Episode 32
Today’s episode of The Sleeper and the Bust stars yours truly and features RotoGraphs contributor Chad Young. We discuss surprising batted ball distance leaders & laggards and some Ottoneu strategy.

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.

Intro by DJ Sinton (no, contrary to popular belief, I do not moonlight as a rap star)

Approximately 44 min of joyous analysis.

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This has nothing to do with baseball, but go out of your way and find the image from the Tour de France yesterday with the van stuck under the finish line. Honestly looked like something out of Arrested Development. Watch out for hop-ons…you’re gonna get some hop-ons.

Fortunately for us, none of us ever get stuck at the finish line, because we’ll have room to spare at the fantasy finish*. (*This does not apply to me, I’ve had a bad week in daily leagues. But you should still take my advice.) It’s a good day for baseball, with a lot of beautiful weather set-ups and some fun match-ups for viewing purposes.

But you’re here for daily fantasy, DraftStreet or otherwise, and you probably want something valuable for a pre-amble other than me going stream-of-consciousness.
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We are halfway through the baseball season and just four weeks from most fantasy league trade deadlines. More and more prospects will be getting the call now that Super Two status isn’t a concern, adding even more options on how to improve your team. There is much baseball yet to be played!

On today’s agenda:
1. Welcome back, Brian Roberts
2. Jacob Turner is improving
3. Alex Torres: strikeout machine
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–Jason Grilli dished a scoreless ninth-inning en route to his 27th save in 28 opportunities as the Pirates earned their league-leading 50th victory by clipping the Brewers, 2-1. In addition to Grilli’s impeccable save conversion percentage, the right-hander owns an impressive 42.7% K%, a 1.82 ERA and a 0.87 WHIP. Grilli’s whiff rates (42.7% K%) appear gaudy and are well-above his career average (21.4% K%), but career bests landing the first strike (61.8% F-Strike%) and inducing swinging strikes (15.7% SwStr%) suggest the spike in strikeouts isn’t exactly a mirage or stroke of luck. If you own shares of the Pirates’ ninth-inning man I wouldn’t be mad if you shopped him around your league — you’d likely get a hefty return on your investment — but as long as health remains in his corner and your squad is in need of saves, ride the wave.

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DraftStreet has blessed us with a 4 p.m. EST start for the bulk of daily leagues today, which is great considering that only one game starts at 1 p.m. and only a handful start at 7 p.m. or later. We’ve got nearly a full slate of games to pick from, which means…disagreement, of course.

The more options available to us, the more strategies one could employ to try and achieve success. You’re always trying to maximize points, but those in a double-up pay-out format may be aiming for 40 points while those in a winner-take-all are looking for the big upside plays.

We’ve been over this kind of stuff before, but it warrants repeating that you will eventually find your own risk profile and your own preference for ceiling versus floor.
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Today is June 29, and we all know what that means…happy waffle iron day! Enjoy today’s Roto Riteup as you chow down on some delicious waffles.

On today’s agenda:
1. Eric Surkamp is back, sort of
2. A hitting spree for Erick Aybar
3. Bad news for Johnny Cueto
4. Jhoulys Chacin 15 consecutive scoreless innings
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Here are this week’s recommendations, with ownership figures help from Twitter pal Zach Swanson:

Phil Hughes – 16.1% ESPN/32% Yahoo! – @MIN (.311 team wOBA), v. BAL (.333)

Hughes hasn’t been all that great this year (4.82/4.40/4.43), but his peripherals are almost all identical to last year, when he was a +2.3 win pitcher with 16 wins, a 4.23 ERA, and solid strikeout rates. The penchant for home runs is a bit troubling (1.7 per 9 in ‘12/1.5 per 9 in ‘13), but the Twins don’t hit many. That may only be one half of this week’s matchups for Hughes, but it’s not a strong week for options here either. Read the rest of this entry »

The only thing Jean Segura and Mike Moustakas have in common is that they’re both professional baseball players and they happen to be featured in the title of this post. Other than that, their on-field performances are in different area codes. Different time zones. Galaxies even.

Obviously, Segura has been holy hell awesome and Moustakas has been my God-awful. But we’re getting to a point in the season now where a couple weeks of trending in either direction can be masked pretty well by their current accumulation of at bats. Perhaps for good reason — it keeps the smaller sample monster at bay. Regardless, there are some recent developments with these two that merit attention.

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Unable to stomach Brendan Ryan and his .230 wOBA as the team’s primary shortstop any longer, the Seattle Mariners have reportedly called up 23-year-old Brad Miller in an attempt to breathe some life into a below-average offense that currently ranks 23rd in the league with a .299 wOBA.

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The first hurdle every hitter has to clear to make it into a daily contest lineup of mine is whether they are facing a pitcher of the opposite handedness (with a few exceptions for guys with reverse splits). With pitchers and platoon splits, I mainly look at how the team they will be facing performs against pitchers of the same handedness of the pitcher I am considering. But I’ve never given enough thought to left-right splits of individual pitchers.

I took a look at all qualified pitchers from the start of 2012 to see who had the biggest splits versus lefties and righties. Below is a list of the pitchers who had an xFIP of 4.00 or less versus hitters of the same handedness and an xFIP much higher versus hitters of the opposite handedness. Guys like Aaron Harang aren’t listed because even though Harang is much better vs. RHH than LHH, he still only has a 4.11 xFIP versus RHH. Read the rest of this entry »