Al Gore is the greatest fantasy sports player of all-time. Firstly, he invented the internet so he could easily tabulate his fantasy match-ups. Secondly, the guy has always been a big proponent of environmental research… so, naturally he never underestimates park and team factors when managing his rosters. In the spirit of Al Gore’s fantasy dominance, I think it’s high time we pay closer attention to the ballparks and environments that affect our game. Yep, it’s time for us to examine some inconvenient truths.
Inconvenient Truth #1: Phil Hughes is more than just fantasy relevant
Has there ever been a worse pairing than Phil Hughes and Yankee Stadium? His extreme home run tendency left him open to an exposure so great that he probably couldn’t even find a local underwriter to insure his home and auto. He gave up 24 dingers in just 145 innings last season. Talk about a serious hazard. With such a heavy reliance on just two pitches (fastball and slider), many thought he’d be shipped to the bullpen, since he had his most successful year pitching mostly out of the pen in 2009. In so many words, the fantasy community gave up on him after last season’s abominable 4-14 record and unsightly ratios- 5.19 ERA and 1.45 WHIP. Some of us gave up long before that.
Well, it’s amazing what a little change of scenery can do, eh? Enter- “Target Field: suppressing home runs since March 2010.” From 2010-13, for every 100 HRs hit in an average major league park, Target Field produced only 86. Compare that to Yankee Stadium over that period of time, which produced 128 HRs for every 100 HRs in an average park. Correspondingly, Hughes’ HR/9 rate has cut in half from last season from 1.48 in 2013 to just 0.70 so far in 2014. While that is a massive environmental change, it’s NOT one that could have redeemed his windfall numbers solely by itself.
So what about Hughes has changed apart from his scenery? His K/9 sits at 7.87, not far off his career line of 7.59. His BABIP is at .310, actually a few points worse than his career average of .295. His velocity has remained steady. The main place that Hughes has improved is in his newfound command. The career BB/9 rate is at a middling 2.64; for the 2014 season, Hughes is walking a paltry 0.87 per nine. Is this mechanical? Hard to say. Is this pitch selection/development? I think so. According to Baseball Info Solutions, Hughes has abandoned his slider and replaced it with a cutter. Last season Hughes threw sliders at a 23.8% clip but did not use a cutter in his repertoire. Fast forward to this season and he’s throwing his cutter 24.2% of the time and is throwing no sliders. This seemed so drastic that I thought perhaps they were just categorizing the same pitch differently from one season to the next, until I realized there was an average increase of nearly 8 MPH difference on the pitch. So there’s no doubt that we are in fact dealing with a totally different pitch. The 2014 results? A career high 59.8% of pitches thrown inside the strike zone, up from a career baseline of 53.6%, according to PITCHf/x. Perhaps Target Field has given Hughes the confidence to pound the strike zone more, without the persistent risk of giving up the big fly.
Ultimately, this is a guy that’s developed his secondary pitch and found himself a ballpark and division that suits his pitching. The “flat fastball” that so many people have dogged him for seems to be getting the job done these days. While I think Hughes’ HR/9 will tick back up as the season progresses, I think he’ll continue to be successful throughout the remainder of the season. While no one can totally scrap the 7 years of data leading up to this season, I think it’s safe to say Hughes is more than just fantasy relevant at this point… he should be a target.
Inconvenient Truth #2: Coors Field makes Drew Stubbs a legitimate option
When it comes to Coors Field, some like to reference the old adage, “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Personally, I prefer to reference the bullet train from the Coors beer commercials. You know the one… it steamrolls everything in its path only to leave plentiful beverages in its wake and a plethora of beautiful people partying to the “Love Train” anthem. Seriously, that’s what it’s like after every home stand if you own a Rockies player… you’re toasting strangers and showing off dance moves that shouldn’t be shown off. The park factor for Coors Field stands at +144 between 2010-13. In other words, it’s literally 44% better than the average stadium when it comes to scoring runs. How has that played out this season? Well you can judge for yourself with the Rockies’ home/away stats on the season. (per baseball-reference.com)
A .330 average and a .913 OPS would land an individual player not just in the hall of fame, but squarely among the all-time greats. That’s the entirety of the team doing that, folks! That’s taking into consideration the 9th hole hitters, the pitchers, and the struggling players. Humidor be damned, you can tell just how amazing that team is at home to maintain those ridiculous averages.
Enter Drew Stubbs, who is batting a scorching .407 with 2 HRs, 10 RBIs, and 4 SBs in 81 at-bats at Coors Field. Scoop him up out of free agency and pair him with another batter to swap out with when he goes on the road to the cavernous run-suppressing ballparks in his division. When the Rockies home stand begins on Friday, 16 of the next 23 will be played in that sweet, sweet altitude. His playing time looks guaranteed over the next month (CarGo and Cuddyer injuries), and he’s always had the tools to produce solid category juice. At just 11.6% owned in ESPN and 10% in Yahoo, now’s as good of a time as any to see if you can take advantage of those friendly confines with a barely owned, middle-of-the-order player. It’s time to tap the Rockies.
Inconvenient Truth #3: David Wright is no longer a top-50 fantasy player
David Wright is one of the good guys. There’s a reason his nickname is, “Captain America.” But at some point, something’s got to give. He hasn’t hit over 21 HRs since 2010 and hasn’t swiped over 19 bags since 2009. He’s nowhere near the pace for either of those numbers in 2014 either.
According to FantasyPros.com, Wright came into the season as the 20th-ranked fantasy player among industry experts. That’s a few slots higher than guys like Giancarlo Stanton, Carlos Gomez, Adam Wainwright and Yasiel Puig, to name a few. Now hindsight’s 20/20, and I won’t belabor this error, because I realize that preseason rankings are incredibly difficult. But, I would like to know why? Why is David Wright still continually ranked as a top-30 player, even amidst this crappy season? As I write this, I am looking at a fantasy expert’s rankings from last week and he still has David Wright in his overall Top-30. That’s ridiculous. From 2011-13, Wright played 370 games, hit 53 HRs, stole 45 bases, and hit for .292 average. Those are solid but not spectacular numbers; they’re good for the 74th most HRs, the 43rd most SBs, and the 34th best batting average in the majors over that span. Sure, you can claim that his per game averages have been slightly better than the season totals have shown, but you still have to factor in injury risk, considering he’s missed significant time two of the past three seasons. In other words, he’s a far cry from his 2005-10 seasons when his average season was 100 Rs, 26 HRs, 104 RBIs, 22 SBs, and a .306 AVG.
In a time when baseball’s become increasingly pitcher friendly, Wright’s batting average potential has been the main reason his value has remained inflated. But in 2014, the batting average is no longer buoying his value. The career .299 hitter is hitting just .266 on the season, without much signs of life. His BABIP is not particularly low at .326, so there’s not reason to suspect a correction there. His Isolated Power is at an embarrassing .103. The walk to strikeout ratio is at a career low 0.37. In other words, nothing is trending in the right direction for the two-time silver slugger, and nothing seems imminent to turn around. At just 31 years old, it’s safe to wonder why this 7-time all-star is struggling so much. Perhaps former teammate Jose Reyes summed it up best when he said he felt sorry for David Wright, because the hardest thing in baseball is to play for the Mets:
“After a little while you just want to win. It’s not about the money, because we are already set. We’ve got a contract and it’s now about winning. We’re not getting any younger you know? What is he, 31? I’m 31. I want to win.”
In so many words, David Wright is simply in a downright, awful environment. He’s in a terrible organization, playing in a bad lineup, with the weight of the franchise on his shoulders, and to top it off, Citi Field is simply not friendly to hitters. Don’t take it from me; just ask the guy that hopped on the 7-train at a Bronx subway entrance and exited in what he found to be a spacious black hole of a ballpark… Curtis Granderson. Over the past three seasons, Citi Field has produced just 89 runs per 100 and 84 HRs per 100 when it comes to league average ballparks. In other words, this is one of the worst places a hitter can call home. On top of that, this 2014 Mets team is tied for 3rd worse in HRs with 50, 2nd worse in the majors in batting average at .230, and 2nd worse in OPS at .656. All in all, even if David Wright begins to show signs of life at the plate, it will be difficult for him to put up top-30 worthy run production in such a terrible environment. If I were an owner, this is the time when I would dangle Wright’s name on the open market to see what comes back to you. The right decision may be to sell a bit low on David Wright. I’m sure you can find someone in your league that still sees him as a top-30 player. Like Al Gore taught us, never ignore the environment.
Feature Image rights reserved KNDYNT2099, Dennis Amyth, Flickr
