One of my favorite ways to find undervalued targets in a draft is to examine the lineups of the best offenses and see if the market is mispricing any of these players. Being in a top five offense and premium lineup position (top four in this example) is worth about 15-20 Runs plus RBI over of the course of the season. This year’s five best offenses by ATC projections (ranked by OPS) are the Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, Houston Astros, New York Yankees, and Texas Rangers. Unsurprisingly the projected top four on these teams are priced expensively by the ADP market (NFBC Rotowire Online Championship below).
Among these 20 players, there are eight first round picks and another five second round picks. An additional four players get drafted between pick 30 and pick 100. Just three players – Evan Carter (123), Anthony Rizzo (297), and DJ LeMahieu (349) – get drafted outside of the top 100. Are these players good values?
Anthony Rizzo
A career .263/.364/.474 hitter, Rizzo represents a value around pick 297. Rizzo notably collided with Fernando Tatis Jr. on May 28th last year and suffered from post-concussion symptoms through the rest of the season. Prior to his injury last season, Rizzo was slashing .304/.375/.505, not markedly out of line with career marks. If you assign even a 50% probability that Rizzo is his old self, he likely holds his lineup position all season with the Yankees and delivers tremendous profit. The argument against Rizzo lies in his post-injury performance. While playing through post-concussion symptoms, the big lefty sputtered to just a .496 OPS down the stretch.
DJ LeMahieu
Here’s a line I didn’t expect to write – DJ LeMahieu has had a WRC+ above 100 each of the past five seasons. Over the past two seasons, the leadoff hitter for a top five offense (which the Yankees project to be) has averaged 764 plate appearances. A leadoff hitter on a top five offense with a .337 OBP (LeMahieu’s Depth Chart Projection) would project for 111 runs. While LeMahieu doesn’t appear to have the downside risk of Rizzo, it seems a little reckless to expect the former LSU Tiger to hold down the leadoff spot all season. In fact, Gleyber Torres and Alex Verdugo are projected to have comparable or better OBPs by most projection systems. But should LeMahieu hold the leadoff spot for even April, I believe the prorated stats he should amass in that time will be worth the pick.
The advantages of batting leadoff should be obvious – the batter receives a massive boost in plate appearances, and gets to hit in front of the team’s best hitters. Last year’s Oakland A’s were a historically bad offense, but their leadoff hitters still received 738 plate appearances!
The group in the table above all seem woefully mispriced, even if I have doubts about whether Blackmon and Noda are going to lead off. These players all project at the top, or near the top of their respective teams in OBP, which should guarantee a certain amount of playing time floor. While not necessarily targets in a 12-team FAAB league, these players all represent solid value in a draft champions or even a 15-team FAAB league.
My entire spreadsheet, which combines NFBC ADP, with Roster Resource lineup projections can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZI__H0hnO5ie5GLis7GYmjwSmPQ_UKBRmmi9JgkwZDQ/edit?usp=sharing
Happy Hunting!
