Often in the midst of your draft, you’ll find yourself deciding between a couple players at the same position. With Player Showdowns, we take two players who are closely ranked and have writers take a side and debate who should be selected first. Whose side will you be on?
Christian Yelich vs. Justin Upton
Yelich
With the trade from the Marlins to the Brewers, Yelich went from baseball’s worst park for offense to one of its best, at least for left-handed hitters. What’s true is that Yelich’s current approach isn’t optimized for taking advantage of the switch; he’s been one of the league’s most proficient groundball hitters since the day he entered the league. It will be interesting to see if Yelich compensates. Doing so would potentially give him elite upside, though he could also mess himself up if things don’t take right away. Yelich has ample power; he homered on 15.3 percent of his flyballs last year, despite playing in Miami. That’s slightly better than the league average and just ahead of Manny Machado, Adam Duvall and Jose Altuve. In 2016, he homered on a career-high 23.6 percent of his flyballs, the eighth-highest mark among the 146 batting-title qualifiers. Even if Yelich doesn’t change to take advantage of Miller Park’s generous dimensions, we’re talking about someone who has been a top-20 fantasy outfielder the last couple or years. He can hit for average, steal 15 bases and he should be good for another 100 runs scored while hitting high in the Brewers’ order. He’s just turning 26, and he hasn’t had any durability issues. Upton should be the better source of homers, but there’s little reason to think he’ll hit for average again, especially now that he’s in a worse ballpark in Anaheim and the tougher AL West. – Matthew Pouliot (@matthewpouliot)
Upton
Upton has always been loaded with talent, his problem was always consistency. He would be the hottest hitter on the planet for a month or six weeks at a time, then completely disappear for stretches. That all changed during his impressive 2017 campaign where he slashed .273/.361/.540 with career highs of 35 homers and 109 RBI while scoring 100 runs and swiping 14 bases. He’s in perhaps the best spot in the entire league to rack up RBI hitting behind Ian Kinsler and Mike Trout in a loaded Angels lineup. Don’t get me wrong, I love Yelich and think that the move to Milwaukee does wonders for his fantasy value. He has never driven in 100 runs in a season though and has eclipsed the 20-homer plateau just once. The only real edge that he carries over Upton though is in batting average, and he gets crushed in the power department. Trading 10-15 points of batting average isn’t worth the extra 10-15 homers and plethora of RBI that I expect from Upton, making this one a very easy choice for me. – Dave Shovein (@DaveShovein)
Hoskins
Which player is going to continue hitting like he did last season? That’s the big question in this debate. I tend to think they both will -- at least to some degree -- but I’m a little more confident in Hoskins meeting the lofty upside because of his track record as a masher in the minor leagues. In 135 games at Double-A Reading in 2016, Hoskins registered a .943 OPS with 38 home runs and 116 RBI. He then put up a .966 OPS with 29 home runs and 91 RBI in 115 games last season at Triple-A Lehigh Valley before exploding onto the major league scene in August and delivering a 1.014 OPS with 18 home runs and 48 RBI over his first 50 games with the Phillies. Immense power at every level. Pham was terrific last season in all five fantasy categories and might have even garnered MVP votes had he been on the Cardinals’ roster on Opening Day, but he is 29 years old and his minor league career was filled with all sorts of ups and downs and injuries -- including a degenerative eye issue that will likely continue to bother him beyond his playing days. Pham will give you more stolen bases in 2018 and likely a better batting average, but Hoskins has the ability to lap him in the slugging department. – Drew Silva (@drewsilv)
Pham
Pham wasn’t even included on the Cardinals’ Opening Day roster in 2017, as he didn’t make his season debut with the big club until May 5. Despite this, Pham still managed to become the first Cardinal since 2004 to hit 20 home runs and steal 20 bases in the same season. He then expressed over the winter that his goal is to become the first player in team history to join the 30/30 club. Pham’s key to unlocking his talent at the dish in 2017 sounds simple but is very difficult to execute at the major league level: he stopped swinging at balls out of the strike zone. Only Joey Votto and teammate Matt Carpenter were better at it last season than Pham. The improved plate discipline meant he could wait on his pitch and crush it, leading to him being one of only eight qualifiers to put together a .300/.400/.500 season. Pham has had injury issues in the past and also has a degenerative eye condition, but if he manages to stay healthy he can afford to regress some and still be a beast for fantasy owners. Guys who have big power and also draw walks are easy to like, which is why I’m also a fan of Hoskins. However, the Phillies slugger did fade badly down the stretch last season and, unlike Pham, won’t offer stolen bases to fall back on if his bat goes through some cold spells again. – Ryan Boyer (@RyanPBoyer)
Gregory Polanco vs. Yasiel Puig
Polanco
The price tag on Polanco might never be lower following a frustrating 2017 campaign where he was limited to 108 games due to a nagging hamstring injury. Meanwhile, Puig is on the upswing again after showing some real signs of growth. It was only one year ago that we were saying the same thing about Polanco, as he was trending in the right direction after posting a .786 OPS with 22 homers and 17 steals in 2016. Sometimes we make too much out of BSOHL (Best Shape of His Life) stories, but he appears determined to rebound and then some. I like Puig just fine — my ranking for him was right in line with a couple of members of the staff here — but I still think there’s some untapped upside with Polanco which could prove to be the difference here. Pure value must also be taken into account, as Polanco’s ADP sits at 158.4 according to NFBC while Puig is going much earlier at 111.2. – D.J. Short (@djshort)
Puig
Somewhat quietly -- at least compared to the other stars on the Dodgers -- Puig had a very nice 2017 season, and that’s despite him having one of the oddest splits I’ve seen, one that I cannot imagine will carry over in 2018. Against right-handers, Puig had a .910 OPS with a perfectly sustainable .301 BABIP. Against left-handers, Puig had a .592 OPS, with a laughably unsustainable .209 BABIP. His approach was just as good against southpaws as it was against righties, and his strikeouts came down against both. He’ll also be 27 this year, so I think it’s reasonable to expect Puig to take another step forward in 2018. I loved Polanco as a prospect, but we’re now at close to 2,000 plate appearances of him not reaching his potential. It’s totally possible this is the year, but I’d much rather have the “safety” of Puig while knowing that there’s plenty of upside here, too. – Christopher Crawford (@Crawford_MILB)
http://www.nbcsports.com/edge/player/MLB/5103/Michael-TaylorMichael Taylor vs. Jay Bruce
Taylor
Taylor scares me. The floor is low, low, low, and the Nationals, a team with World Series aspirations, won’t wait around if Taylor gets off to a slow start this season. I’d be remiss not to mention the lurking Victor Robles as well. All that said, though, the upside is high enough that the 26-year-old is hard to pass on in the middle rounds. We’re talking about a guy who, if a 17-game cameo in his debut 2014 season is removed, is averaging 20 homers and 23 stolen bases as a major leaguer over a 162-game schedule. Know how many guys hit at least 20 homers while stealing 23 bases last season? Five. In all of baseball. It’s rarefied air, and Taylor has managed it without any real sustained opportunity, settling instead for producing while starters like Jayson Werth and http://www.nbcsports.com/edge/player/MLB/3035/Adam-EatonAdam Eaton have been injured. Entering spring as the frontrunner for a starting job, the opportunity has never been better for Taylor or his fans. Considering we’re talking about Jay Bruce here, I’ll shoot my shot with the toolsy Taylor. – Nate Grimm (@Nate_Grimm)
Bruce
Let’s get the negative stuff out of the way first. Bruce is on the wrong side of 30, is a career .249 hitter and doesn’t run at all anymore. OK, now on the good stuff. Bruce has averaged 34.5 home runs and 100 RBI over the last two seasons. He’s also hitting the ball harder than ever, posting new career highs each of the last two years in hard-hit rate (38.2 percent in 2016, 40.3 percent in 2017). Additionally, while he’s always hit a lot of flyballs, Bruce put up his highest flyball rate in six years in 2017 (46.7 percent). I also must point out that he’s been incredibly durable in his career with an average of 151 games played over his last eight campaigns. There are simply things Bruce isn’t going to give you, but history says he’s an excellent bet to stay healthy and provide big power numbers. As far as Taylor goes, he had a bit of a breakout in 2017 with a .806 OPS, 19 home runs and 17 stolen bases. The problem is that Taylor didn’t improve his awful plate discipline at all, and he needed a .363 BABIP to prop his average up to .271. He could easily fall back to being closer to the .228/.281/.363 hitter he was pre-2017, and if that happens the Nationals won’t hesitate to give Taylor’s job to top prospect Victor Robles. I’m not going out of my way to draft Bruce this spring, but I’m OK with locking in his power and letting someone else chase Taylor’s upside that I’m not sure is really there. – Ryan Boyer (@RyanPBoyer)
Brett Gardner vs. Bradley Zimmer
Gardner
Whether or not Gardner should hit at the top of the Yankees lineup is a different question than whether or not he will. I think he’s going to, and in that lineup, you have to like what that means. Even if he’s a flawed player, he does a solid job of getting on base, and even if he doesn’t have quite the same speed, he still steals bases at a nice rate. He’s also taken advantage of the friendly confines of Yankee Stadium, hitting at least 15 homers in three of the last four years. Assuming Gardner does bat first or second for New York, he should be a lock for 100 runs, and 15 homers and 15 steals should come along with it. I think that Zimmer has a great chance of outproducing Gardner this year in terms of the power and the steals, but I have serious concerns about the batting average and on-base percentage. I’m also not sure he’s going to ever be able to hit left-handers because of the length in his swing, and hitting left-handed pitchers as a left-handed hitter is hard. Next year Zimmer will probably have the edge for me, but for now, I go with Gardner. – Christopher Crawford (@Crawford_MILB)
Zimmer
Gardner enjoyed the first 20-homer, 20-stolen-base year of his career in 2017 and he could regularly bat leadoff this season in front of top-ranked fantasy studs Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Greg Bird, and Gary Sanchez. But what are the odds of a repeat in his age-34 campaign, with his 35th birthday looming in August? What are the odds of him actually holding on to that leadoff spot under new analytics-minded Yankees manager Aaron Boone? I’d say slim. Zimmer was a disappointment as a rookie in Cleveland last year, but in terms of fantasy upside he has much greater appeal to me than Gardner leading into the 2018 season. The former first-round pick racked up 16 home runs and 44 stolen bases in 127 games between High-A Lynchburg and Double-A Akron in 2015, then 15 homers and 38 steals in 130 games between Double-A Akron and Triple-A Columbus in 2016, and he was slashing .294/.371/.532 with five home runs and nine stolen bases through 33 games last year at Columbus before the Indians called him up to the majors in mid-May. From there Zimmer hit a wall, but other top young talents have done the same. I love a good post-hype player. And I like to avoid career drop-offs. – Drew Silva (@drewsilv)
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