Avoiding sample-size silliness on draft day

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There's nothing better than owning the player who posts league-best numbers in the final months and weeks of the MLB season and leads your team to the fantasy baseball championship. As a result, owners often grow an everlasting affection for these players, and will do everything in their power to roster them for years to come.

However, this over-appreciation for past performance of players can be extremely detrimental to fantasy success. Owners will often be too attached to a player to drop him during early struggles the following season, and his trade value around the league will rarely be as high as perceived to be by the owner who originally drafted him and enjoyed his previous success.

What to avoid

When in doubt, play it safe. As stated above, owning the breakout star of the year is always tremendously fun, but draft mistakes can be lessened by sticking to players who've produced elite numbers year in and year out. Veteran players rarely just "figure it out."

Sabermetric warning signs

Luck will always play a major role in player production. When assessing a breakout season - especially a breakout partial season - it's extremely important to check the underlying numbers. Was a player's BABIP significantly higher (or lower for pitchers) than his career rate? Were fly balls leaving the park at a never-before-seen rate?

Month-by-month splits

Players often perform worse in the early months of the season, especially those who play home games in cold-weather cities. Slow starts can discourage owners, even with late-season surges returning their end-of-year production to normal levels.

Strength of schedules of prolonged homestands and road trips can also affect a player's production in a singular month. A player with production spread out evenly over the course of a season represents a much safer target and a more valuable commodity in head-to-head leagues.

Age

While young players typically improve through standard aging curves, they can also benefit from MLB pitchers never having seen them before in their first big-league sample. A hot start to their career could very well be (at least) partially attributed to taking the competition by surprise.

Be on the watch for unprecedented power - as seen from Chicago White Sox SS Tim Anderson last season. Power and speed are skills that usually remain relatively stable with a move from the minor leagues to the majors, regardless of the heightened level of pitcher competition.

Alternatively, an established veteran like Detroit Tigers 2B Ian Kinsler, whose last 30-plus home run season came in 2011 with the Texas Rangers, broke out for 28 home runs in 2016 as a 34-year-old. He totaled just 28 home runs in his first two seasons with the Tigers.

Don't expect a consistent return to his early-career form in his mid-30s.

Move to a new team

Free agency can play a big role in disappointing seasons, as can trades. Park factors can affect home-run counts. Managerial strategies can affect stolen base attempts and conversions. Teammate quality and position within a batting order have direct impacts on runs scored and RBI totals.

Not all teams will use a player in the same role in which he enjoyed his success the previous season. A rebuilding team will provide far fewer opportunities with runners in scoring position than a hitter's former team may have offered. Starting pitchers may have fewer chances for wins, while closers will see fewer save opportunities.

What to target

While gaudy numbers in small samples are the most common traps for over-eager owners, the opposite holds true, as well. Be careful of being turned away from a player due to a poor performance in a limited sample.

Post-hype breakout

When a player is greatly hyped by analysts prior to a season, there is often some validity to it regardless of how he performs during the season. The situation and the skills were likely all present and will remain for the coming season. Poor performances are not always explicable.

Whenever a player plummets down the Average Draft Position rankings after just one bad season, he becomes a great value target. Don't sour on him just because it's taking an extra year to translate into key fantasy production.

Injuries

The term "injury prone" is often thrown around when discussing players. While some types of injuries carry a significant risk of re-occurrence, not all injuries are so easily aggravated. Look into other players who have suffered and recovered from a similar injury when assessing the draft value of a player who missed a significant portion of the previous season.