Fantasy Baseball 2013 Player Profiles: Yoenis Cespedes

Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

Yoenis Cespedes, or as he is known in Cuba, “La Potencia”, is a player that can really help shape your fantasy team. For those of you who do not speak Spanish, La Potencia means, the Potencia, (yes yes, I stole that from Chris Farley), it actually means, power, or the power.

Power is absolutely the word that comes to mind when you see Cespedes hit the ball. The word that comes to mind when he doesn’t hit the ball, is long, as in loooooong swing.

Clave and I were talking about Cespedes last year and I mentioned how he has a good long swing, and Clave said, “there is no such thing as a good, long swing”. To a point he is right, and he is an elite baseball mind.  You never want a swing that takes a long path to the ball. However, the proper swing can be summed up in a simple phrase, “quick to, long through”, as in, quick to the ball, long through the ball.

At times it appears Y-C’s swing can be either/or, when he hits the ball his swing normally reflects the phrase, “short to, long though”, however when he strikes out, like he did last year 102 times, his swing looks like it takes forever to get around, in a very bad way.

So what exactly does this mean for Cespedes and fantasy owners for this young slugger’s future?  Well we have to look a little at couple numbers that aren’t typically fantasy scoring numbers, K% and BB%.

Cespedes put up a very nice line of 70 runs, 23 HR, 82 RBI,16 steals, and a .292 average in 487 at bats. Not too shabby for a kid who we thought would start in AAA and then struggle to get used to MLB pitching.

Now as we look at K% and BB% we can see just how maintainable his near .300 average will be with his 102 ks in just 487 at bats. Cespedes had 8.0% BB rate and 18.9% K rate for last season, which are actually slightly better than Carlos Gonzalez, who is known as a K machine.  I want to highlight Cargo because he also came on the scene hot in 2010, and has leveled off to very good numbers since then.

Cargo is a first round talent, even though his average slipped. His BB and K%’s have gotten better but he hasn’t even come close to his out of this world .336 average in 2010. The fact is that you just can’t swing and miss that much and have a super high average. Now thankfully Cargo hasn’t dropped to bad average level by any means, he just simply hit so well in 2010, that a .040 drop took him to still to near .300.

So it begs the question, is Cespedes going to be able to improve to the point where he is a viable .300 average guy or not?  If he can, then he is without a doubt on his way to being a Top-25 overall player option. If not, he will just be another Nelson Cruz.

Cespedes had great improvement throughout last season. But if we go month-to-month, it is a little harder to see:

Cespedes really did finish strong, which you can see much better when you look at the season’s two halves.

This should bring a little confidence to owners who are keeping Cespedes. I know it does for me. Trends like this are what make hard working guys see that their work is not in vain.

I know I was a huge Giancarlo Stanton naysayer because he struck out so many times, I thought he would never hit the ball enough to make his power worth it. I was wrong, which was and still is a good thing. It made me appreciate advanced stats like BB% and K% and how to watch these trends and see if a guy can or cannot maintain his level of production.

Now another comparison for Cespedes, Cargo, Nelson Cruz is that they all seem to be a little injury prone. Granted Cespedes has only have one season in the show, but he struggled with hamstring, wrist and hand injuries.

With Cruz, it kept him from turning the corner to elite outfielder level, with Cargo he has been able to produce enough around the DL stints.  As long as Cespedes can stay healthy, I would expect him to make good on building on his last season’s success. If I can have Cespedes for 525+ at bats this year, I am certainly buying. In fact I am leaning towards keeping Cespedes and sacrificing a 3rd round pick to do so, because I really like his potential and potencia!