Ray’s Ramblings: Marte or McCutchen?

Andrew McCutchen is one of my favorite players. An OBP machine who has been uber-consistent for years, I never have an issue with drafting him to be one of the building blocks on my club. I think nearly everyone would agree. However, when I suggested the other day on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio that Starling Marte might be a better option on draft day this season than McCutchen I received a few notes from folks saying that they thought I was just trying to be controversial to get attention. I really wasn’t. Let’s break it down.

Check out the NFBC ADP data. According to what the gals and fellas are doing over there McCutchen has an ADP of 14.0 while Marte is at 23.5. Right off the top the closeness of those numbers should lead you to the position that Marte and McCutchen may be a lot closer than you thought.

1 – McCutchen has a better track record than Marte.

2 – McCutchen is a better real world baseball player.

3 – If you’re in a points league, or a league deeper than a 5x5 that adds measures like OBP, walks or OPS, then McCutchen surges ahead.

Here’s the data.

McCutchen is a better real world player. Fact.

4 – Just because McC is a better player doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a better roto option. Let’s dig into the 5x5 numbers.

McCutchen is a .298 career hitter.
Marte is a career .283 hitter who has hit at least .287 the past two seasons.
Pretty close.

Marte has never hit more than 19 homers in a season. McCutchen has been better than that mark in each of the past five seasons. Alas, McCutchen’s 3-year average in the homer category is just 23. It’s not a huge leap to think that he and Marte will be equal in the homer category in 2016 to McC.

McCutchen has averaged 92 runs a season the past three years. Marte has never scored that many times (blame his major disadvantage in the OBP category). Still, Marte has scored more than 80 times in two of three seasons.

Marte drove home a career best 81 runners last season. McCutchen has bettered that mark in each of the last five years. However, note that in 2013 (84) and 2014 (83) he barely beat the mark of Marte.

Then we come to the steals column. Though McCutchen is ahead in the other four categories, even if many of them are pretty close, he is getting destroyed in the steals column which is where Marte makes up a ton of the fantasy difference between the two. McCutchen has one 30 steal season, though it was back in 2010. Marte has stolen at least 30 bases each of the last three seasons. McCutchen has averaged 19 steals the past three seasons. The last three seasons Marte has averaged 34 steals. Moreover, check this out. The last two seasons McCutchen has stolen 29 bases. As I already noted, Marte has stolen at least 30 bases each of the last three seasons which means he’s stolen more bases in each of the last three individual seasons than McCutchen has swiped the last two seasons – combined.

Let’s look at the ESPN Player Rater for 2015. Marte was ranked 8^th in the outfield and McCutchen 14^th. Yep, Marte was more valuable than Marte last season.

How about another party?

The Fantasy Baseball Guide 2016, a magazine spearheaded by Peter Kreutzer which yours truly contributed to, lists the dollar values for each player the last three years thusly.

 Another source that speaks to Marte having a better season in 2015.

Look, I’m not going to sit here and write that Marte is a player I would take before McCutchen. I wouldn’t do that, but the duo are both ranked in the top-5 at the outfield position in the 2016 Fantasy Alarm Draft Guide. Unless McCutchen starts to run again it’s reasonable to posit that Marte will have a better fantasy season in 2016. McCutchen is a beast and I love the stability, but at this time next season we might be talking about Marte being the better fantasy option.  

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).