Agenda

1. Happy Father’s Day
2. Daily DFS
3. Monday Picks
4. Table

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First and foremost I’d like to wish all my fellow dads a Happy Father’s Day. If possible, sit down, put your feet up, grab a cold one and enjoy the nice slate of games on Sunday. You’ve earned it.

Now on to a few bullpen notes from around the league after Saturday’s games:

–Jonathan Papelbon fanned two of the three Cubs he faced on Saturday en route to his 15th save of the season. The successful conversion moves the veteran right-hander into sole possession of 24th place on the all-time saves list in the majors with 301. On that list, Papelbon is third among active closers behind Joe Nathan (354) and Francisco Rodriguez (324). It’s still amazing to me that the combined ninth-inning achievements of Francisco Rodriguez and Jonathan Papelbon (324 + 301 = 625 saves) would still fall short of the all-time leader, Mariano Rivera, by 27 saves.
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Andrew McCutchen is really good. Groundbreaking stuff, I know. McCutchen gets a ton of a press; he did win the MVP last year, after all. Despite that, it feels like we don’t talk about the things that make him so, so good enough.

So far this season, among qualified batters, six batters have walked more than they’ve struck out. Those batters are: Victor Martinez, Jose Bautista, Coco Crisp, McCutchen, Kurt Suzuki, and Carlos Ruiz. Martinez has accomplished this feat by only striking out 6.6% of the time; Suzuki has taken that same path, striking out 8.1% of his plate appearances. Bautista has done so by slashing his strikeout rate, while also upping his walk rate a little closer to his unbelievable 2011 campaign. Crisp and Ruiz have been able to keep the scale in their favors by walking at a career high clip. As for McCutchen? He’s maintained his contact rate, while chasing even fewer pitches out of the zone. Only seven qualified batters have chased a fewer percentage of pitches out of the strike zone.

In 2012, McCutchen slashed .327/.400/.553, good for a 158 wRC+; 2013, .317/.404/.508, 155 wRC+. This year, his line is: .321/.435/.550, 177 wRC+. McCutchen’s hitting for the same amount of power he did in 2012 (.229 ISO versus .226), while besting his career high walk rate by more than 3%. Andrew McCutchen is an incredible player, and he’s currently maxing out every portion of his offensive profile. It’s a thing of beauty.

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Agenda

1. Some Picks From Scott Spratt
2. Daily DFS
3. Sunday Picks
4. Table

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Hooray, we survived a full moon on Friday the 13! I consider myself lucky, particularly considering we also made it through Y2K and the Mayan 2012 end-of-the-world scenario.

On today’s agenda:
1. Thoughts on Juan Francisco
2. Oscar Taveras down to Triple-A
3. Return of Mat Latos
4. The daily five

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I’m a San Francisco Giants fan and our* starting second baseman will probably never play baseball again. His replacement Brandon Hicks is hitting just .182/.297/.359. Despite Hicks’ stellar work in the field (+4 DRS) and occasional dinger production, we need a new second baseman if we’re going to set the modern record for wins in a single season.

So I went on over to McCovey Chronicles which is like the New York Times for me given that I don’t know what’s going on in the world beyond Grant Brisbee’s opining on the Giants. Brisbee had a well-reasoned column on the Chase Utley trade rumors. I thought Utley had faded off into obscurity with Marco Scutaro. Instead, it turns out Utley has returned from nagging leg injuries to re-take his rightful position as one of the game’s best at the keystone. Who knew? If the Phillies have a Hall-of-Fame second baseman at the top of the league at his position in offensive production, why have they been so awful? Please let me know in the comments.

Anyway, the point here is that Chase Utley is still the man, apparently. He leads all second baseman in wOBA, and he’s second in WAR.

Brisbee’s article had a link to an in-depth Philadelphia Magazine piece on Utley. The article made me completely fall in love with the guy, and that wasn’t just because of the hot picture which is now my desktop background. The tight-fitting white shirt, the gun show, the intense look off into the distance, the soul patch, the wavy hair—are we underrating how handsome Chase Utley is?

Utley is not just a Hall-of-Fame player. He’s also a leader with a plus-plus clubhouse presence, an incredibly hard-worker, and a loving husband and father. Chase, if you’re reading this, with Father’s Day coming up, perhaps you’d like to adopt me? Please let me know in the comments.

After reading about the real Chase, I was pretty devastated I hadn’t drafted him in fantasy. I figured the health risk was too steep given his age (36 in December) and injury history (hasn’t been fully healthy since 2009). Now I’m stuck with underachieving early-round picks Buster Posey and Evan Longoria who can’t lead in my fantasy clubhouse until they start producing, which, like, any day now fellas! I’m thinking of proposing a blockbuster trade to acquire Utley so I can move Matt Carpenter to third base and spark the ballclub. But first, I consulted my fantasy coach who not only doesn’t want Utley on our Giants, but who also thinks Utley is an overrated fantasy player. Here’s a transcript of our chat:

Me: I’m going to write about Chase Utley. Any fantasy thoughts?

Fantasy Coach: I actually have no fantasy thoughts on Utley. I’ve never even thought about getting him on my team. I’ve never liked him; always thought he was overrated. I seriously think Rickie Weeks may be relevant once he’s traded to the Giants, A’s, or Yankees. The concern would be the ground-ball percentage (15th highest). He’s hitting line drives (20.3 percent), which is what made him successful before, but that’s not really sustainable and his ground-ball percentage is super high which doesn’t bode well for a return to big-time power.

Me: Utley leads all second basemen in wOBA.

Fantasy Coach: Cano, Kipnis, Dozier, Kinsler, Altuve, and Pedroia are better fantasy players. I can think of seven or eight second basemen I’d rather have than Utley.

Me: Ouch. Well, he’s third in wOBA since the start of last year, so it’s not like his defense—which doesn’t count in fantasy—is carrying his value. And there’s no park adjustment in fantasy, so offensive production only, he’s at the top.

Fantasy Coach: Right, but that’s not the only calculus in fantasy. Matt Carpenter is also good at hitting baseballs, but he doesn’t hit home runs or steal bases, so he’s a ghost-runner on first a bunch of times.

Me: Which is why we need a sabermetric revolution with fantasy stats.

Chase Utley might not be the most valuable fantasy second baseman at this stage of his career because he doesn’t steal bases or dig the long ball anymore, but I doubt he’ll mention that in his Hall-of-Fame speech. Also, on my fantasy Giants team I spend most of the day thinking about, I just traded Kyle Crick for him. Get on it, Sabey-Sabes; we need the man.

*I’m basically on the team

First a look at the running totals through half of week ten:

16-10 record
3.88 ERA
7.9 K/9
3.0 K/BB
1.21 WHIP

Here’s a look at this week’s recs, with team wOBA in parentheses:

Trevor Bauer – 9.4% ESPN/25% Y!/75% own, 42% start CBS – v. LAA (.325), v. DET (.329) Read the rest of this entry »

Agenda

1. Fun with Numbers
2. Daily DFS
3. Saturday Picks
4. Table

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C.J. Wilson is taking the ball for the Angels today. I’ve written a little about him before, but yesterday I was fooling around with the pitch value leaderboards after reading Dave Cameron’s post on Johnny Cueto, and noticed something that I found pretty neat: Wilson has three pitches that have been top 10 offerings this year. His fastball, slider, and change-up have all graded out phenomenally. He’s facing the Braves tonight, a team that has hit left handed pitching very well, so it’s a very interesting matchup. And speaking of the Braves, Julio Teheran also has three pitches in the top 10 (fastball, curveball, change-up). Adam Wainwright comes close; his curveball currently sits twelfth, but his fastball and cutter are firmly planted near the top. Side bar: Please be ok, Adam.

There are a lot of fun ways to grade out pitches. Whiff rates are my favorite, and we all know they’re Eno’s favorite. The pitch values are also fun though, because it’s always nice to know how these pitchers come to their over numbers. Most of the time, at least to me, the parts that make up the whole are more interesting when they’re viewed as separate entities.

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I guess this is a full-blown series now, and why not? The theme kind of fascinates me. In the two previous entries, I’ve covered Jimmy Nelson and Domingo Santana, and today it’s Stephen Piscotty’s turn. I go to a whole lot of Triple-A games, and those games are packed with guys who are almost — but not quite — ready for the majors. In Nelson’s case, I suggested that an inconsistent release point could pose problems, while Santana needs to rein in his over-aggressive approach.

These are both players that I like a great deal as prospects, but sometimes it’s simply more interesting to think about what’s keeping a guy in the minors, rather than dreaming about his ceiling. And this comes from someone who is admittedly overly forgiving at times; I can find something to like about a crappy college first baseman, for example. I also typically enjoy Nicolas Cage movies, so it’s probably a good idea for me to focus a bit more on the negatives every once in awhile.

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