Ray Flowers and Vlad Sedler take counter positions on a single player, one for, one against. Which one of our experts do you agree with? Does either strike a knockout blow? Is there a TKO? Is there a need for another round? Two or our best analysts give their thoughts on a player for the upcoming season allowing you to be the judge as to which side makes the stronger argument, for or against the player.
Justin Bour
By Vlad Sedler
Though I am a bit biased because I’m an Angels fan and have always liked Bour as a hitter, removing emotion from the fantasy equation is imperative and something I strive hard to acknowledge. The bottom line is that Bour is essentially free in drafts and is guaranteed to provide a profit. Through 32 February NFBC drafts, Bour has an ADP of 423, which equates to the 28th round of 15-team leagues. We’ve seen him go as high as pick-246 among these 32 drafts, which is a bit more of a reach, but still more in line with what should be considered a fair price. Despite hurting fantasy owners with a .227 average last season, he’s still a career .260 hitter. Much of last year’s woes were driven by an unlucky .270 batting average on balls-in-play (BABIP). The 30-year-old is a big lug (6’5’’, 265 lbs.) and has the stigma that many other behemoth power hitters have – that he’s heavily strikeout prone and has poor plate patience. That couldn’t be further from the truth as Bour has maintained a strikeout rate under 25 percent in his career and made impressive strides last season, improving his 11 percent career walk rate to nearly 15 percent last season. Sure, much of that was derived from intentional walks with him being one of only two decent bats on a poor-hitting Marlins team. Regardless of the bump, we’re still talking about a guy with a 11 percent career rate who gets on base. Angel Stadium isn’t an ideal hitters park, but those summer days and nights do get warm, and I’m sure they’ll help propel some big shots of his on occasion. Bour can cover both 1B and hit as the DH and might see a prime lineup spot hitting cleanup against righties (lower in the order against lefties). A career .206 ISO guy, don’t be surprised to see Bour end the 2019 season with 25 to 30 homers and being one of the best post-300 overall ADP values.
By Ray Flowers
Could Bour hit 30 homers this season? Sure. Has he ever hit 30 homers in a season? No. Bour is also extremely ineffective against lefty pitching having hit a mere eight homers in 315 career at-bats against them. More than just in a homer drought against lefties, Bour just doesn’t do anything against them with a .635 OPS and a .282 wOBA. Let’s be honest here. Bour shouldn’t be on a major league field when the opponent is throwing a lefty. Further, even if we remove his home work with the Marlins we find him with a merely passable .783 career OPS on the road. Against all pitchers he has a mere 34.6 percent fly ball ratio, just under the league average actually, meaning that he’s really not able to fully take advantage of the 20.6 percent homer to fly ball ratio that he owns for his career due to a lack of fly balls. I’m not really going to quibble with Vlad saying he should return value given his cost, that’s a fair position to take. I’m going to say though, who really cares? If Bour goes .260-25-75 this season he’s nothing but a place holder at first base. Further, he has just one season with 25 homers and one with 75 RBI, and with his inability to hit lefties, I just don’t think there’s a legitimate case to be made that he’s going to break out this season. With Shohei Ohtani looking at a May return to fill the DH role most days, that likely pushed Albert Pujols to first base and Bour to the bench. Basically, if Ohtani and Pujols are healthy, it’s hard to envision Bour being anything other than a spot starter, at least in my eyes, since he’s clearly not a better hitter than Ohtani and it would take an awful lot for the Angels to bench Pujols for a platoon guy like Bour.
