Today I am going to examine Ryan Dempster and Jon Lester in detail. Also, I am rolling out some changes to HURT and PAIN. With PAIN (called Pitcher Abuse INdex based on a poll during the Tuesday night chat) Contact% is added and a regression amount factored in. With HURT, instead of evenly weighting the three previous seasons, I weighted the most recent seasons more. On both of them, I put the max value to be around 100, but a few players are determined to go over.

• Ryan Dempster ranks 12th in the most recent PAIN. His fastball velocity is down 0.6 mph from last year which should be expected from 36-year-old pitcher.

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How can you find value on the waiver wire in June? At this point, early breakout players are long gone, and hyped prospects get picked up far before their major-legue debuts. You’re basically stuck picking up injured players, but even the best of them are stashed on a team’s disabled list far before they are ready to return. John Danks and Logan Morrison were injured to begin the year, but have lacked the fantasy upside to have been picked up in most leagues. Both players are now back, and showing some encouraging signs.

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What do you do when two pitchers square off? A lot depends on context, of course, but on Thursday two great pitchers square off in a favorable environment. Adam Wainwright takes on Matt Harvey in new York, where it’s expected to be just 64-degrees and with a 17 MPH wind blowing in to third base.

Two good pitchers, both in a friendly environment, but there’s, at most, one win up for grabs. In a daily format like Fangraphs The Game, this doesn’t matter as much, since you’re playing for the long haul and peripheral stats rule the day. But in a daily one-and-done format like DraftStreet, finding that elusive victory is important – they’re worth 1.5 points versus -0.75 for a loss. That 2.25-point swing is equivalent to three extra strikeouts.
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I don’t often hang grades on prospects in my articles. I certainly have a strong interest in grading and I wouldn’t be able to do this job without a pretty good understanding of the process and scale involved. All the same, I’m typically reluctant to do things that would be perceived as me “playing scout,” and it’s easy to embarrass yourself and lose credibility as a writer by consistently pushing a poor grading scale in your pieces. Grading is something I put a lot of thought into, but I find it often doesn’t add much to my articles to include grades.

I had a discussion with a scout a few years ago about grades, and how averse I was (and still am) to labelling someone as having an “80” or “8” tool. The scout quickly agreed with me. We laughed about how despite the fact that there aren’t many 8’s out there, the first few times you see one it’s often… a bit underwhelming, believe it or not. The first time I saw a tool I thought deserved an “80” I thought about it for a couple innings, made damn sure I really felt that way and then finally wrote it down. Then I had a visceral reaction: “Is that it?” “Is that all there is?” “Where is the light shining down from the heavens and the choir of angels that’s supposed to announce this??” The consequence of hanging an 8 on a player’s tool means in 20 or 30 years I should be able to say that tool was the best I ever saw – or at least in the discussion thereof. “That is the best arm I’ll ever see??” The scout laughed and agreed with my sentiment, expressing his own similar reservations and doubts.

Well, I don’t have any reservations or doubts about saying Miguel Sano has 80 power. I’m confident that in my old age if someone asks me who had the most power I ever saw that the name “Sano” will quickly come to mind.

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Tyler Austin ended 2012 being named the Yankees ‘Minor League Player of the Year’, after level-jumping four times, with a two-game stint for Double-A Trenton. He began this year in Double-A and, while he’s had some difficulties, he’s adjusted well and shown more of what was so impressive in the lower level leagues.

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Last season, Erasmo Ramirez pretty much came out of nowhere to post a 3.36 ERA (3.61 SIERA) between the bullpen and rotation. He finished the season in the Mariners rotation and over eight starts, posted a 3.64 ERA with a strikeout rate of 7.9. That performance was enough to intrigue fantasy owners and he was considered a sleeper by many. In fact, RotoGrapher Brett Talley liked him enough to boldly predict Ramirez would finish the season as a top 60 fantasy starter. Unfortunately, he has yet to throw a pitch for the Mariners this season, but you would do well to remind yourself who the man they call Erasmo is all about.

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Sadly for all of you, the Roto Riteup is all mine until Sunday.

On today’s agenda:
1. Jaff Dacker gets the call
2. Marco Scutaro screwed up his finger
3. Suspensions to be handed down today
4. Fun with arbitrary endpoints

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Kenley Jansen proves he deserves the ninth inning and Papa Grande proves why he didn’t have a job on Opening Day. Your Bullpen Report starts now!

• After being named the closer yesterday, Kenley Jansen was given a save opportunity last night and unsurprisingly converted the save, his third of the season. Jansen pitched a perfect ninth while striking out two batters and as the full-time closer in Los Angeles, this is something we should get used to seeing. Jansen has been a dominant reliever for a while now and it will be business as usual just with the extra bonus of saves, delighting Jansen owners everywhere. Jansen’s actually posting the lowest strikeout rate of his career but 12.55 K/9 is certainly nothing to sneeze at and it’s  come with the best walk rate of his career (1.64 BB/9). Considering Jansen’s still striking batters out an an elite rate, increased control at the expense of a few strikeouts is a trade he, the Dodgers and his fantasy owners would make any day.

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After posting the all bullish stock watch two weeks ago, now the tables have turned and we’ll focus on the bearish report. This isn’t to say that the players here have no value, just less value than their name or draft position may have once yielded them.

Emilio Bonifacio
After stealing 40 bases in 2011 and 30 last season, Emilio Bonifacio finds himself well off of that pace this year. Last season he appeared in just 64 games but still managed those 30 steals, whereas this year he has already appeared in 54 games and has just seven bags to show for it. His strikeout rate is up, his walk rate is down, and his triple slash is a gruesome .206/.236/.315. A large part of his struggles can be attributed to his .264 BABIP, which is almost 60 points below his .330 career average. That being said, the skepticism comes from seeing Bonifacio strikeout almost once every four plate appearances. His 10.1 SwStr% is a career worst mark and his 35.8% O-Swing% and his 51% Swing% are both the worst since his rookie season.

Bonifacio may be a prime example of a solid utility player being overwhelmed when given a starters playing time. His projections aren’t kind to him either, as ZiPS and Steamer both predict a batting average around .250, 20 runs scored, and 15ish stolen bases the rest of the season. With Jose Reyes playing in simulated games and not terribly far from a rehab assignment and Maicer Izturis and Munenori Kawasaki both looking for playing time in the middle infield, Bonifacio’s grasp on the second base job looks shaky. Bonifacio isn’t largely owned, just 11% ESPN, 17% Yahoo!, and 28% in CBS leagues, but it may be time to call it a day with him.
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If you have not already done so, it is well past time to let go of Dan Haren. I have been one of the biggest Dan Haren fans for some time. He encompasses all I like to see from a pitcher, or at least he did when he was good and healthy. He is extremely athletic, he hardly ever walks batters, he gets a good deal of strikeouts without having dominant stuff, and he had a large amount of success in both leagues.
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