This is the part two of my 2018 fantasy baseball recap. In Part 1 I gloated about the picks I got right and now I can reflect on where I went wrong. I’ll go back to my 2018 rankings and look at players I completely missed on. I compare my preseason rank to the NFCB and Yahoo ADPs and finally to the ESPN and Razzball Player Rater final rankings as well. I do my best to explain my thought process in regards to the rankings I had but also discuss lessons learned. This process should help identify problem areas and ways to improve my projections. Oh, and I fixed this table so it’s easier to sort each column. I hope it’s a little more clear, the last table went sideways on me.

Name Yahoo ADP NFBC ADP My Rank Razzball PR ESPN PR Xander Bogaerts 68 77 137 44 64 Didi Gregorious 109 118 200 42 79 Starling Marte 41 47 58 29 28 Matt Carpenter 114 181 189 32 76 Javier Baez 117 103 212 7 17 Cole Hamels 167 242 280 180 159 Tommy Pham 73 56 42 49 74 Adrian Beltre 103 153 64 280 265 Luis Castillo 122 101 90 204 323 Chris Taylor 124 93 83 138 164 Ian Happ 148 116 107 340 350+ Chase Anderson 192 172 136 209 280 Bradley Zimmer 251 188 176 946 1033 Tanner Roark 262 239 207 278 239 Delino DeShields 299 167 205 517 455 Tim Beckham 319 255 124 611 604 Luiz Gohara 332 300 181 594 800 Orlando Arcia 358 178 199 738 670

Luis Castillo (CIN – SP)

It was clear that I loved Castillo going into 2017 and I never really backed off. I held him all season in my home league and in my 20-team dynasty. I know, no one cares about my teams, but I did benefit in the second half where Castillo posted a 2.44 ERA, 0.96 WHIP and just over a strikeout per inning. The underlying numbers are there yet again and he’s going into his third MLB season. I’ll be back in if there is a discount at all. The long and short of it is, I missed on this one because his first half was so so bad. You either jumped ship or played catch-up all season. Overall I think my preseason analysis of Castillo was correct but trusting young pitchers is a fool’s errand.

Javier Baez (CHC – 2B/SS)

My other hometown bust pick was Baez. Bryant turned out to be correct but this one blew up in my face. Having watched Baez as often as I have over the last several seasons, it’s easy to see the immense talent he possesses but also the holes in his offensive game. His aggressiveness and swing-and-misses outside the zone pushed me away. I couldn’t help but think that the depth of scouting could exploit the holes in Baez’ profile, but alas, Baez broke the F*ck out! As an analyst, I’ll learn from my mistakes and try to stop just avoiding free-swingers, especially ones with the power/speed combo.

Matt Carpenter (STL – 1B, 2B, 3B)

This is where personal bias comes in. No, it’s not that he’s on the Cardinals. I was actually the highest on Carp going into 2017 because he had changed his profile to become a masher. A ton pulled fly balls and a ton of hard contact. I was expecting 30+ homers from Carp in 2017 but a nagging back issue cut into his playing time and power. At his age, I figured this would be a chronic issue and he wouldn’t hit 20 homers this year. Basically, I was burned by him in the past and didn’t want the risk coming into 2018. Whoops, I should have stuck to my guns from the previous year. Oh well, this is another lesson. I liked him for a reason, I just need to remove the scabs, forgive and forget.

Gerrit Cole (HOU – SP)

The move from a pitcher-friendly NL Park to the AL was enough for me to dock Cole a few spots. On top that, his swinging strike rates have been below 10% the past two years. Then Cole went ahead and jumped to a 14% SwStr% in 2018. That was thanks to eliminating his sinker and increasing his slider and fastball. Cole’s sinker got almost no swings and misses and his improved fastball had a 14% SwStr rate. Cole was a top prospect who never lived up to his pedigree until 2018. While it would have been difficult to predict a K/9 jump of nearly 4.0/9 in the preseason, my lesson learned here is don’t give up on talent. Cole’s fastball velocity never dipped, maybe I should look at spin rates going forward?

Starling Marte (PIT – OF)

Coming off his PED suspension, Marte showed almost no power in half a season in 2017. I figured his 19 home run season back in 2015 was a power fluke and would remain an outlier. I projected him for a batting average regression to .275 (hey nailed that one) but only nine homers and 30 steals. That’s still productive but not top 40 where he was going. Alas, Marte muscled up to a career-high 20 homers and played the second most games of his career. If Marte is top 40 again, I’ll probably fade him going into his age-30 season. Lessons learned here: not much, Marte rarely plays a full season and his counting stats should suffer.

Didi Gregorius (NYY – SS)

looking at Didi’s profile in the offseason last year almost made me sick. His hard contact was in the vicinity of a slap hitter and his average home run distance was lower than anyone with at least 15 homers (he had 25). Yes, being left-handed in Yankee Stadium can inflate those numbers a bit. However, Didi proved me wrong as he nearly doubled his walk rate, added some speed, and most importantly increased his hard contact from 23% to 36%! His numbers this year actually justified a near 15% HR/FB rate. I trust him more going into 2019 but feel like his 2017 was largely luck driven.

Xander Bogaerts (BOS – SS)

Maybe it’s the opposite of East Coast Bias, maybe it’s East Coast Envy. Either way, I was down on another AL East Shortstop. Bogaerts was another player with a weak looking batted ball profile in 2017. He only hit 10 homers in 2017 backed by a 31% hard contact and a 30% fly ball rate. Those were my concerns coming into 2018 where a .280-12-12 shortstop could be had on waivers. Well, looks like X gave it to me as he increased his FB% and hard contact blasting 23 bombs while missing about 25 games. I like the adjustments and will be looking to add X in 2019. I learned to not give up on young talent

Luiz Gohara (ATL – SP)

Big Luiz is one of about 50 talented pitchers in the Braves system and was given a shot to succeed early in the season to which he flopped. The Braves realized they could be contenders this year and quickly turned elsewhere to the likes of Mike Soroka and Max Fried. Both performed much better and Gohara was left behind. I’ll admit, I was a little too aggressive on Gohara coming into 2018 with a limited sample. My approach to 2019 may be ease off the gas with young pitchers who have less than half of a season if MLB experience.

Chad Kuhl (PIT – SP)

Not a whole to say here. Kuhl missed more than half the season, so there was no way to be would provide any value. Not Kuhl Bro! Kuhl has a very good slider in 2017 but struggled with location. His slider and curve were also good early in 2018 and he even cut his BB% and showed slight improvements in the K%. However, home runs did him in. I don’t think I saw enough to be fully back in on Kuhl for 2019 but in NL-Only and deep leagues, he’s a late round flier.

Chase Anderson (MIL – SP)

I believed in the changes and improvements made in 2017 from Chase Anderson. His increased velocity was one of the main reasons for his success. He also limited walks and home runs. Well, it all fell apart this year. His velocity went down, zone% down (therefore BB% up), strikeouts were down, and the homers came back. Chase was actually a but lucky with an 81% LOB%. That made his 3.93 ERA and 1.19 WHIP look good. He wasn’t good though. I’m out in Anderson for 2019. He might be overrated if people average his surface numbers from the last two years.

Chris Taylor (LAD – SS, OF)

An out-of-nowhere beast from 2017 that I believed in thanks to an approach change which created power. Plus the guy had speed! Potential 20-20 hitters drafted outside of the top 50 are my kryptonite. Sometimes late bloomers maintain consistent success and sometimes they fade. For every Whit Merrifield, there’s a Chris Taylor. It’s funny because the underlying statistics look great. His hard contact, fly ball, and line drive rates all went up and his SPD score per FanGraphs is right in line with 2017. His issue starts and ends with contact. His contact rate inside the zone dropped 7.5% in 2018 which ranks 8th from the bottom, one spot ahead of Chris Davis. So, part of my skills analysis was correct but I didn’t account for a significant drop in contact rate. I still won;t shy away from late bloomers, but I could be a bit more cautious.

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