Agenda
Episode 28 – The Legend That Is Dallas Keuchel
The latest episode of “Field of Streams” is live!
In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss Dylan being excited about his trip to Seattle, Matt taking pride in his cheap DFS recommendations, Dylan explaining The Vedder Cup a second time, Aaron Sanchez’s modest improvements, more sounds outside of Dylan’s house, Drew Stubbs losing most of his value, digging around on a tough pitching day, and looking for a new pitcher for the podcast to sponsor.
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So here’s this starting pitcher who arrived in the Major Leagues in 2013 at age 23, made 10 starts, 7 of them Quality Starts, and posted the best ERA of any rookie starter in the American League. Yet he got not a single Rookie of the Year vote, and was paid no pre-season attention by the Fantasy experts in 2014—he wasn’t even taken in the 15-team, 29-round Tout Wars mixed draft. And the experts were right: he started the 2014 season 0-6 before being sent to the minors. Of course, he got no support from his hitters (12 runs in 7 starts).
But he did in fact pitch pretty badly: he’s fortunate his record wasn’t minus 1-6. But then the guy gets it together in Triple-A, comes back up for good in July, and makes 15 starts, 10 of them QS. Nonetheless, he was again almost universally ignored in drafts this year. Maybe that’s because he had a terrible spring training, though that may have been due to the injury that has kept him on the disabled list for the first month-plus of the season. But he’s finally healthy, and has made two minor-league rehab starts. Unfortunately, the first one was dismal. Fortunately, the second one was superb. Read the rest of this entry »
Today’s deep league wire features a pair of fresh outfielder call-ups. Both were one-time promising prospects, but have struggled at the big league level. Are these two post-hype sleepers?
Today the second leg of the Real Madrid vs Juventus UEFA semi-finals will be played. Count on yours truly tuning in to hopefully watch Juve advance.
On today’s agenda:
1. I still like Stephen Strasburg
2. Matt Moore’s progression
3. George Springer’s return
4. Streaming Pitching Options
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• Steve Cishek’s blow up last night was the last straw as Mike Redmond has removed him from the closer’s role. Cishek’s seasonal struggles have been well noted in the Bullpen Reports this year. His velocity has been up and down this season and he’s just been too hittable all season long. Roller coasters are fun at an amusement park but when it involves your closer, a change needs to be made. There has been no news on who specifically will replace Cishek and the Marlins figure to mix and match/use a committee for now, until someone takes the job fully. In the mix should be Bryan Morris, Mike Dunn (L), A.J. Ramos and potentially Rafael Soriano as he and the Marlins are “very much engaged” in talks. As Darren speculated in last night’s BR, based on their seasons thus far you would expect A.J. Ramos to receive the first chance but until we see what he does we won’t really know. It’s possible that Redmond might leave Ramos in the familiar eighth inning and play the matchups with Morris and Dunn. Still, the safe speculation is Ramos, Dunn and Morris, and in that order.
Rafael Soriano wasn’t necessarily bad last year as he had a 3.19/3.08/3.92 ERA/FIP/xFIP line but he also wasn’t impressive enough to find a contract this season, yet. He did save 32 games though, and if the Marlins sign him they could prefer Soriano’s closing experience while keeping the rest of the bullpen in their familiar roles. By the time this is published, the Marlins won’t have a save opportunity to speak about but we’ll be sure to keep you up to date on their bullpen situation along with any additional Soriano rumors. I recognize Cishek isn’t injured or in the minors, but for now I’m placing him in the last column on the closer grid.
Episode 228
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!
Eno is on a train during this one and there is some spottiness, but it’s not too much and I don’t think it obscures any main points, but if you miss something that needs clarifying, let us know!
In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss the injury updates with Justin Verlander, Ivan Nova, Devin Mesoraco, and Zack Cozart. They talk about their current valuations of Yunel Escobar, Kris Bryant, Mark Teixeira, Jordan Pacheco, Shelby Miller, Ubaldo Jimenez, Alex Colome, and Colby Lewis. They finish with a discussion about the Steve Cishek situation in Miami.
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A stat that we don’t talk about much just hit the stabilization point, meaning it’s offering us more signal than noise. Pull percentage! It only takes about thirty balls in play to stabilize, and so it’s fairly easy to quickly see if a player has changed their approach at the plate in this way. Even opposite field percentage, which takes 65 balls in play, is pretty much stable for most hitters by now.
A player we do talk about a lot is Jorge Soler. Dripping with upside, the slugger hasn’t performed quite to expectations this year, whiffing more and looking a bit lost at the plate sometimes. As a consequence, he keeps showing up in trades, as some look to use the remaining promise to cash in, while others see this as a last chance to buy an emerging slugger.
Let’s look at the player through the lens of the stat.
As a big guy standing on the left side of the plate who previously hit 36 home runs in a minor league season, it is safe to say that the Matt Adams we have received over his first 1,000 plate appearances is a very different Matt Adams than what we were expecting.
I traded for Adams yesterday in a dynasty league, mainly due to his age and security of role on a top team, but it led me to analyze Adams a bit deeper and figure out what exactly is happening with him. Adams was never much of a plate discipline maven, as he has never recorded a walk rate above 10% at any level, but I did expect more than the sub-5.0% walk rates he has been putting up since becoming a full time regular. While he has pretty massive platoon splits, which I will get to in a bit, the low walk rate is not limited to only the times he is facing same handed pitchers. He is an equal opportunity free
swinger, which does not bode well for Adams owners in on base percentage leagues.
Adams does have quality hand eye skills, which is why his strikeout rate has not gotten out of hand despite a O-Swing% that hovers around 10% more than the average hitter. Adams makes contact in the zone more than most first basemen (90% Z-Cotact) but pitchers this year, intentional or not, have opted to throw him less strikes in general due to his high chase rate. He has seen 40% strikes this year compared to 44% last year. That could be an aberration, or it could be front offices, pitching coaches, and pitchers noticing that Adams is up there to hack so why throw him pitches in the zone.
This creates some worry for Adams and those who own Adams, because he seemingly only has two options here. He can continue to swing away freely and see his power sapped as he swings at an excess of pitches out of the zone, or he can become a patient hitter and start taking some walks to become the three true outcome type hitter everyone expected out of him in the minor leagues.
Going back to Adams’ platoon splits, he is on his way to becoming a full on platoon player and rightfully so. This season he has a 110 wRC+ against righties and a -28 wRC+ against lefties, albeit in 19 plate appearances. Against southpaws this year, he is 2-20 with two singles, one walk, and nine strikeouts. For those with a long term vested interest in Adams such as myself, expect the Cardinals to continue to employ Mark Reynolds types going forward to platoon with Adams. This will limit his plate appearances, but will also likely improve his actual on the field production, ala Ike Davis the past two seasons as a full-time platoon member. To ensure I am not basing this off of only this season, of the 1,000+ plate appearances Adams has had, he has a .304/.345/.498 line against righties and a .189/.220/.307 line against lefties.
There is still hope for Adams as a useful fantasy option, even in standard formats, but the hope lies within him altering his approach at the plate. If the Cardinal coaches want to get as much out of Adams as they can, they need to preach a patient approach with him and for him to be more comfortable with strikeouts than ground outs. From a stats perspective, things are not looking too great for Adams going forward. His numbers as a full-time regular are not too impressive and his projections all have him with a sub-110 wRC+. From a scouting perspective, however, he has the tools to be a well above average hitter but needs to work on his plate discipline and overall approach. If the latter happens, the former will be a much better looking picture.
Episode 27 – The Vedder Cup
The latest episode of “Field of Streams” is live!
In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Brad Johnson discuss The Vedder Cup, still not believing in Nick Martinez and other pitchers with poor peripherals, evaluating hitters who are underrated based on their pitcher-friendly home park, Noah Syndergaard’s debut, hoping for Mike Napoli to turn things around, the ambiguous sustainability of Dee Gordon’s early success, Troy Tulowitzki looking particularly human, not being ready to jump off Chris Sale’s bandwagon, and pitchers with high velocities that are not notching many strikeouts.
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