• I hate to see Jose Fernandez needing Tommy John surgery (TJS). His owners really should not have been totally surprised the injury happened. While it is impossible to predict exactly which pitchers will get injured when, Fernandez had some injury risk signs coming into the season.

1. He threw hard. When Matt Harvey had TJS last season, I looked at extreme hard throwers to see if they have more injury risk. Among only 15 starters, there was a heightened risk. I would hate to draw too many conclusions from a sample of 15, but the trend continues.

2. He threw a ton of curve balls. Over 30% in 2013 and in 2014. Previously, I found pitchers who throw their curve more than 25% of the time have a 50% chance of going on the DL.

3. He hadn’t yet established himself in the majors. Pitchers who have been able to make in the majors for three complete season are about 10% points less likely to be DL bound.

All three factors put Fernandez at a higher than normal injury risk.

Read the rest of this entry »

Agenda

1. What’s with 12:35?
2. Thin Thursday
3. Funky Friday
4. Table

Read the rest of this entry »

I often cite wOBA in these daily fantasy posts, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t misleading by repeatedly mentioning a stat that doesn’t mesh well with the DraftStreet scoring system.

As a refresher, here is what is included in wOBA: unintentional walks, hit by pitch, singles, doubles, triples, home runs, and plate appearances.

Here is what is included in DraftStreet scoring: walks, hut by pitch, singles, doubles, triples, home runs, runs, RBI, stolen bases and strikeouts.

Read the rest of this entry »

Plate discipline is an unheralded casualty of this new era of depressed offense. There have been 19 players with a .15-to-1 walk-to-strikeout rate or worse in a qualified season since the end of the dead ball era in 1920, and there are 11 players on that pace so far this season. Increasingly, that leaves fantasy owners stuck with sub-.300 on base players and their correspondingly low batting averages and runs totals in even moderately deep formats.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last week, a trio of interesting pitchers joined their respective American League teams’ starting rotations. While two of the three were likely already owned in AL-Only leagues and almost have to blindly be slotted onto a fantasy team’s active roster, the bigger question is whether these guys are worth considering in shallower formats. Let’s dive in.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s Roto Riteup comes to you uncut and unrated.

On today’s agenda:
1. Garrett Richards is pretty awesome
2. Martin Perez has elbow trouble, needs DL stint
3. Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez rehabbing
4. Fun with arbitrary endpoints
5. The Flimsy Five

Read the rest of this entry »

-Just when we thought we figured this whole Angels bullpen thing out, Mike Scioscia sent Ernesto Frieri to the hill in the eighth-inning with a three run lead, then provided Joe Smith with the opportunity to close out the Phillies and earn the save. Scioscia’s comments following today’s game indicate that he’ll continue to mix-and-match Frieri and Joe Smith in the ninth frame depending on the particulars of the save situation. Two factors — the score, and part of the order due up (among other foreign forms of managerial reasoning) — will be considered when the skipper calls for his choice closer. Although Scioscia’s comments suggest he would eventually like to name one closer for the remainder of the season, this continues to feel like a closer-by-committee situation. If you’re chasing saves, you’re looking to grab shares of both players until one of these guys — presumably Frieri — proves worthy to work closing situations regardless of situation.
Read the rest of this entry »

This is a question I’ve asked myself several times this year when preparing for daily fantasy contests. My assumption was that run scoring in doubleheader games might be lower because of fatigue and because it’s not uncommon for teams to start bench players in one of the two doubleheader games. But after a little digging, I found that assumption to be incorrect. Read the rest of this entry »

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 only (not future years) so it will vary significantly from typical Top 50 or 100 prospects lists.

*Masahiro Tanaka (and other Japanese hurlers) has been omitted due to his service time in Japan, as well as the level of competition. Cuban and Mexican imports have not been omitted due to the lower level of competition in their respective countries.

Updated: May 12, 2014

Read the rest of this entry »

Agenda

1. Skip Patterns
2. Today’s DFS
3. Tomorrow’s Everything
4. Table

Read the rest of this entry »