On Tuesday night, I participated in the 15-team LABR Mixed League draft (full team recap coming Monday). If you were following the draft live and/or were active on Twitter during the evening, you may very well be aware of the firestorm that erupted after my second round selection. I drew the #11 draft slot, which meant that my second round pick was the 20th. I settled on Billy Hamilton and I will explain why.
Last night I partnered with Jason Collette for the LABR Mixed League Draft over at RTSports and aired on SiriusXM. We had the third pick in the 15-team league which uses the standard 5×5 categories and drafts a standard roster of 14 hitters and nine pitchers with six reserves. We didn’t need to have a full 23 before drafting reserves which can be interesting later in the draft when perceived talent at a position you’re full in ends up falling.
I’m going to take you through the draft with my thoughts. Keep in mind that we are a team so there was give and take. I’m going to point out some picks that were more Collette than me*, but that doesn’t mean I dislike them or anything. If I was vehemently against someone, I told him as did he with guys I’d suggest that he was way out on and then we moved on to another name. It’s rare that we have vastly different notions on a guy, so we came to a consensus pretty easily in most cases.
It’s time for our Depth Chart Discussions to begin. In an effort to suss out every team, we’ve divided them into four parts (infield, outfield, bullpen, and rotation) and will begin breaking them down for you over the next few weeks. You can find them gathered here.
It isn’t that the Baltimore Orioles lack a front end starter, they just lack one until Dylan Bundy makes his comeback. He is already set to hit the ground running in spring training, and given the rest of the rotation, Bundy is by far the most intriguing and highest upside stater in Baltimore. That he may or may not even pitch in the majors this season doesn’t speak well for their rotation. Looking at Fantasy Pros ADP — which utilizes info from Yahoo!, NFBC, Fantrax and RealTime Sports — the highest drafted Baltimore starter is Chris Tillman around pick 228 as the 62nd starter off the board. Before we beat up on the rotation too much, lets take a closer look at each hurler.
Front Five
Chris Tillman
Wei-Yin Chen
Kevin Gausman
Bud Norris
Miguel Gonzalez
Other Options
Dylan Bundy
Ubaldo Jimenez
On the Farm
Tim Berry
Mike Wright
Zach Davies
It’s time for our Depth Chart Discussions to begin. In an effort to suss out every team, we’ve divided them into four parts (infield, outfield, bullpen, and rotation) and will begin breaking them down for you over the next few weeks. You can find them gathered here.
Zach Britton’s Sinker… Eh? Eh???
In fact, according to BP’s PITCHf/x Leaderboard, five of eight Baltimore Relievers had above average Sinkers last year: Zach Britton (#1 overall obviously), Darren O’Day (#17), Wesley Wright (#24), Tommy Hunter (#32) and T.J. McFarland (#39). Five of the top 40 (out of 136) relievers who used a classified Sinker over 100 times were Baltimore Orioles.
Available out of the bullpen:
According to ERA, the Cardinals had the sixth best starting staff in 2014. But according to both WAR and xFIP, they were only the 17th best staff in the league. Every starter who threw at least 100 innings for the Cardinals had an ERA that was much lower than their xFIP/SIERA. Combined, the gap between the staff’s ERA and xFIP was -0.36, the third largest negative gap in the league. And our depth charts/projections don’t have any have any Cardinal starter significantly outperforming his peripherals again. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s time for our Depth Chart Discussions to begin. In an effort to suss out every team, we’ve divided them into four parts (infield, outfield, bullpen, and rotation) and will begin breaking them down for you over the next few weeks. You can find them gathered here.
The Closer
The Chicago White Sox shored up their ninth-inning by signing free-agent David Robertson away from the New York Yankees on a four-year deal worth $46 million. The right-hander is on the heels of a career-best 39-save season with a 3.08 ERA (2.68 FIP) and a 1.06 WHIP in 63 appearances (64.1 IP), but his success extends beyond just last season. Since 2011, Robertson is among the top-ten among qualified relievers in ERA (2.20), K/9 (12.35) and fourth in WAR (7.6) behind only Craig Kimbrel, Greg Holland and Aroldis Chapman despite securing just 45 saves over that span.
Robertson isn’t exactly headed to a pitcher’s park, but the move to U.S. Cellular Field should allow Robertson to surrender fewer homers than he did in Yankee Stadium (7 HR, 15.6% HR/FB% in ‘14). Additionally, Robertson’s ability to stay healthy and make 60 or more appearances in each of the past five seasons should be taken into consideration and make him a potential top five reliever on draft/auction day.
Read the rest of this entry »
There is a long list of things for which you will not find us useful. On that list are, among other pastimes, auto repair, ballroom dancing, cat sitting, and identifying with microscopic precision how good players whom the world already knows to be good are going to be this season. We mention this because we are starting to see articles identifying “sleepers” for the coming season, and most of the guys identified strike us as being wide awake.
For example: we like Kolten Wong a lot. Indeed, as we will come to discuss in the fullness of time, we drafted him in our slow draft. But he’s a good example of the players who are turning up on sleeper lists, when in fact he’s well known to anyone who played Fantasy Baseball or followed Reality Baseball last season.
Here’s a young, highly touted prospect with a good minor league record who’s given the starting second base job in St. Louis, craps out, is banished to Louisville, comes back refreshed, and performs well. Why wouldn’t you have him in your sights?
Yesterday, I participated in Howard Bender’s Mock Draft Army for the second time. In my first go around, we had a 15-team league. I leaned heavily on my favorite targets. This time, it was a 12-team, 23-player draft with no bench spots. In the first draft, I picked first, meaning 29 picks separated my choices. This time, I picked fifth. Crazy looking position reaches like Jonathan Lucroy and Todd Frazier with picks 30 and 31 were unnecessary.
This post continues our Depth Chart Discussions. In an effort to suss out every team, we’ve divided them into four parts (infield, outfield, bullpen, and rotation) and will continue to break them down for you over the next few weeks. You can find the Depth Chart Discussion posts gathered here.
In an offseason defined by a bevy of moves, the White Sox biggest acquisition may have come in the rotation. Adding Jeff Samardzija not only announced the team’s plans to compete this season, but it also gave them three fantastic starters at the top of the rotation. The secondary effect of adding a strong top-of-the-rotation pitcher is that the other players in the rotation get moved down a peg. For the White Sox, this was a significant development. While the club should by strong at the top, the bottom of the rotation contains some big questions for fantasy owners.
The Pod Projections are back! My projections are based on the methodology shared in my eBook Projecting X, and the process continues to evolve and improve.