FanPost

Which Rays to Draft in Fantasy and Which Rays to Avoid

With this week’s opening of the ESPN fantasy baseball draft lobby, it’s officially fantasy baseball season. It’s that time of the year when every 40-minute lull in your day can be filled with a quick mock draft, a mock draft which devolves into you and nine auto-drafters by the 20th round and leaves you with the greatest fantasy baseball roster ever created. (If only it were that easy come actual draft time.)


One great thing about these mock drafts is that there is no real-world implications if you decide to go off the deep end and draft 15 Tampa Bay Rays on your roster. Colby Rasmus in the 18th round? Sure, why not? A rotation of Chris Archer, Jake Odorizzi, and Blake Snell? Sounds like a winner to me.


It’s hard to put aside one’s fan loyalties when it comes to fantasy baseball, but it is obviously of the utmost importance that you don’t end up letting your fanboy/fangirl ideology get the best of you. You don’t want to end up walking away with the 2012 version of Desmond Jennings as your top outfielder.


So which Rays should you be happy to end your draft having on your roster, and which Rays should you avoid the temptation to draft? Let’s go player-by-player:


Chris Archer (ESPN Head-to-Head Rank: 54)


Archer is coming off a season in which he lost 19 games and had an ERA of 4.00. Thanks to fantasy baseball - as an endeavor - being a lot smarter than it used to be, Archer didn’t drop that far in the starting pitcher ranks this year, however. Despite the poor win-loss record (9-19), Archer still made 33 starts and struck out 233 batters - those are extremely helpful numbers in fantasy. Moving from what Archer did to what he is likely to do, there are also signs that Archer got rather unlucky in 2016. Besides losing seven games in which he reached the quality start threshold (6 or more IP, 3 or fewer ER), Archer also had a bit of bad luck on home runs. This is evidenced by not only his xFIP (3.41), but also the jump in his HR/FB rate. For his career (including 2016), Archer has allowed 11.3 percent of fly balls to leave the yard; in 2016, he allowed 16.2 percent. Now part of that could certainly be missing his spot within the strike zone with a greater regularity, but given that Archer never had a HR/FB rate above 11.7 in any other season, it’s fair to assume there will be some regression to the mean in Archer’s 1.34 home runs per nine innings he gave up in 2016.


Steamer projects Archer’s ERA to come back to a strong 3.34, while projecting the Rays ace to maintain his elite level of strikeouts (9.54 per nine). Given how much healthier Archer has been than the two starting pitchers going right after him (Carlos Carrasco and Yu Darvish), you’re well within your rights to grab Archer.


Evan Longoria (Rank: 97)


Longoria presents an interesting case. After three straight seasons seeing his home run total decline (2013-2015), Longo bounced back with a vintage power season, leaving the yard 36 times - good for a career high. His batting average was its highest since 2012 and his RBI total was his highest since 2011. Those sound like good things!


There is definitely some reason to be a bit skeptical on Longoria, though.


Most troubling is his declining walk rate. Longoria has seen a steady decline here, as his walk rate has dropped in each season since 2011. It has gone from 13.9 percent in 2011 to a measly 6.1 percent in 2016. That 6.1 percent walk rate puts him in the Yasmany Tomas and Adam Jones tier of impatient hitters. Now part of this has been intentional, as Longo has tried to become more aggressive at the plate, and it’s hard to argue with the results in his bounceback 2016 campaign. But if Longoria loses any of that power, it’s going to hurt a lot more if he isn’t drawing walks. It’s not as if Longoria’s batting eye has stayed steady either, as his swing rate on pitches outside of the strike zone has gone up five of the past six seasons, moving him from the top third of plate discipline guys in 2011 to the bottom third in 2016. I know we all love Longoria, but I’d rather have a third baseman on the rise (Jose Ramirez, Miguel Sano) a round or two later than Longo.


Brad Miller (Rank: 134)


After hitting 29 home runs over the course of three seasons in Seattle, Miller bust out with 30 home runs in his first season with Tampa Bay. Granted the difference in games played (343 with Seattle to 152 with Tampa Bay) isn’t quite as vast as the previous sentence suggests, but the jump was still quite a surprise.


Of course, that thing that typically happens when a player makes a step forward as big as Miller did in 2016 is happening. Most folks think Miller is going to come back to earth, with a big drop in his home run totals. I’m not so sure about that. Sure, Miller saw his HR/FB rate nearly double from 10.3 percent in 2015 to 20.4 percent in 2016, but there were some factors that support this rise. For one, Miller got a year older and more experienced. The trajectory of his power ratios was trending upward and while doubling his power might have been a slight overstep, the overall trajectory was to be expected. There’s also the fact that Miller hit more fly balls (36.8 percent fly ball rate in 2016 compared to 34.8 percent career) and hit them harder (35.1 percent hard hit ball rate in 2016 compared to 31.4 percent career) in 2017. Miller also had an average true distance of 405.8 feet on his home runs (per ESPN Home Run Tracker), which was closer to the top half of the league than the bottom half. He did have 11 "just enough home runs," but that wasn’t enough to land in the top ten in that category, league-wide.


Miller likely won’t hit 30 home runs again, but he could definitely leave the yard 25 times, and given his position, that could be helpful. Granted, power is in more of an abundance than ever before, but I’d definitely rather have Miller than, say, Elvis Andrus, who is going around the same time as Miller. On the flip side, I’d probably rather have Aledmys Diaz than Miller, and I would definitely rather have Addison Russell. Whether you take Miller or not is more of an indictment of how crazy a Rays fan you are than anything else.


Jake Odorizzi (Rank: 160)


Let’s speed things up a bit with this one. Odorizzi has seen his strikeout rate drop in each of his three full seasons in the big leagues. With strikeout rates going very much the other direction league-wide, his 8ish strikeouts per nine are going to be costly if he can’t be an elite run preventer or game winner. With an average of 10 wins over the past three seasons and a FIP of 4.31 in 2016, I’d suggest looking elsewhere for Rays to roster.


Alex Colome (Rank: 174)


Specifically, I’d be looking here. Colome is going about a round after Odorizzi, but should provide a lot more value than Odorizzi everywhere except for providing a great name for team puns ("Eggs Odorizzi" is still one of my proudest fantasy team names). Colome took the Rays closing role and ran with it last year, finishing the season with 37 saves and sporting an ERA below 2.00 (1.91 to be exact). Colome struck out 71 batters in 56.2 innings, coming in as the ninth-rated relief pitcher in 2016, per the ESPN Player Rater. Despite the strong season, Colome is being drafted as the 18th relief pitcher off the board in 2017. He’s being drafted after Dellin Betances, a pitcher who likely won’t get you more than five saves. There are no red flags with Colome, so this must simply be a matter of drafters saying "show me more than one season," which has some validity given the volatile nature of the closer position. That being said, I’d go two or three rounds early on Colome even ignoring the fact that he’s a Ray.


Kevin Kiermaier (Rank: 244)


If your league gives points for beautiful eyes and amazing catches, take Kiermaier with the first overall pick. If not, feel free to snag him with one of your final picks anyways. Kiermaier set career highs in home runs (12) and steals (21) in 2016 despite playing just 105 games, and he has some nice upside if he can stay healthy in 2017. Of course that is a big if with Kiermaier, as he has a bit of history with the disabled list. Even so, The Outlaw will produce when he’s on your team, and isn’t going to cost you much. Every Rays fan should have Kiermaier on his/her roster for at least a month or so during the season.


Blake Snell (Rank: 265)


Let’s be honest, it doesn’t matter what I say one bit, every Rays fan is taking Snell on his/her team. The upside is just too darn tempting.


Steven Souza (Rank: 277)


Avoid Souza. He’s the ultimate platoon player who will hit two home runs the one day you bench him and proceed to go 0-for-16 with 14 strikeouts the week you decide to leave him in no matter what. He’s in the top five most frustrating players to own in fantasy and having him on the Rays only makes it five times more tempting to fall into his trap again in 2017.


Wilson Ramos (Rank: 281)


The catcher position in fantasy baseball is an absolute wasteland. Rays fans know this as well as anyone, as they haven’t even been able to think about drafting one of their own for the catcher position since maybe John Jaso in 2012. This could be the year, though. Ramos is coming off a career-best season that comes custom-wrapped with a perfect explanation for the boost in production (LASIK eye surgery). Ramos will start the season rehabbing the knee that he injured in the final week of the 2016 regular season, but his injury is only helping to throw drafters off his scent. The move I’m making in almost every draft is to take Ramos, along with a lottery ticket at the catcher position (say, Travis d’Arnaud or Devin Mesoraco). That allows me to give a month or so to see if the lottery ticket is a winner before moving Ramos into the full-time role as my catcher. If the ticket hits, now I can trade one of my two quality backstops, and if not, it’s simply a late-round hitter that I cut and find some depth on the waiver wire. Now all of this plan relies on a full recovery from Ramos, but what fun would fantasy baseball be without a little risk.

There you have it. I think you can reasonably (well, semi-reasonably) get away with having six Rays on your fantasy team this year. Best of luck to all of you in your leagues.

This post was written by a member of the DRaysBay community and does not necessarily express the views or opinions of DRaysBay staff.