Just because the White Sox game was suspended last night doesn’t mean the Roto Riteup is.
On today’s agenda:
1. Adam Wainwright down, maybe out
2. Severino Gonzalez to debut Tuesday
3. Various news and notes
4. Streaming Pitcher Options
Just because the White Sox game was suspended last night doesn’t mean the Roto Riteup is.
On today’s agenda:
1. Hisashi Iwakuma to the DL
2. Josh Hamilton to the Rangers likely
3. Various news and notes
4. Streaming Pitcher Options
Agenda
The Braves committed all of the errors possible on Friday, and Jim Johnson continued his run of ruin, taking his second loss on the year. He made it through his first five outings without surrendering a single run, but he’s given up at least one earned in each of his last four outings. There are no huge losses in velocity or movement, but this is just getting ugly. Jason Grilli hasn’t had a save opportunity since last Sunday, and curiously, he hasn’t seen the field since then. Fredi Gonzalez had an opportunity to live up to what he alluded to last weekend when he said that he wouldn’t hesitate to use Grilli in tied games on the road. Instead, he went with Johnson. Ken Giles kept his ERA at 0.00 when he pitched a scoreless ninth and picked up the win for the Phillies.
After getting utterly rocked in the first week of #2xSP, this last stretch was very solid halfway through the second go-round. Hopefully that’ll keep up for the second starts, which take place Saturday and Sunday.
Here are the totals through half of week two:
3-3 record
3.72 ERA
5.2 K/9
2.7 K/BB
1.08 WHIP
Here’s a look at this week’s recs, with team wOBA in parentheses. Y! recs pulled courtesy of twitter pal @hotakesonsports. Give him a follow!:
RHP Joe Kelly – 28.8% ESPN/26% Y! – v. TOR (.346), v. NYY (.328)
Would you believe me if I told you Kelly has the best four-seam fastball velocity among qualified starters so far this season? Heck, I’m not sure I’d believe it myself, but at 96.1 mph here we are. Kelly has always had plenty of velocity, but this season his four- and two-seamer — his preferred heater — have picked up about a full tick each, and thus far the early results are promising. Kelly has fanned 18 hitters in 17.2 innings, while pitching to a 4.08 ERA that in some ways appears to be even a bit unlucky. It’ll be interesting to monitor not only the strikeout jump but the groundball drop — 39.6% this year, 51.8% career — because the latter is the sort of thing that is supposed to stabilize quite quickly. It’d also be truly interesting to see a pitcher that pitches better away from St. Louis, for once. This’ll be a tough week for Kelly, and maybe his first big test, as these are a pair of divisional foes who are swinging it pretty good right now. Read the rest of this entry »
The beginning of the fantasy baseball season can be a crucial time for those looking to make adjustments to their teams courtesy of the waiver wire. With that said, we’ll be looking at a few more middle relievers this week that may be on your league’s wire and could be a steady source of holds and strikeouts going forward.
As always, I’ll list ownership in both Yahoo! and ESPN, simply because those are the outlets I frequent the most. Knowing that most standard leagues may not value holds or solds (holds + saves), I looked for players owned in three percent or less of leagues on each aforementioned outlet. Relievers with more than one save, no holds or a K-BB% at zero or in the negative failed to qualify.
Beware of small sample sizes.
Aaron Barrett | Washington Nationals | 2% (Y!), 0% (ESPN)
Read the rest of this entry »
After yesterday’s fine outing, Clay Buchholz may be a bit less of a buy-low candidate. Going into said start, Buchholz was sporting a foul 6.06 ERA with a 1.65 WHIP to match. FIP, xFIP, and SIERA told a different story, of course; they were 3.07, 2.73, and 2.84 respectively, on the strength of 19 strikeouts against just four walks in 16.1 innings of work. (He’s now got 29 Ks and 7 BBs in 22.1 IP with a 4.84 ERA).
But even with laudatory marks from famous ERA indicators, we’re still dealing with a small sample, and should be digging deeper to determine whether Buchholz is doing anything differently, or whether he’s actually improved over a pretty atrocious 2014.
Based on what I’m looking at, he’s definitely doing things differently.
First, let’s look at some numbers in a table that spans the full width of this text column. (Remember these stats are through his first three starts this year; they do not include yesterday’s game vs. Tampa Bay.)
| Year | K% | BB% | GB% | O-Swing% | O-Contact% | SwStr% | BABIP | HR/FB | LD% | IFFB% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 17.9% | 7.3% | 46.6% | 30.4% | 69.8% | 8.5% | .315 | 9.8% | 19.0% | 9.8% |
| 2015 | 24.7% | 5.2% | 54.7% | 36.6% | 64.3% | 10.9% | .404 | 13.3% | 17.0% | 0.0% |
| Career | 18.2% | 8.7% | 48.9% | 29.5% | 66.5% | 9.1% | .288 | 10.0% | 18.5% | 8.2% |
The first several columns show an improvement in results so far in 2015; the last several columns offer reason to be optimistic that his traditional stats will even out. First, Clay-B has been horribly unlucky on balls in play, as compared to both his career mark and league average, and he hasn’t given up a line drives at a rate—nor does he pitch in front of a bad enough defense—to warrant such a high BABIP. To boot, he hasn’t induced a single pop-up yet this year, whereas he’s generally done so at a league-average rate in the past. Granted, his new ground-ball-heavy approach might lead to fewer pop-ups, but not no pop-ups. A higher rate of converted outs is nigh for ol’ Clayie. (Guessing that nickname won’t stick.)
You’ll also notice that Buchholz is getting more swings on pitches outside of the zone, and batters are making less contact when they swing at those pitches. Hence, a bump in his swinging strike rate. This, in turn, is also what’s helping his K%. Getting hitters to chase pitches out of the strike zone is generally a good thing; it’s definitely a good thing when they’re not even making contact with those pitches.
Half of Starling Marte’s fly balls have gone for home runs. That’s 10 fly balls, five of which have left the park. A HR/FB sitting at a round 50 percent, more than triple his career rate. As if an extra nugget of impressiveness was needed, four of Marte’s home runs have come at PNC Park, which was the worst park for right-handed power last season. Of course, when you’re averaging 424.4 feet per homer, park factors aren’t as important.
Yes, the necessary and annoying caveat: It’s early! After all, three other players have a HR/FB of 40 percent or better. Most numbers this early don’t mean much. But this one could mean something for Marte. Five homers matches his total through the first four months last season.
The days of highway robbery early-season trades are a thing of the past, but it’s rarely too early to kick the tires on making trades. I’ve identified a five players who make for strong trade targets — depending on league type and settings, obviously. A pair of sluggers who could be had at a discount are joined by a white-hot hitting veteran and a couple of right-handed pitchers with varying degrees of success thus far. Read the rest of this entry »
Agenda