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 2014 Arizona Diamondbacks rotation was….not good. As a staff they had the fifth lowest WAR total in the league and the fourth worst ERA. The staff’s xFIP was three quarters of a run lower than their ERA meaning they were slightly above average in that respect. But the main reason for that was the enormous ERA-xFIP gaps for Brandon McCarthy and Wade Miley, both of whom will play for different teams this year. There are still a couple of guys on the staff who may be in line for some positive regression, and there’s a whiff of upside from a couple of guys. But not one of the five starters projected by Steamer to pitch the most innings for Arizona has a FIP projection of 4.00 or lower. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re entering draft season! FanGraphs Staff Two is busy preparing for our first day of drafting next Sunday. The goal is to finish in one afternoon, but we’ll have time for a second day if it’s needed. Ottoneu produces some lengthy auctions due to the deep player pool. I recommend you follow our example and target an early draft date.

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In our last séance together, we confided to you our passion for Ender Inciarte. That passion was sparked by our attempt to identify hitters who, over the course of the 2014 season, figured out something new about hitting, and were recognized as such by opposing pitchers. In doing that, we also came across hitters who appear to have been tamed during the season, in that they were both seeing better pitches and chasing more bad ones, with declining results. We provided lists of the top- and bottom-20 hitters, according to this metric. One of the top guys was Ender Inciarte. Now we’ll interrogate (as they used to say in Deconstructionland) those lists, see how they answer, and try to separate signal from noise.

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You all know by now that last Tuesday night, I participated in the LABR Mixed league draft. It’s a 15-team league with standard 23-man active rosters and a six player bench. I drew the 11th pick.

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Note: I usually try to pick the most recent game the player pitched. Sometimes the MLB video has issues and other games are picked. Also, if a say a pitch moves 11-5, it is from the pitcher’s perspective.

Jordan Lyles
Why I watched: Young projected starter

Game(s) Watched: 9/26/14 vs Dodgers

Game Thoughts

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We got five esteemed rankers to put together their positional rankings for the upcoming 2015 season including Jeff Zimmerman, Dan Schwartz, Zach Sanders, Mike Podhorzer, and myself (click a ranker’s name to reach them on Twitter). You can download the spreadsheet here. Stay tuned for updates. The last update will always be noted at the bottom of this post.

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Gone are the days where one of the strengths for the Minnesota Twins resided in the outfield. Well, one of the mainstays which hearkens back to that time is back, but is nearly 40 and merely a shell of his former self — at least defensively. By WAR, the Twins were No. 22 among outfields at 3.7. For some context, Baltimore was the runaway No. 1 team at 20.2, so there is considerable work to be done here.

But that leaf appears ready to turn in the very near future. The Twins have some very nice outfield prospects — one just happens to be among the absolute best — and a couple of the mainstays still have some untapped potential.

So what lies in store for this unit? Let’s go:

The Starters:

Oswaldo Arcia – LF
Torii Hunter – RF

Plenty of the misgivings directed as the outfield as a whole are directed at these two, though it is for good reason. The Twins were easily the worst defensive outfield in baseball last season, and this isn’t likely a good start. Hunter has tumbled from solid in center to mediocre in right while hitting each rung hard on the way down. He can still hit — 24th among OF in three-year wOBA over 1,000 PA — and the club believes he’ll bring something different in the clubhouse that’ll shake up a previously mortuous atmosphere. That’s all that’ll really matter to you, the fantasy player, who can probably grab Hunter in the late rounds of mixed leagues and see decent production. Leagues with OBP should take a step back from that. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a long, strange off season for the Atlanta Braves, and there aren’t too many positions around the diamond where fans will see familiar faces when the season starts in 2015. Despite a flurry of moving parts, the Braves rotation still seems to have plenty of stability and certainly enough relevance among the fantasy faithful as we’re now just days away from Spring Training.

Lost are Gavin Floyd, Aaron Harang, and Ervin Santana to free agency. The Braves faced some tough calls on major contributors from prior seasons in Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy but ultimately they lost both of them to free agency as well. They traded Jason Heyward and Jordan Walden for Shelby Miller and Tyrell Jenkins. They traded Chasen Shreve and David Carpenter for Manny Banuelos. They got Michael Foltynewicz in the Evan Gattis trade. They signed Chien-Ming Wang and Wandy Rodriguez to a minor league contract. Most recently, they picked up Eric Stults on a minor league deal with an invite to camp. Phew.

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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/s:

The Houston Astros made a concerted effort to strengthen the backend of their bullpen this past Winter, but even with all that spending, the ninth-inning still needs the Spring to be officially sorted out. The Astros’ shelled out $18.5 million over three-years to sign right-hander Luke Gregerson, so he will presumably get the first crack at the ninth-inning role, but we shouldn’t count out Chad Qualls until an official announcement is made.

Luke Gregerson

In 2014 for the Athletics, Gregerson posted a 2.12 ERA (3.24 FIP) with a 1.01 WHIP and a 20.8% K% in 65 trips to the bump. But in 11 opportunities to save games last year Gregerson managed to successfully convert only three. And over the course of his career, the right-hander is only 19-of-51 in save chances. (Edit: Should be noted that not all blown saves occurred in the ninth inning) In terms of offerings, it appears as if Gregerson lost some steady zip on both his fastball, slider and change since 2009. Additionally, his ability to induce swings-and-misses (13.3% SwStr%) was still above league average for relievers last year (10.5% SwStr%), but that too has been on the a decline in each of the past three seasons. There is no doubt that Luke Gregerson is a great depth addition to the Astros’ bullpen, but mixed results in high leverage situations along with the dip in velocity and ability cause hitters to miss leads me to believe he is far from a lock to be the closer come Opening Day.

Chad Qualls
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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.

I wrote about the New York Yankees starting rotation last week and — seeing as I’ve already spent plenty of quality time with their depth chart — I decided to tackle their infield as well. (I will not be including a separate designated-hitter portion of this piece; I think that position will be a revolving door of several guys who I’ll already be covering positionally.)

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