2K21: Anthony Rizzo

[revo]

Not normally a guy who needs a '2K' series as he's been remarkably consistent throughout his 10-year career, but Rizzo now has questions from fantasy players if he's on the decline after he tanked in the shortened '20 season.

We had a whole discussion about Rizzo in the NFBC draft we're doing now, and a deeper dive into his numbers show that he *did* have that same remarkable consistency with his '20 stats, with one key exception -- BABIP.

He normally doesn't deviate much from his career BABIP average of .286, but that number plunged to a career low of .218 in '20, while all of the other key ratios -- HR%, K%, BB% -- all remained constant. Pauly pointed out his Exit Velocity and Hard Hit % did drop - his EV was 87.2%, below his 89.3 average (as well as the MLB average of 88.5%), and his HardH% was 34.9%, down from 41.9% and well under the MLB average of 38.7% -- but I'm guessing those, along with BABIP would have normalized with another 100 games.

My bet is his BA would have increased as his BABIP normalized, and his power, Ks and BBs all were within career norms, so his current ADP of 101 makes him a huge bargain in my opinion.

[Gregg]

He went for $39 last year in our NL only 5x5.

I think he is a 25-30 player.

I see no reason why he won't be back to "normal" but I am not paying for his going rate.

[DMT]

He went for $39 last year in our NL only 5x5.

I think he is a 25-30 player.

I see no reason why he won't be back to "normal" but I am not paying for his going rate.

Right but what Revo is saying is his "going rate" is well below his value. Of course, that's unlikely to be the case in your league.

[revo]

Rizzo's ADP in 2020 was 67 -- which came after two seasons where he hit 25 & 27 HRs -- but his ADP from 2016-2019 averaged 26. At 101, if you get the 2018-19 version of Rizzo (.290/.390/.490, w/26 HRs and ~100 RBIs), it's still a bargain. I think he's much safer than many fantasy players realize, although his ceiling appears to be getting lower.

[joncarlos]

Small samples to be sure, but his IFFB% went from 9.6% to 17.7% last year. That's got a lot to do with his BABIP problem. If that's a fluke, then he gets back to... what? Maybe .270? His K rate has been slowly climbing and I'm guessing his speed isn't improving.

All of his projections on Fangaphs are about the same - .265-27-85-7sb or thereabouts. That's not exciting, and the lineup around him is not really all that great any more.

Put those same numbers with a .280 average and it's a lot more interesting.

In my last NFBC draft he went 96th, right in between Goldy and Eddie Rosario, who are both relatively similar in age, consistency and expectations.