We are still three months away from the hardcore throes of baseball draft day, but the mock season is indeed gaining momentum.
For sure I have a lot of names I like, but what is more interesting to me are those players who seem to have fallen from grace from one year to another, sometimes a result of injury and sometimes just poor performance. Of course, I am also interested in those players who make a huge jump from one year to the next, so as we start to really dig into the mock season, who are the recent players enjoying, shall we say, “ups and downs?”
For the baseline, I used the NFBC Draft Day ADP for 2017, and the average of four high-level industry mocks for this year.
Jose Ramirez (ADP 93, Mock 19): What a difference a year makes? Ramirez played in the same number of games (152) the past two seasons, but 2017 showed a jump in homers (18), doubles (11), and OPS (.111), making his .318-23-83 line with 56 two-base hits along with 17 steals worthy of such a jump. Ramirez, just 25, might not get any better, but marking time with those numbers certainly suggests the value is there.
Josh Donaldson (ADP 10, Mock 24): Injury reduced the third sacker’s playing time by about 40 games last year, but even so Donaldson’s .273-33-78 line of 2017 was not that far off from the .284-37-99, with 112 fewer at-bats. That means either in 2016 Donaldson should have been a #24 guy, or this year a #10, because his output was pretty much the same.
Robbie Ray (ADP 206, Mock 34): From 8-15, 4.90 with 218 whiffs over 174.3 innings in 2016 to 15-8, 2.89 over 162 innings with a repeat of 218 strikeouts explains this jump quite simply.
Madison Bumgarner (ADP 14, Mock 39): Madbum actually tossed 111 innings last year (4-9, 3.32) and was not so bad before being sidelined by his dirt bike injury. Part of the problem was he pitched for a really bad team, but at just 28, again, not much justification for the drop aside from the possibility of so many interesting players with upside ahead of him. Are Madbum and Donaldson getting pushed down by the likes of Jose Ramirez and Aaron Judge?
Khris Davis (ADP 100, Mock 28): If no one was buying into Davis’ .247-42-102 in 2016, they should pay attention this year. I am probably guilty of grabbing Davis in the four mocks, but with back-to-back 40 homer seasons, I believe in the kid’s power. Add in that in 2017 Davis hit .247-43-110 with a 29 point jump in OBP (to .337), and I am indeed buying in an era where lots of guys hit 20-plus homers, but hardly any hit 40-plus.
Marcell Ozuna (ADP 195, Mock 27): No question Ozuna put together as good a season (.312-37-124) as anyone last year, but was it that much of a jump from 2016 (.266-23-76) to merit an almost 175 player jump in opinion rankings? I think maybe Ozuna should have been around 125 in 2016 and relatively around 40 this year based upon the ups and downs on just this list. But, what do I know?
Jonathan Villar (ADP 21, Mock 175): Kind of stuck in the Saberhagen-metric of a bad year and relative disappointment following a good year, Villar did hit the skids in 2017. But he still swiped 28, although even that total was a dismal failure compared to the 62 he swiped in 2016. Villar is one of those cases where I am not sure if he was as good as his .285-19-63 2016, but I suspect neither is he as bad as his .241-11-40 2017. Oddly, his drop almost mirrors Ozuna’s rise.
Billy Hamilton (ADP 55, Mock 48): Hamilton hit .247-4-38 last year did steal 59 bags, but his OBP was just .299 compared to Villar’s .293. I get the steals are attractive, but I would rather gamble on Villar later than get stuck with Hamilton’s non-steal numbers, irrespective of the format.
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