Basic change in the fantasy baseball realm sometimes makes for poor headlines. Oftentimes, it is the amount by which things have changed that tells the more compelling tale.
Has Corey Kluber's fantasy stock really soared to the extent that it has, might we have been too low on him a year ago, or -- gasp -- might we be too high on him now? Are we unjustly critical of Domonic Brown for one bad year, were we too optimistic about his 2014 or has his utility in our game really slipped to the extent that it has? This rapid shifting of opinions is something colleague Eric Karabell constantly, and astutely, reminds me; we are so often lured by the siren song of recency bias. He's right!
It's therefore a good exercise to, every now and then, compare and contrast your player valuations to the previous opinions you had of them. Or, to take that one step further, actually cull your previous-year's rankings and compare them to this year's, to ensure you're not getting overzealous with your year-over-year projections or being too harsh to players coming off poor years.
That's where this column comes in. I took my 2014 and 2015 preseason rankings and compared them to one another to isolate the most significant movers, in the hopes that we could identify why opinions surrounding these names are so different, and explain why those new takes are warranted.
For these purposes, let's exclude 2015 rookies and second-year players who were clearly not drafted entering 2014 -- such as Mookie Betts, Kris Bryant, Marcus Stroman and Yasmany Tomas -- as their surging stock has obvious explanation. They also exclude players for whom injuries -- Jose Fernandez, Matt Harvey and Matt Moore, for example -- or role changes with predictable fantasy implications -- such as Dellin Betances, Jason Grilli and Jim Johnson -- played an obvious part in their year-over-year rankings movement. If the basis for the player's move was patently obvious, he's not on the list.
These players, separated into nine risers, those whose 2015 ranking is significantly improved upon their 2014 rankings, and nine fallers, which is the converse, are listed in no particular order.
Risers
Michael Brantley (236 entering 2014, 22 now, +214): His sizable leap says as much about how I underranked him in 2014 as it does the skills improvements he made. In retrospect, looking at his Nos. 246, 179 and 93 Player Rater finishes from 2012-14, I probably should've slotted him around 175 even if I felt players with his 10/17 homers/steals contributions were the kinds of things that tend to be overrated -- from a pure drafting standpoint, that is -- by the formula. Crediting Brantley, he exceeded even my wildest expectations by pacing the game in hard-contact line drives (81), boosting his wOBA versus left-handed pitchers by 79 points (.363, compared to his .284 mark from 2011-13 combined) and capitalizing upon Progressive Field's favorable right-field measurements by crushing inner-third pitches and pulling 19 of his 20 homers overall. Regression could strike Brantley to the point where he might struggle to bat much higher than .300 or hit more than 16-18 homers; but that's still the kind of production that would make him capable of being a top-25 player overall.
Anthony Rendon (218 to 20, +198): Most of what changed for Rendon in 2014 revolved around health; he missed only four games all year due to injury. Now contrast that to his college career (two ankle surgeries plus 2011 shoulder issues) and 2012 minor league season (three months missed due to an ankle fracture). At age 24, and coming off a year in which he was more aggressive on the basepaths (17-for-20 stealing bases), another hint that his legs felt fully healthy, Rendon looks like a fantasy superstar in the making.
Garrett Richards (unranked to 104): I voiced my concern about his recovery from patellar tendon surgery on Monday's Fantasy Focus Baseball podcast and continue to suggest his greater value might be that of May 1 trade target than draft-day acquisition, but in no way should my statements be misconstrued in doubt about Richards' 2014 skills advancement. He tabled his changeup and leaned more heavily upon his 96.3 mph average fastball and slider, both of which were top-five-in-baseball offerings, regardless of what measure you choose. That's a massive tweak; I had Richards as a $2 buy on my draft sheet for the League of Alternative Baseball Reality (LABR) auction at this time a year ago, but now those confident in his quick return to health could make a legitimate case for him as an $18-20 pitcher in the format. I remind: Limit expectations to nothing in April; you're buying May-plus.
Corey Dickerson (unranked to 35): Ah, I fondly recall the Dickerson conundrum at this time a year ago; role too uncertain to make "Tristan's Twenty," too well-known to make my "Deep Sleepers" list. He fell between the cracks, but I made a concerted effort to acquire him in Tout Wars, pricing him at $11 and paying $9 to secure his services, knowing how much I liked him. Dickerson's 2014 was the quintessential example of "pay for skills, not roles," tying such a statement to the fact that there was a legitimate chance that a corner outfield spot could easily have opened -- and eventually did -- due to Carlos Gonzalez and Michael Cuddyer's injury histories. It's akin to the Mookie Betts debate this spring, as it's obvious he has the skills you'd buy, and as for the role, there's a similar possibility accounting for Shane Victorino's injury history. As for Dickerson this year, he has left field to himself, giving him an outstanding chance at approaching his 2014 fantasy production.
Kole Calhoun (249 to 66, +183): His 2014 seasonal stat line might present the look of a borderline big league starter/fourth outfielder, but it's his finish to the year that was most relevant; he played 103 (and started 93) of the Los Angeles Angels' final 107 games, batting .281/.333/.459 with 162-game paces of 21 homers, 79 RBIs, 5 stolen bases and 112 runs scored. Calhoun might be a bit of a late bloomer, but at age 27, he's not out of time for power growth, especially not with a .225 career isolated power on his minor league résumé. Pay for a .280-20-75, 8-SB, 100-run campaign.
Chris Carter (247 to 71, +176): From mere afterthought in mixed leagues, mostly due to the drain he'd put on your team's batting average, to elite power source, such was the story of Carter's 2014. Oh, he's still that severe batting-average risk -- a guy who could bat sub-.220 -- but let's not mistake a player's being strikeout-prone for his being undisciplined at the plate; there is a distinct difference. Carter didn't rank anywhere near the top of the leaderboards that measure players' tendencies to swing at non-strikes, and he managed a .203 hard-hit average and 26.6 percent line-drive rate in the second half that suggested that, at worst, his 2014 was legit, and at best, he might actually have a little more room for growth.
Jose Abreu (143 to 9, +134): No other player within my top 12 moved even a third of the distance upward that Abreu did, and like Brantley, it was as much a credit to his performance as a sign that I underranked him entering 2014. That's understandable -- and relevant as you set your own valuations on 2015 Cuban import Yasmany Tomas -- as I'd scarcely seen him play, and I didn't want to bank my entire trust in others' (read: scouts or other fantasy analysts) eyes who saw him play in the Cactus League. More than the raw Rotisserie stats, here's what struck me most about Abreu's 2014: Splitting it into thirds, his strikeout rate went from 26.5 to 20.7 to 16.8 percent, and he showed some growth against offspeed stuff as the year progressed, too. Is Abreu more .300 hitter or 40-homer candidate? The latter is the smarter play, but it's not unthinkable we've got ourselves a bona fide .300-30 man here.
Brian Dozier (198 to 69, +129): Few players have enjoyed the kind of plate-discipline strides that Dozier has; he enjoyed a 12.6 percent walk rate in 2014, after 8.2 percent in 2013 and 5.6 percent split between Triple-A and the bigs in 2012. That's a huge boon for a speedster, a 20/20 candidate, as it raises his stolen-base floor, not to mention his batting-average potential. I'm not sure that Dozier has much more room for growth, but everything he contributed in 2014 was legitimately repeatable (or at least within range of it).
Collin McHugh (unranked to 171): "Unranked" doesn't even do justice to McHugh's fantasy valuation at this time a year ago. He might not have even been selected as more than a late-round pick in a Triple-A fantasy league, after a 2013 that saw him allow three more runs (29) than innings he pitched (26) in the majors and post a 3.69 ERA in Triple-A ball. But as colleague Mark Simon astutely pointed out in May, McHugh adapted his first-pitch approach, going with a "pitching backwards" approach that had him using offspeed stuff to open counts in order to set up the fastball. He also leaned heavily on his breaking pitches, which were responsible for 112 of his 157 K's, giving him a pair of adjustments that bode well as far as his immediate future is concerned. And by the way, in case he felt older to you, McHugh is 27, with plenty of time yet to mount a career.
Others who made significant upward moves: Corey Kluber (219 to 31, +188), Tyson Ross (225 to 86, +139), Dallas Keuchel (unranked to 184), Jake Arrieta (unranked to 100) and Carlos Carrasco (unranked to 97).
Fallers
Brandon Phillips (86 entering 2014, 295 now, -209): In retrospect, I might not have been critical enough of Phillips entering last season. At the time, I pointed out his disconcerting drop-offs in terms of his performance against high-speed fastballs, as well as against right-handed pitchers; both were hints of the aging process taking hold. But who could've predicted he'd tear a thumb ligament diving for a baseball, sending him to the DL for the first time in six seasons? Phillips' ranking accounts for his missed time, as he finished 350th on the 2014 Player Rater. At 34, he's only borderline middle-infield material in mixed leagues, perhaps better left to NL-only formats.
Allen Craig (62 to 352, -283): His projected role -- last or next-to-last man off the bench -- explains his 2015 ranking, but Craig's severe decline in performance would assure a significantly lower rank even if he was a projected starter for a different team. He hit a substantially greater rate of ground balls for the St. Louis Cardinals to begin 2014 -- 55 percent, compared to 44 from 2011-13 combined -- then played sporadically following his trade to the Boston Red Sox, missing on a whopping 30 percent of his swings (compare that to 18 percent for the Cardinals pre-trade and 19 percent from 2011-13). Craig also has four DL stints in his past four seasons as well as a lengthy non-DL stint in 2013 (22 regular-season and 11 playoff games), so he's an injury risk to boot.
David Wright (18 to 136, -118): In my notes this winter, I wrote, "If it's a body part, Wright has probably missed a game because it was hurt." He has missed 157 games combined due to 10 different injuries, and the most recent one, the shoulder issue that cut his 2014 short by 18 games, contributed to his awful second-half .238/.284/.282 stat line. Citi Field has long capped Wright's power; he can't afford for his shoulder to be any less than 100 percent if he plans a rebound in that (and the RBI) department. Perhaps a promising spring might vault him a few rounds earlier in drafts, but a No. 136 ranking makes a clear statement: It's that he's a brand name exceeding his true value.
Jean Segura (53 to 213, -160): This 2013 breakthrough story turned sour a lot earlier than people think. Since the 2013 All-Star break, he has a .263 wOBA, which is the fourth worst among qualifiers during that span ahead of only Alexi Amarista, Darwin Barney and Mike Aviles. Pitchers quickly adjusted to him in 2013, realizing that his plate discipline eroded the further behind in the count he fell, best illustrated by his swinging at two-strike pitches that were outside the strike zone a major league-leading 57 percent of the time in 2014. Segura needs to show us more patience, as right now he's nothing but a one-category contributor, and a more middling one at that.
Justin Verlander (51 to 207, -156): There are a lot of Tim Lincecum parallels to Verlander's recent career decline; both lost a significant amount of fastball velocity, diminishing the effectiveness of their other offerings. And therein lies the issue, as Verlander with a 92 mph fastball rather than 95-plus mph is a more ordinary hurler in an era chock full of competition at the middle-to-upper tiers. He could recapture some of his past form, just as he could learn to adapt his game to his diminished velocity, but look at Lincecum: The less-zip Lincecum hasn't even come close to his previous Cy Young form.
Shelby Miller (94 to 236, -142): After a breakthrough 2013, Miller took a significant step backward as a sophomore in 2014, failing to rank among even the top 140 pitchers on our Player Rater. His walk rate rose and his curveball was significantly less effective, the sum making him a pitcher who might not have even warranted a ranking within the draftable range in ESPN leagues. So why not a further drop? Simple: He managed a 2.92 ERA in 13 second-half games (12 starts) as his curveball recaptured some of its effectiveness -- .246 wOBA, compared to .263 in 2013 -- giving him a fighting chance at a rebound.
Shin-Soo Choo (50 to 190, -140): Few players suffered as severe a decline in 2014 as Choo, whose 72-point wOBA drop ranked fourth most among qualifiers. Most disconcerting: His wOBA on "middle/middle" pitches (those over the middle third of the plate, both horizontal and vertical, meaning over the heart of the plate) in 2014 ranked seventh worst of 147 qualifiers; in 2013 his wOBA on those pitches was 11th-best of 140 qualifiers. There's a good chance that the ankle injury he played through for most of the year explains a lot of that split -- it's extremely odd for a player who crushes the easiest pitches to hit to suddenly drop off the table in terms of performance against them -- but what if, at age 32, he's no longer capable of being even 75 percent of what he was in 2013? That's the main reason he has plummeted so far.
Billy Butler (100 to 239, -139): Want to know why the elite power many forecast for him never arrived? It's as simple as one number: 51, or his ground-ball rate last season. Butler doesn't get enough lift on the ball to be an elite, 20-plus-homers-a-year slugger, and neither his contact nor miss-on-swings rates legitimately earns him the "contact hitter" label many seem tempted to apply. Frankly, he was a curious signing for the Oakland Athletics, who in recent years have had teams full of high-walk, fly ball-oriented hitters. Maybe Billy Beane knows something we don't, but he has had his share of stinkers (see Johnson, Jim). Consider Butler a merely serviceable mixed-league corner infielder.
Eric Hosmer (37 to 155, -118): I've probably been too generous with my Hosmer ranks over the years, but then he continues to tempt by producing stretches like the one in which he batted .311/.381/.510 in 42 games from Aug. 31 forward, playoffs included, in 2014. If not for that, in fact, he might've been in danger of falling outside the 250 -- the draftable range in our standard game. Hosmer has endured miserable first halves in consecutive years, so it'd be understandable if no one wants to select him even this early. But he did make a mechanical adjustment to his swing before finishing on that high note, so I'm willing to give him a bit of a break. Yes, again.
Others who have fallen steeply in the ranks: Desmond Jennings (98 to 275, -177), Brett Lawrie (105 to 281, -176), Alex Rios (32 to 142, -110), Ben Zobrist (80 to 180, -100).