I was thisclose to writing a sleeper post on Travis d’Arnaud but A) The Mets said some nonsense like they might platoon him with Kevin Plawecki. B) I kinda promised myself to go easy on catcher sleepers this year. C) There’s no C. So, how did this lead me to Michael Conforto? I was thinking about the Mets. Grey’s mind –> linear like E equals MC Shan. Throughout Conforto’s minor league career, he was a bat-first prospect that always fell in prospect rankings because of his fielding. (He was listed as the 80th best prospect on Baseball America and #82 on MLB.com. That’s number 82, not hashtag for you millennials.) This is great news, because, for our purposes, fielding can go BASE jump from a tall building. This is an interesting phenomenon (not interesting) that I see a lot with fantasy. Guys that have poor gloves have their values deflated for fantasy, even though there’s no reason unless you’re in a league with errors. Another Met in Wilmer Flores had this phenomenon strike his fantasy value. Of course, with Flores, the Mets benched him at times due to his glove, made him cry and now replaced him with Asdrubal. Conforto won’t be benched; he’ll be buried in left field. Even in the World Series this past year, Conforto was a regular in the lineup at just 22 years old, and that was with Yoenis still on the team. Even if the Mets go out and sign an outfield bat, Conforto will be guaranteed a spot in the lineup, and with David Wright aging at 12 frames per second and Duda looking like doodie for about six weeks at a time, Conforto could be *the* middle of the order bat for the Mets. (Those are fireworks around the word the, not asterisks.) Anyway, what can we expect from Michael Conforto for 2016 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
I sorted last year’s numbers by Hard Contact %, then changed the sample size to 190 plate appearances to include Conforto and he registered as a SOP, Sexy Offensive Performer. Hmm, might have to come up with a different name for that. He came in ninth for all major leaguers, right after Paul Goldschmidt and right in front of Bryce Harper and Mike Trout. It’s one thing to make contact, it’s a whole ‘nother bailiwick to make hard contact. Oddly enough (this depends on your definition of odd), he had the 2nd least amount of medium contact, so everything was hard or soft — that’s what she said! Huh? — similar to Giancarlo. Conforto isn’t really similar to Giancarlo though, I’d say he’s more similar to Adrian Gonzalez. Not a young A-Gon that pushed 40 homers, but more the present-day version that hits 25-28 HRs and .275. Conforto, like A-Gon, has no speed to speak of. When Conforto speaks of speed, Dianne Wiest puts her finger to his mouth and says, “Don’t speak.” Conforto’s bat control is pretty remarkable for a 22-year-old. He swung at only 24% of pitches outside of the strike zone, and 68% inside the strike zone, while making contact on 87% of pitches. Another guy that swung at 24% of pitches outside the strike zone, 61% of pitches inside and made contact only 83% of the time? Andrew McCutchen, a hitter regularly with a 400+ OBP. Yeah, Conforto’s going to be good one for quite a few years. Will his path to greatness begin on the slate marked 2016? I’d say by June he’s considered the best bat in the Mets lineup. Okay, so that’s a bit like saying he’s the cream of the crap, but he’s gotta start somewhere — literally. For 2016, I’ll give him the projections of 72/24/84/.268/2 with upside for more.
