The trade that jettisoned both Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher opened up opportunities for two players to make some sort of impact in deep leagues. So today is an all Indians edition of the deep league waiver wire.
Yet another hump day. On the plus side of things, I started Netflix’s Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp. It’s pretty awesome so far.
On today’s agenda:
1. Carlos Rodon cruises
2. Miguel Cabrera’s possible return date
3. Jose Fernandez to the disabled list
4. Streaming Pitching Options Read the rest of this entry »
Episode 263
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!
In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris talk Jean Machi in Boston, Ian Desmond surging, Marcus Stroman throwing, Howie Kendrick replacements, Chris Davis, Carlos Gonzalez, and Kyle Schwarber raking, Michael Taylor’s intrigue, and Eno’s Tuesday piece.
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In the past 30 days, Michael Taylor — the current National, not the former Athletic — has hit four home runs and stolen six bases to go with seven runs and 16 RBI. Mike Podhorzer tabbed Taylor as a sleeper in March. In the post, he notes his own projections largely validated Steamer’s and ZiPS’ projections for Taylor, although his anticipated better than 10-homer power across 600 plate appearances.
Now at 10 homers and 14 steals through 345 plate appearances, Taylor seeks to make all his projections look silly. His counting stats currently pace out to 17 home runs, 24 stolen bases, 54 runs and 80 RBI for a full season.
At 24 years old, Taylor appears poised to contribute legitimately to fantasy teams not only now (considering the possibility Denard Span does not return this season) but also for years to come. Indeed, his tools inspired a bold prediction on his behalf, of which he fell short but for which he kindly did not embarrass the author.
Amid my lauding of his past 30 days, however, I deliberately omitted an important detail: Taylor is batting .214 with a sub-.250 on-base percentage (OBP) thanks to strikeout and walk rates of 33.0 and 2.9 percent. Despite his toolsiness, both present and past — in 2014, he hit 23 homers and stole 37 bases, mostly at AA — it’s evident why Taylor doesn’t have garner prospect coverage the way George Springer and Joc Pederson once did.
Episode 88 – I Don’t Mind Getting Cute On The Infield
The latest episode of “Field of Streams” is live!
Field of Streams is moving to a new address! Please subscribe on iTunes here or via a regular feed here!
In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Brad Johnson discuss being let down by Enrique Hernandez on Monday, trying to dissect Taylor Jungmann’s success, avoiding storms in New York, paying attention to Jesus Montero again, the possible effects of wind on pitches and modern ballpark layouts, identifying Colin Rea, talking about pitcher and hitter splits again, buying in on Eugenio Suarez, being flummoxed — but intrigued — by Scott Kazmir @ Madison Bumgarner, and picking speedsters against San Diego when Derek Norris is behind the plate but not when Austin Hedges is.
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Agenda
Ground-ball rate stabilizes fairly quickly. Usually, you’ll hear this factoid in the first month of the season as we look at April stats and try to render prognoses on the rest of the season. Of course, ‘stabilizing’ means that there’s about a 50/50 chance the data is meaningful in that small sample.
Hidden in that fact is the key to today’s look at the player population. Players change. They change their batted ball mixes in season, too, not just in April. And if you look at month-long samples, you’re pretty close to that stabilization point again. You want about 30 games to believe in ground ball numbers, and your qualified batters typically play around 25 games in a month.
And, since we’re now comparing July to June instead of April to all of last year, and we’ve already admitted that players change their mixes, it’s useful to remember that this is not some sort of skeleton key that will figure it all out for us. Still, we need to know which players are altering their batted ball mixes, because it might stick, and it might mean something going forward.
And for Christian Yelich, Adam Eaton, Brandon Crawford and even Jung-ho Kang… we could be seeing the future.
As we have learned more about what drives hitter BABIP in recent years, we have talked a lot about batted ball type distribution. Joey Votto is always the example of what the ideal profile looks like for posting an inflated BABIP. It’s not necessarily the profile that leads to the highest wOBA (that’s more an individual ideal), but what would typically result in the highest rate of balls in play falling for hits.
In case you missed it yesterday, here at FanGraphs we launched Daily Projections courtesy of SaberSim! I’d make sure to cross check your streaming pitchers or DFS picks with the projection system before clicking the ol “Submit” button.
On today’s agenda:
1. Avisail Garcia continues to rake
2. Howie Kendrick out with hamstring injury
3. Quality start from Jonathan Gray
4. Streaming Pitching Options
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• It was known that Koji Uehara wasn’t made of steal steel but it’s unexpected and unfortunate to see him fracture his wrist ending his season. The Red Sox expect Uehara to make a complete recovery, which would mean he will be the closer starting next year. However, while some Red Sox fans might have forgotten about 2015, fantasy owners are still on the grind. Junichi Tazawa should fill in for Uehara in the meantime. Normally I would make this situation yellow or even green as he’s an obvious replacement but he’s had a few bumps recently and John Farrell said that they wanted to limit Tazawa’s innings. Still, expect Tazawa to be the closer with Alexi Ogando and Jean Machi around in those situations where Tazawa is limited.
UPDATE: Ignore everything I just said as I missed the news that Jean Machi was named closer. This goes along with limits on Tazawa’s innings. Jean Machi had a nice run in SF but he’s been bad this year, put on waivers by the Giants and then claimed by Boston.He’s remained unimpressive on the Sox but saves are saves. Definitely pick up Machi even though tamper your expectations as he hasn’t had the same results he did in 2013 and 2014.