With Masahiro Tanaka officially a Yankee, it’s safe to write about the Dodgers rotation. The Dodgers were finalists in the bidding for Tanaka, but not because they needed excess pitching. the 40 man roster includes seven experienced starters, although one of those will open the season on the disabled list.
In terms of evaluating starting pitchers for the fantasy baseball season, owners have patiently waited for Masahiro Tanaka to sign with a major-league team. Ballpark and competition matter when evaluating players, so now that Tanaka inked a seven-year, $155 million deal with the New York Yankees, we can proceed to the more important stage of determining probable performance and probable value.
Of course, the most obvious obstacle hindering most fantasy analysis regarding Tanaka is the switch from the Nippon Professional Baseball league to the major leagues. The right-hander twirled a sparkling 1.27 ERA in his final season in Japan, but it’s unclear how that will translate to the American League. Furthermore, how do we know where to draft him and what kind of peripheral statistics can we expect? He’s bound to get glossed up by the hype machine in the coming months, especially since he will be wearing pinstripes, but fantasy owners realize they must trim away the fat to get at some core truth.
I’m not going to pretend I can project Tanaka’s overall performance in 2014. No matter what, he’ll remain kind of an enigma heading into the season. However, I do feel we can glean some important relational information by comparing him to how owners treated Yu Darvish when he stormed the league a couple seasons ago.
They’re baaaaaack! What better way to open Pod Projections season than with the pitcher the Yankees just made a very rich man, Masahiro Tanaka. This is the third season I have been publishing my projections and once again, my methods have improved and incorporate more data than ever before. Of course, since my process is completely manual, that just means it takes even longer to project each individual player.
This is a post about small sample sizes and luck, terms that get tossed around so much these days that we may have lost sight of their meaning. It’s also, I suppose, about Will Venable.
Venable kinda sorta broke out in 2013, which Robert J. Baumann covered earlier this week here. But the player inspired more thoughts, so here we are.
For many seasons, the San Francisco bullpen has been a source of pleasure for Giants fans. Unfortunately, the 2013 season revealed some cracks in the foundation. Bullpens are fickle beasts and can be easily brought back from the precipice, but there are some warning signs that dark days may be ahead. Perhaps that’s why our team depth charts project a combined -0.4 WAR from the unit.
Despite the gloomy prognosis from Steamer, a player-by-player analysis of the pen reveals some reason for optimism too. Like I said, bullpens are fickle beasts. This particular bullpen is split between the established old guard and an uppity younger generation.
What I love about this series, this look at each team’s depth chart, is that we unearth a number of position battles that might not be on the radar of the casual fantasy player. In this case, the Arizona Diamondbacks, the infield appears to be well set heading into spring training. First, second and third base are locked down; as is behind the plate. But a deeper look brings us to a report on the team’s website that informs us that the starting shortstop job is actually up for grabs. The casual fantasy player will look at the depth chart and assume that Didi Gregorius owns the gig. After all, he’s the big name and didn’t Arizona trade a highly-touted Trevor Bauer to get him? That they did, but according to GM Kevin Towers, spring time for the Diamondbacks will feature an open competition between Gregorius and Chris Owings and the winner gets a place on the field come Opening Day. Read the rest of this entry »
The San Diego Padres’ fantasy outlook may be looking up. While the team isn’t in contention yet, there are some promising players who could slowly change the team’s fortunes. The fact that they aren’t there yet means that the team’s fantasy assets are going to be readily available through most of the draft. Even the best offensive player on the club comes with a significant question mark this year. Though owners won’t be taking Padres early, there’s plenty of late upside on the team’s infield.
Before sympathizing with me for being tasked with discussing the Rockies rotation, understand that I actually chose this motley group to analyze. What can I say, I like a challenge. Although we typically have blindly avoided Rockies starting pitchers in the past, their rotation actually included a trio of starters who threw over 100 innings and posted an ERA below 3.50. Somewhat hilariously though, the remaining collection of hurlers that took the mound all posted ERAs of over 5.00. Now that’s more like it!
Adding Holds as a category to any fantasy league opens up a new pool of pitchers to the mix. No longer are teams focused just on just starters and closers, now middle relievers have more value. Holds are an impossible category to predict, but today I will give some ideas about guesstimating Holds and some pitchers who may accumulate them in 2014.
If a reliever comes into a game to protect a lead, gets at least one out and leaves without giving up that lead, he gets a hold.
Two things must exist for a pitcher to a get a Hold, opportunity and talent. Starting with opportunity: Holds are just like Saves, the manager must trust the pitcher enough to put them in a Hold situation. Two types of pitchers are given Hold opportunities, stud setup men and LOOGYs. A setup man will pitch the seventh and/or eighth since their peripheral data is similar to a closer. They will throw one inning and be done. LOOGY’s will be used to get one or two tough left-handed batters out and be done.
Episode 88
The latest episode of The Sleeper and the Bust is now live! Jason Collette joins Eno Sarris to preview the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs.
As usual, don’t hesitate to 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.
Thanks to Ian Miller aka Teen Archer, for the new intro music
Approximately 66 min of joyous analysis.
FSTA draft results mentioned several times in the show
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