Episode 106

The latest episode of The Sleeper and the Bust is now live! Jason Collette and Eno Sarris re-visit the Billy Hamilton concern-o-meter, discuss Anthony Rizzo, Mike Morse, deep sleeper bats, the crazy closer situations, and even more injuries.

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 Approximately46 min of joyous analysis.

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Pitchers tend to post a better ERA in April than any other month. That’s usually blamed on various factors ranging from weather to hitters working on their timing. Even though April is a good month for pitching, it doesn’t mean everyone pitches well. Some good pitchers have struggled this April, and you might be able to acquire them cheaply.

Let’s reflect on human nature. We all know not to overreact to a couple bad starts. Yet according to experiments, we can’t help but frame a player’s value based on his performance. I may know that Cliff Lee is a great pitcher going forward, but his 6.00 ERA may still trick me into selling low on him.

Here’s a big old dashboard of the 38 starting pitchers with an ERA of 4.50 or higher through April 9. Or you can head straight to the dashboard itself.

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• Matt Moore has a torn UCL and in the best case scenario, he will return late in the 2014 season. More likely he will under go Tommy John surgery. I had an idea the injury was pretty bad right after it happened.

Matt Moore’s in game2game velo was fine, but a 38% Zone% and late game velo plunge http://t.co/3PfqkWQjpr have me concerned about the injury

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) April 8, 2014

Late game velocity plunges are usually not healthy for a pitcher. We will have more information on Moore in the up coming days, but for now, don’t expect any useful production from him in 2014.

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Welcome to the regularly updated Top 50 Impact Rookies for 2014. This ranking tool grades freshman players based on their projected MLB impacts for 2014 so it will vary significantly from typical Top 50 or 100 prospects lists.

#1 Xander Bogaerts | Red Sox (3B/SS)

April 10: With Boston’s decision not to resign veteran shortstop Stephen Drew, Bogaerts was handed the starting shortstop gig in Boston at the age of 21. The regular playing time — as well as his advanced feeling for hitting — makes him an early favorite for the Rookie of the Year award in the American League (along with the Yankee’s Japanese import Masahiro Tanaka). Read the rest of this entry »

Agenda

1. What is an overlay?
2. DFS Picks
3. Traditional Fantasy Friday
4. La Table

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Striekouts rule in DraftStreet. Find a hurler who can rack up 10 punch-outs, and the baseline he needs to reach with the rest of his performance shrinks significantly. Gamble on a power hitter who ends up whiffing multiple times, and you could be looking at a big, money-sucking negative in the points column.

So identifying strikeout potential is key, and once we have a little more data about each team, we’ll be able to attack them appropriately. Strikeout rates cross the 50-percent stabilization threshold (that is, half of future performance can be predicted by performance to date) earlier than any other stat – 60 plate appearances for hitters and 70 batters faced for pitchers.

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Josh Rutledge was a compelling sleeper entering 2013 after his 23-year old rookie season in which he put up a 93 wRC+ with a flash of both power and speed as a middle infielder. Unfortunately, Rutledge fell two points shy of a .300 OBP over the first month and a half of the 2013 season and was optioned to AAA. He made two return trips to the majors later in the season, but he never recaptured his fantasy success from the year before.

His replacement, D.J. LeMahieu, is not exactly Barry Bonds. LeMahieu carried a .311 OBP and a 70 wRC+ over 434 plate appearances last season, but the Rockies are clearly satisfied with him since he once again made the team at Rutledge’s expense this season.

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We’re only a week and a half into the season and therefore no American League starting pitchers have started more than two games. With such a tiny sample size to work with, there simply isn’t enough data to analyze that would yield any sort of insight. However, we know that velocity stabilizes very quickly and so it would therefore be worthwhile to check in on the biggest velocity surgers and decliners. Velocity gradually increases as the season wears on, so it would be most accurate to compare current velocities with last April. However, too many pitchers came up later in the year and had no velocity readings to compare to. So to make things easier, I am comparing to the full season.

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Happy Thursday, everyone. Enjoy your sexy Thursday edition of the Roto Riteup.

Today’s Agenda
1. Josh Hamilton out 6-8 weeks
2. A James Paxton update
3. A Matt Moore update
4. Fun with arbitrary endpoints
5. The Daily Five

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• Oh, Jim Johnson. Oakland’s “closer” continued his rough start to the season earlier, getting yanked in the middle of a save opportunity. Oakland eventually won the game in extras, but it is little consolation to the groundballer’s fantasy owners. He’s allowed a seemingly unlucky 9 hits on 16 balls in play so far this year, but owns an ugly 4/6 K/BB ratio. His velocity is right where it should be and he’s had a history of pretty good control, so it may just be a rough couple of outings. That said, it’s an awful time for him to have a rough couple outings, as he hasn’t had a chance to establish himself in the Oakland bullpen.

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