As I'm starting to put together my draft board for the 2011 version my Savvy Vets fantasy baseball team, I've been looking at some mock draft and some early fantasy magazine player rankings. I try to not let my real life allegiances affect my judgement when it comes to my fantasy draft, but I can't help but notice where some of the Giants players are ranked on other draft boards. One really interesting name that keeps jumping out at me is Andres Torres. My Yahoo Sports fantasy mag has him ranked at #178 on their overall draft board and #55 among OF's.
Even if you look at Andres Torres' overall numbers from last season, he performed better than those rankings. Now, I understand that a big portion of his 6 WAR campaign was due to defense, which doesn't help you in fantasy baseball, but did you know that Andres was one of only 9 players in all of MLB with at least 15 HR's and 25 SB's last year? Here's something else to consider when looking at Andres' performance last year. He essentially missed the first and last months of the season! He started out the season on the bench and only got into 15 games in April. He also missed most of September with an appendectomy and was not feeling 100% in the games he did play. After a poor NLDS, the monster from May, June, July and August returned for the NLCS and WS. Monster, you say? In those 4 months, when Andres was fully healthy and in the starting lineup daily, he put up a line of .279/.363/.449 with 38 2B, 6 3B, 14 HR, and 22 SB. Had he been starting from day 1 and healthy in September, he projected to some pretty stupendous numbers. How do 21 HR's and 33 SB's grab your fantasy? How about 111 runs and 85 RBI's? Just for comparison, Jayson Werth had 106 runs, 85 RBI's, 27 HR's, but only 13 SB in 2010. Yahoo Sports has Werth ranked #42 overall and the #14 OF.
Now, I understand that these rankings are not based on last year's performances, but on how fantasy baseball managers think a player is likely to perform in the upcoming year. Jayson Werth's 3 consecutive seasons of solid production count for more than a 1 year breakout for a player like Andres Torres. If you are looking for clues that maybe Torres' season was not a fluke though, I'll throw out 2 points to consider: 1. Torres' line as a reserve in 2009 was .270/.343/.533 with a projection of 24 HR and 24 SB over a full season of PA's. 2. His performance in the NLCS and WS, after fully recovering from his appendectomy was right in line with his performance over the middle 4 months of the regular season.
Now, don't get me wrong here. I'm not advocating for drafting Andres Torres ahead of Jayson Werth in your fantasy draft, but if you are looking for a guy who is likely to outperform his ADP in the later rounds of your draft, you could do a whole lot worse than Andres Torres.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think we owe it to Torres to give him a nice raise after the numbers he put up last year. He and Buster Posey were the catalyst of our offense and there no way we could of won the division without them. Keep it up guys.
ReplyDeleteWell, he made $426 K last year and reportedly agreed to a 1 year deal worth $2.1 M avoiding an arbitration hearing. I'd say that's a pretty nice raise, but a 6 WAR season is worth well over $20 M on the open market. Of course, Andres has only done it for 1 year, but that points up just how good his season was last year.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Torres has been amazing, kudos to the Giants evaluators who advised the Giants to pick him up.
ReplyDeleteAnd I've seen some valuations at $5M per WAR, which would put him at a $30M season on the high side.
LMAO FAIL
ReplyDelete