Today’s Roto Riteup was written while enjoying the latest episode of Uhh Yeah Dude. UYD is an excellent comedy podcast, though the explicit tag should be taken seriously, as there is some swearing. Special thanks to Craig Glaser for recommending UYD.
On today’s agenda:
1. Thoughts on Ryan Dempster
2. Evan Gattis begins his rehab assignment
3. A setback for Trevor Cahill
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-For the second consecutive evening Kevin Gregg found himself in a bit of trouble on the hill, but unlike last night, the right-hander overcame a few mistakes — including, but not limited to a throwing error and a walk — en route to his 16th save of the twenty-thirteen campaign. Sure, Gregg didn’t take the conventional route to seal the victory for the Cubbies tonight, but he did in fact provide keep the Cardinals off the board. The save aside, are we starting to see Gregg turn back into a pumpkin? I’m not exactly sure, but the 35-year-old reliever is 0-1 and 5-of-7 in save opportunities in his last eight trips to the hill. He’s allowed four earned runs and two homers in those same eight appearances after allowing just two earned and homer in his first 24 outings. Gregg’s recent struggles parlayed with the potential of him wearing a different uniform and serving a different role come the trade deadline, I’d be asking your leaguemates what they’d be willing to give up to acquire his services.
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Episode 36
Today’s episode of The Sleeper and the Bust stars yours truly and features RotoGraphs editor Eno Sarris. We discuss a pair of outfielders trending in the opposite direction and whether there is any value to be found in the Phillies 1st base replacements.
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 40 min of joyous analysis.
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No HURT, PAIN or SLOW rankings today. Instead, I concentrated my time on looking at Cain’s possible injury and Darvish’s actual injury. Besides the those two, I examined Verlander, Jeter, the Uptons and a few pitchers coming off the DL.
• Rumors are flying around about Matt Cain being injured. Here are quotes from Cain, Bochy and Alex Pavlovic on Cain’s possible injury.
-Q: How did you feel coming out of your warm-ups?
-CAIN: I felt fine. Normal.
-Q: The conclusion someone might have after you only last two outs is that something is physically wrong. Is there anything wrong?
-CAIN: Nothing.
-Q: You’re fine?
-CAIN: Yep.
(source)
Manager Bruce Bochy said there is no health issue that has led to Cain’s struggles or the quick hook — Mike Kickham was warming up by the fourth batter and came in after Cain could not record the third out.
“I didn’t want it to become a health issue,” said Bochy, who added that he was worried about Cain’s first-inning pitch count that reached 36. “He’s fine. I had some concern there because he was a little off.
“I’ll be honest. You want to win every game, but you don’t want to risk someone to win a game. That’s why I got him.” (source)
No surprise after that first inning, but I’m told there have been in-house discussions about Cain’s health in recent days. (source)
Tyler Skaggs and Randall Delgado have arrived. Given their status as prospects, both pitchers should have already drawn some interest in most fantasy leagues. At the same time, owners have probably been hesitant to pick up two pitchers who could be pushed from the rotation once injured players are ready to return. But given the team’s struggles in the rotation, they currently rank 19th in FIP, it would be hard to remove either player from the rotation. Manager Kirk Gibson has already admitted that Brandon McCarthy and Trevor Cahill would not be in the rotation immediately following the All-Star break, though they could return shortly after. As long as Skaggs and Delgado are given more opportunities, they should draw interest in most leagues.
It is often said that closers are made, not born. Any experienced baseball fan knows this; it seems that for every Huston Street type who arrives with hype, four or five Jason Grillis, Andrew Baileys, or John Axfords slip into dominance after finding dead-ends in other roles. As such, predicting who will ascend to MLB closer roles (beyond the obvious “the best MLB non-closer relief pitchers”) is often a fool’s errand.
This becomes even more difficult when one attempts to find future closers in the minor leagues. Many of the pitchers who end up closing MLB games were starters all through their minor league careers, but it’s tough to project a minor league starter as a closer outright–in doing so, one is essentially saying “This pitcher will fail badly at the role he’s currently in and subsequently find tremendous success in a role he’s never pitched in.” Certainly plausible, but not something that seems like it can be said with much confidence. And minor league relievers–well, they’re equally problematic to forecast. After all, if a pitcher has a big future, why isn’t he able to crack a minor league rotation?
It’s certainly possible to envision any number of minor leaguers closing out ballgames–as so many sabermetricians are fond of saying, the role of garnering save totals can be accomplished reasonably effectively by any number of players, and the minor leagues have no shortage of interesting power pitchers that could fit a closer profile if things go their way. However, it’s quite another thing to actually predict that a minor league pitcher will end up amassing saves in the big leagues.
I think White Sox pitching prospect Daniel Webb merits such a prediction, though.
There seem to be a number of catcher situations that are going to bear watching over the next month or so as platoon splits could start or already have begun to change. We’ve already begun to witness changes in Chicago and Washington as rookie Josh Phegley is overtaking Tyler Flowers while Kurt Suzuki, as expected, is passing the baton over to Wilson Ramos. But there are other situations where the change has been a lot more subtle but could start to be a little more evident as we move forward. Read the rest of this entry »
The Astros, Mets and Pirates all have Thursday off. That’s three of the four most strikeout-prone offenses in baseball unavailable to pick on with a streamer or a starter in daily fantasy leagues. The Braves remain, but Mat Latos is going to come at a hefty price. So should we throw up our hands and give up on trying to find strikeouts Thursday?
Well thanks to some hard work from Steve Staude, we have a better idea of how strikeouts develop based on pitcher and hitter profiles. I encourage you to download his tool and play around with it, as I have for today’s match-ups.
Based on some complicated methodology, we can plug in league, player and pitcher strikeout rates and get an expected strikeout rate. As an example, the Twins strikeout at a roughly average 20.2% rate (20.7% against lefties), while Matt Moore strikes out 22.8% of hitters he faces. You may think he’d then be expected to strikeout roughly 21.5% of Twins batters, splitting the difference, and you’d be right – Steve’s formula spits out 21.9% as the expected strikeout rate (using the Logistic method – the other methods are more bullish on Moore).
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Because of last week’s July 4th holiday, these rankings are a bit late. So I apologize to all of you who have been spending this last week questioning how you could continue on with your life without this update.
Today’s Roto Riteup spent some time alone with the office cat yesterday, and an immediate friendship was not evident.
On today’s agenda:
1. Matt Cain gets smacked, perhaps hurt
2. Matt Harvey will have start skipped
3. Prospecty Stuff
