(The full, nine-inning Playbook was originally published during the spring of 2020. The following 2021 analysis is new.
We've gone through the basics of fantasy baseball, discussed auction strategy and how to build a cheat sheet. We've also provided trade and free-agency tips for in season, dug deep into the advanced stats, including those provided by Statcast, and examined the latest trends around the league. But even with all those tools, there's no greater truth to fantasy baseball success than this:
The key ingredient to winning a championship is an extensive knowledge of the player pool itself.
The final edition of the Playbook provides a window into my own Playbook, a file containing notes on hundreds of players, which I create throughout the offseason as I do my own player research. It's from this file -- a Word document, in this case -- that I craft, and often adjust, my player rankings and ultimately drive my own cheat sheets.
This is an exhaustive process, one for which I'm grateful to have the time. It is not one that is easy for everyone to do in detail, which is why I consider this space a good place to share some of my more unusual findings. They're things you might want to consider when drafting any of the listed names, though my rankings ultimately provide you my best estimate of the player's current-season worth.
Ozzie Albies: He's one of the players for whom I'm willing to forgive his disappointing 2020. A right wrist contusion in August interrupted his slow start, and he really didn't find his swing until after his return in early September. After that point, and including the postseason, Albies batted .314/.354/.529 with a .374 wOBA in 30 games, numbers much more in line with his .295/.352/.500, .354 wOBA 2019 rates. If he comes at any sort of discount, consider me all-in.
Pete Alonso: He was one of three players to hit 10 home runs in the 2020 season's final 19 days -- Adam Duvall led with 11, while Alonso tied AJ Pollock for second place with 10 -- and Alonso wasn't an all-or-nothing power source in the process, batting .265 during that time span. Statcast's metrics backed up the late-season outburst, too, as his 92.7 mph average exit velocity and 50.0% hard-hit rate in those 19 days were right in range with his 91.4/46.1% numbers in 2019. Alonso remains one of the best young power hitters in all of baseball, and you should pay up accordingly.
Nolan Arenado: Another player I'm willing to forgive for what was an injury-influenced 2020, he batted .273/.333/.576 with six home runs in his first 17 games of the season, relatively close to his previously excellent year over year production. Arenado dealt with shoulder problems in September, with no clear indication as to their start date. What if those contributed to his struggles during the season's final six weeks? Arenado has gone 39th overall on average in NFBC drafts since the first indication of his trade to the St. Louis Cardinals on Jan. 30, which is devaluing him by too much.
Javier Baez: News that players will have access to the video room during games in 2021, something that wasn't available in 2020, is especially good for Baez, one of the more outspoken players on the topic. What I'll be watching him for most closely during spring training is his performance against breaking pitches (curveballs and sliders), as that was the source of much of his poor performance: He batted .157/.204/.294 against them and had a 31.8% hard-hit rate. If those pick up in the spring, Baez could be a value at anything outside the top 75 overall picks.
Nick Castellanos: I find it amazing that, in the past five seasons combined, he has a greater-than-42.5% hard hit rate (42.9%, to be exact), a sub-37.5% ground ball rate (36.8%) and more than 1,500 plate appearances (2,693), yet not a single 30-homer season on his résumé, joining Salvador Perez and Justin Turner as the only players who can claim that. Castellanos' raw power metrics are far better than his power-based rotisserie numbers, and I'm going to keep paying up for the 35-season he deserves, either until he gets it or until those metrics fade.
Aroldis Chapman: He's as "safe" as closers get, but his average fastball velocity decline in recent years has him on my list of pitchers to watch during spring training. Here's why: He averaged 97.8 mph with his four-seam fastball in 2020, a career low, and in his career, he has surrendered a batting average 95 points higher and wOBA 175 points higher on fastballs averaging beneath 97.5 mph. Tuck that away.
Edwin Diaz: He's not nearly as volatile a closer as you think he is. A lot of the perception surrounding him was the bad-in-2-of-3 outings to begin 2020, fueling chatter that the New York Mets would shift to a closer-by-committee, but from that point forward, Diaz had a 1.16 ERA and 46.4% strikeout rate in 23 appearances. That's some seriously record-threatening stuff.
Jack Flaherty: Throw out his 2020. Seriously, just ignore it. Flaherty pitched fine on Opening Day (7 IP, 2 ER, 0 BB, 6 K), but he then had 25 days off between starts as his St. Louis Cardinals dealt with a team-wide COVID-19 outbreak, and he couldn't build his pitch counts back up to 90-plus until Sept. 10, 17 days before the end of the regular season. Even then, there was this bright spot: He struck out 33.3% of the hitters he faced in his final four regular-season and one postseason start.
Wander Franco: I wish I could guess the date the Tampa Bay Rays will promote this super-prospect, because he's about as likely of one to succeed immediately in the majors as any I've seen in years. It's not often you'll find a prospect who makes contact 90%-plus and walks 10%-plus of the time with 25-steal speed, and those skills provide an extremely high floor for him from a fantasy perspective. If he was promised an Opening Day roster spot, he'd have better-than-even odds of a top-10 fantasy shortstop season -- and remember, this year's positional pool is loaded.
Tyler Glasnow: Sure, he became more fly-ball oriented in 2020, but it's difficult to fathom a pitcher who allowed only 74 batted balls in the air (fly balls, line drives or pop-ups) all year affording 11 of them to clear the fence, especially when he calls a pitchers' heaven like Tropicana Field his home. Complaints about his durability/injury history are warranted, but I don't doubt his skills one bit.
Josh Hader: I typically don't like cherry-picking games from a player's game log, but in his case, extracting his five-walks-in-six-batters, Aug. 29 nightmarish outing casts his 2020 in a whole different light. Hader would've been 13-of-14 converting saves with a 2.89 ERA, 0.70 WHIP and 41.7% strikeout rate, and we probably wouldn't dispute his status as fantasy's No. 1 closer. Here's why it matters to me: He had nine consecutive hitless, scoreless appearances before Aug. 29, and he didn't walk a single one of 42 batters (postseason included) after it, the latter a huge plus considering his skill set. A Josh Hader who walks fewer than 7% of the hitters he faces is a potential $30 closer (NL-only pricing).
Kyle Hendricks: Who cares that he doesn't strike out a great number of hitters? Along with Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer, Hendricks is one of three pitchers who has posted a 62.5% or better first pitch strike rate in each of the past seven seasons, and Hendricks has set a new personal best with his walk rate in each of the past three, culminating in 2020's 2.5%. His control is masterful, enough so that he's a locked-in member of fantasy's top-30 starting pitchers.
Max Kepler: Statcast's expected home runs stood out to me with Kepler. In 2019, he had a high-end range of 43 homers, had he called New York's Yankee Stadium his home, but a low-end range of 21 at Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium. Kepler's hard-contact metrics are average at best, and I'm not so sure he's got a 30-homer natural swing. I don't see a lot of bounce-back potential here.
Dinelson Lamet: The thing to love about him -- his filthy slider -- is the very thing that underscores the injury risk now surrounding him. Lamet's slider was worth minus-19 runs, per Statcast, making it the No. 1 pitch in baseball in that category in 2020, but he also threw it a taxing 53.4% of the time. He'll probably be great in every healthy inning he hands you, but will there be even 100 of them?
Charlie Morton: The move to the Atlanta Braves drops him into an awfully competitive division, but his postseason was an encouraging rebound coming off a disappointing 2020. In his four starts, he averaged 95.0 mph with his four-seam fastball, right in line with his 2019 rate (94.7), he regained the spin he lost on his curveball and he posted a 0.82 ERA and 48.1% strikeout rate. If Morton slips far outside the top 30 fantasy starting pitchers, count me in.
Aaron Nola: Say hello to your major league leader in starts (103) and innings pitched (638), since his return from his most recent injured list stint in May of 2017. In this era of pitch counts and matchups, Nola is one of the few you can trust to deliver you hefty volume, and not everyone might not think of him that way.
Salvador Perez: Among the many positives in his first season back from Tommy John surgery, Perez played every inning of the Kansas City Royals' final 15 games, and all but three of those frames behind the plate, not to mention it had no adverse impact upon his hitting, as he batted .371 with seven home runs. That showed both improved stamina on his own part, but also the team's faith in him handling the bulk of the catching chores, things that bode extremely well for him entering 2021. I'm a big proponent of drafting catchers who give you volume, and Perez's elite defense gives him good odds of challenging for the positional lead in plate appearances.
Zach Plesac: There'll surely be a movement in the fantasy baseball community to fade him, after he posted a FIP (3.39) more than a run higher than his ERA (2.28), and to a certain degree it's fair to do so. But give Plesac credit for the adjustments he made, most notably easing off a four-seam fastball that wasn't at all effective, while increasing his use of his very good slider and changeup, as well as cutting his walk rate to a mere 2.9%. He also showed no adverse impact of being sent to the alternate camp mid-year -- a move that had a quite-valid reason -- posting a 2.88 ERA in his five starts after recall. This isn't the middling prospect people thought at the time of his May 2019 debut, and it's possible that he's another of those pitchers who can outperform what are so-so underlying metrics. If he's sliding outside the top 40 starters in your drafts, this could be a buying opportunity.
Ryan Pressly: My offseason research reminded me just how good he was after the early-season injury worries, and they're worth citing so you don't get misguided by those finger and elbow issues too. From Aug. 7 forward, and including the postseason, Pressly was 16-of-19 converting saves with a 2.28 ERA, 1.05 WHIP and 32.7% strikeout rate. The Houston Astros' closer role is firmly his, locking him into top-six status.
Victor Robles: The reports that he added 15 pounds of muscle during the pandemic are a concern, considering his Statcast sprint speed declined 1.3 feet per second last season, a steep drop-off for a player who doesn't hit the ball with nearly enough authority to draft based on what he can do with the bat. Robles' prowess on the base paths is one of the must-watch items of 2021 spring training, because if he can't challenge for 30 steals, he's almost not worth your draft pick at all.
Eddie Rosario: The move from Minnesota's Target Field to Cleveland's Progressive Field is a positive for him, considering he's not a top-shelf performer in terms of exit velocity or hard hit rate, things that don't mesh well with a ballpark with the tallest right- and right center-field fences in the game. One of the reasons I'm so pro-Rosario, though, is that he continues to improve his contact, with a career-best 14.6% strikeout rate in 2020, and he has at least a 23% line-drive rate in each of the past four seasons. He's often sneaking outside the top 100 picks in drafts, but I think he has the potential to bring you top-50 overall value.
Blake Snell: He deserves as much of the blame for not working deep into games as does his manager. Snell averaged 4.23 pitches per batter faced during the past three seasons, the third-worst rate among non-openers with at least 25 starts (Jake Odorizzi, 4.45; Drew Smyly, 4.25). I think San Diego Padres manager Jayce Tingler will be more generous with Snell's pitch counts than was Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash, which is why I see a bargain opportunity here, but if you're one of Snell's critics, it should be about the walks rather than the manager's whim.
Juan Soto: I gave him lengthy consideration for my No. 1 overall ranking spot this preseason, and if I thought he'd steal even eight more bases than I project, he'd have claimed that spot. One of the great disappointments of 2020 was not getting to see Soto available for the Washington Nationals' full 60-game schedule. He was activated on the season's 14th day, and from that point, he ranked first in on-base percentage (.490), second in slugging percentage (.695), third in batting average (.351) and fifth in fantasy points scored (202). If Soto could shave even five percentage points off his 53.2% ground ball rate, preferably converting those into line drives, he'd be a perennial MVP favorite. Draft accordingly.
Giancarlo Stanton: It's pretty damning of a power hitter to see that he hit a fly ball only 12.9% of the time he put the ball in play the past two seasons combined, which is almost 10% less often than he did during his MVP 2017 (22.4%). It's not just the injuries that cause his modest ranking, it's that I'm worried that, after all these years, they might have taken a little something away from his powerful swing.
Trevor Story: Fret about a possible midseason trade out of Coors Field if you wish, but his multi-category ability makes it highly likely he'd remain a fantasy star wherever he plays. Story is the only player to have finished among the Player Rater's top 11 overall in each of the past three seasons, and he's one of three, along with Adalberto Mondesi and Jonathan Villar, with at least 23 steals in each of 2018-19 and 15 in 2020.
Eugenio Suarez: He seems to be completely selling out for power, having struck out a career-worst 29.0% of the time in 2020, with his 30.3% fly ball rate fifth-highest among qualifiers. Suarez's batting average will never recover with that kind of approach, but in Cincinnati's Great American Ball Park, he has a legitimate chance at 40-plus homers.
Gleyber Torres: You're going to hear all sorts of commentary about his padding his statistics in games against the Baltimore Orioles' miserable pitching staff, and it's true that he has career .358/.444/.821 numbers and 16 of his 53 career home runs against them. Torres has improvements to make, but he's not getting any credit for the key ones he did in 2020: He cut his chase rate (percentage of swings at non-strikes) by nearly 11%, his strikeout rate by nearly 4% and walked nearly 6% more often compared to the year before it. If he's now a more disciplined hitter, similar to what he was in the minors, the prospects of a turnaround are certainly now quicker.
Jonathan Villar: He padded his stolen-base statistics with an absurd, and unsustainable, 35.6% rate of attempts per opportunity (those as judged by Baseball-Reference.com), the second-highest rate behind only Adalberto Mondesi's 54.2%. That Villar's Statcast sprint speed dipped to a modest 27.1 feet per second, too, suggests that he's losing a step and could collapse in the category soon. I think he might struggle to exceed last year's 16 steals by much even in a 162-game season.
Luke Voit: His power is legitimate, but I'm beginning to worry about how pull-conscious he's becoming. In 2020, he pulled the ball 51% of the time he put it in play, the third consecutive year that number increased, and his hard contact rate has declined in each of the past two seasons, settling at 40.0% last year. Voit also had a wide home/road split in 2020, so it's not completely out of the question that he becomes more matchups candidate if those trends continue.
Christian Yelich: His 2020 will be characterized as unequivocally bad, but beneath the surface it wasn't the disaster you might have thought. Yelich still managed an elite hard-hit rate, his 55.6% mark sixth-best among batting title-eligibles, and he hit 11 home runs in his final 50 games of the season. Like the aforementioned Baez, Yelich struggled with losing access to in-game video, but unlike Yelich, there are already clear signs that he's probably still close to his MVP self. With each pick he slips outside the top 10 selections, he increasingly becomes a steal.
And that's the ballgame. Now that you're ready, make sure to start or join a league and put your new skills to the test!