If fantasy baseball were a marathon, we’d all have run about a mile and a half. Most races don’t even have their volunteers stand with trays of water cups this early on, so you’d better pace yourself if you’re already tired. I think I forgot to stretch.

Here’s an obligatory sentence reminding you about the caveats about small samples while attributing a shred of validity to them. OK, now that the formalities are out of the way, let’s talk ownership trends. National League outfielders are a promising bunch, especially in regard to the youth movement. I’ve been sold on a handful of them prior to the start of the season, and I’m surprised by their meager ownership numbers. They aren’t completely unowned, as my misleading title alleges, but they’re close enough.

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Episode 9 – Short Slate

The latest episode of “Field of Streams” is live!

In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Brad Johnson discuss what to do with a six-game day, going after counterintuitive stacks, waiting for Edwin Encarnacion to warm up, Mike Fiers’ volatility and upside, and what to make of Archie Bradley.

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The title of the article is an allusion to Schott’s Miscellany, which you should definitely check out if you never have and feel compelled to know that a group of larks is called an exaltation or that a member of the 32nd degree of Freemasonry is known as a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

–Fast Fastballs—

In deeper formats like Ottoneu where setup men can still be usable, I like to take early looks at which relievers are throwing hard each season. Every now and then, those relievers turn out to be Tom Wilhelmsen or Dellin Betances, and you can end up with an elite closer for no cost other than a used roster spot for a month or two. Here are the relievers with one or fewer saves and two or more innings so far this season:

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Agenda

1. Thoughts About Ackley
2. Daily DFS – Rogers Centre
3. GB / FB Splits
4. Tomorrow’s Targets – Nelson, Peavy, Davis, Peralta
5. Factor Grid

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Yesterday, I issued my first challenge. Sparked by Brandon McCarthy’s bizarre outing on Monday, I asked you to prove that his HR/FB rate was not bad luck. The challenge led to some great discussion, which is exactly what I had hoped it would do.

Now it’s time to move on to the second, and likely final, challenge. It’s a topic that I am more interested in and has been debated ad nauseam. Of course, I’m talking about pitcher BABIP. We have been taught that pitchers will tend to regress toward the league average, which has sat around .295 in recent years, as hitters actually possess the majority of control over how often balls in play falls for hits. So early on, we eventually came to accept this.

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Despite baseball being my favorite sport, I frequently enjoy watching the U.S. national team. Last night’s friendly against Mexico wasn’t particularly pretty — the poor condition of the field made sure of that — but it was good entertainment while writing today’s Roto Riteup.

On today’s agenda:
1. Garrett Richards may return on Sunday
2. Quick thoughts on Odubel Herrera
3. Yasmany Tomas gets called up
4. Streaming Pitching Options
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• Couple interesting developments after Ben clicked “publish” last night. Adam Ottavino (aka, one of my sleeper “not a closer but maybe a closer” candidates heading into 2015) picked up save number one. It wasn’t dull, either, with “number zero” whiffing all three Giants hitters he faced. Maybe I can get #KOttavino trending. The righty now holds a ridiculous 0.23 SIERA in an admittedly small sample size, and looks even more polished than last season. After the game, Walt Weiss saved fantasy owners the headache, too, naming Ottavino his ninth inning man. I’m going to yellow light him until he notches a few more, but he absolutely needs to be owned across the board. If you want more gratuitous information overload about the Northeastern University grad, check out Eno’s in-depth piece here.

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Last week, Jeff Sullivan presented Ryan Zimmerman’s Miguel Cabrera-esque success against inside pitches. Ryan Zimmerman doesn’t mind fastballs in general. According to his Brooks Player Card, he is a career .295 and .310 hitter against Fourseams and Sinkers/Two-seamers respectively. BABIP, .ISO, HR/FB+LD, Whiff/Swings — any way you look at it — Ryan Zimmerman is at his best versus fastballs.

So on April 8th, Ryan Zimmerman did this:

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If you drafted Masahiro Tanaka and his elbow of broken parts, you knew there was risk. I was among the many that thought because of his “high floor” and expected ADP, he represented a nice little opportunity given the other available talent at that stage in the draft — a point well articulated by Paul Sporer in this piece. But while we knew he had a partially torn UCL, what wasn’t fully disclosed was that Tanaka had every intention of modifying his approach to hitters, saying, in effect, don’t expect much in the way of velocity this year. So it goes.

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No one in either the American or National League has seen 50 plate appearances this season. At this point you’re probably all tired of the “small sample size” caveats but it is worth repeating. With that out of the way, these are two players, one mostly owned but struggling and one widely available I like.
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