What I Got Wrong in 2023

Looking back at my biggest misses of the fantasy baseball season

I did this same exercise last year, and it’s a very important part of my offseason process. Too often, we (as fantasy managers) are too quick to move on to a new season, without first taking a step back to reflect.

I want to remember what my biggest convictions were leading into the year. This way I can learn from them, and be better moving forward.

Next I’ll review what I got right in 2023. But we’ll start with the pain.

Hunter Greene

Greene checked a lot of boxes for me entering 2023. As a second-year player, he had an affordable ADP (meaning the market wasn’t fully bought in yet, which created opportunity for Greene to crush that price tag if he was up for it).

Greene also had elite Stuff+, finishing third among SPs in 2022.

And he seemingly broke out down the stretch as a rookie:

A 30.9 K-BB% is hard to fake, even in small samples, but there were reasons to believe Greene was genuinely improving, as I noted in my offseason hype piece on the Reds’ flamethrower:

“As always, full-season statistics are more predictive than partial-season statistics. A 1.02 ERA isn’t the new normal for Greene, but we should be more inclined to believe in-season improvements for younger players as there could be skill/approach changes under the hood. And I think that’s the case here.

In addition to maintaining a consistent fastball velocity to close out the season, Greene started locating his heater in a much more favorable location: up in the zone.”

Unfortunately, some of Greene’s biggest red flags were issues once again. This included his home park, which continues to be the worst environment for pitchers allowing homers.

One year after having the third-worst HR/9 rate among starting pitchers, he finished 22nd in 2023.

This came without a jump in his skills, as his K-BB% essentially remained the same year-over-year (21.8% to 20.9%).

Part of the issue might also be that Greene is just a two-pitch starter. While his fastball and slider both rate as elite by Stuff+, he only uses his below-average changeup less than 6% of the time.

While Spencer Strider turned me into a believer that 2-pitch starters can work out, it’s worth noting that even Strider under performed his peripherals this season.

Between the home park and the limited arsenal, we needed more of a discount on Greene than we were getting in 2023 drafts. It’ll be interesting to track his price this offseason.

Cristian Javier

Sigh.

Here we have another trendy breakout starter who failed to live up to the hype.

An offseason hype cycle that I was very much a part of.

As I noted in the piece linked above, it was tough to even consider Javier a breakout pick since the market was treating him as if it had already happened. It seemed too obvious.

And that, more than anything specific to Javier, is why this was a miss by me. Had I zoomed out more, I would’ve seen that Javier was being drafted in a range to where he needed to break out to justify the cost.

In other words, he was being drafted close to his ceiling.

And yet, the micro case made so much sense last winter.

Javier had moments of utter brilliance in the 2022 regular season. Then in his two postseason starts he totaled 11 1/3 innings, allowing no runs on 1 hit while striking out 14. This included Game 4 against the Phillies in which Javier (6 innings) combined with three relievers to throw the 2nd no-hitter in World Series history.

That playoff run, combined with an absurd 2nd half, is what led to the market’s offseason excitement.

He also dramatically improved both his Stuff+ and Location+ in 2022, but they each crated this season, as I wrote about in June.

The above table is updated to include his full-season results, and it’s worth noting that his Stuff+ improved quiet a bit in the second half (97 to 107).

However, this came at the expense of some command (99 to 96 Location+).

Location+ is more volatile year to year, and especially in-season, so this could be a bit of noise. Either way, the tradeoff seemed worth it.

Hypothetically, of course.

Because even though Javier’s strikeout rate rose in the 2nd half, his walk rate increased by even more, which meant his K-BB% actually fell. His ERA increased and he allowed more homers per nine.

The best thing you can say about Javier’s year is that he made 31 stats and totaled a career-high 162 innings, though his ratios actually hurt anyone who stuck with him all season.

His season serves as a reminder that no breakout is certain, and both upside/downside scenarios need to be factored in when considering someone’s ADP.

Cody Bellinger

Mid-career breakouts are tough for me to grapple with, because once a hitter has been around for 4-5 years, I generally abide to the notion they’ve shown us who they are.

I frequently write about rookies in small samples, because there’s so much profitability to be gained when you’re right on them.

And while it’s fun/insightful to dive into struggling stars, the conclusion I typically come to is “they’ll be fine.”

So I spent a lot of my April hyper-focused on Nolan Gorman, Josh Lowe, Jarred Kelenic, and James Outman. We were seeing things for the first time. Bellinger’s hot start? Interesting, but I wasn’t treating him like those other young breakout candidates.

And that was a mistake.

To be clear, I feel my draft day concerns were warranted. After all, Bellinger was a declining player with injury concerns who was non-tendered by the smartest organization in baseball.

But once he started hot, I should’ve given him a fair shake. There were signs. For instance, here’s his performance against four-seam fastballs in 2021-22:

And here’s 2023:

Specifically, look at how he hadled them up in the zone.

This was a change that was noted early in The Athletic article linked above. Bellinger also went on to finish with career-best strikeout and contact rates.

The part of his performance that’ll be debated by fantasy minds all offseason is what to make of his batted ball results.

Bellinger severely over performed his expected stats on Baseball Savant, and everything he accomplished in 2023 came with a career-worst barrel rate.

Still, while one could argue he over performed this season, those expected stats were major improvements from 2021-22.

Did he then get lucky on top of that? Perhaps. The shift restrictions might’ve helped as well, since Bellinger posted a career-high .319 BABIP.

Or maybe all the newfound contact he was making worsened the averages of his batted ball quality data? But he was still able to do enough damage since he was generating more balls in play overall?

These are just theories, since so much of Bellinger’s year doesn’t make sense. As of today, my stance is that he got healthier/tweaked his swing positively, received a boost from the shift restrictions, and also “got lucky” on top of that. If the market approaches his ‘24 price with a glass-half-full point of view, then I’ll likely be out once again.

FAAB Patience

Fantasy baseball is a loooong season. Every year around Memorial Day I tweet out a reminder to followers that no league has ever been won two months in, and that true championships are built during the dog days of summer.

Turns out I need to remind myself of this next year.

To be fair, 2023 saw an unprecedented number of prospect promotions.

Some of which were too hard to resist bidding aggressively on.

FAAB management always had two lines of thinking, however. If you hit on an early-season pickup then you’re going to get more bang for your buck — since that player will contribute for a longer period of time.

And some of these early-season pickups were clear hits. Cody Bellinger, for instance.

Bryce Miller, Tanner Bibee, and Eury Perez all provided value for fantasy mangers throughout most of the season.

But then more prospects kept coming. And then Cole Ragans happened. And a number of other late-season difference makers that helped put teams over the top, where even an extra $1 could’ve contributed to a winning bid.

But I had used up all my FAAB.

This isn’t something I was writing about throughout the year, but it was a major factor in how some of my leagues played out.

Reid Detmers

Detmers as my “no matter what” player was such an egregious miscall that I’m actually going to dedicate an entire post to it — so be on the lookout for that in the near future.

I want to write about the process of choosing this type of player, what I got wrong with the Detmers’ selection, how it could’ve gone right, and why it has gone much better in past seasons.

Regardless, this was a terrible miss that has bothered me since his first few starts of 2023.