With the 2006 Major League Baseball season nearly upon us, fantasy leagues drafting and Vegas setting its lines, let us look ahead to who promises to surprise and disappoint this year.
Ryan Howard, 1B, Phillies
Ryan Howard has never seemed to get the respect his abilities deserve. After smashing 46 home runs during the 2004 minor league season, he was still only rated a 20-30 prospect in baseball. He got his shot in the Phillies line-up last year when Jim Thome went down with an injury, however, and went on to win NL Rookie of the Year.
Even though Howard is a known name, he is still quite undervalued. He hit 22 home runs last year in 312 at-bats, a home run rate equivalent to 42 homers in a full season... and that was as a 25-year old rookie. His top three comparables from Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA projection system are Travis Hafner, Mo Vaughn and Cecil Fielder; thus, he is in good company.
Look for him to hit around 45 homers in 2006 and seamlessly fill Thome's void. Anyone hitting that many home runs will be in the home run title chase, but Vegas has 40-1 odds on Howard winning the home run title, clearly an undervaluation of Howard's ability. Even if he just retains his homerun rate of 2005 and hits 42 homeruns, that will still win the title greater than 2.5 percent of the time, beating the odds.
Javier Vazquez, SP, White Sox
The White Sox pulled off a major coup when they acquired Vazquez from the Diamondbacks for prospect Chris Young. Vazquez's value plummeted after not performing in baseball's biggest market in 2004 with the Yankees. After being shipped to Arizona, he regained his strikeout rate but his defense did not help him, as only 67.2 percent of balls in play became outs (their season rate was 68.4 percent, or twenty-fourth place in MLB).
Moving to Chicago will lower Vazquez's ERA, as the White Sox had the second most efficient defense in baseball last year, converting 71.3 percent of balls in play into outs. Vazquez's average fantasy draft position is 162; his value is close to that of Brett Myers, Brandon Webb and Roy Halladay; so when Ryan Dempster, Matt Cain, and Kevin Millwood are being selected before him you may know something is wrong.
Chien-Ming Wang, SP, Yankees
Wang burst onto the scene in 2005 when the Yankees desperately needed pitching help and he seemed to get the job done. What Wang's 4.02 ERA in 116 innings does not show is how much he outperformed his skill level. His 3.64 K/9, 2.48 BB/9, and .70 HR/9 should have resulted in an ERA close to five, but Wang got lucky with a batting average on balls in play (BABIP) of .270 (the Yankee defense posted a .311 BABIP for the year).
In 2006, Wang's BABIP will probably regress to .300, and the groundball pitcher will not be helped by the defense behind him; the Yankees have one of baseball's worst right side of the infield. Giambi is the worst defensive 1B in baseball with a -9 fielding runs above replacement (FRAR); Cano is below average at -1, Jeter is at -3, and Rodriquez is average with 0 FRAR.
Mark Mulder, SP, Cardinals
Stay away from Mulder; his K/9 has dropped for three consecutive years, and his BB/9 has increased by 57 percent since his days in Oakland. His projected ERA was nearly a run higher than the 3.64 ERA he put up last year. This luck combined with being on a dominant team allowed him to win 16 games last year, and Vegas has set his over/under at 15.5 for 2006. Mulder's average fantasy draft position is 114; ahead of pitchers such as John Lackey, Dan Haren and Vazquez.
Whether you are drafting in your free fantasy league, or going to Vegas for Spring Break, just remember to use fundamentals to make wise decisions. If a pitcher experiences bad luck due to a higher BABIP than his career BABIP or a higher BABIP than his defense allowed for the year, than this pitcher is probably undervalued.
The opposite is true for overvalued pitchers such as Jon Garland, Kevin Millwood and Jared Washburn. Sticking to a fundamentally sound strategy will benefit you over the course of the year.
