Baseball Info Solutions. - Ron Shandlers 2016 baseball forecaster and encyclopedia of fanalytics

RON SHANDLERS 2016

BASEBALL

FORECASTER

AND ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FANALYTICS

Copyright 2015, USA TODAY Sports Media Group LLC.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, Triumph Books LLC, 814 North Franklin Street, Chicago, Illinois 60610.

Triumph Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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Triumph Books LLC
814 North Franklin Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610
(312) 337-0747
www.triumphbooks.com

Printed in U.S.A.
eISBN: 978-1-63319-417-5

Rotisserie League Baseball is a registered trademark of the Rotisserie League Baseball Association, Inc.

Statistics provided by Baseball Info Solutions

Cover design by Brent Hershey
Front cover photograph by Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports Images
Author photograph by Kevin Hurley

Ron Shandlers

BASEBALL
FORECASTER

Editors

Ray Murphy

Brent Hershey

Associate Editor

Brandon Kruse

Technical Wizard

Rob Rosenfeld

Design

Brent Hershey

Data and Charts

Matt Cederholm

Player Commentaries

Ryan Bloomfield

Rob Carroll

Matt Cederholm

Matt Dodge

Alec Dopp

Brent Hershey

Brandon Kruse

Ray Murphy

Stephen Nickrand

Greg Pyron

Kristopher Olson

Paul Sporer

Brian Rudd

Jock Thompson

Rod Truesdell

Research and Articles

Dave Adler

Matt Cederholm

Patrick Davitt

Ed DeCaria

Brandon Kruse

Stephen Nickrand

Dave Potts

Vlad Sedler

Todd Zola

Prospects

Rob Gordon

Jeremy Deloney

Tom Mulhall

Injury Chart

Rick Wilton

Producing the Baseball Forecaster has been a team effort for a number of years now; the list of credits to the left is where the heavy lifting gets done. On behalf of Ron, Brent, and Ray, our most sincere thanks to each of those key contributors.

We are just as grateful to the rest of the BaseballHQ.com staff, who do the yeomans work in populating the website with 12 months of incredible content: Andy Andres, Matt Beagle, Dan Becker, Alex Beckey, Bob Berger, Chris Blessing, Brian Brickley, Doug Dennis, Greg Fishwick, Neil FitzGerald, Colby Garrapy, Matt Gelfand, Rick Green, Phil Hertz, Joe Hoffer, Ed Hubbard, Tom Kephart, Chris Lee, Glenn Lowy, Chris Mallonee, Troy Martell, David Martin, Craig Neuman, Harold Nichols, Frank Noto, Josh Paley, Nick Richards, Mike Shears, Peter Sheridan, Skip Snow, Matthew St-Germain, Jeffrey Tomich and Michael Weddell.

Thank you to our behind-the-scenes troopers: our technical dynamic duo of Mike Krebs and Rob Rosenfeld; and to Lynda Knezovich, the patient and kind voice at the other end of your email inquiries.

Thank you to all our industry colleagues, a truly impressive group. They are competitors, but they are also colleagues working to grow this industry, which is never a more evident than at our annual First Pitch Arizona gathering each November.

Thank you to Dave Morgan, Chris Pirrone, and the team at USA Today Sports Media Group.

Thank you for all the support from the folks at Triumph Books and Action Printing.

And of course, thank you, readers, for your interest in what we all have to say. Your kind words, support and (respectful) criticism move us forward on the fanalytic continuum more than you know. We are grateful for your readership.

From Ray Murphy I have contributed to the Forecaster in various capacities for over a decade now, and the opportunity to collaborate with Ron remains as much of an honor today as it was the first time he asked. Rons imprint continues to linger over all aspects of this entity that Brent and I now co-manage. Anyone who has attempted to co- anything knows how perilous an undertaking it can be. Brent and I work remarkably well together; not just because Brent has off-the-charts skills and a temperament to match, but because we share an abiding reverence for this thing that Ron created and we are now entrusted with preserving and growing. Of course, Im no stranger to exemplary co- relationships, as my wife Jennifer is the first and best example of a key life lesson for me: choose your partners well.

From Brent Hershey Anniversaries force us look back. I am humbled and honored to take part in this tradition of running myself crazy for seven weeks in October-November so that fantasy baseballers everywhere can begin their preseason in early December. Thank you, Ron, for the opportunity you extended in 2011 to become more involved in this projectand for a world where analyzing baseball is a year-round activity. Thank you, Ray, for your continued collaborative spirit; it has allowed us to effectively respond to some new challenges this past year. The co- in our titles is a true representation of reality. But most of all, thank you Lorie, Dillon and Eden, for your own passions, talents and zest for life. When I am able to stop and reflect, I couldnt be prouder of your graceful fortitude in making this earth a better place.

From Ron Shandler It awes me to realize that my 23- and 24-year-old daughters have never known a world in which there was no Baseball Forecaster. How does that happen? Is it about quality, value or just perseverance? I suppose every veteran writer asks that. But after three decades of surviving naysayers, nasty competitors, baseball strikes, cheap magazines, free websites, the bursting dot-com bubble, football, high stakes trolls, daily game elitists, a declining publishing industry and greed, the survival of this book has to be attributed to one thing only: good, old-fashioned American stubbornness. You cant stop me. Just try.

This past year, when life set me off on a new, unexpected course, Shandlers Book has remained a constant. My eternal gratitude goes out to Ray, Brent, all the editors, writers, analysts, support personnel, production workers, advertising reps, designers, industry colleagues, media personalities, postal employees, cherished wife and daughters, and the hundreds of thousands of baseball fans over the past 30 years who made that happen. Every single one of you. (Yes, Im talking to you!) Onward

by Ron Shandler

Thanksgiving 1985. Houston, TX.

I am sitting at a large table in a small house located just outside the Inner Loop. I am surrounded by 3,000 in-laws of all shapes and sizes. There are old ones and young ones, large ones in both size and presence, vegetarians and carnivores. New Yorkers, and Coloradans, and Floridians, and one or two Astros fans. There are only two decibel levelsloud and louder.

I have been married for eight months.