2014 Fantasy Baseball Preview: Proven Player Off Of A Bad Year

Fantasy baseball, and really all fantasy sports, is all about finding value when it comes to your draft. You not only need your first round draft pick (or high auction pick) to perform like the price you paid for him, but your later round picks need to outperform the price you paid for that pick. Frankly, you'd like all of your picks to outperform their value.

One of the most consistent predictors of players outperforming their value are players who have consistently done well, but are coming off of a bad year aka Proven Player Off Of A Bad Year. Players generally perform to their true level. However, every once in a while, players have a bad year. It happens. However, rankings are done heavily weighting how a player performed in the previous season. Last season can be a good predictor of how well a player performs this year, but the better predictor is the players' entire career. This creates value pick for many players.

Here are a list of players that I think are value picks for the 2013 season, because they are a proven player coming off of a bad year:

Proven Players Off Of A Bad Year: 2013 NFL Edition

While Matthew Berry helped popularize this concept last year during 2012's NFL pre-season, that is a concept that all experienced fantasy players are fully aware of. For the most part, players are who they are. Every once in a while, that player will have a bad or down year, but that shouldn't deter us from the large sample size they gave before us. Take Ryan Braun for example.

For the first year ever in fantasy baseball, I drafted Ryan Braun. This was a guy who has been a consistent superstar the past few years, so even if he didn't perform like the #1 player in fantasy, I knew he'd still be good. Suspension notwithstanding, he was terrible. Yet, I will still gladly draft Braun next year. Because no matter how much he hurt me this year, and no matter how poorly he performed in 2013, his career as a whole tells me that he'll not only rebound in 2014 and play like the stud that he is, but I can also get him for a discounted price.

That's how you win your draft, by finding value no matter at what spot you draft. Players like Stevan Ridley and Alfred Morris last year in fantasy football were amazing values that helped you win your fantasy league. However, based about what the Patriots and Redskins did in 2011, using multiple backs to frustrate you week to week, dropped each player's value significantly.

This Recency Effect is what creates the value. We too often put too much weight on what the player did the year before, as opposed to looking at their career as a whole. Therefore if a player comes off a bad year, that player automatically drops in ranking. But if you looked at said player's career as a whole, and not just what they did last year, then you can find great value to help you win fantasy leagues.

Here is my list of potential proven players coming off of a bad year (as well as players who's value are depressed based upon Recency Bias and not career numbers)