This week, we focus on Hunter, Span, Davis, Pierre, and Bay. The Market Report is a weekly analysis of player valuations in the fantasy marketplace in an effort to find undervalued commodities.

By Andrew Gephardt

The outfield is a good position to find value, and much of this just has to do with the fact that it’s a daunting task to accurately rank 60 outfielders. Take a look around most fantasy baseball sites, and you’ll see that the rankings at the infield positions don’t vary by all that much. At outfield, however, you can often find some rather significant discrepancies. For this reason, I typically make an effort to build my teams inside-out; that is, form a solid infield first and then work on the outfield later. Due to the fact that we’re working with more players than usual this week, let’s use Mock Draft Central data to simply provide the typical round that each of the top outfielders is currently being selected in a standard 12-team league:

• Round 1: Ryan Braun and Matt Kemp
• Round 2: Carl Crawford, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Matt Holliday
• Round 3: Jason Bay, Grady Sizemore, Justin Upton, and Jayson Werth
• Round 4: Ichiro Suzuki, Adam Lind, and Nick Markakis
• Round 5: Josh Hamilton, Curtis Granderson, Adam Dunn, and BJ Upton
• Round 6: Manny Ramirez, Michael Bourn, Nelson Cruz, Carlos Lee, and Andre Ethier
• Round 7: Alfonso Soriano, Shin-Soo Choo, Shane Victorino, and Bobby Abreu
• Round 8: Carlos Beltran, Adam Jones, Andrew McCutchen, Hunter Pence, Nate McLouth, and Raul Ibanez
• Round 9: Torii Hunter and Carlos Quentin
• Round 10: Alex Rios, Johnny Damon, Jason Kubel, Michael Cuddyer, and Brad Hawpe

Based on this current ADP data, which outfielders are misvalued?

One quick note: back in November, we anticipated that speedy outfielders would continue to be undervalued in the fantasy marketplace. While that premise was correct, I wasn’t exactly right on the specific players identified. The consistent Bobby Abreu is still underrated in the fantasy community, but I didn’t expect the market values to be so high for both Michael Bourn and Nyger Morgan. As you’ll see shortly, though, there are still many outfielders with speed whose true fantasy values outweigh their respective market values.

Undervalued

Torii Hunter (ADP 98)

Bill James .272 / 82 / 24 / 92 / 16

CHONE .272 / 74 / 22 / 80 / 12

Marcel .277 / 70 / 20 / 75 / 15

Like Abreu, Torii Hunter is underrated in the fantasy community seemingly every year.In the first half of 2009, Hunter performed at an elite fantasy level with 17 home runs and 13 stolen bases to go along with a .305 AVG. Unfortunately, a strained right adductor cost him roughly five weeks in the second half. In spite of the missed time, however, Hunter still finished as a top-20 outfielder last year yet is currently not being selected among the top 30 at his position.

Sure, there’s a tad more risk attached now that he’s 34 years old, but his skills are still strong. In fact, a quick look at HitTracker reveals that only Mark Reynolds and Miguel Cabrera had longer average home run distances. This is precisely the type of power-speed option that helps a fantasy team reach those necessary categorical thresholds to be competitive across the board in the standings. Capitalize on this profit opportunity, as Hunter is still nearly a $20 player in 12-team Mixed Leagues despite his $10 price tag.

Denard Span (ADP 127)

Bill James .300 / 94 / 7 / 63 / 25

CHONE .294 / 81 / 7 / 57 / 20

Marcel .302 / 86 / 9 / 63 / 20

Perhaps no player better displays sneaky fantasy value than does Denard Span. He significantly contributes to all of the offensive categories that are typically underappreciated in the fantasy community: runs, stolen bases, and AVG.

Johnny Damon, Andre Ethier, Raul Ibanez, and Michael Young – these are just a few players who had solid fantasy seasons in 2009 yet still weren’t as productive as Span.

Sure, he may not be likely to repeat the .358 BABIP from last season. At the same time, we should keep in mind that players with decent speed have been known to display consistently high BABIPs, so I wouldn’t expect marked regression. It’s worth noting that Span, unlike many speedsters, does a good job of getting on base as he’s shown good patience thus far in his brief career. It’s this skill of patience that so often separates the fantasy contributors from the busts when it comes to speedy players. Accordingly, Span makes for a good selection in the middle rounds as a safe top-100 fantasy player.

Rajai Davis (ADP 161)

Bill James .284 / 74 / 4 / 44 / 50

CHONE .270 / 49 / 4 / 30 / 31

Marcel .277 / 61 / 6 / 43 / 37

In late-July last season, St. Louis acquired Matt Holliday from Oakland. While Holliday’s fantasy stock certainly rose as a result of that deadline deal, Rajai Davis also witnessed a tremendous boost in value as he finally had an everyday job for the Athletics. From that point forward, Davis was nothing short of fantastic from a fantasy perspective. In the 59 games after the trade, he had 28 stolen bases and 43 runs scored to go along with a .332 AVG. While those numbers might only look simply good, make no mistake: Davis was an elite fantasy player over the final two months.

In projecting playing time for 2010, one might be discouraged by Oakland’s signing of Coco Crisp this offseason. Still, I’d expect Davis to play nearly everyday whether it’s in center field or not, as General Manager Billy Beane will certainly want to make use of the superb defense that Davis provides. However the playing time shakes out, Davis has already shown that he can be a valuable fantasy player in limited time. In short, he should be a nice value in the 14th round with the chance for great profit.

Juan Pierre (ADP 245)

Bill James .291 / 56 / 1 / 27 / 30

CHONE .280 / 66 / 2 / 34 / 34

Marcel .285 / 56 / 2 / 33 / 34

Here is one average draft position that will certainly rise in the coming months. The union of Ozzie Guillen and Juan Pierre may have sabermetricians everywhere cringing at the thought of how much this pair will deter the production of runs for the White Sox. At the same time, in the world of fantasy, this may just be a match made in Heaven.

Those of you who were fortunate enough to grab Pierre off the waiver wire following Manny Ramirez’s suspension last season realize just how valuable Pierre can be on a fantasy roster. In fact, prior to last season, he’d gone eight consecutive seasons with at least 40 stolen bases.

Also, Pierre has only suffered one injury in his career, a sprained MCL in his left knee in 2008.

Accordingly, this is a durable and consistent fantasy performer. With a full season atop a White Sox lineup managed by Ozzie Guillen, Pierre could approach 50 stolen bases. If you’re lucky enough to find him available anywhere near his current average draft position in the 21st round, don’t hesitate to grab him.

Overvalued

Jason Bay (ADP 26)

Bill James .268 / 99 / 32 / 103 / 11

CHONE .267 / 98 / 34 / 105 / 7

Marcel .264 / 87 / 27 / 90 / 9

If Jason Bay were still hitting in the middle of a strong Red Sox lineup, I’d have little issue with this average draft position. For some reason, though, the fantasy community has yet to appropriately adjust his stock following the move to New York.

We only have one season of data to analyze when it comes to Citi Field, so we can’t be too confident with any assertions on the nature of the park. In fact, it actually played as a slightly above-average park for home runs, though runs and hits were both depressed. We can confidently say, however, that Fenway Park helps hitters in both AVG and runs, so the likely result would be a decrease in Bay’s numbers. He already doesn’t help in the AVG category, so he could be a liability with further decline.

Once again, in the early rounds we should play it safe, and a player like Bay entering a new environment with some question marks is simply not a good selection when there are so many other safer options that early.