Pedroia Paranoia

AKA the Bret Boone Swoon or Carlos BuyerBewarega, this phenomenon is brought on by the fear that a middle infielder coming off a great year is bound to regress horribly (props to Razzball for the name). The fear is not unfounded; most of us have probably been burned by this more often than we’d care to admit. I usually argue that position scarcity is largely overrated, but even I’m willing to admit that finding a stud at these traditionally scarce positions can give your fantasy team a big boost as you push for the championship. Nevertheless, you don’t want to overpay for those players at the expense of the rest of your team. Entering the 2010 season, there are a number of players who seem like they might fit this mold, including Jason Bartlett, Ben Zobrist, Jose Lopez, Marco Scutaro and Aaron Hill. These players, who were probably left undrafted in a lot of leagues last season, are all of a sudden being drafted in the top 100. I’ll take a look at each player individually, and see whether their breakout performances in 2009 were simply a fluke, or a sign of better things to come.

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Aaron Hill (2B, Tor)
2009 stats: .286/.499/.829, 36 HR, 108 RBI, 103 R, 6 SB
ADP: 29.7
Age: 27

Hill’s breakout performance in 2009 vindicated a lot of fantasy owners who saw it coming in 2008, when a concussion limited him to just 55 games, burning a lot of us in the process. This season, he’s the earliest of this group of players to be drafted, and looking at his 2009 numbers, that’s no surprise. If he replicates his 2009, there’s no question that he should be a third round pick. Hill more than doubled his previous career high in homers, and his HR and RBI totals were best among second basemen. However, there are a few numbers that give me reason to use caution.

Hill’s ISO (Isolated Power) and HR/FB (home run/fly ball) ratio were the highest of his career, by no slim margin. In 2007, when Hill hit 17 home runs in 608 at bats, he had an ISO of .168 and a HR/FB ratio of 8.6%. In 2009, those numbers were .213 and 14.9%. Now, it’s not uncommon for players to develop power, especially once they reach the magic age of 27, but these numbers are so much higher than he had in any other year, so we should expect some sort of regression toward the mean.

Hill only walked 42 times in 734 plate appearances, and that kind of plate discipline (or lack of it), along with less than 100 strikeouts, means a lot of balls are going to be put into play. His BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) was a sustainable .289, so I’d expect him to have another season of about a .285 average, along with around 25 homers and 90 RBI’s. That’s still a valuable player, especially as a second baseman, but his ADP is a little high for that type of production. You should be able to safely pass on Hill in the third, but I wouldn’t hold it against you if you draft him there. Just don’t expect another 35 homers and 100 RBI’s. It could happen, but I’m not counting on it.

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Ben Zobrist (2B, TB)
2009 stats: .297/.543/.948, 27 HR, 91 RBI, 91 R, 17 SB
ADP: 53
Age: 28

Zobrist’s 2009 numbers, minus the stolen bases, are about what I think we can expect from Hill this season. If Zobrist can duplicate his ‘09, he’ll be a much better value in the 5th round than Hill is in the 3rd. And unlike Hill, there is at least some reason for me to believe that these numbers are sustainable. This was Zobrist’s first full season, as he filled in for the injured Akinori Iwamura, and he made the most of his chance. Looking back, he did show a lot of this promise in 2008, where in limited duty he homered once every 16.5 at bats and walked once every 7.29 at bats. He continued that trend in 2009, with a HR/AB ratio of 18.55 and a BB/AB ratio of 5.51, showing improved plate discipline. His HR/FB ratio in 2009 was 17.5%, which helps explain his 17.4% ratio in 2008 and gives us reason to believe he can sustain it. The speed could be for real too; in the minor leagues, he stole 35 bases in 2005 and 26 in stolen bases, so stealing 15 bases again this season looks reasonable.

The one number in question here is his batting average. In 2008, his BABIP was only .255, which resulted in a .253 batting average. In 2009, his BABIP skyrocketed to a seemingly unsustainable .330, which gave him an average of .297. In 2010, his BABIP is likely to fall somewhere in between the two, but with his increased plate discipline, he shouldn’t see too much of a drop from the .297 he posted last year.

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Jason Bartlett (SS, TB)
2009 stats: .320/.490/.879, 14 HR, 66 RBI, 90 R, 30 SB
ADP: 70.2
Age: 30

The first shortstop to make the list is Bartlett, who’s currently being drafted in the late-6th/early-7th round. He doesn’t really have the power potential that Hill and Zobrist have exhibited, though he did hit more home runs last season than he did in each of his previous seasons combined. His value comes from his feet, having scored 90 runs and stealing 30 bases last season, along with a .320 batting average, good for 7th in the AL (and only percentage points behind Robinson Cano).

In 2009, Bartlett posted a ridiculous .368 BABIP, helped out in large part by a line drive rate of 26%. His patience seemed to improve as he posted a career high walk rate. He hit the ball harder than he ever did before, hitting the five longest home runs of his career, and eight of his 14 homers cleared the fence by “plenty“. Even though he had 6 “just enough” homers that barely cleared the fence, it’s difficult to think he lucked his way into those 14 homers.

However, according to hardballtimes, his xBABIP (Expected Batting Average on Balls In Play) was only about .337, which means he should have posted a line of .279/.348/.449, something a lot closer to the mean. He does appear to have made some adjustments to his offensive game, so some of this improvement is bound to stay. He may not pop 14 homers and steal 30 bases, and he probably won’t hit .320 again, but his regression may not be as horrible as some might think. He’s probably good for a batting average of around .290 or so, along with 10 bombs and 25 steals. He’s a player worth having on a lot of teams, but it’s a safe bet that he won’t life up to his ADP, and you might be better off drafting a safer option at short.

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Jose Lopez (2B, Sea)
2009 stats: .272/.412/.715, 25 HR, 96 RBI, 69 R, 3 SB
ADP: 80.1
Age: 26

Lopez is looking like the biggest power source in the Mariners’ young lineup, and with Chone Figgins joining Ichiro at the top of the order, there should be plenty of opportunities for Lopez to meet or surpass his 96 RBI’s from 2009. His home runs, on the other hand, are a different story.

Lopez has seen over 500 at-bats in each of the last 4 seasons, so he’s at the very least consistently healthy. In each of these years, his HR/FB rate has increased from 5.7% in 2006 up to 11.1% in 2009, something that is often seen as players approach 27 years old. His FB%, however, made a pretty significant jump in 2009, up to 40.8% after having a rate of 35.6% in 2008. His home/road splits are worth mentioning: of the 25 home runs he hit in 2009, 17 of them came away from the spacious Safeco Field. It’s difficult to maintain those types of splits, and there is reason to expect some regression back to around 20 homers in 2010.

His 69 runs in 2009 stand out to me, which can help be explained by his .288 career BABIP. He’s walked a pathetic 111 times in his entire career, spanning over 2,700 at bats, showing that he just doesn‘t get on base as much as he otherwise could. He may improve a little bit in average (though that’s not a guarantee with his career BABIP), but he simply doesn’t get on base enough to score a ton of runs. If you miss out on one of the top-tiered second basemen, do you want to reach for Lopez early? If he’s still around a couple rounds later, he’d be a lot more valuable, but I’m not sure he’s worth this high of a draft pick.

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Marco Scutaro (SS, Bos)
2009 stats: .282/.409/.789, 12 HR, 60 RBI, 100 R, 14 SB
ADP: 143.6
Age: 34

In 2009, Scutaro set career highs in batting average, hits, home runs, doubles, runs, walks, stolen bases, and he tied his career high in RBI. That’s a lot of career highs for a then-33 year old middle infielder with a career batting average of about .260. A year older, there are plenty of reasons to believe he’ll regress to his usual self, but he moved into the cozy confines of Fenway Park, and has a much better lineup around him, so it’s worth at least taking a look at him and see if he’ll be a valuable middle infielder again.

First off, it’s worth noting that Scutaro has a career batting average of .290 at Fenway Park, almost 30 points higher than his career AVG. But the number that sticks out to me is his 2009 line with an 0-2 count. From 2000-2008, MLB players posted an average line of .162/.173/.236, while in 2009 Scutaro hit an astonishing .364/.353/.576, including a BABIP of .458. For the sake of comparison, Albert Pujols (arguably the best hitter on the planet) only managed a line of .196/.208/.413 with a BABIP of .273. There is just no way he can replicate this stat, and he‘ll fall back to Earth this season. While this only counts in a very limited number of situations, there are other areas of concern.

Scutaro’s sudden jump in power was helped by a career high FB rate of 45%, a full 9-point increase from 2008. His BABIP wasn’t all that high at about .310, but it was still considerably higher than his career average. Any time a player, especially at such an advanced age, sees this sort of a jump in productivity, it ought to send up some red flags. Fenway Park is a little more hitter-friendly, so it’s possible he’ll reach an average of about .280, but he is unlikely to reach any of his 2009 numbers. He used to bat at the top of the lineup in Toronto, and now he’s all of a sudden a #9 hitter, so it’s likely he’ll have fewer RBI opportunities, and he will probably score fewer runs. He’ll be in the lower-tier of AL shortstops, and in deep-mixed or AL-only leagues, he should be a decent play. In more shallow leagues, he’d be an adequate back-up SS or MI, but if you’re looking for your starting shortstop, you can do better.