Sometimes I’m a bit of a worry wart. I need things to go in just the right way or, as Jeff Mans has often said, I might lose my s - - t. I admit it, I can be touchy. Sometimes though, there’s a reason I’m concerned. I have actual data and not just a feeling in my pants that something is amiss (come on fellas, you know what I’m talking about. That feeling you get, your “Spider-Sense” if you will, when you meet that hottie at the bar. You know you shouldn’t, you know it, but you just don’t listen cause she smells so nice). The twelve men below make me nervous, and I think there are ample reasons to believe that that feeling of trepidation is warranted.

HITTERS

Dee Gordon hit above .285 and below .235 two times each in his first four seasons as he entered the 2015 season batting .272. He went out and hit .333 for the Marlins. Was it earned? He had a .383 BABIP. He’s fast and owns a .346 career mark, but there is zero chance he repeats the .383 mark in 2016. No one can do that. He posted a 21.5 percent line drive rate, just a tenth above his career mark, and far from an elite mark. Gordon also had a 3.8 percent walk rate, a four year low. He did cut his walk rate to a four-year low as well, but the result was a 0.27 BB/K ratio, the worst mark he’s had in four years. Moreover, Gordon had a career best .359 OBP which helped him to score 88 times. Alas, note that his OBP was only .026 points above his batting average, an extremely small gap. He had better hit .300 to keep his OBP league average. Gordon, who hits at the top of the order, has hit a total of eight career homers and has driven in 80 runs the last two seasons. It’s all about average, which will fall, and steals. He’s averaged 61 thefts the last two seasons. Can he hit that mark in 2015? Possible. Same time, it’s a huge mark, especially if his OBP dips.

Nelson Cruz made me look like a fool last year. No way around it. I doubted him and he took that pie and mashed it in my face. Then he hit me in the head with a rubber chicken before kicking my rear-end with his clown shoes. He won’t be doing that again this season. Cruz is 35 years old and is no .300 hitter. I know he hit .302 last year but that was his first season over .271 in five years. He also posted his highest K-rate in eight years and had a .350 BABIP. The previous four years his best was .301. The average will cave. As for the power, we’re talking about a guy who has hit 40 homers each of the last two seasons. The previous four seasons he didn’t hit 30 homers. He is also coming off a season with a 9-year high in his ground ball rate at 45.7 percent. He hadn’t been reached 42 percent since 2006 folks. That meant he had a career low 34 percent fly ball rate, smack dab on the league average. Can’t expect him to record a 30.3 percent HR/FB ratio that was the best in baseball. He had never been over 21.3 percent before. So the average will cave and the power will decrease. Not to mention that he is 35 and has failed to appear in 130 games in 5-of-7 years. #Caution

Carlos Gonzalez started slowly but in the end he was an absolute monster on his way to hitting 40 homers, a career best, with 97 RBI (his highest mark in five years). He also appeared in 153 games, a career best. That’s all great. However, there are a bushel of negatives that should lead you to be patient with when to roster Cargo. (1) He hit .271 last season, this after hitting .238 in 2014. The last two seasons he’s hit a mere .260, thirty points below his career mark. (2) The last two seasons he’s had a .314 OBP. That’s thirty points below his career mark of .347. He’s no batting average or on-base percentage lock. (3) Carlos doesn’t run anymore. Over the last 223 games he’s stolen five bases, this after 4-straight seasons of at least 20 thefts. If he’s no longer a threat on the base paths, his knees seem shot, he’s kinda just a guy, especially if he’s struggling to hit .270. (4) Though he hit 40 homers last season that was his first effort over 26 homers since 2010. He’s really not a bigtime homer threat. (5) He’s always hurt despite appearing in 153 games last season. In each of the previous four seasons Gonzalez didn’t reach 136 games played even once. You cannot trust him to stay healthy, and with that caution should be the word of the day.

Why talk one Rockies’ bat when you can talk two…

DJ LeMahieu saw an entire shift in production last season – everywhere. He went from hitting .280 to being a .301 batter. He was getting on base at a .315ish clip only to surge to .358. He had a SLG of barely .350 in 2013-14 before ending last year at .388. He stole 28 bases in 2013-14 before boosting that mark to 23 in 2015. Being that he’s just 27 is it possible that is his new level? Certainly. But what does that really mean? How exciting is a .290-5-50-70-15 player even at second base? Ask yourself, were you pumped to draft Howie Kendrick the past five years? Were you? Also take into consideration the Coors Field factor. DJL hit .281 with a .337 OBP and .358 SLG on the road last year. Just for the sake of putting it out there, check out his career slash line prior to last season: .276/.314/.361. He has no power. He doesn’t drive in runs. He isn’t a .300 hitter. His value is pretty dependent on hitting at the top of the order for his fantasy value. He appeared in 63 games batting second out of the 150 games he played. If he’s not hitting two, and in fact hitting seventh or eighth as he often has, his value craters.

Kendrys Morales is 32 years old. He was great in 2009, then he hurt his leg on that home run celebration in 2010 and he’s never been the same. He returned to hit decently in 2013 before dipping to 98 games played in 2014. Last season he crushed it for the Royals hitting .290 with 22 homers, 106 RBI and 81 runs scored. The last time he hit .290 was 2010. The last time he drove in 85 runs or scored 80 times was back in 2009. More facts. Morales has failed to hit more than 23 homers in any of the last five years. He also has one season of 81 RBI the last five years. He’s only hit .280 once in four years. He had a .362 OBP, a career best (he’s played nine years). He had a .485 SLG, a five year high. He’s a very moderate bat folks, not much different than the Mike Napoli’s and Mitch Moreland’s of the world. Oh yeah, one other thing. He only appeared in nine games at first base last season so he’s going to be utility eligible in most leagues in 2016, nothing else.

Albert Pujols is likely to hit 600 home runs and he will go to the Hall of Fame. He is one of the ten greatest right handed hitters of all-time. He hit 40 homers last season with 95 runs scored and 85 runs scored. So ends the happy thoughts with the 36 year old. Pujols hit .244 last season, a career worst, and over the last three years he’s hit .258. That’s awful and just six points better than the league average. He hasn’t hit .300 in five years. Pujols had a career worst .307 OBP last season. That’s a third straight season with a mark under .331. Over the last three seasons he has an OBP of .319. The league average is .315. The last three seasons he’s failed to post an OBP of .481. The last four seasons his BB/K ratio has been under 0.75. The mark was over 1.00 from 2002-11. He had surgery in November to repair an injured planta plate in his right foot. His timeframe to recovery likely has him out of full-time action until March. This is not the Pujols you remember, despite his ability to still hit the ball into the seats. He’s much more Lucas Duda than he is Paul Goldschmidt.


PITCHERS

Brett Anderson threw 175.1 innings as a rookie in 2009. In the next five seasons he failed to reach 115 frames in any season. In fact, from 2011-14 he threw a total of 206.1 innings. Don’t care how talented he is, he is always hurt. ALWAYS. It’s as much of a lock as Santa delivering gifts to kids on the night of December 24th that Anderson will be hurt and miss starts. I know that he threw 180.1 innings last year, and I don’t care, at all. Repeat. He failed to thrown 50-innings in 2012, 2013 and 2014 and in five seasons before last year he threw 110 innings one time. Let’s talk about his performance, even if he manages to stay healthy... Last season he struck out 5.79 batters per nine. That’s pathetic. Sure he walked just 2.30 per nine, but with a K-rate so low his resulting 2.52 K/BB rate was just 50th in baseball. There’s also this. For his career his ERA is 3.72 and his WHIP is 1.30. Since he began his career the league average marks are 4.05 and 1.32. He’s a league average guy who doesn’t strike anyone out and can’t stay healthy. His 66.3 percent ground ball rate last season was the best in baseball, a simply tremendous number that marks the third year in a row he posted a mark of 61 percent. That’s an elite, HOF level skill. But then… not so much. Good luck with everything if you roster Anderson.

Marco Estrada was a nobody from 2008 through 2014. He wasn’t anything anyone ever looked at until mid-season when the injuries on your roster built up and you had no choice but to go to the waiver-wire. That all changed last season. Oh, he was still grabbed off the waiver-wire but then he turned into something. Not only did he post a strong 3.13 ERA but he had a 1.04 WHIP that was the 9th best mark in baseball. Nuts right? Here’s the thing though – he really wasn’t that good. Estrada struck out 6.51 batters per nine, a career worst, and light years from the 7.97 mark he owned for his career. He walked 2.73 batters per nine, a four year high, and above his 2.51 career mark. The result was a 2.38 K/BB ratio that was a five year low. He somehow talked the baseball gods into allowing him to post a .216 BABIP, the best mark of his career and the first time it was ever under .257. Long a fly ball arm, his 52.3 percent fly ball rate last year was a 5-year high. That’s not a good match for Toronto. Somehow he still had a three year low with a 1.19 HR/9 mark. How did he accomplish that? His HR/FB ratio was 8.7 percent. It had been at least 10 percent each of the previous five years. His SIERA was 4.64. His xFIP was 4.93. Yeah, he was not even remotely close to the 3.13/1.04 guy that he was on the surface. Not close.

Jason Hammel has never won more than 10 games in a season. He’s never thrown 180-innings. Really, look it up. He’s never had an ERA under 3.43. That’s a whole lot of – I’m not very good sitting right there. He did strike out 172 batters in 170.2 innings, a strong mark, but that was a full batter higher than 2014 and two batters above his career mark of 7.05. Can he hold on to that growth? Seems rather unlikely that a 33 year old, after 10 seasons, will suddenly become a K per inning arm, doesn’t it? I’m not discounting what he’s done the last two seasons, he’s certainly become a better pitcher, and each of the last two seasons his walk rate per nine has been 2.25 and 2.11. That is well below his 2.88 career mark. However, with the growth comes concern. The big fly being at the heart of things. Each of the last three seasons his HR/F has been between 12.0 and 12.8 percent. That’s not horribly high, but he has also seen his GB/FB ratio dip to between 1.03 and 1.06 each of the last three years. Can he hold on to the strikeouts? Can he finally hit 180-innings? Can he ever win more than 10 games? Up to you when you should take the plunge but he shouldn’t be a target.

John Lackey is 37 years old and coming off, arguably, the best season of his life as he posted a career best 2.77 ERA with a 1.21 WHIP. Don’t go too nuts. Realize that in 2013-14 his ERA was 3.67 and his WHIP was 1.22. It’s rather unlikely that Lackey will be able to post an ERA as low again, it’s the first time his ERA was under 3.50 since 2007. Even if he can maintain the WHIP that ERA is going up, count on it (his 82.6 percent left on base rate was also a career best and 10 full points above his career mark, that’s bonkers). Note the 3.90 SIERA and 3.77 xFIP from last season as further proof. The move to the Cubs is exciting, but it can also be a difficult place to pitch when we discuss the big fly. Lackey had a HR/9 mark of at least 1.09 each year from 2012 to 2014 before dipping to 0.87 last season. That mark will go up. He will be solid, but no way he offers a repeat of the value he posted last season.

Francisco Liriano is 32 years old and has been in the big leagues for 11 years. How many times has he thrown 200-innings? The answer is never. How many times has he thrown 190-innings? Once. How many seasons has he thrown 165 innings? Twice. I don’t care how dominating the arm is, the lefty simply cannot pile up innings. Period. Deal with it. You cannot overpay for a hurler who cannot last. At least you shouldn’t. With all the injuries hurlers suffer from every year why would you purposefully draft a hurler who has never thrown 165 innings in back-to-back seasons? I just don’t get that line of thought. Because of the continuing injuries Liriano’s won more than 12 games just once in five seasons and the last two years he has won a total of 19 games. The guy strikes out a batter per inning, 9.26 per nine for his career and 9.88 last season, but he also walks everyone. Only once since 2009 has he walked fewer than the league average of batters per nine in a season, and his best mark in five seasons is the 3.38 he posted last year (the big league average last season was 2.92). The result is a career 1.31 WHIP, a mark he has bettered the last three seasons though it’s not like his 1.24 WHIP in that time is tremendous. Great skills, including a 49.1 percent ground ball rate, but you simply cannot trust the lefty.

Hector Santiago made the All-Star team last season. Though he slowed late in the year he still posted a 3.59 ERA and 1.26 WHIP in his third season as a starter so he’s trending in the right direction. Well… not even close folks. Re-read the intro to this piece. The numbers I just referenced do not, in any way, reflect the reality of Santiago. The lefty of the Angels posted an abysmal 53.6 percent fly ball rate leading to a pathetic 0.56 GB/FB ratio. Folks, that is literally half of the big league average. Half. If not for pitching in a decent environment that helps to suppress homers his home run rate in Anaheim it would be even higher than the pathetic 1.44 HR/9 ratio he tossed up there last season. His HR/F ratio was just 10.2 percent in ‘15, a completely league average mark. It’s all those fly balls that led to his AL worst 29 homers allowed (tied with four others). There is also no chance that he will be able to repeat the 79.9 percent left on base mark he threw up last season. That’s not a repeatable level unless you are Clayton Kershaw. SIERA (4.50) and xFIP (5.00) suggest the danger that is on the horizon. Caution with a capitol “C.” Actually how about an “A” for “avoid.”