Tomorrow is the 14th anniversary of New Found Glory’s From the Screen to Your Stero album. As the title would suggest, the album was covers of well known songs from films. My favorite track is probably “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough“, though “My Heart Will Go On” is pretty great too.

On today’s agenda:
1. Thoughts on Derek Norris‘ hot start
2. Chris Davis to the 15-day disabled list
3. The Daily Five

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Agenda

1. Ignominious Injuries
2. Sunday Sensations
3. Monday Magnificence
4. Tubular Table

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Much has been written about how well pitchers have performed the past few seasons. Or put another way, much has been written about how hitters are faring worse than they have in a long time, especially in regards to walking back to the dugout after striking out. I’m not smart enough to give you a fantastic answer in regards to why this trend is continuing. However, I am going to tell you my favorite aspect of it, at least as far as one team in concerned. Velocity.

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Agenda

1. Results of our poll
2. DFS Pickings
3. Sunday Selections
4. Table

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Episode 111

The latest episode of The Sleeper and the Bust is now live! Jason Collette and Eno Sarris discuss Yoenis Cespedes, Chase Headley, replacing Mark Trumbo, CC Sabathia, Dan Haren, Matt Joyce, Eno’s latest story, and their early fantasy all-stars.

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 57  min of joyous analysis.  

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My father has long suggested that I should begin studying the philosophy of absurdism by taking in Albert Camus’ novel The Stranger. Once I found out it was only 123 pages, I jumped in. Heck, I gave up on Infinite Jest after 123 pages. I can read 123 pages.

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In at least one way, Travis Wood was fantastic last season. He pitched to a 3.11 ERA over 32 starts and 200 innings. However, Wood was a source of great skepticism entering the 2014 season. His .248 BABIP and mediocre 2.18 K/BB ratio signaled possible regression. Moreover, he’s a fly ball pitcher in a park that doesn’t usually favor fly ball pitchers (except in April). His HR/FB ratio was low at 6.9 percent.

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Here are the stats so far through two-and-a-half trips through:

7-2 record
3.22 ERA
8.8 K/9
2.7 K/BB
1.17 WHIP

This week’s bunch is a pair of left-handers and one righty, and has brought about a potential semantics change for this column. It can be very difficult to find pitchers with three ownership figures in the sub-50 percent range, so it’s the opinion of the author that two out of three should suffice. If any grievance should be felt on this, feel free to air it in the comments section below. Thank you. -BW

Onto this week’s picks:

LHP Tyler Skaggs – 16.8% ESPN/23% Yahoo!/72% CBS (40% start) – v. CLE, v. TEX Read the rest of this entry »

Jesus Aguilar is the very definition of a prospect with more value in fantasy baseball than in real life. Our own Marc Hulet ranked him as the 11th-best prospect in Cleveland’s system last year, and left him out of the top 15 entirely this year. There are plenty of very good reasons for this exclusion, starting with the fact that Aguilar is a bat-only prospect; he has well below-average speed and doesn’t have much of anything to offer defensively.

Furthermore, the 23-year-old’s one plus tool, his power, has mostly been of the five o’clock variety throughout his minor-league career. Listed at 6’3″, 250 pounds (I’d bet my life savings on the over regarding his listed weight), he puts on one hell of a show in batting practice, hitting the ball out of the park to all fields. However, following his 23 homers in A-ball back in 2011, he hit just 15 dingers between High-A and Double-A in 2012, and 16 last year in Double-A.

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If you’re participating in a fantasy baseball league and even paying moderate attention to what’s happening in that league, you’re likely aware that Charlie Blackmon is blistering the baseball and has proven to be one of the more unexpected stories of the early season. He’s currently hitting .410/.453/.692 and his .491 wOBA is second in the league (which should highlight just how crazy of a month Troy Tulowitzki, who is number one, has enjoyed in April).

Thus, fantasy owners have plucked Blackmon off the waiver wire in almost every league. He currently has a 100% ownership rate in ESPN leagues and is actually the number-one fantasy player in ESPN leagues — ahead of Giancarlo Stanton, Alexei Ramirez, Albert Pujols, and Adam Wainwright. He’s one of the few players who has contributed in all five standard categories. The 27-year-old has six stolen bases, five homers, a .410 batting average, 19 runs scored, and 16 runs batted in. To put that in perspective, here’s where he ranks in each standard category:

In short, Charlie Blackmon has been a top-20 player in all five offensive categories. No other player can claim that. Alexei Ramriez is the closest. The 32-year-old shortstop qualifies in four of the five categories, but he only ranks 27th in homers. Blackmon is the only guy who has been truly elite in every category, which is the paragon of a fantasy hitter.

Fantasy baseball analysis isn’t simply about looking to the past to explicate what has occurred. While that’s an effective story-telling tool, which is important in its own right, we’re much more interested in attempting to determine whether a player can be expected to produce at a high level going forward. Anyone can have a scorching-hot three weeks. It’s something else entirely for a fringe fantasy player to sustain an acceptable level of performance throughout an entire season.

In other words, should you be buying what Charlie Blackmon is selling?

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