The time has finally come to see Adrian Gonzalez out of Petco Park and to the team that has coveted him for years. How much better will this move make Gonzalez in fantasy terms and what does it do to the first base rankings?
First we can see he is going to be a monster. According to Dave Golebiewski at FanGraphs his OPS in 2008 and 2009 if playing in Boston would have been 1.062 and 0.976 respectively. That wouldn't have made a huge difference as no one at first was between his 0.904 and that 0.976. That doesn't mean he hasn't moved up the rankings though.
The first thing to keep in mind is there are renovations occurring at Fenway this offseason this season and one major change is the bullpen. The move will bring the right field wall 9 feet closer. Gonzalez hits to all fields so he will benefit from the Green Monster and the shorter wall. I see no reason he shouldn't be at the 1.000 OPS level next year.
Something encouraging has been the improvements at pitch discipline seen in Adrian Gonzalez as he has developed, but how much of that was in part to being in such a poor lineup. Last year his lineup had an OPS of .689 while the NL average was .723. This surely was a factor in his walk rate, but how much will be tough to say. I don't think we will see any rates like the 17.5% rate from 2009, but he should maintain the levels over 10% he has had since 2008.
So this all asks how good can his numbers get in Fenway, the AL East and the Red Sox lineup. FanGraphs asked for fan voting and while there is still just a small sample size of voters his current projection is 41/114/125/1/.301. That is contending with the top 3 for the chance to be ranked behind Albert Pujols.
This gives plenty of options at first base next year in the 35-40 home run range with solid numbers at batting average, runs and RBIs. This will lower the value overall of the first base position and make selecting one in the first round a slightly less appealing option.
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