The David Ortiz Theory

In a few short weeks, baseball season will be upon us (and all my free time will be soaked up). This year, the MLB season starts March 22^nd with a game in Sydney of all places between the Dodgers and D’Backs, then resumes again March 30^th with Sunday night baseball with the Dodgers again, v. the Padres. Therefore, theoretically, one could get 2 Clayton Kershaw starts in the first 2 games of the baseball regular season! Very intriguing reason to draft the best pitcher in the game. With the slight downside, of course, that he would be putting more wear and tear on his arm earlier than anyone else.

But I don’t really like Clayton Kershaw this year for fantasy purposes. It’s not that I don’t like him as a pitcher, he’s admittedly the best pitcher in the game. However, when everyone knows and assumes that’s who he is, that’s when a savvy fantasy manager needs to take a step back and sell on the hype (I traded Kershaw this offseason). Conversely, one a player is for whatever reason devalued because he a.) is injured, b.) is coming off a down year, c.) not getting enough love for what he did the previous year, d.) getting old, or various other reasons, that’s when the same savvy fantasy manager needs to pounce. Last year, David Ortiz fit into a) and d) as he started off the season on the DL, had no hype in the preseason, and was 38 years old. What fantasy managers forgot, though, was that he was one of the best sluggers in the game on one of the best offenses in the game in one of the best home parks in the game, batting cleanup with a history of 30 HR-100RBI-.300 seasons. And he delivered, hitting .309-30-103 despite missing the first 2.5 weeks of the season, in the process becoming my favorite player of 2013 and spawning my David Ortiz theory.

I used to always think that a player was undervalued after a down year and overvalued after a great year. Not a bad baseline to start out with, but not the complete story. Only if a guy who had a breakout year and is overvalued BECAUSE of that breakout year should you avoid him. And vice versa, of course. For example, it’s usually good idea to take out the sexy guys. I will never own Yasiel Puig in any of my drafts. Here’s a rookie who’s being ranked around 28/29 by ESPN fantasy leagues for half a season of production that wasn’t even elite. Puig is overvalued BECAUSE of what he showed in limited time last season and the expectation that he will continue that, and media talking heads have talked to each other so much that it’s almost taboo NOT to Basically, you’re betting on Mike Trout once-in-a-lifetime production. Not to say it won’t happen, but the chances aren’t that good, and you don’t want to pay for that to happen.

Other options I like better than their higher-valued counterparts:

1.)    Everth Cabrera rather than Elvis Andrus: Andrus’s value really comes only in the form of speed, and he was an albatross for most of the season until the 2^nd half. Cabrera could easily be just as good as Andrus and has more natural speed.

2.)    Kendrys Morales rather than a bunch of other 1B’s, including Anthony Rizzo. Not sure I buy the “huge bounceback seasons” that are coming for Rizzo and Starlin Castro in Chicago, and even if they do bounce back I feel like it’s been “priced in.” Meanwhile Morales looks like he’s about to sign with Baltimore, a great spot for him.

3.)    Any 91-92 mph fastball pitcher with a history of good numbers over a 96-97 mph thrower with no history and just hype. This season’s starting pitching hype has all been about the hard throwers like Michael Wacha, Danny Salazar, Gerrit Cole, etc. None of those guys have pitched a full season, but they’re sexy because they throw really really hard. You know who else threw really hard? Alexei Ogando. Michael Pineda. Take the pitchers who have shown the ability to last a whole season or 2 with good numbers and have figured out how to pitch.

4.)    Jimmy Rollins, Michael Bourn, Josh Hamilton, Pablo Sandoval, over young stud guys. These are this year’s candidates to be David Ortiz. Won’t have that much upside and won’t hit .300 or hit 30 hrs like Ortiz did, but great ability to bounce back, and the hate on them has gone way overboard.

5.)    Glen Perkins rather than Greg Holland (I love Holland, but his 2013 numbers made him jump into an “elite category” in experts’ minds even though for most of the season Perkins was just as good and gave up slightly more runs.

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan