• Bobby Parnell gave up two runs in the bottom of the ninth tonight, blowing the save against the Nationals. For Parnell it was his third blown save of the year and his second loss to go with his four wins on the season. Even after tonight’s outing, Parnell still has a 2.55 ERA on the season, backed by an impressive 2.30 FIP. Considering Parnell throws 95 mph, it would be nice to see a few more swings and misses (8.6% SwStr%; 8.39 K/9) but his worm killing ways (52.4% GB%) and better than average control make him a highly effective end game option. Before the season, Frank Francisco’s name was mentioned as someone to keep an eye on, but the only news we have heard has been set backs, and at this point the Mets don’t really know when he’ll be back. With nobody lurking behind him Parnell’s job is very secure and although the name on the front of his jersey isn’t ideal for saves, he remains a solid fantasy and real life option.

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Episode 21
Today’s episode of The Sleeper and the Bust stars yours truly and features RotoGraphs editor Eno Sarris. We discuss an issue that has surprisingly arisen in our Tout Wars league and a hyped pitching prospect expected to get the call in a week and a half.

**Apologies for some of the choppiness as we had not one, but two(!), technical issues thanks to both my microphone and Skype hating us.

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 47 min of joyous analysis.

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Always an underrated power source, Josh Willingham has become more and more Adam Dunn like this season than the Willingham we are used to seeing. In the past, Willingham has been a tremendously undervalued source of power while not destroying your batting average. While he has never been a contributor in that category, he has scuffled along with serviceable .260 marks in three of his four seasons leading up to this year.
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A new month is always a good time to look at splits. Actually, the ‘Last 30’ split available on the site allows you to look at the last “month” at anytime you would like, but there is something arbitrarily pleasing about looking at totals from a calendar month.

One of the more interesting things about May splits is how different the reactions are to stats in the second month of the season compared to the first. For example, there was plenty of concern for Eric Homser, Asdrubal Cabrera and Allen Craig after an April in which they had wOBAs of .288, .288 and .287, respectively. However, there isn’t a ton of panic concerning Justin Upton, Carlos Santana and Starling Marte who all had wOBAs under .300 in May. Read the rest of this entry »

Rookies of the Year have a mixed record of success after their first season. Some, like Albert Pujols, Justin Verlander, and Ryan Braun, go on to have many productive seasons and great careers. Others, like Bobby Crosby, Dontrelle Willis, and Angel Berroa collect their trophy and promptly crater. It’s too early in Chris Coghlan’s career to unceremoniously drop him in that second category just yet, but his wRC+ in 2012 was five. That’s it, just five, or the equivalent of 95 percent below league average, so he was certainly headed in the direction of obscurity. Recently, however, not only has Coghlan (ESPN: 6.7 percent owned; Yahoo!: 3 percent owned) received consistent playing time in a way he hadn’t in previous seasons, he has been hitting the cover off the ball. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ll stretch yourself into pretzels trying to convince yourself that a past great is a buy low. And sometimes it’s worth it — Cole Hamels and Matt Cain seem to be doing just about the same thing they’ve ever done, and betting on their career numbers is a good bet. But sometimes, there just isn’t enough grip on the mat to reach your finger to click that trade proposal button. The mat gets slippery, and for good reason.

Is Yovani Gallardo just a downward-facing dog with no bounce left?

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Today, I will concentrate on my newest tool, Position Players Playing Through Injury Finder, and report the fastball speeds of a few pitchers who recently returned from the disabled list.

• Injuries and their effects continue to be one of the more under-researched areas of baseball. As more and more DL data has become available, we can make better conclusions on the effects of injuries. Even with with 100% complete and accurate DL information, the times a hitter plays through injuries isn’t recorded. I have been trying to note these players and the stats which seem effected. I have found power, contact and speed (Duh) to decline as a results of an injury.

With this information, I decided to try to reverse-engineer an equation to find players with declining rates in speed, contact and power. The equation is not based off any extrapolated values, just what I thought would work (similar to the QB passer rating in the NFL). Also, I am not close to being done with it. I used previous season data and need to improve these values (weighting and regression). Also, I just can’t compare to preseason projections because they don’t calculate some values I look at like Contact%. Also, it can’t look at rookies at this point. Even with these limitations, the results have been encouraging.

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I absolutely love it when prospects get called up. LOVE IT. There’s nothing more exciting than infinite possibility. It’s what makes the first day of the regular season so special, and the first day of the playoffs, and, I dunno, it helped make Star Wars pretty cool.

It can also make your fantasy teams complete disasters.

I’m as guilty of it as anyone — oftentimes I’ll run a team of highly-touted prospects out there when creating a fantasy squad, and when they invariably take their lumps, I cringe, see my team fall in the standings, and really wish I had drafted Aramis Ramirez instead of, say, Brett Lawrie last year.

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Among a slew of pitchers, there are three catchers whose names appear on the list of most auctioned players in the ottoneu world: Jason Castro, Chris Iannetta and Yan Gomes.

Catcher has been a bit of an odd position this year, with pre-season favorites like Salvador Perez and Miguel Montero struggling; unexpected contributions from the likes of Josh Donaldson and Evan Gattis; and the early season suspensions to Yasmani Grandal and Carlos Ruiz. It’s no surprise that so many owners are trying to get this position figured out.

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Yesterday, I took a look at the potential pitcher strikeout percentage surgers based on the regression equation I developed and shared with all of you last week. Today, I will look at the opposite side of the coin — those pitchers whose expected strikeout percentages are significantly lower than their actual strikeout percentages.

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