The data in this post is based on the evaluation system explained and updated some time ago. Players are grouped into their primary position from 2014, and stats are based on traditional 5×5 scoring.

Every year the fantasy world engages in the same old arguments: “Is Position X deep? Is it shallow? Why is the sky blue?” I think the third question has been answered sufficiently enough over the course of human history, but the first two queries are in need of annual research and updates.

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Rookie players in Major League Baseball either can warm your heart or turn it blacker than coal. For every Jose Abreu who challenges for the MVP award there is a Jon Singleton who strikes out almost 40% of the time and looks lost at the plate. As we enter a new season, hope springs eternal for the Freshman Class of ’15 — a large collection of overachievers (at least until now) that could make or break your upcoming fantasy season, much like Abreu (who was celebrated for his achievements) and Singleton (despised for his) by respective owners.

Below, you’ll find the annual FG+ rankings of the potential top rookies at each position — based on their potential to impact in 2015 in a vacuum, and without considering future seasons or ultimate ceilings. Enjoy, and may your rookies’ 2015 contributions be more Abreu than Singleton.

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The Reds struggled quite a bit in 2014, as the offense scored 100 fewer runs than it did in 2013. The most obvious reason for the struggles was Joey Votto missing significant time. While Votto has the ability to hit for power, he is best known for taking a walk. There is a hidden advantage for players with high on base percentages — they make the hitters after them better by reaching base. Let’s look at how much a batter can expect to improve because of the previous hitters’ on-base percentages.

Lineup projection is a topic which has been discussed and debated at great length. Protection in baseball is normally thought of as the concept of a stud hitter needing a good batter up behind them so they won’t get pitched around. The concept was debunked in the “The Book” when it found unprotected sluggers were a bit more productive than the protected ones (.380 wOBA vs. .376 wOBA).

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A compendium usually comes in the form of a heavy, leather bound tome. Perhaps it’s fitting that something as exciting, fast-based, and internet-based as daily fantasy baseball (DFS) has a compendium that will come to you in a more digital format.

The purpose in a compendium, in any case, is to provide a detailed and thorough exploration of a single subject. Today, our focus is daily fantasy baseball. Consider this a beginner’s guide to DFS. If you’re looking for a place to start or just want to reorient yourself with the basics – you’re in the right place.

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Rookies are a crucial part of just about every winning fantasy team, which makes it a necessity for owners to keep close tabs on players who haven’t yet cracked the big leagues. We’re all familiar with the Kris Bryants, Jon Grays, and Byron Buxtons of the world, whose names have been plastered on top prospect lists all over the Internet. These players are good bets to blossom into stars sooner or later — possibly as soon as this year.

But everyone knows those names, meaning these players probably won’t come cheap on draft day. However, top prospects are by no means the only ones who emerge from the minors to make an impact. In fact, some of the most productive rookies emerge from complete obscurity, like Kevin Kiermaier, Yangervis Solarte, and Jacob deGrom did last season.

With the help of the 2015 Steamer projections along with KATOH — a projection system I developed to forecast major league performance through age 28 — I identified some potential sleepers: Prospects you may not have heard of who could wind up being just as valuable as some of the bigger names.

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As you well know, fantasy formats have long been eschewing (and ridiculing) the use of the win as a category. It tends to still hold on rather stubbornly in standard Rotisserie 5×5 formats which are also widely panned (yet this author still clings to one of those teams annually). There are a number of logical swaps for the win, and one of them has historically been the “quality start,” which is what this post is all about.

The quality start has also been criticized as being rather useless inasmuch as describing whether a pitcher performed well nor not, and yet if you don’t want to get into weighted metrics in your fantasy league, it’s still preferable to the sometimes arbitrary assignment of wins (and perhaps more on point — the arbitrary lack of assigning a win).

Just so we’re operating with the same definition, in most fantasy circles the quality start still uses the John Lowe Philly Inquirer characterization as being a starting pitcher going six innings without giving up more than three earned runs. We can punch holes in that over beers another day, but that’s our baseline for a quality start going forward.

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The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, begun in April of 2013 by the present author, wherein that same dumb author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own intution to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

For the purposes of the column, generally, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion in the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above both (a) absent from a small collection of notable preseason top-100 prospect lists and also (b) not currently playing in the majors. Players appearing on the midseason prospect lists produced by those same notable sources or, otherwise, selected in the first round of the current season’s amateur draft have also, typically, been excluded from eligibility.

For the purposes of this edition of the Fringe Five, however, I’ve altered the rules for eligibility. Owing to lead prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel’s excellent and ambitious organizational prospect lists, which have appeared at FanGraphs all fall and winter, readers have access to useful reports on basically every prospect with a 40-or-better future-value grade. Rather than merely regurgitate McDaniel’s work, then, what I’ve instead attempted to do here is assemble a list featuring the 10-best actual fringe prospects — which is to say, the 10 most compelling prospects to have been omitted entirely from the numbered portion of McDaniel’s organizational lists.

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The 2014 season in Nippon Professional Baseball began with the assumption Hiroshima Carp pitcher Kenta Maeda or Orix Buffaloes ace Chihiro Kaneko, or both, would follow in the footsteps of Masahiro Tanaka and head to Major League Baseball via the posting system.

Things will be the same in 2015, since neither Maeda nor Kaneko was posted in 2014. This is the new normal in Japan. As respect for NPB, already considered the second best league in the world, continues to grow, so too does the reality that MLB teams will try to swoop in and snatch up top players.

Japanese fans take this in stride these days. Hideo Nomo was vilified for leaving in 1995, but Tanaka was hailed as a hero last year as fans beamed with pride because their best proved they could play in the world’s best league. You can’t fit every good Japanese player with an “MLB ship by” tag, though, because not every player harbors a desire to leave Japan. But for those who do the door is somewhat open.

Maeda (and/or Kaneko) is still expected to be among the next group of NPB players who make the leap. Going from NPB to MLB requires a number of adjustments, and the fact that not every player makes the transition successfully is also true of players from other parts of the world as well.

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How the Idea Transpired

Reddit user DShep: Darvish Pitch Selection

My idea for this post emerged from my adult baseball league. Most pitchers threw between 70-80 MPH, but their breaking balls were released from different release points or arm slots than their fastballs and were easy to distinguish. I struck out six times in 29 at-bats for the season. Of the six times I struck out during the season, three strikeouts were against the same guy in the same game – and he wasn’t even hitting 70 MPH. He had three to four different pitches, and they all released from what looked like the same point.

He was consistent with his release point regardless of his pitch selection, making it extremely difficult to predict what pitch I would be swinging at.

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Jung-Ho Kang is coming to a Pirates game near you, and he better be on your radar as a baseball fan or fantasy manager. As with every foreign import, you have heard scouts and analysts weigh in on Kang, and you will continue to hear more reports as the season approaches. You may have heard his power will not translate to our game, that he may not even be a starter at the highest level of American baseball. I’m here to tell you that these reports starkly underrate Kang’s potential, and now you can cash in as a fantasy owner while everyone else follows the status quo. Kang has an elite swing that will allow his numbers to translate very quickly into Major League success.

Let’s jump right into some images. Here Kang is hitting a fastball out to just right of dead center field for a long home run:

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