MLB Barometer: February Risers & Fallers

And we're back! Real live baseball is being played in Florida and Arizona. Angel Hernandez is  making bad calls. Phillies fans are booing their own team. We have a regular-season schedule that looks like an actual baseball schedule. Pitchers are set to hit again. All is right with the world, at least in this tiny corner of it. Apart from the seven-inning doubleheaders and the runners teleporting to second base in extra innings (which I found made for very exciting games between two neutral teams but made my team's extra-innings wins feel cheap and unearned), you almost can't tell that anything unusual has happened in the last year.

You might be able to tell when looking at pre-draft rankings, however, as rankers across the industry wrestle with how to account for a season in which every single player was limited to a small sample. Take shortstop, for instance. Corey Seager vaulted himself into an entirely new tier as a true power hitter and backed it up with strong Statcast numbers. Meanwhile, Gleyber Torres and Javier Baez each showed far less than what we know they're capable of, to a rather dramatic extent in Baez's case.

Did those players conclusively establish new performance levels? Should we mostly ignore their 60-game samples in favor of what they've shown previously in 162-game seasons? Obviously, the answer lies somewhere in between, but the extent to which we should value last season's performance is a more difficult question to answer than ever and will vary widely between different rankers and drafters.

Also complicating this year's rankings is the fact that we seem to be reaching a tipping point in the number of true closers around the league. It's been clear we're heading in that direction for a while, as the only real justification for deploying your best reliever strictly in the ninth inning rather than in the game's highest-leverage situation is that he's more comfortable in that role. 

That's certainly not a non-factor (who doesn't perform better at their job when they're clear what their duties are?), but as players come up through the system trained to be used in such a role and that discomfort goes away, the closer role may one day all but disappear. When even pitchers with elite ratios like Edwin Diaz, James Karinchak and Nick Anderson don't have locked-in closer jobs, expect a ton of volatility in reliever rankings based on whatever hints the managers give us throughout spring training.

This week's column will look at those players whose NFBC average draft positions have changed the most in February. I'll compare players' ADP in drafts that ended prior to the start of the month to their ADP from Feb. 1 through Saturday. We'll look at the players who have moved the most within the first five rounds, the first 15 and the entire draft, and I'll break down the most interesting movers in each tier. Those cutoffs will be based on their present ADP.

First Five Rounds

RISERS

Eugenio Suarez, 3B, Reds: It's strange for me to open this section by telling you I have no idea why Suarez was the biggest riser in this group, but here it is: I have no real idea why drafters liked Suarez in February by more than half a round more than they did through the end of January. The best I can come up with is that the rumors of a move away from the Reds' hitter-friendly home park died down. In any case, he earns an inclusion here because I believe his new spot to be far more accurate. It may even be too low. Sure, his batting average collapsed to .202 last season, but a 98-point drop in BABIP would seem to deserve much of the blame there. He didn't lose much power, as his 15 homers translate to 40.5 over a full season. The last two years, his 64 bombs rank second only to Pete Alonso. You're simply not going to find this kind of pop any later in the draft, so he should easily justify his new price with even a modest bounce-back in his batting average.

Liam Hendriks, RP, White Sox: Hendriks saw a small bump after signing with the White Sox, a move which confirmed he'd be a true closer this season. There was never much risk that he'd land somewhere where he'd be a team's second-best reliever, so perhaps he always should have sat at his current ADP. Among relievers who have thrown at least 70 innings the last two seasons, his 1.66 ERA and 1.66 FIP both rank first. His 0.87 WHIP ranks third, while his 38.4 percent strikeout rate ranks fourth. We're seeing this year that even being a truly elite reliever doesn't guarantee a pitcher save chances, however, with more and more teams turning toward a leverage-based approach. That shouldn't be a problem with the old-school Tony La Russa managing the White Sox. Compare Hendriks to Josh Hader, who's gone right next to him in recent drafts. You could make a case that Hader's skills are slightly more impressive (though that's certainly up for debate), but you can't justifiably claim that Craig Counsell is more likely to stick with a traditional closer all year than La Russa is.

FALLERS

Nolan Arenado, 3B, Cardinals: The cutoff used for this article almost exactly aligns with Arenado's trade from Colorado to St. Louis, which was announced on Jan. 29. Even without the trade, Arenado had dropped a fair amount from the late first-round pick he had been in recent seasons, a very reasonable response to a poor 2020 campaign that saw him hit just .253/.303/.434. Nagging shoulder issues undoubtedly deserved a fair portion of the blame, but he's also heading into his age-30 season, so even with full health and without a trade, expecting him to be the same guy who hit .300 with an average of 39.8 homers per season from 2015 to 2019 may be unwise. Throw in the massive change in park factors and it's fair to treat Arenado as a second-tier option at third base. He's a very good hitter but perhaps not quite as dominant as many would expect. Even in his dominant five-year run, his 128 wRC+ tied for a mere 32nd among qualified hitters, below the likes of Tommy Pham, Brandon Nimmo and Matt Carpenter.

Cavan Biggio, 2B/3B/OF, Blue Jays: Despite the presence of the pennant-winning Rays and the always-dangerous Yankees, the Blue Jays clearly are trying to win, as their additions of George Springer, Marcus Semien and Kirby Yates suggest. While the lineup additions will help Biggio when he's in the lineup, they could also cost him a few at-bats, as the Jays now seem to have at least one too many starting-caliber hitters. He's unlikely to lose too many starts, but that seems to be the explanation for his small drop. It's also possible that drafters simply dug deeper into his statline. He's clearly a talented player who can do a bit of everything, including run, but his bat may be shakier than it looks. His 124 wRC+ last season was driven heavily by his 15.5 percent walk rate, which doesn't help much outside of on-base percentage leagues. His .250 average and .432 slugging percentage already weren't very impressive, but they came in far higher than his .215 xBA and .347 xSLG. There are legitimate questions about his pop, which could be exacerbated by the deadened ball, so a slight drop in his stock makes sense.

Rounds 6-15

RISERS

Kirby Yates, RP, Blue Jays: Yates saw a massive jump when it was confirmed that he landed somewhere where he should have a clear path to the closer job. Yes, there's plenty of risk with a pitcher heading into his age-34 season coming off a year that was almost completely lost to elbow issues, but it's not hard to see why the excitement is there. In 2018 and 2019, it wasn't hard to make the argument that Yates was the best reliever in the league. Among qualified relievers over that stretch, his 1.67 ERA was more than half a run better than anyone, and he backed that up with a league-low 1.93 FIP. His 38.7 percent strikeout rate trailed only Josh Hader, Edwin Diaz and Aroldis Chapman, while his 6.1 percent walk rate was better than anyone else who finished in the top 12 in strikeout rate. If Yates fully recovers, he'll be right in the mix as the top closer in the league. His ADP still adequately accounts for his risk, but it could continue to rise given the shallow pool of true closers this season.

Corey Kluber, SP, Yankees: Kluber's mid-January deal with the Yankees appears to have considerably improved drafters' opinions of him. His specific landing spot does leave him in one of the best situations to pick up wins, though he's also in a fairly difficult home park. His ADP likely rose primarily because he was clearly impressed the team enough for it to give him an $11 million deal. It's only for one year, which acknowledges the risk he comes with, but it's enough money to suggest that the Yankees have at least a moderate amount of faith in him. Few pitchers have a wider range of possible outcomes than Kluber. He's heading into his age-35 season on the back of a pair of years in which injuries limited him to a combined eight starts, but that followed a five-year run in which he won two Cy Youngs and finished fourth among qualified starters in both ERA (2.85) and WHIP (1.02). His ceiling isn't as that guy — it's as the 35-year-old version of someone who was that guy when he was 32 — but this amount of upside isn't typically available anywhere near this late, so it makes sense that his price has risen now that he's confirmed as at least healthy enough to earn an eight-figure contract. 

FALLERS

Ha-seong Kim and Jake Cronenworth, Padres: These two players' drops are linked. Neither has much (if any) MLB track record, but both provide plenty of reasons to get excited. At 25, Kim has far more potential left than most players who come from Asia, and he's coming off a year in which he hit .306 with 30 homers and 23 steals in the KBO. Even after tuning those numbers down a fair amount to adjust for the gap between the two leagues, it's clear he should contribute across the board at the highest level. Cronenworth didn't debut until his age-26 season last year but looked very much like he belonged, hitting .285/.354/.477. His .324 xBA and .541 xSLG suggest he deserved even better.

The problem with both is that they're on the same team. Kim was a shortstop and third baseman in Korea, but he's not starting ahead of Fernando Tatis Jr. or Manny Machado at either of those spots. He's expected to fight for playing time at second base and left field. Cronenworth appeared at all four infield spots but is primarily a second baseman, though he's also expected to spend some time in left this season. Left field isn't exactly open, however, as Tommy Pham should spend most of his time there. Jurickson Profar will earn starts at both positions as well. Both Kim and Cronenworth look like they could deserve true starting roles on most teams, but neither can expect more than four starts or so per week unless injuries open more playing time.

After Round 15

RISERS

Adam Ottavino, RP, Red Sox: This group features four relievers who jumped more than 200 spots after landing in locations where it looks like they might close. Ottavino is the most interesting to me out of that quartet, as Soria and Bass haven't shown traditional closer ratios lately and McGee pitches for a Gabe Kapler team. Yes, Ottavino had a 5.89 ERA last season, but a full half of the runs he allowed on the year came in one single outing, exemplifying just how tiny the already-small reliever samples became in the shortened season. He joins a bullpen in which he's a virtual clone for incumbent closer Matt Barnes. Both pitchers' repertoires feature a breaking ball that they throw more than 40 percent of the time (a slider in Ottavino's case and a curve in Barnes', though Barnes' breaker is a few ticks harder). Both produce big strikeout numbers but come with control problems. Ottavino owns a 33.2 percent strikeout rate and a 12.6 percent walk rate the last three seasons, while Barnes has a 36.3 percent strikeout rate and 12.7 percent walk rate in the same stretch. The small gap in strikeouts and Barnes' status as the incumbent probably make him the favorite, but he can't have much more than a 55 or 60 percent chance to win the job given the similarities between the pair, making Ottavino a very interesting late-round option.

FALLERS

Tanner Rainey, RP, Nationals: The fallers here all make plenty of sense. Tanaka left for Japan. Lugo got hurt. Hudson, Rainey and Romano saw their teams sign one of the top available closers. Rainey earns the write-up here as perhaps the most interesting member of that group (though you could certainly make a case for Romano given that Kirby Yates is coming off elbow troubles). New signing Brad Hand sure looks like the Nationals' closer, though manager Dave Martinez said somewhat oddly Friday that, "In a perfect world, he'll be our closer," which does seem like less than a full endorsement. It's possible that any world in which Hand is healthy is a "perfect world" in Martinez's eyes, but the ambiguity still seems notable. If the Nationals wind up using a committee approach at any point, either Hudson or Rainey could become Hand's top right-handed counterpart. Hudson might have the experience, but he's coming off a year in which he posted a seemingly deserved 6.10 ERA. Rainey was a classic fireballer who had no idea where his pitches were going prior to last season, entering the year with a 19.3 percent walk rate. He trimmed that number to a perfectly acceptable 9.3 percent last year and paired it with a 42.7 percent strikeout rate. That number ranked fourth among qualified relievers, giving Rainey a bit of value even without saves.