The diminutive Jose Altuve emerged as one of baseball’s best players last season.
After a brutal rebuild that saw three straight 100 loss seasons, the Houston Astros rebuild culminated in a 2017 World Series title. Committing to a rebuild is a daunting task for any organization, but the Astros and Cubs have proven that the process can be completely worthwhile and rewarding. With a historically great offense and a surplus of interesting arms, the Astros are set to be a dominant force in the American League for years to come.
Top Player- 2017
The Astros best player is American League MVP, Jose Altuve, of course. The 27-year-old second basemen’s brilliant season earned him the number 2 spot on ESPN’s player rater. On his way to a ring and an MVP trophy, Altuve slashed .346/.410/.547, along with 24 homers and 32 stolen bases. He’s a stud, and we all know it. Altuve has been going number 2 overall in drafts this offseason, and there are even rumblings of some that are considering taking him above the illustrious Mike Trout. While I can’t condone that, there’s no doubt that I would take him 2nd.
Since there’s not much to say about the AL MVP other than ‘He’s great,’ I want to take this opportunity to say a word about my observations of second basemen in the mock drafts I’ve participated in this offseason. I’ve participated in eleven slow mock drafts at couchmanagers.com so far, and in six of those, I took Ozzie Albies to be my 2B. I believe that there is a steep decline in the production level of 2B this year. Altuve is in a tier all his own at the very top, followed by Jose Ramirez, Dee Gordon, and Brian Dozier. After that, you start to see a lot of question marks; will Daniel Murphy be healthy? How much will Jonathan Schoop and Whit Merrifield regress? Can Robinson Cano and Rougned Odor rebound this year? With so much uncertainty, I’ve decided to punt 2B in the drafts that I haven’t been able to take one of the top four at a good value. I see late options like Ozzie Albies, Cesar Hernandez, and Starlin Castro as a better value. They may not give you elite production, but taking them late will allow you to invest earlier picks on better, safer players at other positions.
Target
Not many of Houston’s players will come at a discount in 2018 due to the recency bias of the team winning the championship, but there is one player whom I expect to have on a few of my teams this year. Evan Gattis served as the Astros backup catcher and designated hitter last year, sharing time with Brian McCann and Carlos Beltran. Now, with Beltran out of the picture and Max Stassi to be McCann’s backup, Gattis is in position to be the Astros primary DH. Getting him out from behind the plate should help him stay healthy and focus on his hitting.
The 31-year-old former custodian has hit for power in the big league’s, with 2017 being the first time that his ISO (.193) dipped below .200. As one of two catcher-eligible players to offer legitimate 30 homer upside, Gary Sanchez being the other, Gattis represents a rare opportunity to get excess value from the otherwise paltry catcher position. Fantrax has Gattis’s ADP sitting at 176 (6th catcher off the board), 150 picks after the aforementioned Gary Sanchez. If you are like me, you’re probably unwilling to pay for Sanchez and Posey. I’ll be targeting Gattis in the mid-late rounds, and I recommend you do too.
Stay away
In one of my earlier posts, I dug into whether pitchers’ Postseason workload affected their performance in the following season. I found that there was a notable drop in production from the previous season to the next amongst the playoffs’ innings eaters. The leader in innings pitched in the 2017 Postseason was none other than Justin Verlander. I expect a notable decline in Verlander’s production in 2018, not only due to his workload in the playoffs but simply age and natural decline as well.
Verlander will be 35 in February and has definitely already seen his ups and downs over the past few years. Some believed he was done after his poor 2014 performance, but he proved his critics dead wrong in 2016 when he should have won the Cy Young. 2017 saw a tale of two halves for Verlander, putting up a 4.73 ERA in the first half and 1.95 in the second. I tend to believe that the 2018 Verlander will more closely resemble the first half of 2017 rather than the second half. As the 11th starting pitcher off the boards (ADP of 44), I would prefer to look elsewhere.
Deep Sleeper
A trend that seems to be growing in baseball is the multi-inning reliever. Andrew Miller was the first to represent this role over the past few years, often being used in the most stressful situations or for multiple innings at a time. I believe that this trend will only be more widely used by major league teams after the success of both Houston and the Los Angeles Dodgers, using guys like Lance McCullers, Kenta Maeda, and Charlie Morton in dominant multi-inning relief stints during the playoffs. The Astros have two pitchers that can be extremely effective multi-inning relievers in 2018, the first of which is Chris Devenski.
Devenski has already seen success at the major league level out of the pen, with two straight seasons of a sub-3 ERA, sub 1 WHIP, and 100+ strikeouts. The 27-year-old righty dominated in 62 outings in 2017, striking out 31.7% of batters faced. The key to Devenski’s success is his changeup. The pitch has a ridiculous 24% whiff rate over the past two seasons. Pair that with a rising fastball and a sweeping slider and you can see why Devenski has been one of the most successful relievers of the past two years.
Impact Prospects
As a young team full of stud players, there aren’t very many openings in Houston. However, with the retirement of Carlos Beltran and the departure of Cameron Maybin, one such opening may be in left field, where Derek Fisher should see an opportunity. Fisher struggled in his limited time at the big league level in 2017, batting only .207 and striking out 32.5% of the time. His work at AAA Fresno last season was much more impressive, slashing .318/.384/.583 with 21 home runs and 16 stolen bases in only 84 games. It seems reasonable to expect that Fisher will produce somewhere between these two poles, given an opportunity for regular at-bats.
Fisher is no speedster, but he should be active enough on the basepaths to reach double-digit steals over the next few years. His quick bat and good understanding of the strike zone should keep his batting average well above his 2017 major league mark – I expect to see him batting closer to .265 – while also allowing him to hit for decent power. If Fisher is given 400 plate appearances in 2017, it shouldn’t be unreasonable for him to hit 10-15 home runs. Even hitting near the bottom of the Houston lineup, Fisher’s counting stats should be phenomenal, making him a viable 4th or 5th outfielder in mixed leagues this year.
