Friday, March 6, 2015

2015 Preseason Prediction #3 - Victor Martinez

One of the biggest problems with doing predictions is that every once in awhile you are completely wrong about your expectations that in hindsight you wonder how you could have ever thought that.  Victor Martinez' prediction was supposed to be easy.  He was entering his age 35 season and showing signs of a slow but steady decline.  Instead he broke out and put up numbers like a 25 year old entering his prime, not someone who was supposed to be exiting his prime.  V-Mart was in the elusive 1% company that defies all logic and reasoning.

Now going forward, how are we supposed to treat him 2014 season?  Usually when I do these predictions, I look at the most recent 3 seasons and then make small adjustments based on "luck," age and other factors.  Is there anything about V-Mart's 2014 season that can carry forward to 2015, or is that whole season one big fluke?  Victor had the highest AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS, ISO, HR and RBI of his career last year.  He also had the lowest K rate of his career.  

When someone has a high AVG, it usually is accompanied by a high BABIP.  But this is not the case with V-Mart.  His BABIP was exactly the same as his career mark, .316.  Yet, his AVG was 29 points higher than his career AVG, .335 to .306.  Batted ball data was also not that different: 


Year AVG BABIP LD% GB% FB%
2011
0.330
0.343
24.2%
42.7%
33.1%
2013
0.301
0.313
22.3%
42.3%
35.4%
2014
0.335
0.316
21.3%
40.6%
38.1%
Career
0.306
0.316
20.8%
42.8%
36.3%

He hit more fly balls and less ground balls, which makes sense given the number of home runs he hit.  However, his HR/FB ratio was still the highest of his career, a number that typically would regress the following season.

Year ISO HR% HR/FB
2011
0.141
2.0%
7.3%
2013
0.129
2.1%
7.2%
2014
0.230
5.0%
16.0%
Career
0.168
3.1%
10.7%

Finally, there's the injury concern.  He needed surgery again on the same knee that made him miss all of the 2012 season.  The good news is that he would only miss 4-6 weeks, which puts his return right around opening day.  Factoring in this injury makes me hesitant that he will continue to defy the laws of aging.  On one hand he's entering his age 36 season, will be missing all of Spring Training and will need time to get his groove back (just like in 2013).  On the other hand, the surgery isn't as sever as it was in 2012 and he is coming off his best season of his career, which may or may not be a fluke.  I'm taking the conservative route here, which probably means he'll hit 30+ home runs again.

Experts' Projections/Predictions:

AB AVG OBP SLG HR RBI SB BB K
Steamer
466
0.308
0.375
0.485
18
74
2
49
45
CAIRO
573
0.309
0.375
0.483
22
77
3
59
61
ZiPS
478
0.303
0.360
0.473
18
79
1
44
46
RotoChamp
372
0.304
0.374
0.457
12
62
1
42
31
CBS Sports
560
0.316
0.378
0.502
23
98
1
56
50
ESPN
545
0.312
0.378
0.484
21
81
2
58
48
MLB.com
530
0.313
0.387
0.487
20
86
1
FanGraphs' Fans (23)
543
0.313
0.377
0.477
19
88
0
58
52

My Prediction:


AB AVG OBP SLG HR RBI SB BB K
2014 Prediction
564
0.309
0.360
0.441
13
91
0
48
59
2014 Actual
561
0.335
0.409
0.565
32
103
3
70
42
2015 Prediction
533
0.310
0.375
0.452
15
94
1
57
48


Fantasy Impact: The hard part about drafting a DH is that it leaves you with absolutely no flexibility; you have to use him in a UTL spot (although V-Mart does have 1B eligibility).  This wasn't a problem last year as V-Mart helped you in all categories other than SB.  This year, if everything regresses to the mean, he won't help you as much.  Someone like Adam Lind could give you similar results without the name recognition value.  Grab him if he falls, but he'll likely get over-drafted as most flukes are over-drafted the following year.  Unless of course he continues to defy logic and reasoning.  

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