Weekly Mailbag

September 11, 2009 1:55pm CDT

Each week I'll answer a handful of the most pertinent questions I've received during the week in my attempt, weak as it might be, to bring insightful fantasy analysis to the fore.

I'm in a keeper league with no salaries to consider. If you had to choose one, would you protect Carlos Pena or Joey Votto?
-- Scott, Gulfport, Mississippi

Pena's year is over after undergoing surgery to repair a couple of broken fingers, but he still leads the AL with 39 home runs on the year while his total of 100 RBI is tied for third in the league. Moreover, Pena has been a huge power source each of the past three years with at least 30 bombs and 100 RBI each season, a level of production that only two other major league hitters have also reached (Ryan Howard and Albert Pujols), though we still have a few weeks left for Adrian Gonzalez (37 home runs, 85 RBI) and Adam Dunn (36 home runs, 96 RBI) to join the club. However, power is all you will ever get from Pena. Only once in the past five seasons has he stole even three bases, and don't even get us started on that batting average of his. Thanks to a growing propensity to swing and miss (more than 160 strikeouts each of the past two years), Pena owns a career .247 batting average. In fact, in only one of the seven seasons in his career in which he has picked up at least 250 at-bats, only one, has be managed to hit even .250 (he batted .282 in 2007). That's flat out awful. He isn't exactly a one-trick pony, after all he has averaged 89 runs a year the past three seasons, but that batting average of his is flat out pathetic and a massive drain on his fantasy value.

Votto, on the other hand, is a vastly superior all-around hitter, even if his raw power lags a bit. Votto has had all kinds of mental and physical issues to deal with this season, and despite slumping substantially of late (.241 average and a .799 OPS his last 52 games), he is still working on one heck of an overall campaign with a .298 average, 21 homers and 68 RBI in just 389 at-bats. For the second-straight year he has posted a HR/F rate above 18 percent, and with the added fly balls this season (up to 39 percent) the once groundball/line-drive hitting first sacker has apparently learned how to lift the ball. If he were to continue along these lines in 2010 a 30-homer effort would be a virtual lock, and since he owns a .299 career average that is a very exciting package to consider drafting next season.

Besides the issue of how his hand recovers, you have to consider that Pena is only going to help you in three categories while sinking your batting average. Given those facts, and the upward trend that Votto is clearly working on, it's an easy call to protect the young hitter from Cincy.

I cannot believe how good that Scott Feldman has been this year as he saved one of my teams. I can keep five pitchers in my league and its down to him and Brett Anderson for the last spot. What do you think I should do?
-- John, Texas

Feldman has been a flat out wonder going 16-4 with a 3.46 ERA and a 1.23 for the Rangers, not a bad effort for a guy who entered 2009 with a career line of 7-13 with a 4.97 ERA and a 1.48 WHIP. So how do I explain that growth? Honestly, I really can't, and therein lies the problem with this guy. (1) He pitches in Texas, and that is certainly a yard that greatly favors the hitter. (2) Though he has surpassed his career K/9 level his 5.22 mark is still exceedingly poor, which when coupled with an average walk rate leaves him well short of the 2.00 baseline that we target for long-term success with a pitchers K/BB rate (his mark is 1.76). (3) He does a good job of keeping the ball in the yard thanks to a 1.46 G/F ratio, but his LD-rate of 20.2 percent is right about the major league average. When we glance over to the BABIP category we find a .266 mark, well below where we would expect it to be given his other levels of production signaling some regression moving forward. (4) His left on base percentage of 77 percent is pretty darn high for a guy who never strikes anyone out and owns his other skills (the major league average is about 70 percent).

Brett Anderson, a lefty rookie from Oakland, doesn't have as outwardly successful set of numbers with a mere 8-10 record, a 4.45 ERA and a 1.32 WHIP. Still, there is a lot to like here with a hurler who had never pitched above Double-A before this season. Anderson owns a solid 7.42 K/9 mark, more than two batters above Feldman's mark. Anderson also owns a better walk rate and as a result his K/BB mark of 2.91 leaves him with a huge edge over the below average 1.76 mark of the Rangers' hurler. Anderson can also be said to have been unlucky this season despite a barely elevated .313 BABIP mark. Why do I say that? Well, with a line drive rate of 15 percent we would expect that BABIP to be well under .300, though to be fair, it's highly unlikely that Anderson will allow a LD-rate that low year after year. Call it a wash moving forward. Anderson has done a good job of keeping the ball on the ground with a 48 percent GB-rate leading to a fine 1.33 G/F ratio, something he will need to remain cognizant of because when he get the ball up in the zone, it is often hit a long way (his 1.13 HR/9 mark is a bit above the level we would ideally like to see).

Remember, records are a terrible barometer of success, home ballparks matter, and for goodness sakes pay attention to measures like K/9, K/BB and HR/9 rates when determining the value of pitchers. Considering all the data, Anderson would be my choice amongst these two AL West hurlers.

Has Cameron Maybin finally figured things out? Can he be that 20/20 guy next year?
-- Brett, Ames, Iowa

Maybin has some value down the stretch this year as it looks like he will play pretty much everyday since the Fish will likely be shutting down Jeremy Hermida with an oblique injury. That bodes well for his owners since he has performed pretty well since he was recalled from Triple-A hitting .280 with eight runs scored in nine games.

However, I think 20/20 is a huge stretch for 22-year-old Maybin in 2010. Here is why.

1- Despite a nice week and a half, Maybin hasn't established himself at the big league level hitting .220/.317/.376 in 190 career at-bats during which time he has gone deep just three times.

2- His career record of 67 strikeouts and just 21 walks is terrible. However, perhaps there is some light at the end of the tunnel here as he has been fantastic since his recall with seven walks and seven strikeouts in those nine games. He did post a 0.66 BB/K mark at Triple-A this season in almost 350 plate appearances, so he is learning, though a 35.3 percent strikeout-rate in the bigs and a 27.9 percent mark in the minors aren't very encouraging in terms of him posting a solid batting average.

3- Maybin just hasn't shown that much pop in his brief professional career. With 39 homers in 1,391 minor league at-bats leading to a home run rate of one every 35.7 at-bats, Maybin would need over 700 at-bats next season to record 20 homers if he maintained that rate.

4- Despite being blessed with tremendous speed, he just hasn't really figured out how to use it on the bases. He did steal at least 25 bases in each of his first three seasons, but this year he has dipped to a mere nine steals in 115 combined games in the minors and majors.

Maybin has a shot to be a 20/20 threat, there is no disputing that fact, but if it happens in 2010 I would be shocked.

I feel used by Chipper Jones. For humanities sake, what the heck has happened this year?
-- Jay, Johnson City, Tennessee

Maybe he just got "old," or perhaps all those years of injuries finally just caught up with him.

Chipper recently came out and said that if 2010 is anything like 2009 (.268-16-64-70-4 in 426 at-bats) that he would hang them up at the end of next season. While I'm not ready to go that far, it is clear that Chipper has fallen completely off the table this year in terms of his production after a wildly impressive three-year run in which he produced an average line of .342-26-88-92-5. Still, you weren't really expecting him to duplicate those numbers now that he is 37 years old, were you? I mean he isn't Barry Bonds, nor has he been linked to anything artificial that might help him to extend his HOF career as he ages.

As for what I see, there hasn't been a tremendous slippage in his skills. He still controls the strike zone about as well as anyone one in the game with his 1.17 BB/K mark, and that has helped him to still post an OBP of .390, a mark most players would die for. He has seen his BABIP (.293) and LD-rate (19.3 percent) recede to the point of being "average" major league numbers, but that doesn't mean that Jones couldn't still be above average in his production because of his plate discipline. Chipper will likely struggle to return to the high 20s in home runs if recent trends continue as his 45 percent ground ball rate is a five-year high, which when coupled with a eight-year low in his HR/F rate of 12.6 percent partially explains why he is four home runs away from his 15th-straight 20-homer effort.

Face it, when a guy moves into his late 30s the skills begin to erode, and what we've seen here from Chipper isn't too far from the general area that we should be expecting from him as he winds up his magnificent career.

What can you tell me about Cody Ross? He's had two pretty good years in a row now.
-- Brian, Clearwater, Florida

He's pretty good Brian. How is that for insightful analysis?

Are you ready for me to blow your mind? Do you know how many NL outfielders have hit at least 20 homers with 70 RBI and five steals this year and last? The answer is three: Ryan Braun, Andre Ethier and Cody 'who knew' Ross. That's right. Since the start of last season, Ross is 12th amongst NL outfielders in home runs (43), two more than Matt Kemp, tied for eighth in RBI (154) with Nate McLouth, which just so happens to be three more than Jayson Werth, and he is 19th in runs (142), two more than Alfonso Soriano. There's huge value in production like that when it can be had as an afterthought on draft day.

Ross owns a .270 career batting average with a .324 OBP, so he's not exactly looking like a guy who is going to take his game to the next level anytime soon, especially when you consider that his BB/K mark is just 0.33. Still, as long as he keeps lifting the ball - he has a 44 percent career fly ball rate - while converting his fair share of those fly balls into bleacher reachers (14 percent HR/F rate), there is little reason to think he will be anything other than a very productive, mid-to-late round selection once again in 2010.