, is think back to his performance in the Home Run Derby. His raw power is enormous, and he understands the strike zone. He'll recover from this.
• J.T. Realmuto's slow and steady improvement over the course of his rookie season reached a crescendo in September, when he hit .338 (27 for 80) with three home runs and an .890 OPS. He may never be a 20-homer guy, particularly playing half his games in that ballpark, but he has plenty to work with. I could see him being a poor man's Jonathan Lucroy and top-10 catcher next year.
• For all the attention paid to Jake Arrieta's ridiculous finish -- and rightfully so -- Stephen Strasburg's kind of got lost in the whole Matt Williams debacle. The Nationals' first sign of trouble this year -- remember how bad he was? -- overcame his neck and oblique issues to put together four double-digit strikeout efforts in five September starts, looking the healthiest he has since his Tommy John surgery five years ago. He absolutely deserves to be in the same discussion as Chris Sale and Corey Kluber heading into 2016.
• What's that? Kluber went 9-16? Well, that's a shame, but by now we know it's not an indictment on him, right?
• How much do you believe in Pirates pitching coach Ray Searage? That's the question you'll have to ask yourself when you evaluate J.A. Happ for next year. The heretofore forgettable lefty averaged 9.8 strikeouts per nine innings in 11 starts after coming over from the Mariners in a midseason trade, going 7-2 with a 1.85 ERA and 1.03 WHIP. Vance Worley had the Searage shine heading into this year, and it wore off pretty quickly. Then again, he wasn't missing bats like Happ has.
• Aaron Altherr could be a nifty little player if the Phillies decide he's an integral part of their rebuilding effort. Handed a regular role for the final six weeks, he turned in the kind of balanced stat line that tends to slip through the cracks on Draft Day, delivering five home runs, four triples, 11 doubles and six stolen bases in 137 at-bats. On a per-game basis, it translated to more Head-to-Head points than J.D. Martinez, among others.
• My nominee for weirdest stat line of 2015, though, goes to rookie Eddie Rosario, who had 13 home runs, 15 triples, 18 doubles, 11 stolen bases ... and 15 walks. The last player to have between 10 and 20 of all five was ... oh, that's right, no one. Too bad that fifth number kills his Head-to-Head value.