Nineteen days. A minimum of 16 (Texas Rangers) and a maximum of 19 (Pittsburgh Pirates) games. That's what we've got remaining on the 2016 regular-season calendar -- and with it, the fantasy baseball season.
It's the time when fantasy owners are fighting for that one last stolen base, one extra quality start to capture their head-to-head matchups, ultimately resulting in the crowning of a league championship.
It means that anything goes: seemingly-crazy-on-the-surface trades, like Clayton Kershaw for Billy Hamilton (in leagues that have no trade deadline); household fantasy names like Jacob deGrom being dropped to clear a precious roster spot; and the realization that rankings, those overall rest-of-season valuations, carry the least weight on your lineup decisions.
This week's represents the final Going Forward Rankings column for 2016, to cover these final 19 days of action. You can see them at this column's end, with the link to individual position rankings included.
Don't worry, don't worry! You're not being left in the dark for the final two-plus weeks of your championship quest. There will still be two more Fantasy Baseball Forecasters to carry you through, on Sept. 16 (Week 24) and 23 (Week 25), as well as all of our daily coverage on the fantasy baseball page.
As the 2016 season draws to a close, however, it's time to begin focusing our rankings upon future seasons, just as many real-life teams have begun turning their pages to 2017. Here's what you can expect these next two weeks:
A new Dynasty 250, forecasting player value from 2017-21, which will publish next week (week of Sept. 19).
Way-too-early (but-I-say-never-too-early) 2017 rankings, both a top 250 and rankings by position, the following week (week of Sept. 26).
With that in mind, let's examine a few of 2016's more interesting players, with some initial thoughts on whether their successes or failures might extend into 2017:
Successes
Jonathan Villar, SS/3B, Milwaukee Brewers: He could fall flat on his face these final 19 days and be an absolute lock for the Player Rater's top 25, thanks in large part to his 54 stolen bases, only four shy of Hamilton's total for the major league lead. Villar's speed has never been in dispute; he is one of only two players (along with Hamilton) to have stolen at least 40 bases combined at all professional levels in each of the past five seasons. What Villar brings to the table that Hamilton does not, however, is a keen knowledge of the strike zone. His 11.2 percent walk rate ranks 23rd out of the 151 hitters qualified for the batting title, fueling a .373 on-base percentage that ranks 22nd. It's not the first time in his pro career that Villar has done this -- he now has a 9.6 percent walk rate and .335 on-base percentage in his big-league career. He also had a 9.7 percent walk rate and .347 on-base percentage in his career at the Triple-A level. Both of those seem "safer" 2017 projections, but that's still a player plenty capable of a .270 batting average and 40-50 steals.
Daniel Murphy, 2B/1B, Washington Nationals: I've removed third base from his positional list since he'll lose that eligibility entering 2017, but Murphy's eligibility really doesn't matter, after the kind of breakthrough campaign he has had. Simply put, he is an entirely different hitter than he was entering the 2015 campaign, with his specific adjustments documented as far back as January. It has resulted in his hitting for more power, fueled by a more pull-conscious approach generating harder contact, skills that make his 2016 numbers more sustainable during the long haul, and he has now done it over nearly 14 months:
8/1/15-10/4/15: 50 G, .296 AVG, .236 ISO, .207 WHAV, 37.6 FB%, 43.9 Pull%
2015 postseason: 14 G, .328 AVG, .397 ISO, .224 WHAV, 40.0 FB%, 44.4 Pull%
2016 1H: 87 G, .348 AVG, .250 ISO, .224 WHAV, 38.5 FB%, 42.5 Pull%
2016 2H: 49 G, .346 AVG, .253 ISO, .183 WHAV, 35.7 FB%, 42.9 Pull%
Perhaps Murphy's .349 BABIP isn't sustainable extending into 2017 if he's hitting fly balls at the elevated rate that he is currently, but dock him even 30 points -- his career BABIP is .319 -- and we're still probably talking about a .310 hitter whose power metrics this season have been entirely legit. All aboard the bandwagon!
Rick Porcello, SP, Boston Red Sox: When it comes to projecting forward, discard his 20-3 record. Throw it out! Ignore it! It has absolutely zero to do with any sort of skills-based analysis of Porcello's 2017 prospects. Still, even running a Player Rater calculation of his 2016 contributions ignoring the wins, Porcello is the No. 13 starting pitcher (he's No. 6 if you include his wins). In addition, his FIP/xFIP (3.45/3.91) places him right within range of his 2014 numbers (3.67/3.68), which was his second-best year of eight in the bigs, painting the picture of a pitcher who gets far-too-criticized for what was an unusually poor 2015. Due to his low strikeout rate, Porcello is more subject to regression to the mean than other pitchers -- look at how consistent his year-over-year FIP/xFIP has been, for example -- but these days he's more capable of 33 starts and 200-plus innings than he was a few years back, with a 20-21 percent strikeout rate that should help keep his ERA in the midthrees. There's no reason he should rank outside the top-40 starters for 2017.
Kyle Hendricks, SP, Chicago Cubs: He's the No. 2 starting pitcher on the Player Rater, and he did it with five fewer wins and nine fewer strikeouts than Porcello, but like Porcello, Hendricks has also enjoyed a bit of good fortune in getting to his lofty perch. Hendricks is the major-league leader in ERA (2.03), by four-tenths of a run no less, yet his FIP of 3.38 is within two-hundredths of a point of his career number (3.36) and six-hundredths of a point of either his 2014 (3.32) or 2015 (3.36), when his ERAs were 2.46 and 3.95, respectively. That hints of regression to come in 2017, though one advantage Hendricks has is the extent of which his cutter/sinker/changeup combination minimizes hard contact (and therefore unfavorable results), and he's the major-league leader (among ERA qualifiers) in lowest well-hit average allowed. That hints at him being one of those pitchers capable of beating his peripherals -- read: the rare ability to maintain an ERA one run beneath his FIP -- and in support of that, his WHIP contribution this season maps out as the third-best of any pitcher per our Player Rater.
Wil Myers, 1B, San Diego Padres: He'll lose his outfield eligibility next season, and the shame of Myers' breakthrough season is that his disastrous .174/.252/.261 triple-slash rates and 31.1 percent strikeout rate in his past 25 contests might leave a sour taste for owners who might have been otherwise excited to draft him again in 2017. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, however, in that this is the first time during his big-league career that he has stayed healthy all year -- he's just 12 games shy of his pro high of 152 games (2013) -- and his 140 games played is also more than he has played for any individual team in any single year. Fatigue more than likely has contributed to his slide, but it also reminds us that any player who strikes out as often as Myers -- and I do anticipate that his 2017 strikeout rate will hover between 23-25 percent -- is more likely to end the season as a .250 hitter rather than a .290 one. Scouts always liked his bat, though, and with continued luck in the health department he could easily manage 30/15 numbers next year.
Failures
Dee Gordon, 2B, Miami Marlins: Go ahead and blame his second-half swoon on the PEDs that were clearly influencing his breakthrough 2014-15 campaigns -- heck, everyone else will do that. I think it's lazy analysis, though, considering we have no specific evidence as to the effects of PEDs on players' statistics, and I'm at a loss to explain why Gordon, during said swoon, hasn't changed much in any other regard than his being less aggressive on the base paths. Using opportunities -- as judged by Baseball-Reference.com -- Gordon has attempted a steal only 22 percent of the time this season, down from 30 percent in 2015 and 33 percent in his big-league career entering 2016. What's more, his 63 percent ground ball rate is practically identical to his 62 percent career mark, and his .288 BABIP on grounders compares to his .293 career mark (though he did manage .323 and .314 numbers in 2014-15). Did Gordon just get slower? That doesn't seem especially likely but, if true, I'd merely be apt to correct his batting average/on-base percentage to .260/.300 while also expecting that he'll run closer to his past-years' 30 percent rate. So, he might well still be 50 steals in the bank in 2017, with a good chance you won't have to pay close to the going rate for that threshold.
Jason Heyward, OF, Chicago Cubs: He might be fantasy baseball's greatest disappointment of 2016, considering he signed with a Cubs team that was destined to pad his counting stats (runs and RBIs) and plays in the first hitting-friendly ballpark Heyward has called home in his career. Yet, he appeared in a whopping 128 games while posting career-worst numbers in every triple-slash category. Wrist problems, which initially appeared in May, might've contributed to Heyward's struggles, and the winter's rest could help him in that regard. As he's now 27 years old with a declining walk rate and all-too-low fly ball rate, however, Heyward's baseline needs to be adjusted, to something closer to a .260-.270 batting average, 12-15 home runs and 12-15 stolen bases, and that's a middle-round pick at best.
Andrew McCutchen, OF, Pittsburgh Pirates: His disappointing year might gain more notice because he was a first-rounder during the preseason -- the No. 7 player selected overall in ESPN live drafts -- but McCutchen does rank 215th on the Player Rater, within the "ownable" range for ESPN standard leagues, which is a lot better than could be said for Heyward (538th). McCutchen's performance went backward in one key regard, as far as future projections are concerned: his well-hit average dipped to a career-worst .189, after he had been remarkably consistent in the category and ranked among the leaders annually in seasons past. He's hitting more soft-contact fly balls and infield pop-ups, and while the winter's rest might also help him in the health department, he'll also begin the 2017 season at age 30, a stage of his career where a return to prime-years glory isn't especially likely. He'll be a rebound candidate, albeit one whose candidacy has its limits.
Gerrit Cole, SP, Pittsburgh Pirates: Injuries largely contributed to his disappointing year, but his 19.4 percent strikeout and 7.60 K/9 ratios were also career lows -- and troubling from a future-projections standpoint. He threw his breaking pitches less often and got fewer swings and misses with them (36 percent of hitters' swings, down from 39 percent in 2015 and 40 percent in 2014). This is a big concern because success with this pitch represents his best path to the elite tier of fantasy starting pitchers. With Cole entering the winter on an injury down note, he'll now need either encouraging offseason reports or a standout spring training to make a compelling case for a top-15 ranking entering 2017.
Dallas Keuchel, SP, Houston Astros: He's another pitcher for whom injuries influenced his down numbers, but Keuchel also regressed significantly even when he was healthy, specifically his strikeout rate dropping from 23.7 to 20.5 percent and his ground ball rate dropping from 62 to 58 percent. Let's also not forget how fortunate he was on balls-and-strikes calls in 2015, leading the majors with 167 pitches thrown outside the strike zone called for strikes. This season, he has only 90. Strangely, most of Keuchel's problems have come with Jason Castro as his catcher, as he has a 5.35 ERA, 20.6 percent strikeout and 2.81 K/BB ratios working with Castro this season, after 2.26, 24.4 and 4.26 numbers in those categories in 2015. The dropoff is especially strange considering Castro's pitch-framing metrics are nearly spot-on comparing this year to last. Some of that can be chalked up to plain old bad luck, sure to regress (positively) to the mean in 2017, but Keuchel's true skills are probably much more his 2014 than 2015.
New ESPN position eligibility
The following players added new position eligibility within the past two weeks. As a reminder, position players need to appear 10 times at a new position to gain in-season eligibility, while pitchers need to make three starts to earn starting-pitching eligibility or five relief appearances to earn relief-pitching eligibility.
Gordon Beckham (SS), Austin Brice (RP), Joe Colon (RP), Kaleb Cowart (2B), Stephen Drew (3B, SS), Eduardo Escobar (3B), Nick Martinez (RP), Rafael Montero (SP), Gerardo Parra (1B), Hernan Perez (2B), Jurickson Profar (SS), T.J. Rivera (2B), Adam Rosales (SS), Rob Segedin (OF), Brent Suter (RP), Gabriel Ynoa (RP).
The following players are within two games of earning new eligibility, with their total games played noted at the listed position.
Cristhian Adames (2B, 9 games; 3B, 8 games), Hanser Alberto (3B, 8 games), Emilio Bonifacio (OF, 8 games), Daniel Castro (3B, 9 games), Ivan De Jesus (1B, 9 games), Nick Franklin (1B, 8 games), Phil Gosselin (3B, 9 games), Paul Janish (3B, 9 games), Howie Kendrick (1B, 9 games), Chad Pinder (2B, 8 games), Jorge Polanco (3B, 9 games), T.J. Rivera (3B, 8 games), Sean Rodriguez (3B, 9 games), Andrew Romine (2B, 8 games).
Going-forward rankings: Week 23
Listed below are my updated, going-forward rankings. These are based upon an ESPN standard league of 10 teams and Rotisserie 5x5 scoring. Click here to see these rankings sorted by position.