There are always players who surprise everyone with their performance. Most of the coverage of these players centers around the ones who far outperform expectations. However, every fantasy manager knows that a player who underachieves can have just as big of an impact — one wrong first-round pick and your season is torpedoed from Opening Day.
Here at Crave, we like to think we can see into the future, so we’re going to help you out and let you know which players will under-perform this season. Here’s a sure disappointment from each position — a true bust alert. Treat them like the Grinch; don’t touch them with a 39-and-a-half foot pole (at least in the early rounds).
Dylan Sinn is a freelance contributor for CraveOnline Sports. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSinn or “like” CraveOnline Sports on Facebook.
Photo Credit: Getty
2014 Fantasy Baseball Disappointments
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Outfield: Curtis Granderson – New York Mets
Granderson won’t have the advantage of the short right field porch in the Bronx anymore and that will definitely hurt his inflated power numbers. Those numbers will drop even further thanks to the fact that he’ll be playing his home games in the pitcher’s haven of Citi Field.
The Illinois native has never been particularly valuable in the average or OBP categories and he projects as somewhere between a .240 and a .250 hitter. His strikeout rate has increased in each of his five full seasons since 2008 (he missed 101 games last year with injury) and he wasn’t a great contact hitter to begin with. Don’t expect much of a bounce-back from the former Yankee.
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Catcher: Jarrod Saltalamacchia - Miami
Salty hit a career high .273 last season and launched 25 homers in 2012, but don’t let those numbers fool you, they’re both unrealistic going forward. The 28-year old backstop regressed to 14 bombs a year ago thanks to a return to his career average in HR/FB rate. That number should drop even further this year as he goes from hitter-friendly Fenway in a loaded Red Sox lineup to power-killing Marlins Park in an anemic offense.
The Florida native’s average figures to suffer a similar drop-off as he hit an astronomical .372 on balls in play in 2013. He projects as a .240 hitter in an average season and won’t give you much in terms of runs or RBI in Miami’s offense. Stay away except in very deep leagues.
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Shortstop: Jean Segura – Milwaukee
Segura was sensational overall last season, earning himself the no. 16 spot on ESPN’s player rater at season’s end. However, his season was really a tale of two halves. He finished with only 12 home runs after blasting 11 before the All-Star Break and his OPS declined in every month, from .985 in April to a lowly .585 in September.
The 24-year old Segura is still a threat to steal 40-50 bases and he’ll score plenty of runs, but he won’t be nearly as good statistically as he was a season ago. He’s still a top 10 shortstop, just not top three as he was in 2013.
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Third Base: Josh Donaldson - Oakland
Donaldson was far and away the A’s best hitter in 2013 when he hit .301/.384/.499. While he won’t be a one-year superstar, he’s probably not going to reach those levels again, at least this season. His BABIP was a sterling .333, so he’ll likely lose points in both average and OBP, while his HR/FB was a full three points higher than his career average.
Donaldson will be a solid option at third base, but he’s 29 and likely has reached his ceiling -- likely exceeded it last year in fact. Don’t reach for him in the first few rounds.
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Outfield: Josh Hamilton – Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
This is a tough one for me. I’ve always enjoyed the all-out passion with which Hamilton plays the game, but the fact is that his style, coupled with his advancing age (he’ll be 33 in May) means that he’s an injury risk whenever he sets foot on the field. At this point, it’s hard to justify trying to build a team around Hamilton, despite his still-massive skill set, because of the likelihood he’ll play less than 100 games.
Even his game itself has shown signs of deterioration. He was a .304 hitter in his time with the Rangers, but his average plummeted to .250 last season and he hit just 21 home runs. The problem is mostly that he swings at far too many pitches out of the strike zone. According to ESPN, he’s struck out 209 times in the last two years on pitches out of the zone. He should improve his average and power a little, but it won’t return to first-round-fantasy levels. I would stay far away.
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Second Base: Jurickson Profar - Texas
I wrote about Profar in my second base preview article and my stance has not changed -- stay away from him unless you have a late-round pick to waste. His struggles at the big league level in his short career thus far have been well-documented. He’s hit just .234 in 94 MLB games, which isn’t a small sample size.
Furthermore, he hasn’t hit .300 at any level of pro ball, nor has he shown much more than 15-homer power. Some scouts still project a future All-Star with Profar, but until we see something that shows he’s capable of reaching that level, he’ll remain a disappointment.
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First Base: Mark Teixeira – New York Yankees
Teixeira has been a disappointment for a few seasons now. After hitting more than 30 homers in eight straight years from 2004-2011, he’s only hit 27 in the last two seasons combined thanks to injuries. For those planning on picking him and hoping he stays healthy and is able to rebound, I have some advice -- don’t.
Even before his injuries, Tex’s OPS had declined for six straight seasons, from .963 in ’07 to just .807 in 2012. He seems to have adjusted his swing to try to take advantage of the short right field porch in Yankee Stadium, but he has sacrificed average to do so and he’s no longer the .300 hitter he once was. He’ll be 34 in April, so don’t expect his injury woes to go away either.
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Outfield: Matt Kemp – Los Angeles Dodgers
Kemp was once one of the top players in fantasy baseball, but he has struggled to reach that level in recent years. More and more, it seems as though his brilliant year-and-a-half stretch from the beginning of 2011 to the middle of 2012 is an anomaly rather than a repeatable performance.
The 29-year old Kemp has missed much of the last two seasons with shoulder, hamstring, and ankle injuries, the last of which is particularly worrying because it required surgery that could keep him out of the lineup past Opening Day and sap him of some of his valuable base-stealing ability. Kemp has always struck out too much without walking enough and he projects as a .270 average, .330 OBP guy. At this point, he’s a perennial disappointment.
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Pitcher: Matt Moore – Tampa Bay
Moore had an outstanding season on the surface as a 23-year old in 2013, posting a 3.29 ERA and a brilliant 17-4 record while also striking out nearly a batter per inning. His strong traditional stats masked some concerning peripherals, however.
The left-hander allowed just a .259 BABIP, by far the lowest of his young career. That mark cannot be explained away by solid control, either, as Moore walked over 4.5 batters per nine innings. The Florida native also stranded over 78 percent of runners last season, a mark nearly seven percent higher than the league average. When you factor in his decidedly mediocre 4.32 xFIP, he clearly becomes a top regression candidate. Stay away in the early rounds.
