Sharks Discuss the Overrated: Melky Cabrera Mark Chamberlin, Scott Martin, and Steve Banas, Fantasy Baseball Staff Writer Mar 19, 2012 | More

Could 2011 be a case of Melky Cabrera finally receiving consistent playing time? Sure, but not to the degree of his jump. For starters, his new team (the San Francisco Giants) is not going to run nearly as much as the reckless Kansas City Royals, so expect the stolen base numbers to dip downwards in lieu of his poor 67 percent success rate. While Kansas City is the furthest thing from a hitter’s haven it isn’t as much of a drain on hitter’s as San Francisco’s AT&T Park. At the end of the day, the Giant lineup just doesn’t have the pop behind him to allow him to put up anything close to his 2011 counting stats. The Royals had lots of problems in 2011, but they were mostly pitching related. The offense was absolutely not one of them. San Francisco has been a black hole for offense for years. 

As for Cabrera, he had his highest batting average on balls in play of his career (.332, career .299), there was little change in any of his underlying periphereals (ground ball/fly ball ratio, line drive percentage, fly ball percentage, and his batting eye actually got worse (5 percent walk rate, career 7.4 percent). Nothing adds up to Cabrera’s career year.  We expect a regression to something closer to a .270 average, 12 home runs, 75 runs, 60 runs batted in, 12 stolen bases. Those aren’t terrible numbers, but not what you want to be drafting from an everyday piece of your lineup.