Tag Archives: Billy Hamilton

Dynasty Dynamics: Carlos Gomez, Starling Marte, Coco Crisp and Others

by The Dynasty Guru

All of us, myself included, come into each season with preconceived notions about certain players, whether it’s on the positive side or the negative side. The question is how much of the season we need to see to leave those notions behind, and the answer is that it’s different for every player.

Take Coco Crisp, for example. I had Crisp ranked at #58 among dynasty league outfielders this off-season, and he was one of the most valuable players for fantasy in April. When I update my rankings (stay tuned for an announcement on this–and yes, I’m aware that I just teased a teaser), he might move up a few spots overall, but nothing drastic. In this case, it’s because Crisp wasn’t ranked higher due to his proclivity for injuries, and he’s on the DL again right now. As far as his performance, we know that he’s capable of performing like a stud in spurts–it’s already built into his value.

It’s when new information comes out that has to factor into a player’s valuation that the ranking moves in a significant fashion. And here are a couple of guys giving new reasons for their rankings to start changing.

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A Podcast For Your Eyes: The 2014 Top 10 Fantasy Prospects Edition

by The Dynasty Guru

As I hinted at in yesterday’s post on projecting the Top 10 fantasy prospects at this time next year, Ben, Craig and I tried something interesting on Wednesday night as we sat down on gchat and conversed for almost an hour and a half about the topic at hand. The following conversation has not been edited, abridged or otherwise touched (besides cleaning up our names so that it’s easier to read).

Without any further introduction, I present to you the Episode 1 of A Podcast For Your Eyes. If you like it, tell us and we’ll do them more often. If you don’t, tell us and we’ll forget this whole thing ever happened. And we’re off..

Bret:  whats going on guys?

Craig:  watching O’s/Rays over here

Ben:  watching NYY/BOS

Craig:  also eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich, because I’m 12

Bret:  i’m watching the mets start their WS run

Ben:  sooo playing MLB the show?

Craig:  I was going to say…can we have a moment of silence for Bret’s sanity?

Bret:  my sanity has been missing for a long time

Craig:  touche

Bret:  alright, so you guys have the consensus list, right?

Craig:  yes but I just dripped jelly on my shirt so I’m in crisis here

Bret:  save that gold for when we’re “recording”

Craig:  hahaha. ok problem solved, but you feel free to include it

Bret:  fair enough, i’m going to do an introduction, and then we’re just going to jump right in and ben and i can fawn over xander bogaerts

Ben:  im super good at fawning over bogaerts

Bret:  ha, i’m sure you are. alright, let’s do this

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Predicting the Top 10 Fantasy Prospects For 2014

by The Dynasty Guru

With the minor league season kicking off today, we wanted to do something fun here at The Dynasty Guru. And that something fun started with a rather innocent question to the rest of the staff: who do you think will be the Top 10 Fantasy Prospects on next year’s list?

I can’t speak for the thought process of the rest of the guys (see the bottom of the post for more details on that), but when I sat down to come up with my individual list, it was a bit of a balancing act between performance and PERFORMANCE. Hear me out for a second. You have a bunch of guys who are going to start the year in the upper minors, but if they perform extremely well, they could force their team’s hand and get them a call up this summer, which would result in them losing their prospect list eligibility. On the other hand, if they stink, they’re not going to be worthy of being in the top-10 for a whole other reason.

For my money, I made the assumption that all of the big names at the top of the 2013 list (Profar, Taveras, Hamilton, Myers and Bundy) would all lose their eligibility for 2014. Same for other top-20 pitchers such as Gerrit Cole, Zack Wheeler, Shelby Miller and Jose Fernandez.

So here’s what we did. I collected the individual top-10′s from Craig, Ben and Ian and made a TDG collective top-10. For any prospect to make the group top-10, they had to be on at least two of our individual lists. Each player also received a two-point bonus for each list they appeared on. And the following is what the process churned out – your 2014 Top 10 Fantasy Prospects:

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Bret’s Eleven Bold Predictions

by The Dynasty Guru

It’s so close to Opening Day at this point (12 hours!), you can almost taste the Rangers beating the heck out of the Astros. And here at The Dynasty Guru, we’re celebrating the march to Opening Day by having every contributor come up with 11 bold predictions. Yes, we know that people do this at plenty of other sites, but goddamnit it’s fun. And we’re allowed to have some fun around here.
The biggest difference between our predictions and the predictions from “those other guys”? Ours go to 11.

And since this there’s really nothing else important that can be said to set up a bold predictions piece, this seems like an appropriate to end the introduction. Here are things which will happen in the future according to me, Bret Sayre:

1. Alex Gordon blows the doors open and hits over .320 with 27 homers and 15 steals, finishing in the top-5 of MVP voting in the American League.

I’m a big Alex Gordon believer, you guys know this already – and I think this is the year he takes that step forward into superstardom. Well, superstardom on a national level, as in reality, he’s been worth 12.4 wins above replacement over the last two seasons. Gordon has reduced his strikeout rate every year of his career since 2009, and his 8.5% HR/FB rate will jump back up to the 12-13% range it’s been at the last three seasons. It’s going to be fun to watch.

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Trader’s Corner: Playing For the Future

by Ian Kahn

Dynasty Leagues are a lot like life. Life can be about hope. Dynasty Leagues should ALWAYS be about hope. Are you in position to win in 2013? That’s the best way… you are hopeful for now. However, if you aren’t in a position to win, you can have hope. Hope for the future. Hope is good.

I took over a Dynasty League team late last season that was in need of an overhaul. I’ve made many trades since taking the reins of this team, but this was one of the most important. It was a big trade that was recently consummated with The Great Tim McLeod (2013 Tout Wars participant) that hopefully helps both sides achieve what they are hopeful for. Tim, 2013…Myself, 2015 and beyond.

I give:

Carlos Gonzalez
Carl Crawford
Alcides Escobar
Jason Castro
Jeff Keppinger

For..

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Using Non-Fantasy Prospect Lists to Your Advantage

by The Dynasty Guru

When we cover prospects here at the Dynasty Guru, we’re looking at it through the lens of fantasy value only. And this feels like a good time to mention that if you haven’t checked out the Top 150 Dynasty League Prospects, here’s your chance: 150-121, 120-91, 90-61, 60-31, 30-1. However, the vast majority of coverage on the Internet around the next great wave of stars focuses on overall value. This includes what I like to refer to as “The Big Three”: Baseball Prospectus, Baseball America and ESPN (by way of Keith Law). There are other good sites out there for overall value, but none that get the same type of readership or are held in as high regard as those three.

And fortunately for you, faithful Dynasty Guru reader, many owners have a hard time separating real baseball value in prospects from fantasy value in prospects. This is something which can be easily leveraged if you stay on top of these prospect lists. Generally speaking, the differences between the real and fantasy rankings of prospects comes down to separating defense from the equation (outside of the ability of said prospect to stick at a position) and adding in overlooked aspects of the fantasy game, especially stolen base potential. The defensive aspect of this works both ways, as you can tell by the lists where Francisco Lindor is ranked ahead of Xander Bogaerts. It’s both Lindor’s impressive defense and Bogaerts’ questionable defense that come into play here.

With the last of the big three being released earlier this week (BP’s Top 101), let’s take a closer look at five players who show up high, or at all, on these lists who may find themselves with elevated trade value in your league:

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The Top 150 Dynasty League Outfielders, Part 1 (#1-50)

by The Dynasty Guru

There are two very distinct sides to the crop of outfielders out there today. The most obvious side that we see is the star side, which is as deep as ever – led by as strong of a top-10 at the position as we have seen this century. And not only are they a strong group, they’re a young group as well, including four players 23 years old or younger. And nearly all of these players are of the five-tool variety, except for potentially off-the-charts power guys like Giancarlo Stanton and Josh Hamilton.

The dark side of the outfield position these days is the underbelly, which really shows itself once make your way beyond the top-40 or so. Essentially, the middle class of outfielders has nearly eroded – dropping the position quickly from your solid #3 OFs to your seemingly never-ending string of fliers. And the results of this are twofold on how you have to evaluate the position. First of all, high floor players are of greater value than at many other positions, and Nick Markakis is a great example of this. We’re not exactly waiting with bated breath for him to be a star anymore, but at least we know we’ll get some level of production from him. Because of this, he makes the top-50. Second of all, while it doesn’t show up in a positional list, the bulk of fliers out there for your final OF spot or two causes the entire group of players to get devalued on an overall standpoint. So unless there’s a particular guy you really like, you can wait and wait and wait – there will be outfielders starting the 2013 on waivers that will outperform most of the 4/5 OF types being drafted. So be patient and be prepared to scour the waiver wire.

And now your top 50 dynasty league outfielders, with commentary:

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The Top 150 Dynasty League Prospects, Part 5 (#30-1)

by The Dynasty Guru

Today is Day Five. Over the next 27 days, this site will be dedicated almost solely to the task at hand – the 2013 Dynasty League Rankings. If you’re looking for background on both the content you should expect and the dates you should expect them, check out the 2013 rankings homepage. And we’re kicking off the month-long project with the list that I’ve gotten the most questions about since the off-season started. The only difference between the original schedule and what you’ll see this week is that I’ve broken the Top 150 out into five parts, not three. Each day of the week, you’ll get thirty more guys until we culminate Friday with #1.

First, I have a couple of disclaimers specific to the prospect list before we jump in. These rankings are for fantasy purposes only, and do not directly take into account things like an outfielder’s range or a catcher’s pop time. Of course, these things do matter indirectly as they affect a player’s ability to stay at a particular position. So, while Austin Hedges may be a top-50 prospect in baseball, due in large part to his defensive value, he’ll be much lower in these rankings because his upside isn’t nearly as great for fantasy. Additionally, these rankings will take into account a player’s parent organization – so a pitcher likely to call Petco or Safeco home, will get a bump. Same with hitters who are likely to play at Coors or in Arlington. But most importantly, the intention of this list is to balance the upside, probability and proximity of these players to an active fantasy lineup. So, in a vacuum, I’d rather have the #104 player on this list than #105 on my dynasty league roster right now, based on all of those factors.

Additionally, if you want to delve any further into the list or have specific dynasty league questions, either post them in the comments section below, catch me on Twitter at @dynastyguru or send me an e-mail to dynastyguru [at] gmail [dot] com and I will answer all of them. If you just want to say hello or tell me I’ve over/under rated someone you love/hate, that’s great too. I’m a firm believer that an ongoing dialogue is always more helpful than a singular monologue, and the goal of this is to be an additional resource in guiding your team to a championship.

So without any further ado, here is the final installment of the 2013 Top 150 Dynasty League Prospect list:

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The Dynasty Guru’s Crystal Ball: 2017′s 5×5 Category Leaders

by The Dynasty Guru

This is a fun exercise I’ve wanted to do for a while now. Right now, Opening Day 2017 is four and a half years away, but there’s absolutely no reason I can’t start speculating about who will lead the standard 5×5 rotisserie categories that season. Who knows if the 5×5 format we use now will still be the most commonplace scoring system that far into the future anyway? Maybe a standard ESPN league will be using OBP and QS instead of AVG and W. For the purposes of this post, we’re going to assume that the categories are remaining the same.

Now, this isn’t an all-prospect list – although there are some prospects on here. And if you think I’m understating the impact of prospects in this exercise, here’s a fun fact for you. If we did this exercise after the 2007 season, looking at the 2012 category leaders, guess how many of the categories would be led by players who had not played a game in the majors at the time? The answer is 5 out of 10. And if you expand out to the top-3 in each category (including ties), you get 13 out of 33, which is 39%. Of those 13 top-3 category finishes, 7 were from players that debuted in 2008, 2 were from players that debuted in 2009, 2 were from players that debuted in 2010 and 2 were from Mike Trout, who was a junior in high school when the 2007 season ended. In fact, Trout and Buster Posey were the only two players who finished in the top-3 of any 5×5 fantasy category in 2012 to be drafted AFTER the 2007 season.

Anyway, that’s enough of an introduction – let’s go to the Future Dynasty Guru for the breakdown of what happened in 2017:

Batting Average: Miguel Cabrera (.341)

It feels like Miguel Cabrera’s been around forever, but he only turned 33 on Opening Day 2017. While his power has started to wind down (this was his first season with under 30 HR in over a decade), Cabrera continues to maintain a high batting average. The two main reasons for this are: 1) he’s still a fantastic hitter to all fields and 2) by the laws of physics, it’s been impossible for him to get any slower than he was back in 2012. Runners up: Oscar Taveras (.334), Starlin Castro (.328)

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