Fantasy Baseball 2010: The "X" Factor, Part One

In fantasy baseball, the name of the game is projection. Winning fantasy owners are those best able to anticipate who will break out, who will sustain past success, and who will see their production fall off. What a player did last, as rotisserie players well know, is not necessarily (or even likely) what he will do next.

It is not enough, however, to simply pore over surface-level numbers looking for players who one believes have room to improve. There are myriad statistical and analytical tools available to the contemporary fantasy player, designed to make clear the amount of luck and circumstance that affected a player's results in their previous performances. Those factors are often fickle, but if an owner can identify those players who are due for a course correction, they can take the first step toward accurately forecasting the performances of key impact players in the fantasy world.

To that end, Chris Dutton and Peter Bendix of the Hardball Times came up with a wonderful new weapon. They call it xBABIP, and it expresses the batting average a player should have been expected to achieve on balls hit into the field of play, given their batted-ball tendencies, speed and environmental influences. 

BABIP itself, as statistically-inclined baseball nerds know, fluctuates wildly from year to year and player to player. It is important, therefore, to know when and by how much that figure has been distorted by good (or bad) luck.

With these premises set, we can now take a look at the players who provide the best opportunity to exploit xBABIP in the pursuit of fantasy success in 2010. The following five players had BABIP figures significantly lower than their xBABIP, and therefore should see some improvement in that area next season. That could make them steals in later rounds of the draft.

1. Carlos Quentin: No player got less lucky than Quentin last season when it came to balls in play. The White Sox outfielder managed to hit 21 home runs and posted an above-average .779 OPS in 99 games, but hit only .236 thanks to a miserable .223 BABIP. That figure fell 72 points shy of his expected number.

Moreover, Quentin has subjective factors on his side: he had plantar fasciitis, a painful foot injury that cost him two months of the season and slowed him down slightly even thereafter. Fully recovered, he will regain some speed in 2010. Quentin also has better-than-usual plate discipline, which generally indicates some measure of bat control. That skill has correlated demonstrably with high BABIP in the past. Look for his average to find its way back into the .270-.275 range in 2010, which couples with his power potential to make him a viable third outfielder in mixed leagues.

2. Jay Bruce: Bruce doesn't share Quentin's ability to draw walks without striking out excessively. He does, however, have sky-high power potential, as evidenced by his 43 career home runs in just 209 games. His .223 average last season was driven by a .222 BABIP that is too low to be even conceivably duplicated.

Bruce could hit for an even higher average than Quentin, in the .280 neighborhood. He also has a chance to hit 35 home runs, and if he were to do both, he could be a solid second or an excellent third outfield option.

3. Russell Martin: Martin is a top-10 catcher, even given his miserable fantasy season last year. If his BABIP comes back into a better balance with expectations, however, he could be really dangerous again. His career batting average, prior to a rough .250 last season, stood at .285. He did manage a .285 BABIP in 2009, but that was well below the .324 xBABIP projection.

Martin has both speed (10 or more stolen bases in every season of his career) and plate discipline (0.88 walk-to-strikeout ratio), both of which work in his favor. So, too, does the fact that his line drive rate reached a career high in 2009. Martin could well rebound to .280 or above, and that would allow him to reach base enough to steal 15 or 20 bases again at the catcher spot.

4. Jimmy Rollins: Rollins's career, which hit high points in both 2007 (National League MVP award) and 2008 (a World Series championship), went the other way in 2009. Though Philadelphia returned to the World Series, Rollins hit just .250/.296/.423. That .719 OPS was nearly 100 points lower than his .811 cumulative mark for the previous five seasons. He hit just .251 on balls in play, an alarmingly low rate for a player whose career BABIP is a solid .295.

Obviously, Rollins is among the fantasy elite at shortstop, with or without good fortune on balls in play. He should have it in 2010, however, and that could make him one of the top 50 overall fantasy players of the year.

5. Geovany Soto: The 2008 National League Rookie of the Year gave us a clean and definitive example of the sophomore jinx in 2009. He hit just .218/.321/.381, and had a dismal .251 BABIP despite a .308 xBABIP, the sixth-highest differential in the league. Accounting for his decreased playing time (mostly but not entirely due to injury), Soto walked more often and struck out less than he did in 2008.

With a solid bounce-back in BABIP, Soto could join Martin among the league's top five catching options for all fantasy formats next season, and both would be steals. 

Watch for part two of this piece, in which I will look at some guys whose BABIP luck might run out in 2010.