2011 Fantasy Projections, No. 15: Which Prince Fielder Will We Get This Season?

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Our 2011 fantasy baseball projections will be released one-by-one until the top 100 players have been revealed. These rankings consider past achievements, current performance and expected future results based on standard 5×5 H2H settings.

Prince Fielder is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.

Since 2006, his first full season in the majors, Fielder has produced HR totals of 28, 50, 34, 46 and 32. He’s also posted RBI totals ranging from 81 (2006) to 141 (2009), while batting as low as .261 (2010) and as high as .299 (2009). Notwithstanding, he’s never missed more than five games in any of his first five seasons.

Despite these varying totals, Fielder has posted incredibly consistent peripherals in recent seasons:

Strikeout Rate

2008: 22.8%
2009: 23.4%
2010: 23.9%
Career: 22.8%

Contact Rate

2008: 75.7%
2009: 76.9%
2010: 76.4%
Career: 76.2%

Further, Fielder has increased his walk rates progressively over the last three seasons:

2008: 12.1%
2009: 15.3%
2010: 16.0%

In preparation for last season’s big board, we uncovered some interesting data at Hit Tracker Online that suggested a regression in Fielder’s home run total from 2009 to 2010. We included that data in Fielder’s 2010 projection, which we know now to have been an accurate prediction.

This year, the data suggests a bounce-back season as Fielder enters his age 27 season. He’s the sixth-best first baseman, worthy of being drafted No. 15 overall.