We’re going to take our dumpster dive to the Big Apple this week and look at two players who have seen some significant playing time in the early going and are already providing help to owners. As a note, most of the players discussed in this column are better suited for mono leagues, and the ownership percentages come from CBS.
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The second of last week’s challenges asked you to prove that a low BABIP means that the pitcher induced weak contact. I’m tired of reading that Pitcher X has a .220 BABIP and so that means he has “kept hitters off-balance”, “induced weak contact” or that “hitters have a difficult time squaring him up”. The opposite is equally as annoying, reading that Pitcher Y, sporting a .330 BABIP, is “hittable”. With no evidence ever presented to support such a conclusion aside from the BABIP itself (and perhaps, if we’re lucky, a mention of the batted ball distribution allowed), the claims are meaningless.
All of those descriptions may very well be true, but we still have no real proof of it for any specific pitcher, so it’s all just conjecture. That has no place in fantasy analysis when these statements are made as if they were facts. It’s misleading to the reader and a real disservice.
I’ll climb down from my high horse now and get to discussing the comments.
We were treated to the new Star Wars trailer last week and yesterday the Jurassic World trailer debuted. This year could be better than last in terms of my favorite recent films.
On today’s agenda:
1. Jonathan Lucroy to the disabled list
2. Welcome to the big leagues, Carlos Rodon
3. Anthony DeSclafani continues to roll
4. Addison Russell to the bigs?
5. Streaming Pitching Options
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Not a large schedule of games today but a few bullpen bullet points to mull over this evening or in the morning with your coffee…
• Joakim Soria closed his fifth door of the year tonight, pitching a perfect inning against the Yankees. Meanwhile Joe Nathan is eligible to come off the DL on Wednesday but will likely “need a simulated game or rehab appearance in the minor leagues to get up to game speed.” So, the same Joe Nathan that was horrible in 2014, horrible in Spring Training and hurt himself immediately upon the start of the season is coming back soon and last we heard he was going to reclaim the job from Soria immediately. I’m tempted to call BS on Ausmus putting Nathan over Soria right away, but we might have to take the manager at his word as he makes the call. However, even if Nathan returns at closer I don’t like his chances of holding it for the rest of the year. Soria is the better option and I’m betting still ends the year with more saves. If Nathan is sitting on the wire, it’s worth picking him up and flipping him if/when he’s the closer again, but other than that hold onto Soria.
For those of us that drafted Travis d’Arnaud in the hopes of a true breakout season are certainly disappointed that his hand was broken this weekend on a hit by pitch. I went so far as claiming that d’Arnaud would hit 20 home runs this year in our Bold Prediction series. He was certainly on the right track, hitting .317/.356/.537 over 56 plate appearances.
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Just two weeks into the season, it’s still mighty important to not overreact to any small samples. Still, we can draw some conclusions based on things like playing time and batting order position — and perhaps a little bit on performance — to identify players who will be on the rise in next month’s second base tier rankings. Below are three 2B-eligible players who were buried in my April rankings, but await healthy upward promotions.
Devon Travis (53% Yahoo, 80.4% ESPN, 83% CBS)
For this month’s tier rankings, I included the following note regarding Travis: “If he can hold down the starting job, he’ll likely jump up a tier next month.” The 24-year-old is tearing the cover off the ball, to the tune of a .356/.408/.644 slash, with three homers. There’s no way he’s losing his job to the likes of Steve Tolleson and Ryan Goins, and Maicer Izturis’ eventual return from a groin strain doesn’t seem like a threat to Travis’ job either.
There is still a smorgasbord of outfield and middle-infield waiver wire options. Let’s sort using 20% ownership in Yahoo leagues as our qualifier.
Using a combination of contact percentage and isolated slugging, here is the 2015 zCt+zISO leader board:
Agenda
Episode 11 – FireRobinVentura.Tumblr.com
The latest episode of “Field of Streams” is live!
In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss Carlos Rodon arriving to save the White Sox, the return of an old nickname, a very early game and the potential effects on players, Matt’s wife helping him to write jokes, when 2015 stats become useful, and checking in on the contest after the first few weeks.
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Last week, I issued a challenge. If you’re the type to call a pitcher who sports an inflated HR/FB rate “homer-prone”, I asked you to prove that this was not merely bad luck, but skill-related (or a lack of skill). I have been writing about fantasy baseball for 7+ years now and nothing bothers me more than when a definitive claim is made with no supporting evidence. There is a difference between “Pitcher X is homer-prone” and “Pitcher X has been homer-prone”. The former suggests an inherent lack of skill in keeping fly balls in the park, while the latter makes no such commentary on the pitcher’s home run avoidance skills, but merely describes what has happened.
Since it’s clear that we really don’t know for sure what leads to home run suppression skills or a lack thereof, at this point, only the aforementioned latter description seems appropriate in my mind. So Brandon McCarthy’s early struggles with gopheritis, which has carried over from last year’s issues, was what motivated me to challenge you, as I figured the homer-prone label would start popping up everywhere.