A look at over/undervalued players at each position.

After a short absence, I’m back in action. Unfortunately I got sick like the rest of the country. Anyway, next up are OFers. Since there are a lot, I’ve decided to start with just looking at the overvalued.

Overvalued

Curtis Granderson (27th overall, 9th amongst OF)- Improved his contact rate from 71% in ‘06 to 77% in ‘07, which helped explain some of his batting average spike. However, with a .362 BABIP last year, he’s going to have a very difficult time hitting over .300 again. With power, speed, and a line drive rate over 20%, he is as good a bet as anyone to maintain that high a BABIP, but I wouldn’t bet on it, and certainly not at 27th overall. Next, his steals jumped from 8 to 26 (with only 1 CS!!), but can he really be expected to run as much with the addition of Cabrera? Even if Miguel hadn’t been acquired, couldn’t Granderson decide he’d rather not steal like just the previous year? I don’t see much potential for growth from last season, and the average is almost certain to come down, so visions of 20-20-20-20-20-20 or whatever he did are causing him to be overvalued.

Magglio Ordonez (31, 11)- Yup, the obvious one. I bet some people might have thought he’s such an obvious “bust” candidate that he’ll end up being undervalued. But judging by his ADP and OF rank, I don’t believe that’s the case. A .320 BABIP brings the average back down to the .300-.310 range, and with no speed, the power isn’t good enough to justify his draft spot. Oh, and you can’t expect 139 RBIs again!

Manny Ramirez (36, 12)- I might regret this one, but I don’t care that he’s “become a maniacal workout warrior”, nor that he’s playing in the last year of the guaranteed portion of his contract. I like to ignore noise, speculation and myths when forecasting performance. The fact is Manny’s 35, hasn’t reached 500 ABs the last 2 seasons, and his power dropped dramatically last year. Was it a sign of age and the beginning of a real decline, or was it injuries he will bounce back from? With so many OFers offering even just 5 SBs, I’m just not willing to spend a 36th overall selection to find out what 2007 was really about.

Adam Dunn (41, 13)- Not much needs to be said about him, other than he’ll be hitting 5th again it appears, since Major League managers still apparently can’t figure out that the most basic of goals in baseball is to get on base and not make outs. Anyway, sure you’ll get your 40 HRs, 100 RBIs and RUNs with a handful of steals from Dunn, but as we know that comes with a poor and sometimes terrible average. Nothing here suggests he won’t keep doing what he’s doing, but several OFers being drafted after him are simply worth more.

Jacoby Ellsbury (128, 34)- No surprise here that the hype has gotten out of control. No knock on his performance and I won’t even discuss anything about his skills. But Coco Crisp still remains on the Sox and he isn’t going to become a full-time bench player. So until/unless Crisp is traded, it’s just too risky to take him at 128.

I was going to include Vernon Wells on the list, being selected 76th overall and 22nd amongst OFers, but it would have been strictly because of the risk of his return from shoulder surgery. Since I’m not a doctor, it’s too difficult to determine how likely a bounce back is and whether his ADP correctly discounts it. I’ll look at the undervalued OFers next.

Questions, comments, criticisms, praise, expert league invitations? Email me at FBGeneralsMike@gmail.com.