Last week I looked at early season velocity gainers and losers. It was noted that the average fastball velocity so far is down league wide from where it was in 2012 but fairly consistent with the average fastball velocity in April 2012. But some commenters suggested that it might be useful to look at the April 2012 velocities of the guys who have seen the biggest gains and losses in velocity this year. The idea is to see if the discrepancy between 2012 velocities and April 2013 velocities is an indication of a change or just evidence that a guy tends to see his velocity dip or rise at the beginning of the year.

To gather a sample, I created a list of guys who threw 150+ innings last year and who had at least 20 innings this April. That yielded me a list of 70 pitchers. To find the significant changes in velocity, I calculated the differences in average fastball velocity between all of 2012 and April 2013. I then calculated the average difference and standard deviation to see who had made the biggest changes. Below are the guys who saw the biggest gains in velocity in April. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been writing about the Dodgers on a daily basis for nearly six full years now, and so you can probably imagine that one of the most exciting deals in that span was the massive trade with Boston last August. Oh sure, Los Angeles picked up Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez, & Nick Punto, and that was nice enough — but nearly lost in that was the fact that after year upon frustrating year, James Loney was gone. Finally! My long personal nightmare would be over.

Here we are less than a year later, and now Loney’s hitting .375/.430/.528 for the Rays. It’s a line that demands examination. I’ll never escape him. Read the rest of this entry »

Today is Space Day! As a young lad, the present author fondly remembers a family trip to the Kennedy Space Center (as well as Disney World) back in the mid 1990’s. With the Curiosity rover is still exploring Mars, NASA and space exploration in general is always good to hear. As Bill Nye famously said: “science rules!”

On today’s agenda:
1. Yuniesky Betancourt to first base
2. The return of Aramis Ramirez
3. Ryan Zimmerman returns, Anthony Rendon sent down
4. Another Justin Grimm quality start
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Rafael Soriano untucked his shirt for the ninth time in ten chances this evening, and he did so facing some of the heaviest hitters — and most prolific whiffers — in the league today. The 33-year-old faced just one over the minimum — yielding a two-out single to Evan Gattis — en route to his 141st career save. Soriano induced consecutive groundouts to Justin Upton and Freddie Freeman, then got Dan Uggla to fly out to right-center with Gattis on first to end the game. Surprisingly, Soriano failed to record a strikeout against the Braves — who entered today with 255 strikeouts as a team, second most in the majors — causing his K% on the year to dip to 24%. And although Soriano may not be receiving the same attention as he did when pitching in the Big Apple, he’s quietly putting together another fine season, and continues to be a top ten closing option. Maybe all that Strasburg, Harper, Zimmermann talk is overshadowing him?

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Episode 7
Today’s episode of The Sleeper and the Bust stars yours truly and features RotoGraphs editor Eno Sarris. It’s a very special edition of the show as we discuss the latest round of tiered rankings published this week.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @mikepodhorzer or @enosarris on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via the feed. iTunes coming soon.

Approximately 42 min of joyous analysis.

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The beginning of May is the perfect time for smart fantasy owners to start playing the waiver wire. After a month, other owners are probably sick of their slow starters, and have already dropped a player or two who has struggled due to small sample luck. In recent seasons, both Michael Morse and Paul Goldschmidt failed to hit in April, and went on to have fantasy breakouts by the time September rolled around. Owners get impatient and either give up on players, or are forced to cut bait too early when injuries strike. Matt Joyce and Brandon McCarthy are two players who may begin to turn things around in May.

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Alarm goes off. Slam snooze. Slam snooze again. Wake up. Grab some coffee. Flip on the laptop. Check your fantasy baseball team(s). Check the box scores. Navigate to Fangraphs. Rummage through the leaderboards. Sort. Analyze. Grab a second cup of coffee then sort again.

It’s a vicious cycle. But we all do it, right? Right? Maybe it’s just me, but, I’m eternally on the prowl for something different when scouring the leaderboards.

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Hey, bounce back week! After a split week with two very bad suggestions, we rebounded a bit and only Anthony Rizzo kept the streamers from being perfect (sorry about Wade LeBlanc). It’s a bit of a stream-heavy weekend, with 28 of the 60 scheduled starters on Friday and Saturday sitting below the 50% ownership tag, but they’re a bit light on upside plays. Nonetheless, let’s dive in. As always, I aim for 50/25/15/5 ownership, roughly, when the streamers available allow.

Carlos Villanueva (48% owned) – Nope, he’s not as good as the numbers suggest right now. He’s got a 2.29 ERA and 0.82 WHIP, neither of which will last too long. But this shouldn’t be the weekend it corrects – the Reds can’t hit righties right now to save their lives, and their whiff-heavy ways should allow ‘Loso to continue to rack up a surprising number of strikeouts. I understand some trepidation here with Votto and Choo stroking northpaws well, but the lineup has been struggling a great deal beyond that pair and Todd Frazier in the early going. I wouldn’t stake my reputation on this one, but five innings and seven strikeouts is a reasonable expectation.

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When the Twins acquired Alex Meyer in December it marked a turning point of sorts for the organization. Denard Span had been one of the more popular regulars in the Twin Cities going on 6 years. This turning point was about more than sending Span out of town, though. Trading for a true power arm prospect was somewhat out of character for an organization that had recently become known for targeting soft-tossing, pitch-to-contact type hurlers. When G.M. Terry Ryan added Alex Meyer it seemingly punctuated a new trend in the organization’s effort to add well… more pitching in general, but particularly strikeout pitchers and guys who throw hard. Meyer does both these things and he isn’t far from helping Minnesota win ball games.

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It’s that week again, the time of the season when you get to put on your arguing boots and debate our updated tier rankings. As a reminder, these rankings are strictly based on projected rest of season performance. While the first month of statistics plays some (tiny) role in shaping my future projection, I am not technically weighting what has actually already happened. You can check out the preseason tier rankings for comparison.

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