Bryce Harper’s production has not be at high level since he has returned from the disabled list. Some people, including his manager, are saying his timing is off. In my opinion, I think his left thumb is not yet 100% for several reasons which is causing his timing issues.

In case someone has not been following the train wreck, here are Harper’s stats before and after the injury:

Before: .289/.352/.422, 23% K%
After: .129/.250/.161, 35% K%

The after is only 37 PA, but the results are abysmal.

To look a little deeper into Harper’s production, here is his batted ball placement before and after the injury (embiggen).

He has yet to hit one ball to the outfield’s right side after the injury. Historically, 81% of his home runs have been to center (30%) or right (51%) field. Since he is hitting nothing to the right side, I expect no substantial power from him.

This situation reminds me of left-handed David Ortiz from a few years back. He hit the ball weakly to left field after a wrist injury and then slowly began to pull the ball with authority to right field  as he got healthy. For a sign Harper is turning it around, look for him to start hitting to right field consistently.

The second key factor telling me the thumb still bothers him is he acts like it does. Players with injuries will physically show signs the body part bothers them. Here is Harper after a foul ball from Wednesday  night.

He concentrates on and re-grips with the injured thumb. I went back a looked at him plate appearances before the injury and he never did anything close to the re-grip. If a Harper owner wants to know if he is healthy, watch a couple of games and see if favors the thumb in any way.

Bryce Harper’s thumb is probably not 100% yet and it is behind his offensive struggles since returning from the DL. Two items can be tracked to see if he is turning his season around. First, look to see if he is beginning to pull the ball with some power. Second, watch some of his at bats and see if he favors the thumb in any way.

Just under a year ago “The Newsroom” launched their second season. While I personally preferred season one, I did like two a fair amount. I’m optimistic about the upcoming final season wraps things up gracefully — though I suspect the ending to the second season already finished a lot of things (warning: language). Here’s hoping Aaron Sorkin finishes strong and moves on to something even better: Sam Seaborn running for President in a new version of The West Wing.

On today’s agenda:
1. Injuries. Injuries everywhere
2. The daily five

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• Did Jonathan Papelbon punch his ticket out of Philadelphia yesterday? After polishing off a Roberto Hernandez gem last night, the Philly closer addressed any potential trades involving him by saying “Some guys want to stay on a losing team? That’s mind-boggling to me. I think that’s a no-brainer.” Ouch. The team (and fantasy owners) would be wise to sell high if possible. While the 33-year-old owns a 1.24 ERA, his BABIP stands at a paltry .229, implying regression is likely around the corner. There’s also no guarantee that he remains in the closer role with a new team (although we have to admit, his “proven closer(TM)” track record helps). Manager Ryne Sandberg has previously said that Ken Giles and Jake Diekman would be the likely ninth-inning beneficiaries of Papelbon being unavailable (either through usage or, conceivably, trade) so both should be scooped up in all deeper leagues. The 23-year-old Giles and his 38% K% is the more intriguing pickup. Diekman has pitched much better than his 4.32 ERA would indicate, so he remains an option, but has some degree of platoon splits which could hurt him against good righty batters.

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Episode 140

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is now live! Eno Sarris and Nicholas Minnix discuss Homer Bailey, in light of his knee injury; Joe Nathan’s mechanical adjustments; rumors of Jimmy Nelson’s pending arrival; Arismendy Alcantara; A.J. Pierzynski’s designation for assignment; Nolan Reimold; Jacob Smolinski; the punting of a roto or head-to-head category; Chris Davis; Manny Machado; Curtis Granderson; David Peralta and Ender Inciarte; James Jones; Robert Refsnyder; Matt Kemp; and Jacob deGrom.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions so that we may answer them on our next episode.

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Three weeks ago, I wrote a piece about my intention to commit the greatest of sacrileges (at least in my mind) – a fire sale. More recently, I wrote about my first blockbuster of that rebuilding process. Yesterday I made another two blockbusters, so let’s breakdown the motivations behind those moves and what they accomplished.

Let’s recap. It’s an ottoneu league aptly named FanGraphs Staff Two. We use a points scoring system. For those who are unfamiliar with ottoneu, we have a 40 man roster and $400 budget. We can keep any number of players at a cost of draft price + $2. There is also an offseason allocation system that can add anywhere from $11 to $33 to your overall player costs. In a nutshell, the league is between a standard keeper and a dynasty format. The trade from a couple weeks ago was as follows:

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Next week I am taking a vacation. I am thinking I will publish just the DL table mid-week and that is probably it. Last time I went on vacation, it took forever to catch back up on it.

• Masahiro Tanaka ended up on the DL with an inflamed elbow. Looking over his past starts, nothing points to a possible injury. Velocity was fine. Consistent release point. He was throwing strikes. Hopefully the Yankees caught the injury in time.

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In the past few weeks, I wrote about my and, I presumed, others’ distaste for certain categories in rotisserie and head-to-head baseball leagues. Some of us don’t care for wins, saves or other cats, or we think we have ideas for better ones. Reader response has been fantastic, I think. Some good discussion, some good points, some good concepts put forth.

Running Frog made a good point. Wins seem to correlate well enough with things like a great number of strikeouts, a good ERA and a good WHIP. He, like others, doesn’t see a reason to change.

I dislike the win in general because:

• If not for its somewhat subjective assignment to an individual, it’d be a team statistic, not just for fantasy purposes.
• Saves and holds are exclusive to relievers, whereas wins aren’t exclusive to starters.

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Agenda

1. Feature Topic Preview
2. Daily DFS
3. Friday Picks
4. Table

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I need to show some respect to Landon, who handles these daily posts a few times a week. I have two slots, and I believe he has four. I have no idea how he comes up with something interesting and useful to write in the space so many times a week. Yesterday, I talked about air density, for crying out loud.

But here we are, a second day in a row, and I could use a rebound. I got shelled yesterday but, as always, this is a process over results game in the short term, and you trust that if you make the right plays over the long run, you’ll be paid out as such. It doesn’t mean going back to check if and where you erred isn’t valuable, though.

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Pretend you didn’t read the headline of this article and try to guess which pitchers have the most strikeouts so far in July. The usual suspects of Max Scherzer, David Price, Zack Greinke, Stephen Strasburg, and Chris Sale were all in the top 12 after their first two starts of the month. The medalist entering Wednesday was Garrett Richards with 20 strikeouts. He is no surprise at the top of the list after the first half he has put together, one that could land him in the All-Star Game if he can win the fan vote. The man just behind him with 19 strikeouts? He’s more of a surprise.

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