Before this season began, there was no shortage of advocates for a Devin Mesoraco breakout. The Cincinnati Reds’ backstop caught Eno’s eye last fall in the end-of-season catcher rankings, re-examined. Eno also highlighted the 25-year-old, who was No. 18 on RotoGraphs’ preseason consensus list at the position, in his bold predictions for 2014. Indeed, prior to opening day, Mesoraco translated loosely to “optimism.”
Agenda
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April 15 is one of my favorite days of the year. And not because it’s tax day. It’s Jackie Robinson Day. It’s the day our sport comes together to honor Mr. Robinson and his magnificent achievements. Without his sacrifice and perseverance the game we love wouldn’t be nearly as special as it is today. So, today when you’re enjoying the game, think a little bit about Mr. Robinson.
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If you happen to be a FG+ subscriber, and you happen to have visited Justin Masterson’s page, and you happen to have read his 2014 FanGraphs+ Profile, you saw these lines: “Fantasy owners will look at his 2010-11-12-13 roller coaster and be nervous. I’ll be buying at the discounted price and laughing all the way to the fantasy-value bank.”
As the author of those lines, I feel it is my responsibility to address what has been an all-around putrid start to the season from the supposed ace of a playoff-contending staff. Besides, I own Masterson across multiple leagues and my own nerves would probably benefit from some analysis.
Today’s Roto Riteup is being written while snow falls outside my window. Baseball has started and there is snow on the ground; I’m not very happy about this weather.
On today’s agenda:
1. Jesse Chavez is a useful starter
2. Dan Uggla is the roulette wheel of rotoball
3. The Daily Five
• If you were hedging your Jonathan Papelbon closer bets with Jake Diekman, well, you can probably stop. With Papelbon having tossed three straight games, the Phils turned to Diekman to try and wrap up a one-run game Monday night. It blew up in the faces, with the lefty demonstrating a complete inability to hit the strike zone (he walked B.J. Upton, that’s how bad it was) before he served up a hanging spinner to Dan Uggla. Granny style. Diekman has always struggled with control (5.05 BB/9 in the minors, 4.88 in the majors) and righties own a career .335 wOBA against him. He has the potential to be a nice half of a lefty/righty platoon, but he doesn’t have the skill set to be profitable in an everyday ninth inning role. Look elsewhere if you need Papelbon insurance (if you’re so inclined, Mike Adams was activated after the game).
We know very little this early into the season. Your Roto position matters little, your sleepers struggling doesn’t mean a great deal (unless it can impact playing time, and closers, well, we know about as much now as we did in the preseason: zilch.
However, the “small sample size” caveats will, eventually, begin to fade. And in fact, there may actually be some information we can glean from the early going, at least as it pertains to pitcher strikeout rates.
Strikeout rates are among the first statistics to stabilize. “70” is not a magic number, but after about 70 batters faced, a majority of the future variance (R2=0.5) in strikeout rate can be explained by strikeout rate to date. That is, after 70 batters faced, pitcher strikeout rate has begun to “stabilize.”
Read the rest of this entry »
• Alex Cobb will be out four to six weeks with a strained quad muscle.
Cobb admitted that he “felt something grab” on his final pitch Saturday to Reds leadoff man Billy Hamilton. But he thought it was just a cramp or a slight pull and went on to throw 82 more pitches over seven impressive innings, feeling more pain between pitches than during, before finally taking himself out of the game. He thought he might miss at most one start.
It does seem a little long, but he may have made the problem worse by throwing 82 more pitches after he felt the “grab”.
Tony Cingrani has one pitch, or at least that’s how our conversation started. Michael Pineda has two, or at least that’s why I’ve been skeptical of him. Maybe thinking about these two pitchers can help us understand the relative importance of each type of pitch a little better.
Prior to the season, I wrote an article in which I warned fantasy owners to stay away from Yovani Gallardo on draft day. I cited his velocity decline, his decreased strikeout rate, his decrease swinging-strike rate, and his increasingly-ineffective curveball. I mentioned how he could experience a bounce-back season, but the right-hander would need to reverse a couple of those worrisome trends.
After a trio of starts this year, however, Gallardo has thrown the ball brilliantly. He’s tossed a quality start in every outing. He owns a 0.96 ERA and 2.23 FIP, and the Milwaukee Brewers have won all three of his starts. He also has a .333 OBP at the dish, which is largely irrelevant, but I love when pitchers aren’t inept at the plate and it does mark the first time the hurler drew a walk since 2011.
So, where did the preseason analysis go awry? To put it differently, where has Yovani Gallardo shown improvement and what didn’t I see coming into this season?