Oak's Corner: Targets Outside the Top 100

Welcome to the best draft week of the year! We are a mere week away from the season starting (no, I still don't count the series in Japan, and now that Jesus Luzardo and Matt Olson are hurt, I don't want to talk about the A's at all), and the news and updates are coming fast and furious. It's the time of the year when the ADP we've been watching gets wild as people jump up for their final chance to grab their guys. I'm participating in the NFBC Main Event in Vegas on Saturday and I anticipate the helium guys and starting pitchers are just going to climb higher.

Regarding that starting pitching, as I have studied more drafts and tweaked my rankings, I find it hard to get starters I like a lot between picks 75 and 150. In that range, there are a lot of questionable veterans to go with a slew of young starters with upside whom people are grabbing, but they are very much full priced. While I struggle to find starters to invest in among those rounds, there are a plethora of offensive players whom I'm targeting in that range. As I enter the final (and biggest!) weekend of drafts, I find that with my targets and fades, it makes a ton of sense to lock in two starters in the first four (maybe five) rounds as a strong base, and then to pound offensive for a few rounds and let other people speculate in the starter tier before I jump back in the pitcher pool in round eleven and beyond. As I dig into drafts, tiers and rankings, finding these spots where you don't like a group of players is very important, not only to dive deeper to see which of the tier you are okay with if you need to grab someone there, but to also focus on grabbing players before and after the tier you aren't very interested in.

Next week, I will get back to the regular format for the column, discussing the week of baseball, highlighting changes in the closer market and identifying some intriguing free agent pickups for the weekend. But, for this final preseason week, after hitting on some players I'm fading at their current ADP inside the top 100 last week, it's time to flip the script and discuss some players who are targets for me. Just like picking fades late in drafts is easy, picking targets that go early is also easy, so I limited the targets to players outside the top 100 and made sure to identify a couple of deeper targets past pick 200. Just to add to the fun, I also added a few guys at the end with some quick comments.

Brian Dozier (ADP 136.4) – Dozier is one of my favorite guys to grab at his ADP this year as he's come off the disappointing 2018 campaign. After back to back monster years for the Twins, Dozier crashed to a .215 batting average and also saw his homers drop to 21, disappointing everyone who drafted him. His strikeout and walk rates stayed very similar (and his swinging strike rate actually dropped to 8.2 percent), but his BABIP crashed to .240 from .300.

I assumed his other numbers would look ugly, but his hard hit rate actually climbed to 37.3 percent, a career high. He hit a few more ground balls and fly balls, and his line drive rate dropped to 16.8 percent, which could explain some of the BA drain but not to the extreme that he saw. Dozier was dealt to the Dodgers at the trade deadline, and the Dodgers depth (and his extreme lack of production while there) killed any chance for him to get on a roll, and he ended up sitting quite often. He's still only 31, and prior to 2018, this is a dude who went 42 HR/18 SB and 34 HR/16 SB the last two seasons. Without an obvious negative at which to point in his profile from 2018 compared to past seasons, I'm going to go with his success in the past, and I think the hate has gone away too with him at pick 136.

Corey Dickerson (ADP 197.6) – After a 2017 where Dickerson hit .282 with 27 homers, the Rays inexplicably designated him for assignment and traded him to the Pirates. With his league change came what appeared to be a complete change in his approach.  After striking out more than 23 percent of the time in his prior three seasons, Dickerson became a contact guy, posting a 15 percent strikeout rate. This approach of making contact early in at-bats also led a drop in his walk rate to below 4 percent. 

With the decreased strikeouts came a drop in power to 13 homers, but it wasn't due to any drop in hard contact, as his hard hit rate actually went up a touch to 34.1 percent. He also hit the same amount of fly balls, but his HR/FB crashed from 17.2 to 8.7 percent. With his hard contact in the same range, I expect that number to rise back around his career HR/FB of 14.6 percent. In addition, he posted a line drive rate of 27.2, which was sixth in all of baseball. I assumed the power drop was going to be due to his batted ball profile changing because of the change in his approach, but I think the homers are going to pop back this year as he reverts to his career average HR/FB. This creates a nice profile with the reduced strikeouts, especially for a player going near pick 200.

Enrique Hernandez (ADP 314) – As it usually is with the Dodgers and their depth, the playing time is clearly a significant issue with Hernandez. However, among that depth, you have an injury question mark in Corey Seager, a newly 29.5 percent strikeout rate Chris Taylor and a guy who hit .170 against lefties last year in Joc Pederson. The appeal for Hernandez both on the field and in fantasy terms is his positional flexibility, as he can play almost anywhere for the Dodgers, and he's eligible at second base, shortstop and outfield in fantasy leagues. 

However, aside from all the exterior factors, the most exciting thing about Hernandez is the step forward he took in the batter's box last season. While amassing a career high 462 plate appearances, he significantly dropped his strikeout rate from 23.4 to 16.9 percent (he also dropped his swinging strikeout rate under 9 percent), which helped he raise his batting average more than 40 points to .256. His hard hit rate did drop four percent to 35.4, but he also upped his fly ball rate to 43.9 percent, which helped drive his career high 21 homers. Hernandez isn't going to post massive numbers, but he will provide some pop with a decent BA as long as he can maintain the strikeout gains. Plus with his multi-positional eligibility, he can save you a roster spot, as he's one of few guys who can be used at corner or middle infield as well as the outfield.

Masahiro Tanaka (ADP 121.7) – While I noted above how I don't like this tier of starting pitchers, I am interested in grabbing Tanaka here. Home runs have been Tanaka's downfall over his MLB career, and 2018 was no different, as he allowed 25 homers in 156 innings. Right away, we think, well, he pitches in Yankee Stadium, but he actually allowed 16 of those 25 homers on the road last year. Even with the home run issues, Tanaka still posted a workable 3.75 ERA while striking out just over a batter per inning. He was hit harder than usual with a 37.3 percent hard hit rate, but with the three years prior in the low 30s, the hope is that he can revert back to that range. 

Even with the homer issues, Tanaka induces a lot of ground balls at 47.2 percent. He has really ramped up the swinging strike rate over the last two seasons with a 15.1 percent rate in 2017 and 14.1 percent in 2018, the two highest numbers of his career. While it can be very difficult to predict wins for any starter, I like my chances of getting plenty of run support with this Yankees offense. With the likely wins and definite strikeouts, I like the floor Tanaka offers at the price, and there's a chance of significant upside if he ever comes across a season where he can limit the long ball even a little bit.

Alex Colome (ADP 209.1) – As I detailed last week, closer gets messy, and it gets messy fast. If the draft flows where I find myself with only one closer through 12 or so rounds, Colome rapidly becomes my target for a second closer. Colome's season started out a bit rough with Tampa Bay, but after his trade to Seattle, he posted a 2.53 ERA in 46.1 innings with 49 strikeouts. The numbers get even better if you look just at the second half, as he sported a 1.57 ERA in his final 28.2 innings of the season. 

After a down 2017, Colome bounced back in a lot of key categories, boosting his strikeout rate to 9.5 K/9 and his swinging strike rate to a nice 13.6 percent. He also dropped his hard hit rate to 30.1 percent while allowing less than 30 percent fly balls. There's a lot to like when looking at Colome's profile, but the one issue is that manager Rick Renteria has yet to name a closer and has noted he could use Colome, Kelvin Herrera, Nate Jones and Jace Fry based on game situation. This uncertainty has kept Colome's price down below 200, but as the season plays out, I like the chances that Colome will emerge as the guy for the job in a majority of the White Sox save opportunities.

Finally, before I go prep some more for drafts this weekend, a few rapid fire comments on some other guys whose prices I like and who are past pick 100.

Edwin Encarnacion (ADP 155) – I feel like this ADP is too big a correction for his batting average dropping under .250, as he still had 32 homers and 107 RBI, his fourth consecutive 30/1000 season.

Brandon Belt (ADP 299.8) – Hard hit rate topped 40 percent for the first time, and this is the year he finally tops 20 homers despite the home park.

Brandon Nimmo (ADP 176.4) – Needs to cut back on the Ks (26.2 percent) and likely should with a swinging strike under 10 percent, but he had an OBP over .400 in his first full season with a 37.2 percent hard hit rate and should hit leadoff a lot for the Mets.

Ryan Braun (ADP 189.6) – He is going to miss games for sure but he still posted a 20 HR/11 SB line while striking out less than 20 percent of the time with a strong 43 percent hard hit rate.

Kenta Maeda (ADP 176.6) – Role is a problem, but the Dodgers rotation has issues with inning limits and injuries, and the innings will be good however they do come. He had a great boost to a 14.4 percent swinging strike rate in 2018.

Will Smith (182.9) – Trade risk is very real at any time, but you never know, it could be a team like Boston that would use him as a closer, and mostly, he is just really good.

Diego Castillo (ADP 426.1) – I'm not convinced that the Rays are going to use Jose Alvarado as a conventional closer and I anticipate a number of situations in which Alvarado faces a tough part of the order earlier in the game or with a number of lefties due up. Castillo throws really hard and was very good in 2018, and I believe he's going to fall into enough saves to be worth a shot at this price.

Enjoy your draft weekend!