Carlos Gonzalez 2010

One trend that I'm seeing in mock drafts so far is that young hitters with upside are generally being undervalued relative to more established hitters. I understand the risks involved in picking young players - their true talent level is less defined, and if they struggle, teams are more likely to reduce their playing time or even send them down to the minor leagues. On the other hand, I'm generally playing to win, not just finish respectably. And to win in competitive leagues, you're going to need to take some chances. Carlos Gonzalez is currently listed as the 130th ranked player in mock drafts at CouchManagers.com. At that position, he's an absolute steal. In a half season (278 at bats), Gonzalez hit 13 home runs and stole 16 bases with a .284 batting average. His numbers in AAA suggest that he's probably capable of hitting .300, particularly since he'll play half of his games in Coors Field. He's only 24 years old, so some improvement is not only possible in 2010, but likely. If you can get him after pick number 100 in your draft, you're doing well.

David Wright 2010: Fantasy Bust?

Unlike his teammate Jose Reyes, David Wright appears to be going far too early in most 2010 drafts. He's ranked 15th at CouchManagers.com right now, which would be fair if we just assume that he'll bounce back to his pre-2009 performance. However, since we don't really know what led to his drastic power reduction in 2009, I'm not sure we can do that. For a guy who hit only 10 home runs last year, an awful lot of downside, without enough upside at #15. Even if Wright bounces part of the way back, he's got the potential to be a fantasy bust again this year. He's going lower than Reyes in drafts, and in my opinion has more downside.

Jose Reyes 2010: Fantasy Bargain

Jose Reyes is going far too low in most mock drafts right now. At CouchManagers.com, his ADP right now has him ranked 28th...behind Jimmy Rollins (23rd) and Derek Jeter (26th). If healthy, Reyes is clearly a far more valuable fantasy player than either of those two shortstops, and represents a major bargain. In fact, in one recent 'experts' mock draft, Reyes went in the early fourth round of a twelve team draft. Obviously people are still worried about his health. However, he's supposed to be running at full speed sometime in January, and be at full strength for the beginning of Spring Training. In a small league, where you might want to play it safe, I can see him sliding to the #20-#25 range, but in any large contests, where you need to swing for the fences to beat hundreds (or thousands) of other entrants, I would value Reyes as an early 2nd round pick.

Tim Hudson 2010

In his late season return to the Atlanta Braves starting rotation last year, Tim Hudson proved that he's fully recovered from injury, and that he can be counted on as an effective pitcher in 2010 and beyond. In 42.1 innings, Hudson struck out 30 and walked 13. Most importantly, his groundball rate was 62.2%. Those numbers are all roughly in line with what Hudson has produced when healthy over the past few years. Hudson's age (34) and low strikeout rate mean that there's very limited upside, but if you're looking for a safe player to round out your rotation, Hudson should be a good pick.

Chad Billingsley 2010

Chad Billingsley is the opposite of his teammate Clayton Kershaw going into 2010. Billingsley was viewed as a rising star after his 2008 season, but a very slight regression in his peripheral stats and an ERA above 4 led many to lower their opinions of him. He is currently going substantially lower than Kershaw in most mock drafts, despite being a very similar quality pitcher. While he doesn't have quite the upside of Kershaw, he is also young (25) and has had a K/9 of 9.01 and 8.21 the past two years. Let your opponents go for the hype of Kershaw, and pick up Billingsley for yourself, a few rounds later in the draft.

Kelvim Escobar 2010: Signed By Mets?

According to an AP source, the Mets are about to sign Kelvim Escobar. If this were 2007, that would be something to get excited about. In his last full season (2007), Escobar struck out 7.36 batters per nine innings, walked 3.04, and had a solid 44.0% groundball rate. That was done in the American League, so he'd project to be substantially better than that for the Mets. Unfortunately for Escobar (and the Mets), Escobar has barely pitched since then, due to injuries. He's expected to compete eighth inning relief duties, although if effective it's certainly possible that he'd be given an opportunity to start. For the Mets, this looks like a low risk signing with some upside. For fantasy purposes, Escobar is probably someone to pass on for 2010, but to keep an eye on if you're in a deep league.

Clayton Kershaw 2010: Avoid Results Oriented Thinking

Based on his 2.79 ERA in 2009, some people may be tempted to project Clayton Kershaw as one of the top starting pitchers in the National League in 2010. Don't be one of those people. One of the reasons for looking at peripheral stats is to avoid results oriented thinking. As far as we can tell, Kershaw got very lucky in 2009. He had an extremely low 4.6% rate of home runs per fly ball. That's unsustainable, and if you assume that it will return to a more typical value, it becomes clear that Kershaw has a long way to go before he's an elite pitcher. The main problem right now is his control. A 4.79 BB/9 is really bad, although with Kershaw's excellent K/9 (9.74 in 2009), he's still good enough to be an effective major league pitcher right now. That strikeout rate, combined with his age (21), give him the potential to be an elite starting pitcher, but he's not there yet. If you can get him late in your draft, he's great pick due to his upside. But if he goes relatively early (as he will in most drafts), the upside probably isn't worth the risk.

Average Draft Position (ADP): Jason Bay, Matt Holliday, and Justin Upton in 2010

This post was supposed to be about Justin Upton's fantasy prospects for 2010. Then I noticed that he's going substantially lower in mock drafts at Couch Managers than the two big free agent hitters - Jason Bay and Matt Holliday. All three are fairly similar statistically, with Bay possibly having a little more power than the other two (but lower batting average), and Holliday hitting for a slightly higher average (but less power). The big difference of course is that Upton is just 22 years old...still in the steep part of the learning curve. He has great breakout potential. Holliday is going to be 30 in a few weeks. Bay is 31 already. They're unlikely to improve substantially at this point, although depending what team each of them ends up on, they could get a boost from their home park. That said, Upton's age is a huge deal, and given a choice between the three players, I would probably pick him first. Luckily for me, it looks like others don't see it that way. His average draft position (ADP)at Couch Managers is currently 31st, while Holliday is 18th and Bay is 23rd.

Middle Relievers, Sleepers: Badenhop, Jepsen, Masset, and Feliciano

I got into a fairly involved debate about Brandon League on the Rotojunkie message boards recently, and as a result did some research. I was arguing that his combination of high strikeout rate, low walk rate, and high groundball rate is pretty unusual. The only pitchers I could think of who had that combination were all really good. As part of the discussion, I collected a list of pitchers who threw at least 40 innings, with a K/9 over 7, BB/9 under 3.5, and GB% over 50%. League beats all these threshholds by a wide margin, so some of the other relievers on the list aren't as good as him. The starters are probably better, since it's tougher to have a high strikeout rate when starting. Obviously the relievers with much better peripherals like Rivera and Broxton are also better. Still, it's an interesting list, and may indicate some middle relievers to target in deep leagues (or if they're ever given a chance to close).

Adam Wainwright
Brandon League
Brett Anderson
Burke Badenhop
Chad Qualls
Felix Hernandez
Jonathan Broxton
Kevin Jepsen
Mariano Rivera
Nick Masset
Pedro Feliciano
Roy Halladay
Scott Downs

This also may give some idea why I'm so high on Brett Anderson. He's one of only four starting pitchers who made the list, and the others are all pretty good.