We here at FanGraphs are big fans of Indians starter Corey Kluber. Well, at least Carson Cistulli is. He founded the Corey Kluber Society in mid-June, and as far as I’m aware, made Kluber the subject of the only society FanGraphs has founded to date. Are you a member? And after a breakout 2013 performance, it would appear that Kluber is indeed deserving of such attention.
Episode 84
Jason Collette and Eno Sarris kick off the 2014 recording season by beginning the fantasy team previews. The show will tackle two teams per episode, with two shows a week throughout the next three months. First up – the Oakland A’s & the L.A. Angels
As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us any fantasy questions you have that we may answer on our next episode.
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Approximately one hour of joyous analysis.
Current NFBC ADP numbers referenced in the show
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Prospect analysts generally ranked Danny Salazar between the fourth and tenth best prospect in the Indians farm system heading into 2013. That was a big swing and a miss. Salazar broke out last season and posted gaudy strikeout totals at every stop along with a 96 mph heater and a stingy walk rate. In a ten start, 52 inning sample in the majors, he pitched to a 3.12 ERA and 2.75 xFIP, neither of which appears suspicious in any way. His season culminated in a playoff appearance against Alex Cobb of the Tampa Bay Rays. It should have been the kind of noisy breakout experienced by Stephen Strasburg, but it’s quite possible that Salazar will be undervalued in fantasy leagues this spring.
Today on the front of the site, I wrote about Bronson Arroyo, and how he’s been better than his peripherals for five years now. The two-second version of the piece is that he’s played in front of a defense that was tops in the National League over that same time frame. The longer version led to a few more questions that I’d like to explore here.
Clay Buchholz looks good. Clay Buchholz looks real good. Fans begin to wonder, “is this the Clay Buchholz we heard so much about in 2007?” Word is leaked that he is sore. No big deal, he’ll just skip a side session. Or a start. A few starts. OK, he’s on the disabled list. And now he’s dealing with some freak injury that no one can peg down. Welp, he’s missed half the season.
Sound familiar? If you are a Buchholz owner in a keeper or dynasty league, 2013 was the fourth year in a row where Buchholz hit the disabled list. The past three years, his injuries have been A) stress fracture to the L2 vertebra, B) esophagitis, and C) some sort of mysterious trapezius/neck/shoulder strain. When he was healthy, he was one of the best pitches in baseball, posting the lowest ERA among pitches with at least 100 innings and coming in 20th overall in our end-of-season cumulative FVAR rankings, even though he only tossed 108.1 frames.
Matt Cain has been the picture of consistency and high-quality consistency at that. From 2009 through 2012, he pitched around 220 innings each season, posted ERA marks between 2.79 and 3.14 and struck out 171 to 193 batters. A typically weak Giants offense hampered his win total, but he was the fantasy ace who usually cost a bit less than the others. Perhaps us sabernerds simply kept waiting for the bottom to drop out and his apparent good fortune to fade, which depressed his price. But that never happened.
Martin Perez has only thrown 162.1 innings in the majors, but he’s well-known within most baseball communities. He’s been one of the most-hyped prospects in the Rangers’ farm system in recent years, being named the number-three prospect and top pitching prospect by Baseball America in 2013.
Thus, when the Rangers promoted him to the big-league rotation for good in late June, many fantasy owners quickly jumped on the bandwagon and plucked him off waivers (if he was even available). Perez didn’t set the league ablaze like Jose Fernandez or display the makings of a potential ace like Gerrit Cole. He instead provided solid-average production and was a top-100 starter despite spending almost half the season in Triple-A.
As such, the 3.62 ERA won’t give anyone whiplash, but he won ten games and was nearly a two-win player in the majors at age 22. That’s nothing at which to scoff. The question, however, is how that level of production may look over the course of an entire season.
One of my favorite things about Ottoneu is that owners generally have to do their own leg work when identifying players to target and how to value them. With the $400 auction budget and 40 player roster, traditional price guides are only really useful for the purpose of ranking. The extra dollars and roster spots greatly affect a player’s value. Like in real baseball where Shin-Soo Choo is more valuable to the Rangers than the Astros, the dynamics of Ottoneu ensure that certain players have different values to different owners – even if the owners agree precisely about the player’s expected performance.
Not much in injury news over the past week, so I decided to dive mainly into the effects of major knee injuries.
• The Mariners recently signed Corey Hart who missed all of 2013 after left knee surgery. I went through my injury database and found 60 outfielders who either tore or had surgery on a knee. Additionally, I added those outfielders who missed 90 days or more because of a knee issue. In all, I found 60 outfielders who met the criteria. I looked at the weighted average from the season before … to the season of the injury… to the season after the injury. Here are the results:
In 2012, the prospect world was down on James Paxton. He was still getting strikeouts based on his curve, but his velocity was down and his control was terrible. Then he got his knee fixed, and suddenly he’s a desired commodity again. His story might remind us: as every baseball manager will tell you, it’s important not to get too high or too low. An even keel provides the best foundation for honest appraisal.