Agenda
Do you need starting pitching in your deep league? Of course you do! The tough decisions come when debating between a middle reliever who is going to give you solid ratios but reduce your win and strikeout potential or a bottom of the barrel starter who could potentially torpedo your ratios. This is where your place in those specific categories in key. Performing well in the ratios? Don’t blow it. Play it safe with a middle reliever. Already sitting at the bottom of the ratio categories? Might as well take the plunge, you can’t fall much further!
Despite my South Koreans falling 2-0 to Brazil in yesterday’s World Cup match, I remain (blindly) optimistic on their chances to advance out of group play.
On today’s agenda:
1. Quick thoughts on Chris Heston
2. Joe Panik is raking
3. Travis d’Arnaud reminder
4. Streaming Pitching Options
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If you followed the unveiling of our positional rankings updates then you probably have a good idea of how I feel about the NL pitching landscape, but a straight ranking of all starting pitchers is a little different than tiering the arms in one specific league. We’ve also gotten five or six more days of information since releasing those rankings. In short, I’ve made some changes. Nothing sweeping, just a few moves here and there in comparison to last week’s rankings. If you want to see how things compare to the previous months, they can be found here:
As in May, I’ve got 10 tiers, but I’ve bumped the total number of pitchers from 70 to 72. There are 75 guys in rotations at any point in the NL, but they aren’t all rank-worthy and in fact, this isn’t even 72 of the 75 as some of these guys are on the shelf or still in the minors. For the naming of the tiers, I’m choosing 10 of my favorite TV shows right now. They’re all funny, witty, smart shows, at least in my estimation. If you haven’t seen one of them, you should check it out. The shows used for each tier aren’t really related to the pitchers in the tier, but there were some happy accidents after I ranked the shows 1-10.
Episode 239
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!
In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris look at Carlos Correa’s debut so Eno get a chance to give us his thoughts, they also discuss the less-heralded of the two Astros call-ups in Vincent Velasquez. They end the news segment discussing Rafael Soriano and Matt Holliday before getting into the performance discussion surrounding Chris Sale, Erasmo Ramirez, Andre Ethier, Joe Panik, and Chris Colabello.
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The economics of keeper and dynasty leagues intrigue me because no two owners value the future equally. Given my primary league is of the keeper taxonomy, I am always thinking about the future. Given the especially miserable state of my team in said league, I’ll soon reach a point where I am only thinking about the future.
A segue of remarkably poor quality: Joc Pederson is good at baseball.
Another segue of questionably better quality: he reminds me of George Springer for reasons not entirely surprising.
Episode 47 – Looking For A Real Shutdown
The latest episode of “Field of Streams” is live!
In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Brad Johnson discuss dealing with the heat, closer looks at Eduardo Rodriguez and Carlos Correa, a multitude of options in a full slate, the Detroit Tigers vs. Jon Lester, trying to stay optimistic about Chase Utley, some risky pitchers that may rack up strikeouts, and a cameo from Dylan’s roommates making breakfast in the background.
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Agenda
Would it be too awful a pun (or half-pun) to say this week’s column is a tribute to fallen angels? Probably, so I’ll rephrase: Here are two former full-time players who lost their jobs after some struggles but have now returned to regular playing time. As usual, the players featured in this column are better suited for mono leagues, and the ownership percentages are by way of CBS.
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When I comment on the shape of a pitch, I try to put it into two pieces of context: the league average movement on a pitch like that, and the rest of that pitcher’s arsenal. More on the second bit later.
Today, let’s look at some young pitchers with small track records — guys like Eduardo Rodriguez, Chi-Chi Gonzalez, Vincent Velasquez, and Lance McCullers — up against the average movement of the league’s pitches. Because we may not know a ton about outcomes right now, but the movement of a pitch probably only takes a few games to stabilize. It’s an aspect of the pitch, much like velocity, which stabilizes in three games.