Today, I will look at quite a few pitchers coming back from the DL, a couple pitchers missing starts and some hitters trying to play through injuries.
• John Danks made his first start since early 2012 on Friday. His velocity is low, but not to some pre-surgery levels
We all have different tolerances for risk, and that can have a powerful effect on how you would play daily fantasy games. Say you’re over on Draftstreet, and you’re looking to play a game with a small buy-in, but a huge pot of winnings and several hundred competitors. Perhaps in that instance you’d be looking for players who have “boom-or-bust” potential — the guys like Carlos Gomez who are as likely to put up two homers and a steal in a night as they are to go 0-4 with four ugly strikeouts. Or if you’re playing a low-stakes game against only a few other players, maybe you’d look to choose a solid, more consistent player — someone like the (normally) reliable Denard Span who is a little more likely to put up a 2-for-4 line with two singles.
So how do we find which hitters are the most or least volatile?
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Between Friday and Sunday in Boston, the Indians and Red Sox spurred a bunch of ottoneu auctions, but the ring leaders are two pitchers who, beyond their presence atop the auction list, have very little in common.
John Lackey is a starter in his 12th season (although he has only pitched in 11 of them after missing 2012; Cody Allen has only 52.1 career innings as a potential-back-of-the-bullpen arm in Cleveland. But both provide good reasons for ottoneu owners to bid on them.
There have been many attempts to develop an expected pitcher strikeout percentage (xK%) formula, usually involving one of my favorite metrics SwStk%, perhaps average fastball velocity, and maybe another statistic or two. All of the regression equations did a fairly decent job, but there were always outliers, and I was beginning to see a commonality between them.
Three day weekends are the best, but now we’re back in the swing of things.
On today’s agenda:
1. The return of Joba Chamberlain
2. Carlos Gomez’s power
3. Continued success of Jhoulys Chacin
4. Make a move for Ben Revere
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Home runs are obviously the best way to pick up points in a Draftstreet contest. You get credit for a point per total base, so home runs are worth four points. But in reality they are worth at least seven points because you also get a point and a half each for the run and the RBI. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to go for power in every slot on a salary cap team. The guys who hit consistently for power are priced accordingly, and you can’t afford to take a consistent power hitter in each slot.
Find yourself a stud or two with a favorable lefty-righty matchup against a bad pitcher and try to get your power there. But elsewhere, you’re going to have to find points in other ways. And one other way is to identify good situations for base stealers. A stolen base is worth two points, but really it’s worth 2.75-3 points because the player has to walk (.75 points) or get a single (one point) in order to attempt a steal.
• I feel like I write “uh oh” a lot. Uh oh. Chris Perez left Sunday’s game with a sore shoulder. Boston rallied from three runs down to win but it’s tough to tease out how much of that was the shoulder and how much was Perez just being bad. Either way, shoulder injuries, especially those that require coming of a game mid-inning are nothing to scoff at. Regardless of what the Indians said after the game, this seems likely to be longer than a day-to-day thing, and could possibly land Perez on the disabled list.
Episode 17
Today’s episode of The Sleeper and the Bust stars yours truly and features RotoGraphs contributor Howard Bender. We debut the Kicking Rocks Challenge and talk about a pair of youngsters.
Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @mikepodhorzer or @enosarris on Twitter and tweet us any fantasy questions you have that we may answer on our next episode.
You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or via the feed.
Approximately 33 min of joyous analysis.
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Apologies in advance for the lateness answering/addressing comments today. After all, Arrested Development is on!
On today’s agenda:
1. Brandon Beachy in Triple-A
2. Two Houston Astros hit two homers each
3. Cameron Maybin injury update
4. Back to the disabled list for Curtis Granderson
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As a contractual obligation, the present author would like the reader to be aware of that fact Andrew Cashner is starting today. Plan your fantasy roster and baseball game viewing pleasures accordingly.
On today’s agenda:
1. A solid month from Melky Cabrera
2. John Lackey continues to impress
3. Anibal Sanchez’s gem
4. John Danks‘ return from the DL
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