After trade talks regarding Brandon Phillips failed to drum up even a modicum of interest –thanks to being owed $50 million over the next four years, of course — the Reds return the exact same starting unit on a position-by-position basis that dominated playing time for the club during the 2013 season.

In fact, if one subtracts catcher, where Devin Mesoraco and Ryan Hanigan split time last year, the Reds return an infield that combined to start 614 of a possible 648 games last year (94.8%).

That isn’t necessarily a good thing, however. For all the grief and guff Joey Votto took from people over his RBI totals, he was the sole survivor in an infield full of offensive disappointments. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 92

The latest episode of The Sleeper and the Bust is now live! Jason Collette joins Eno Sarris to preview the New York Mets and the Washington Nationals.

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 74 min of joyous analysis.

ADP results from NFBC

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During the 2013 season, I created three metrics to help find possible injuries: PAIN, HURT and SLOW. So far this offseason, I have looked back at the final 2013 values for PAIN and HURT. I have put off SLOW ( Swinging Late or Whiffing) because the data was a mess a to query and work with.I finally simplified the process so the following is a look at the 2013 SLOW leaders. Also, I will examine if a SLOW bat was behind the second half struggles of Jason Kipnis and Jean Segura.

I created SLOW to see which hitters struggle with fastballs right in the heart of the strikezone. The two requirements are:

• Heart of the strike zone (almost 99% of pitches called strikes and damn you CB Bucknor).
• Fastball speed equal to or greater than 92 mph.

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The Minnesota Twins had the worst starting pitching in baseball in 2013. That’s no secret. It’s highly likely that the Twins starters didn’t get used very often in most standard fantasy formats as they were chock full of low strikeout arms with crummy peripherals and unlikely win prospects. But for Twins fans, and your fantasy team, there’s reason for some optimism in the Minnesota rotation in 2014.

Read the rest of this entry »

So, the Pirates are good now, you guys. It’s going to take some getting used to, probably, but the 2013 Pittsburgh Pirates were really quite good at baseball. They won 94 games and made the playoffs for the first time in approximately 800 years. With that success, however, it’s important to take note of the areas in which they excelled and the areas in which the they struggled. In other words: Pittsburgh had the third best ERA in baseball last season, but was 16th in wOBA. It was an elite pitching team, but an average offensive one.

The team was successful, and it’s still good, but that doesn’t mean much to fantasy owners. And so we come to the Pirates infield, and the cast of characters there for 2014 who may (or may not) be of use to fantasy owners.

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One of my strongest beliefs as a prospect/minor league writer is that there is far too much absolutism in most discussions of prospects in the online community. Part of the reason for this is simply a matter of demand–as you read about a minor league player (or, really, any player) at a place like FanGraphs or RotoGraphs, you’re likely interested in some sort of bottom line about how good the player is and might be. As such, there is a lot of pressure on the arbiters of the players to come up with a concrete answer–to make an actual prediction of their futures. In reality, though, prospecting is all about shades of gray, particularly in the low minors, which are my main focus. Just about every player in full-season ball has something going for them, but likewise, almost every player below Double-A has several aspects which need refinement before he has a chance at big league success. Predicting the eradication of those problems and the amount to which the strengths are realized is largely an exercise in probability, not one of guessing “good,” “bad,” or “okay” and clinging to it…to say nothing of the factors of injuries, regression, and the like. Any glance at a top prospect list from five years ago, regardless of the authors or their credibility, should drive this point home soundly–many of the top players go on to struggle, whereas several off the list entirely go on to have excellent careers.

For all of my relativistic outlook, though, occasionally I run into a player who’s just so impressive that my mind can’t help but jump directly to concrete thoughts of stardom. Of the couple hundred pitchers I saw in person last year, nobody evoked those thoughts more strongly than Cardinals pitching prospect Alex Reyes.

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The Cardinals infield returns three regulars from last year but only has two players manning the same position and has one completely new face. But regardless of whether they’re old or new, I probably like all five players less than the general public based on early ADP data.

One of the two guys manning the same position is a Cardinal stalwart, Yadier Molina. I looked into Molina earlier this off season and his value derived primarily from his batting average last year as he provided more fantasy value with his batting average than any other catcher thanks to the second highest average at the position and a relatively high number of plate appearances. But he didn’t do the things that made him great in 2012. His HR/FB rate returned to about his career rate, so he hit 12 home runs as opposed to 22. His speed went away as quickly as it appeared, so he stole 3 bases as opposed to 12.

Without the 2012 power/speed combo that is basically unheard of at his position, Molina absolutely must have his average remain high for his fantasy value to remain high. That’s a little scary because Molina’s BABIP was .338 last year. To be fair, his xBABIP was .331 thanks in large part to a 24.3% line drive rate. But it’s just a little nerve-wracking to be drafting a guy that is so BABIP dependent when BABIP is such a fickle stat. For example, Molina had a 24.8% line drive rate and .344 xBABIP in 2012, but his actual BABIP was only .316. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I wrote about Eddie Butler and how Colorado’s volatile starting rotation could open the door for Butler, and fellow prospect Jonathan Gray, to contribute earlier than expected. That got me thinking about how Matthew Wisler is in a similar situation with the Padres, especially following the news that Cory Luebke will miss all of 2014.

Ian Kennedy, one of baseball’s most durable pitchers over the last several years, is assured a spot in the rotation, as are Andrew Cashner and Josh Johnson. Cashner finally managed to stay healthy for a full season last year, and was quite good in his 175 innings, finishing the season with a 3.09 earned run average and 1.13 walks plus hits per inning. The problem with Cashner is that he had thrown a total of 316.2 innings in his five previous professional seasons.

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With early ADP data somewhat unreliable this early in the spring, most of us have been leaning on the numbers coming in from recent NFBC drafts, both real and mock. However, the draft value of certain players and positions in those leagues is often skewed due to the inability to make trades and the ADP numbers aren’t necessarily a true reflection of how drafts go in the “everyman’s” world.

That is why I have created something called the Mock Draft Army.

For those who haven’t heard of it, you can click the link for details, but the sum up is this — with a need for better ADP numbers and early mock drafts lacking in full, reliable participation, I have put together a series of mock drafts made up of a rotating group of 20-30 fantasy writers who participate alongside their readers, Twitter followers and fantasy radio audience. Each draft has anywhere from 6-10 writers and not only do they provide us with some new-look ADP data, but the chat rooms offer a nice, open forum for player discussions, debates, and a chance for readers to ask some of their favorite writers for some personal insight on both players and draft strategy. Thursday night was the Mock Draft Army’s second draft of the season, a 12-team mixed league for a standard 5×5 roto league, and here’s how it went down… Read the rest of this entry »

I would love to spend the next few hundred words or so of this article talking about the impending arrival of Byron Buxton, the near-consensus No. 1 overall prospect in the game, who promises to immediately change the face of the Minnesota outfield and the lineup as a whole.

Unfortunately, Buxton’s ETA is more likely 2015 — potentially late 2014 — so we’re stuck talking about the guys who are actually going to get the bulk of the playing time this year, and it may not be pretty. Eyeballing our depth charts, Minnesota is the only team who isn’t projected to get even 2 WAR from a single one of their outfield spots; If you want to split hairs and say that 1.9 WAR and 2 WAR are basically the same thing, you wouldn’t be wrong, but you also wouldn’t really be changing the point. Minnesota’s outfield tied with Houston for last in both wRC+ and wOBA last year, and they return largely the same group, so no, this may not be pretty. Read the rest of this entry »