Statcast expected stats are the best tool in the tool box for spotting overvalued and undervalued players as determined by draft ADP.
Let me be clear that this preseason version of this exercise is nowhere near as good as the in-season one — even after a month, and especially after two months of the season are in the books. It’s still good though. I’ve been doing it for years, and it’s tough to grade with the pandemic sample right in the middle, but it’s about a C-plus/B-minus for draft prep. That’s turning a coin flip into about a 60/40 proposition, which is quite valuable. I’m not saying it’s bankable — nothing is — but it sure is bettable.
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(In-season, it’s a B/B-plus. But again we have to wait for this level of predictive value until about 30 games into the season.)
What I’m doing here is looking at a player’s expected weighted on-base average and subtracting it from actual. Note xwOBA is based on contact quality and hit trajectory according to Statcast radar. Yeah, I know xwOBA is not a fantasy category, but it’s the best method for assessing the quality of the hitter, even if you play in a batting average league.
Here are the leaders in actual wOBA (not adjusted), in order:
It has some limitations. If you are drafting players primarily, or even largely, for speed, then you don’t care how well they generally hit the ball. And then there are some major outliers. But the guys we think are great fantasy hitters irrespective of steals generally are very good in the stat.
We’re not concerned with actual stats beyond their role in the math of assessing the luck differential. We want to know who got lucky and who got unlucky. While expected stats have proven to be more predictive, it’s the actual stats that largely determine ADP.
The purpose here is tell you who these guys are, where they’re getting drafted and thus where some pockets of value and some hazards lie in your drafts. We’re going to deal only with unlucky hitters and address the lucky ones in a separate column.
2021 UNLUCKY HITTERS
We’re citing NFBC ADPs as of February 21st.
Alex Kirilloff earned a No. 39 ranking in xwOBA at .365, just ahead of Austin Riley. His actual was 113th. He’s the 107th hitter off the board, at ADP 175. You could take him 40 hitters ahead of ADP and be justified; but you of course don’t have to reach that much. Just reach a little and you have seized so much expected value. Buy.
Max Kepler is 76th in xwOBA, at .347, one point behind José Abreu and Franmil Reyes. He’s the 175th hitter off the board, barely above his 209th rating in actual xwOBA. Now, should a guy be going 100 spots behind expected stats and just 25 spots ahead of actual? No way. If we just split it, he’s the 125th hitter, a few spots behind Andrew Benintendi and Jonathan Schoop. But again, you don’t even have to do that. Instead of pick 280th overall, take him 250th, or around hitter 150. You can play chicken and hope someone else in your league is not hip to Kepler, but why be that greedy? Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered. Buy.
Jorge Soler was the World Series MVP with a record three go-ahead homers, but I know we just ignore the postseason like it’s a celebrity softball game or something. He was 61st among hitters in xwOBA even though his first half was terrible by any measure. That was tied with Bo Bichette and Mookie Betts. He was 169th in actual. ADP: 121st hitter (195th pick). We’re don’t even need to split the difference with these stats. This is a guy who hit nearly 50 homers in a season (2019). Why is Soler going 100 picks after Kris Bryant? How about 75 picks after him, to you? Buy.
Aaron Judge is actual 17th in wOBA, expected fourth (tied with Vlad Guerrero Jr.) yet is the 26th hitter off the board? He goes eight picks after Yordan Alvarez? I cannot figure out why. Please flip Judge and Alvarez on your draft boards. And I like Alvarez. Buy.
Michael Conforto: Was he bad or unlucky? More the latter. He was 69th in xwOBA between Franmil Reyes and José Abreu. He was 158th in actual. By now you know what we’re doing. Fantasy baseball drafters don’t want to believe in luck. They want to believe far more in actual stats. “There is no luck in our stats, damn it!” Conforto is the 116th hitter off the board. Basically, when a guy was unlucky/historically bad, we count that a third. People are actually drafting Hunter Renfroe (ADP: 105) over Conforto. Sheer madness. I will eat a bug if Hunter Renfroe has better rate stats than Conforto. This is free money anywhere near ADP. Buy.
Jarred Kelenic was hitter 204th in expected stats. He’s 307the in actual. Yet he’s 81st in ADP. Wow. Look, Kelenic was unlucky but he’s being priced far more for his preseason 2021 expectations than his 2021 stats, even though those were quite unlucky. Confession: I paid about this price in a Best Ball draft (where pitching tends to be devalued). So I’m not against Kelenic at ADP but he’s not a guy to target based on this model. No recommendation.
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Alec Bohm is similar but actually has been good in the majors (2020 — small sample of course). He was 280th in actual and 178th in expected. So he was unlucky. He’s being drafted as the 178th hitter, right in line with his actual numbers. Very rational behavior here by the market thus far. No recommendation, but I’d take Bohm at ADP over Kelenic at ADP every day of the week.
(Top photo: Nick Wosika/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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