MLB Barometer: Short-Season Factors to Consider

To be perfectly honest, it wasn't easy finding things to say in this column this week. Thinking about major league baseball has become a rather depressing exercise lately. Things seemed to be looking up over the weekend, as Rob Manfred had said he was 100 percent sure that the season would take place and the players elected to call off the increasingly fruitless negotiations and simply ask the owners when and where to report. 

Suddenly, on Monday, Manfred changed his tune, stating that he's no longer certain that games will be played.

It's likely that this is nothing but a cynical negotiating tactic, designed to delay until the owners can pretend that they have no choice but to set the shortest schedule possible, but whatever it is, it may have finally broken me. I've gone from righteous anger to just plain sadness at the fact that our beloved game is allowed to be run by a group of people who care so little about the sport and so much about money. Baseball fans and baseball players deserve owners who like baseball.

I'll spare you yet another polemic, though there's really not much else going on in the baseball world, at least on this side of the ocean. A Barometer that lists all 30 ownership groups as fallers would be cathartic but not particularly productive. In the absence of fantasy-relevant news, I'll shake up the format. Rather than writing up separate sections of risers and fallers, I'll review all the things that have been discussed in this column as factors that have shaken up players' values given the delayed and shortened season the last few months. I'll briefly highlight a riser and faller for each (where applicable) as well as noting which factors no longer seem relevant. 

This exercise will be performed under the assumption that we will indeed eventually have a roughly 50-game season, as a sort of Pascal's wager — if the season does go forward (which looks less certain than ever), we have plenty to gain by being prepared for it, while if it doesn't, we gain nothing but justified smugness if we predicted that would be the case. The topics presented will show up in the order in which they first showed up in this column, taking us on a journey through the last few months, a time period I'm sure we're all desperate to relive.

Injury Recovery

By far the most widespread changes to players' values have come from the added time they'll have to rehab injuries. James Paxton is one of the biggest risers from amongst that group. The veteran lefty underwent back surgery in early February and was expected to be out until sometime in May or June, a timeframe which initially would have had him missing a considerable portion of the season. He's now long since returned to full strength and can be drafted as a healthy pitcher, though his injury history does still leave him somewhat risky.

Injury recovery for some players means the loss of opportunity for others. Sticking with the Yankees, Clint Frazier briefly appeared to be finally in line for a regular role to start the season as Giancarlo Stanton (calf) and Aaron Judge (rib) were set to miss time. Stanton has been healthy for quite a while now, and while Judge may or may not being the year on the injured list, he's obviously set to miss far less time than it initially appeared, leaving Frazier again struggling for playing time.

Suspensions

MLB suspensions are set by number of games, rather than a percentage of the season. With the length of the season cut down dramatically, players who were initially expected to miss just a small portion may now wind up missing most or all of the campaign. That applies most clearly to Domingo German, whose 63-game domestic-violence ban was initially expected to keep him out for just a third of the season. It's now quite possible that he'll miss all of this year and a small portion of the next as well.

Increased Urgency for Contenders

In a very short season, every game matters far more than it typically would. For contenders, this may cause a need to call up highly rated prospects right away rather than playing games with service time. Spencer Howard could be the clearest beneficiary, as the Phillies have an obvious hole at the back of their rotation and are desperate to get back to the playoffs for the first time since 2011. Howard has only made six starts at Double-A, but Chris Paddack, whose 2018 minor-league numbers look quite a lot like Howard's in 2019, successfully made the jump with just seven Double-A starts under his belt.

Lost Minor-League Development Time

While the shortened season brings a sense of urgency for contenders and could cause them to promote top prospects earlier than usual, less competitive teams might see no reason to speed things up. That means a player like Nate Pearson, who made just three Triple-A starts and still could use a couple months in the minors, probably won't have a shot at the majors this year as the Blue Jays don't look look ready to compete. The potential cancellation of the minor-league season and the introduction of taxi squads could change that, however.

Spring Training Parks/Divisional Realignment

At one point, the main plans to bring baseball back involved doing so either exclusively in Arizona or perhaps in spring training parks in both Arizona and Florida. That no longer seems to be the case, so this one can safely be ignored.

If teams were to play the entire season at their spring homes, a divisional realignment would be needed. While that plan seems to have been scrapped, there's still a chance that a short schedule will be an odd one, though precisely which players will be affected and by what extent won't become clear until the schedule comes out.

Universal Designated Hitter

Talk of a universal designated hitter originally showed up as part of plans that would require divisional realignment, as separate American League and National League rules didn't seem to make sense in a year in which the two leagues didn't exist, at least not in the traditional sense. Even though realignment seems less likely, rumors of a universal DH remain. Every National League club has a handful of players who would benefit from this change, but Howie Kendrick seems like a prime example. He hit a remarkable .344/.395/.572 last season, with Statcast numbers to back it up, but the Nationals limited his workload, presumably to reduce the stress on his aging legs. An extra spot in the batting order could get Kendrick into the lineup more often while still not subjecting him to too much strain, and it would also help alleviate the logjam in a crowded Nationals infield.

No Minor League Season

While prospects who weren't expected to debut in the first half initially saw their values take a hit due to the fact that they wouldn't have enough time to prove themselves in a shortened season, it now seems as though there's a very good chance that minor leaguers may not get the chance to play at all. This would presumably be the nail in the coffin for far-away players like Wander Franco, who would have needed game action if they were to make a meteoric rise. Franco might be just 19  and yet to play above High-A, but he's so talented that there was a chance he could tear through the minors in half a season or so and make a significant impact in the second half. It's unlikely the Rays would accelerate his development when there are no minor-league games for him to develop in.

Early Season Pitch Counts

If and when spring training eventually returns, it's unlikely to be particularly long, as the league will want to get on with the regular season as soon as possible. That likely means starting pitchers will be on reduced pitch counts early in the season, as they won't have time to fully build up by Opening Day. Tyler Glasnow is the prime example of a type of pitcher who would thrive in that situation for multiple reasons. First, he was very efficient with his pitches last year, throwing just 14.9 pitches per inning, meaning he can go deeper than most pitchers while on a short pitch count. Second, he never went deep into games anyway, so if you drafted him, you were already willing to accept that he wouldn't be an innings eater.

At the opposite end of the scale, innings eaters should lose value early in the season if no one is able to pitch deep into games. Tanner Roark is an example of the sort of pitcher who loses the most value here, as he's theoretically an innings eater but isn't nearly efficient enough to eat as many innings as you'd expect, as he ranked last among qualified pitchers in pitches per inning at 18.1. If everyone is on a pitch count, pitchers like Roark will actually throw the fewest innings, and they won't be particularly notable ones.

Streakiness

The shorter the schedule, the greater effect any one streak will have. Selecting a streaky player (to the extent that such players exist) is obviously a risky move, as there's a chance that you'll get one of their bad stretches in a year in which that stretch lasts most of the year. You need things to break right if you're to win a league, though, and for the streakiest players in the league, when things break right, they break very right. Jose Ramirez exemplifies that archetype. He recorded a 68 wRC+ in the first half last year before posting a 176 mark in the second half. There's no way of knowing which half you'll get if you own him this year, but there's value in taking a player like him in a year in which his hot 60-game stretch could wind up lasting the whole year.

Lack of Fans

Offense being up in the early going in the KBO in South Korea appeared to indicate that similar things could be in store in MLB. KBO analyst Daniel Kim reported that he'd heard players speculate that a lack of fans in the stands was leading to a lack of adrenaline for pitchers and therefore higher offense. That could presumably boost the values of "mistake hitters" if there are truly fewer mistake pitches being thrown. Bryce Harper is the sort of player who could benefit, as he's been in the top 20 in damage done against pitches in the heart of the plate for three consecutive seasons. The theory behind this might be invalid, however, as it looks quite likely that offense is up in the KBO primarily because the ball has been juiced, meaning we can't easily draw conclusions about the offensive environment in that league which would have any bearing on Major League Baseball.

Stable vs. Unstable Skills

In a very short season, randomness will have a much greater effect than we're used to. With that in mind, selecting players whose skills are in stable areas (such as power or speed) but whose weaknesses are in areas that tend to fluctuate (such as batting average) makes sense, as you can generally count on them continuing to excel in the areas they do well and could potentially see them luck into a good batting-average season. Miguel Sano is precisely that sort of player. There's no doubt about his ability to make loud contact, as he finished second in exit velocity last year. There's plenty of doubt about his ability to make contact in the first place, though, as he hit .199 in 71 games as recently as 2018. He could well hit that low again this year, but he could also see his luck shift in the opposite direction, giving him a respectable average to go along with incredible power numbers.

Marcus Stroman is the opposite sort of player. He's traditionally provided value to fantasy owners through his low ERA, which came in as low as 3.09 in 2017. ERA is based to a larger extent than most stats on factors outside a pitcher's control, however, as it's affected to a large extent by factors like BABIP. Strikeout rate fluctuates far less from year to year, and Stroman isn't good in that category, never striking out more than 20.8 percent of batters in a season. You can pretty much count on another low strikeout rate from Stroman this year, but you can't know whether you'll get a low ERA season or another year with a 5.54 mark like he produced in 2018.