Fernando Abad

Profile: Fernando Abad appeared to post a strong 2014 season for several reasons. His 8.01 strikeouts per nine helped, as did his low 2.35 walks per nine. But his 1.57 ERA was more smoke and mirrors than true talent. Abad was incredibly fortunate in the batted ball department, his .211 batting average on balls in play tying for fourth-lowest among 142 qualified relievers. With a career .291 BABIP, it looks like a lot of his fly balls stayed in the yard and were caught by the Oakland A’s defense, owners of the ninth-best outfield Ultimate Zone Rating per 150 games. Despite appearing in a career high (and nice) 69 games, Abad managed just nine holds and 13 shutdowns. If you’re in an extremely deep league which happens to count holds, Abad has some use. Outside of that, look elsewhere for your reliever stats. (David Wiers)

Quick Opinion: Probably the fourth or fifth man in the Oakland bullpen, Abad isn’t a terribly attractive fantasy option. He’ll get a few strikeouts and the occasional hold, but isn’t worth rostering in anything but the deepest of leagues.

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Trevor Cahill

Profile: Cahill’s 2014 was a mixture of good and bad. The soft-tossing righty allowed plenty of runs with a 5.61 ERA, but his 3.89 FIP and 3.83 xFIP point to better times ahead. Left-handed hitters went wild with a .404 weighted on base average against him. A .350 batting average on balls in play, well above his career average, contributed to the pain. He was substantially better out of the bullpen with a 3.04 ERA and 2.92 FIP in 23.2 innings. The lone bright spot is a healthy 10.1% swinging strike rate, which translated to 8.54 strikeouts per nine. Unfortunately, the good was offset by 4.47 walks per nine. With $12 million owed to him in 2015, the Diamondbacks are looking at an expensive swingman. (Brad Johnson)

Quick Opinion: Cahill will need to learn how to neutralize left-handed hitters if he wants to help out of the rotation. Otherwise, he’s a very well paid long reliever.

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Jeurys Familia

Profile: Jeurys Familia underwent successful hernia surgery in October: he and fellow Mets reliever Jenrry Mejia had similar surgeries. Familia is expected to be fully healthy by spring training while Bobby Parnell and Mejia will probably fill the closer role. Familia has the outcomes to remain an effective set-up man. He will only be 25 next year and is projected to improve his strikeout and walk rates. His sinker-fourseam-slider repertoire induced close to a 60% grounder rate, which was top 30 for relievers over 30 innings pitched. The “luck” statistics (5.2% homer-to-fly ratio and .264 batting average on balls in play) are likely to regress, which should knock his actual ERA (2.21) up closer to his expected rates of 3.21 (SIERA) or 3.49 (xFIP), but top 20 velocity could keep these outcomes grounded. (Dan Schwartz)

Quick Opinion: With Mejia, Carlos Torres, Vic Black, Josh Edgin, and a hopefully healthy Bobby Parnell, the Mets have an interesting, relatively cheap pre-arbitration eligible (outside of Parnell) bullpen complemented by Familia. That might also make it tough on owners hoping for saves out of Familia. 

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Tommy Kahnle

Profile: Kahnle isn’t anywhere near the closer job in Colorado, not even close enough to rack up a healthy amount of saves. He was a serviceable arm in his rookie season, but he didn’t give any indications of dominance. (Brett Talley)

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Jonathan Papelbon

Profile: Some figured that the end was nigh for Jonathan Papelbon because of the seven save opportunities he blew in 36 total chances in 2013. The mid-30s righty’s readouts on the radar gun have definitely lost a tick – or three – but he’s still posted some solid peripherals (a 2.78 FIP, 3.50 xFIP, and 2.91 SIERA) in the past two seasons. He revived his swinging-strike rate (12.2%) in 2014 by ditching the two-seam grip, which wasn’t doing much for him. A couple of years with bad walk rates are almost distant memories. OK, enough: This is still a pitcher in decline. Last year, he went back to mostly four-seamers and locating them up often. That could certainly continue to work, but, with that low velo, it might be quite a trick to allow only two homers in a full season again. It’s fair to expect some serious regression in his .247 batting average on balls in play, too, given all its context. Papelbon deserves credit for continually finding ways to stay ahead of the competition. A strikeout rate slowly approaching 20% has reduced his relevance in the fantasy world, however. He’s still good – definitely not great – because he’s a smart pitcher. He’s still fantasy-relevant because his survival skills and hefty contract keep him in that closer’s role. Philadelphia could eventually find a taker who won’t need to feel the same way – although that seems unlikely even in 2015. He’s an adequate second reliever in mixed leagues and could be just a tad overpriced this year. (Nicholas Minnix)

Quick Opinion: Rumors of Papelbon’s demise were premature, but strikeout percentages in the low 20s can’t endear him to fantasy owners. He owes the baseball gods a favor or two, as well, so he may be a tad overvalued in 2015. He’s relevant mostly because he’s a probable source of 30-plus saves.

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Koji Uehara

Profile: Entering his age 39 season as a bonafide closer for the first time in his career, Koji Uehara’s body of work from 2014 looks remarkably similar to the elite marks he put up in 2013. His strikeout rate fell a few points, but he managed to shave a hair off his already ridiculous 3% walk rate. His swinging strike percentages actually climbed, too. Even though he lost a little over a mph on his already-sub-90-mph fastball, his bread-and-butter splitter could still carry the load. Cracks began to appear in the foundation late in the year, however. His second half FIP was a less sexy 3.86, driven in large part by a jump to nearly two homers per nine innings. While some of this may have just been unfortunate luck, Boston felt the struggles were real enough to “relieve” him from his closer duties late in the year once they exited the playoff hunt. The Red Sox resigned Uehara to a two-year deal, and he’ll almost certainly return as their main ninth inning man. There is still reason to draft Uehara among the top 15 or so closers, but the potential of his late season regression sticking around needs to be baked into his projections. He seems like a prime candidate to be overdrafted on name value and the whole of his 2014 numbers. (Colin Zarzycki)

Quick Opinion: For the first time in his career, Koji Uehara headed into a season as a full-time closer. The 2014 version was a reasonable facsimile of 2013’s fantasy breakout star, although late season gopheritis tainted what looked to be a top-five reliever season. Now headed into his age 40 season, Uehara doesn’t have any overt warning lights. However, savvy owners need to factor in the potential for a decline, meaning he should come off the board later than he did last year.

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Takashi Toritani

Profile: A slick-fielding shortstop with a good eye at the plate, Toritani is the type of player who could find a modicum of success where more athletic players like Kazuo Matsui or Tsuyoshi Nishiokadidn’t. Toritani is coming off a productive year for the Hanshin Tigers, having produced a .313/.406/.415 line, eight home runs, 73 RBIs and 10 stolen bases. He was also second in the Central League with 87 walks, a finish that ended his three-year reign as the CL leader in that category. Toritani is a smart, selective hitter who can grind out at-bats until he gets a pitch he thinks he can handle. His power numbers in Japan — 120 career home runs — are similar to what Norichika Aoki put up in NPB, but Koshien Stadium, where the Tigers play, favors pitchers more than Aoki’s old stomping ground, hitter-friendly Jingu Stadium. Still, Toritani has reached double-digit home runs only once in the past four seasons, and it might be asking a lot to expect to see any kind of surge if he were to move to the majors. Defensively Toritani is one of the best in Japan at shortstop, owing more to pure fielding prowess than the athleticism Nishioka or Munenori Kawasaki displayed. His arm would be greatly tested were he to play shortstop everyday in the majors and he’s probably better suited to second base. He’s also proven to be supremely durable, the flip side of that meaning there’s already a lot of mileage on the tires. Unfortunately for American fans, Toritani took a multi-year deal to return to the Tigers and, now 33, probably won’t ever play in Major League Baseball. (Jason Coskrey)

Quick Opinion: Takashi Toritani reportedly considered coming to America as a free agent in 2012, but remained in Japan after a down year. Now 33, Toritani gave it another shot and ended up returning home. That might be all she wrote for his Major League Baseball chances.

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As a projectionist, I am seemingly on a never-ending quest to develop equations for every result statistic. By result statistic, I mean home runs, for example, which are fueled by such skills as hitting the ball far, among others, which itself is summarized by the average batted ball distance we reference here quite often.

Another one of those result statistics is batting average. A hitter’s batting average is derived from two underlying skills — his ability to make contact (strikeout rate) and turn balls in play into hits (batting average on balls in play). While a hitter’s strikeout rate is quite stable from year to year, unfortunately his BABIP is not. It’s one of the metrics we still struggle to explain, with luck considered to play a major role.

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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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