Today’s Roto Riteup is being written while I cool down in the air conditioning. After a ridiculously long and cold winter my blood has thickened to the point where this mild 60ish degree weather feels like I’m baking. But I’m not complaining; I’d much prefer the warm weather over the cold.

On today’s agenda:
1. What to make of Josh Beckett
2. Second base in Atlanta
3. Welcome back, Adam Lind
4. The Daily Five

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Another relatively slow night here at the Bullpen Report. Here are a few updates regarding closers returning from the disabled list, Darren O’Day and Fernando Rodney.

-The end of Casey Janssen’s rehab stint could be near. Sounds like the right-hander will take the next few days off, then pitch on Saturday for Double-A New Hampshire. According to John Gibbons, Janssen could be back with the Blue Jays as early as Sunday or Monday, but the brass will likely make that decision following Saturday’s scheduled outing. Janssen made appearances in two consecutive games earlier this week for New Hampshire, going two innings without allowing an earned run or a walk, fanned two and surrendered three hits. In Janssen’s absence, Sergio Santos, Brett Cecil and Aaron Loup have combined to go 9-for-14 in save opportunities.
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I recommend avoiding swingers. They’re a…complication. I like to keep my life simple and tidy.

When it comes to fantasy baseball, we’re usually looking for our hitters to contribute in just five statistics. Around these parts, we know there is a host of peripheral statistics to evaluate quality of performance to date and expected performance going forward. One of my favorite peripherals is swinging strike rate (SwStr%). Whilst gazing upon the swinging strike leaderboard this morning, I realized the list was topped with six players I would really like to avoid. Maybe you would like to know about players I’m avoiding.

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• On Monday, Tom brought up looking at the rest of season effects on Ryan Zimmerman’s thumb injury. Tom was looking for the effects for different types of thumb injuries. Well, I can’t get that detailed. The injury database I have only goes goes down to the thumb level, not location on thumb. Even looking just at thumbs, only 28 documented players went on the DL since 2002 for thumb issues. I like to have around 50 players for a good sample, but cutting 28 in half (or more) would just not yield a decent sample size. So here is the information.

Average Age: 29.7
Median age: 29
Average DL Days: 35.2
Median DL Days: 30

Decline rate for hitters with a thumb injury
Stat: Year-1 to Year, Year to Year+1, Year-1 to Year+1
AVG: -0.010, -0.002, -0.015
OBP: -0.012, -0.004, -0.021
SLG: -0.015, -0.028, -0.044

Decline rate for hitters from age 28 to 30 season
Stat: Year-1 to Year, Year to Year+1, Year-1 to Year+1
AVG: -0.002, -0.003, -0.005
OBP: 0.000, -0.001, -0.001
SLG: -0.004, -0.006, -0.010

This season, he should see a 10 point drop in his expected AVG which will felt in his OBP and SLG. Next year, the there should be no more than the expected decline in AVG or OBP, but his SLG should drop more than expected by 20 points.

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Today we’ll be digging deep into the depths of the middle reliever player pool to identify some lesser owned middles that could positively impact your fantasy baseball team, for now. There is one exception to rule noted above, 15% owned Jean Machi, who has been off to an incredible start to the season for the San Francisco Giants. I felt obligated to toss him into today’s discussion since we haven’t talked about him yet.

All ownership percentages reflect Yahoo! leagues.
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Agenda

1. How to use the Factor Grid
2. DFS Picks
3. Fish Friday
4. Table Talk

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It’s a shame that pretty much no one saw this coming. The question, then: What now?

Jordan Lyles, of the Colorado Rockies, has a 2.62 ERA. Yes, it’s after only seven starts (44 2/3 stanzas). But it’s kind of supported, with a 3.41 FIP, a 3.60 xFIP and a 3.76 SIERA. Those figures say that a correction is coming, but not necessarily the kind you’d expect for a pitcher who makes half of his starts at Coors Field and has a 13.6 K%. If you want real absurdity, check out his 1.25 ERA in three home starts (21 2/3 innings).

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While it’s less of a concern on Thursdays with a generally thin schedule, thinning out the player pool from which you’re selecting can be a helpful first step in your daily research. That’s not to say you should ignore values that pop up beyond these quick short-hands, but they represent an easy way of narrowing your choices, specifically when it comes to selecting a pitcher to stack against.

I’ll generally list every team in action, then I’ll eliminate teams playing with a chance of rain out (especially on a day like Thursday when an early-start league could really lower your floor with late rain-outs), and then sort them based on the over/under posted by Vegas to group them into potentially high- and low-scoring affairs.

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As sample-size conscious baseball fans, we are slow to trust early-season numbers. That caution is appropriate, but sometimes I wonder whether we are too attached to the idea of a separation between seasons to recognize when solid starts to the season are really just a continuation of an improved level of play that was established the previous season.

Fortunately, FanGraphs leaderboards have a really cool Past 1 Calendar Years split. In perusing those leaderboards of both hitters and pitchers, these are the names that stood out to me as players I may have been underrating.

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Collin McHugh is an example of precisely why fantasy owners shy away from spending a whole lot on pitching at their auctions/drafts. There is simply so much more value that comes along during the season from pitchers plucked from free agency that it makes sense to spend the majority of your budget on offense. McHugh has only started three games, but if he did qualify for the leaderboard, he’d rank fourth among all starters in strikeout percentage. Naturally, 99% of fantasy owners are likely asking themselves the same question — Collin McWho?

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