Agenda

1. O’Day and Ross
2. Daily DFS
3. GB / FB Splits
4. SaberSim Observations
5. Tomorrow’s Targets – Dickey, Hill, Utley, Mercer
6. Factor Grid

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After his first nine Major League starts, Luis Severino has somehow failed to excite any of us RotoGraphers enough to convince us to write an article about him. So here it is, finally. Before the season, Kiley ranked Severino as the Yankees top prospect and the 26th best prospect in baseball. He figured that Severino would get his cup of coffee late this season or first debut in 2016. So pitching his first game on August 5th was probably earlier than most expected.

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I began reading The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins the other day. So far it’s been a very fast read, and one that grabs your attention. I’m not yet done with it, so please don’t spoil anything in the comments, but man, it’s been outstanding thus far.

On today’s agenda:
1. Jonathan Lucroy’s pending return
2. Time to drop Carlos Gomez
3. Andrew Cashner and I set personal bests
4. Streaming Pitching Options
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Matt Boyd (45 CV/50+ FV)
8/28 vs Blue Jays

Game Thoughts
• The 24-year-old lefty was very blahh in the start I saw.
• His fastball was 89-94 mph, straight and thrown high in the zone. It may even have a bit of “rise” to it
• His slider was 77-78 mph with 11-6 break and the only pitch he has which can create ground balls.
• His change was 78-80 mph and straight. It follows the same path as his fastball, but 10 mph slower. It eats up right-handed hitters.
• Finally, he threw a few curves which were at 69-72 mph with 11-6 break
• Boyd’s high fastball and change are going to give up some flyballs. Among starters with 40 IP, he has the 7th lowest GB% at 32.4%. He could end up with home run issues as he is this season with a 2.6 HR/9.
• He throwing away too many pitches which aren’t even near the strike zone. He gets into too many long at bats and ends up working from behind.
He lost a little velo as the game went on never getting over 93 mph on his fastball after the 3rd inning.

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I often rail against fantasy managers who blame their poor season on one player. It’s never just one player, even if it’s your first round pick. I especially get annoyed when these jokers blame guys who most certainly did not kill their season even if one player could make that big of an impact. Adam Jones hasn’t performed like the 15th-best player this year. In fact, he hasn’t even been the 15th-best outfielder, but there is no way that he is why you’re mired in ninth place.

Jones is falling short of his 2014 production in all five key fantasy categories, but we’re talking 14 runs and RBIs, two home runs, four stolen bases, and 12 points of batting average in 23 fewer games (13 of which he can make up if he plays every one of the remaining games for Baltimore). Those deficits aren’t meaningless, but they aren’t season-ending, either, especially since you can’t just expect a player to repeat his previous year’s line. That said, some guys do fall well short of expectations and play a big role in the collapse of a fantasy team.

Often these are injury-related situations where the player simply doesn’t play enough to return even his cost let alone add in a profit. We’re not interested in those guys today. Every team gets hit with some injuries and that’s just part of sports and by extension, fantasy sports. We’re looking for the guys who have played a lot while delivering well under expectations.

Today we’re looking at guys drafted in the top 100 this spring who have been the biggest disappointments to fantasy managers this season. The player must have at least 450 PA which means injury can still be a factor, but that’s enough playing time to outrun or at least offset an injury. Adam Wainwright lasted 25 innings. Corey Dickerson has played 54 games. They have been disappointments, but it’s entirely injury-related. These four guys have been there virtually all year and just haven’t performed well enough to justify their spring cost:

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With few exceptions, this has been a very poor year for fantasy production from the catcher spot. As always, injuries had a major role to play as Devin Mesoraco, Matt Wieters, Travis d’Arnaud, and Jonathan Lucroy fell victim to injury and experienced what amounted to lost seasons.  But other catching stalwarts or expected rising stars also disappointed. Let’s take a look at this epidemic of missing stats.

* Only 222 PA this season

While Miguel Montero was close, Buster Posey was the only catcher projected to be in the top 10 in 2015 that met or exceeded all of their pre-season stats projections.

Below are the current overall CBS Player rankings for the top 10 catchers compared to their pre-season expected rankings.

Evan Gattis, Carlos Santana, and Wiln Rosario were 3 players who qualified at Catcher, were ranked in the Pre-Season top 10 at the position, and actually played their games in 2015 at other positions. They all have disappointed this season.  This performance hurts fantasy owners even more because they were probably drafted higher than they normally would because of the expected advantage in counting stats over catchers who normally miss a game or two a week.

Wiln Rosario continued to demonstrate very troubling splits in 2015 that resulted in the significant loss of PAs and he has only logged 222 PAs this season. Here’s more on the other two….

Evan Gattis:

After a 2014 season with the Braves where Gattis batted .263 and produced 22 HRs and drove in 52 in just 108 games, great things were expected with a move to the AL and the more friendly confines of the Astro’s Ballpark. Many had predicted that with increased PAs and forgoing the wear and tear of catching duties Gattis would easily top the 30 HR mark this season.  While his PAs increased significantly to 565, his ISO receded from .230 to .209 and he has clubbed 26 HR to date. What has stayed consistent is his BA which at .243 is closer to his career .249 mark. His .249/.281/.452 slash line is well off the .257/.296/.507 numbers that were projected by CBS Sports.

The biggest culprit seems to be a change in approach at the plate where he is pulling the ball far less and making less authoritative contact. He also seems to have developed some issues driving the fastball and the cutter now completely confounds him. His batted ball distance on HRs is down 20 feet and he has lost 3 mph on his bat speed. Even though 26 HRs in a catcher eligible position is nothing to sneeze at, according to the ESPN Home Run Tracker, almost 50% of those HRs have been of the JE or “Just Enough” variety which does not portend well for his power numbers next season. Considerng the fact that he has also lost 100 points of average against lefty pitching this season and you have more than enough reasons for missing projections.  New league, new batting approach, and new ballpark are three very impactful changes, so hopefully Gattis will recapture his mojo next season but his catching eligibility is gone.

Carlos Santana:

Carlos Santana erupted for 27 HRs in 2014 which tied for his career high. Since he played 11 games at catcher in 2014, he came into the 2015 season eligible at that positions in many leagues. Last season he appeared in 152 games and had 660 PA’s so the expectations for his counting stats was very high. He was projected to be the kind of player who would yield a significant advantage to those who could slot him in at catcher. Right now, he is projected to reach the 660 PA plateau again this season but he most likely will fall short of hitting even 20 HRs. Santana’s 11 SBs this season is an unexpected gift, but his .236/.362/.380 slash line is below expectations. Santana’s .153 ISO is the lowest of his career.

While he has maintained his excellent plate discipline, his hard hit % is down 6% to a career-low 29.5% and he is undercutting the ball to the tune of a 20.3% IFFB rate. Last season only 7 of his 27 HR’s were of the ESPN Home Run Tracker JE or “Just Enough” designation while 6 of his 16 are this season. Santana is just not hitting the ball with the same authority as he did last year and his power stats have suffered. Like Gattis, his eligibility at catcher will be gone in 2016.

Brian McCann, Russell Martin, Stephen Vogt, Derek Norris, Rick Hundley, Welington Castillo, Yasmani Grandal, and Kyle Schwarber provided some solace for fantasy owners who invested wisely and did not overpay for catcher production. But even among this group, only one of these catchers, Stephen Vogt, is batting over .249.

There is some hope for 2016. If the injured contingent of Mesoraco, Lucroy, and Wieters are able to return to health, and quality youngsters like D’Arnaud,  Schwarber, Swihart, and Realmuto continue to develop, led by the super talented Buster Posey and some of the performers above, we could have an altogether different picture next season. And Baseball Prospectus lauds the catching depth in the Minors as “potentially historic”, so the future could be very bright at the catcher position for years to come and help erase the stench of the 2015 season.

Anthony DeSclafani has recorded the highest WAR for all pitchers in September. That’s kind of a big deal. You may recall DeSclafani cruised through the first month of the season, recording a 1.04 ERA across his first 26 innings, but the rest of the season wasn’t quite as kind to him.

A 4.15 xFIP at the time pointed to some good fortune. Indeed, luck caught up to DeSclafani, as he posted ERAs and xFIPs north of 4 for the next three months.

Suddenly, recently, something clicked. Or that’s how it seemed. I noticed some interesting changes to DeSclafani’s pitch arsenal. I found it interesting, and I thought Eno Sarris, being the resident pitch expert, would find it interesting, too.

Turns out Eno was concurrently transcribing his interview with DeSclafani when I contacted him. This isn’t the first time we simultaneously wrote about a particular pitcher throwing a particular pitch; click here and here for our May 20 analysis of Rubby de la Rosa’s improved slider.

You can read Eno’s interview transcript, along with his typically insightful commentary, here. In it, he discusses with DeSclafani how the pitcher’s curveball could replace his change-up as his third pitch. In a preseason preview of DeSclafani, Eno had presciently remarked upon the importance of a substantial third pitch:

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Today the Tottenham Hotspurs — and noted goal scorer Son Heung-min — square off against Arsenal in the League Cup. I doubt many normal starters open the game on the field, but perhaps Son will come on as a sub and score in his third consecutive game.

On today’s agenda:
1. Some good news for Yadier Molina
2. Matt Moore’s strong start (again)
3. Billy Hamilton’s season ends
4. Streaming Pitching Options
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Agenda

1. Failings of Language
2. Daily DFS
3. SaberSim Observations
4. Tomorrow’s Targets – Corbin, Asher, Dietrich, Venable
5. Factor Grid

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Episode 119 – My Cuddle Buddy Derek Dietrich

The latest episode of “Field of Streams” is live!

In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss the elevator story (again), Daniel Norris’ perfect outing compared to Josh Beckett’s no-hitter, Kyle Schwarber slowing down, Lance Lynn’s struggles with lefties, a very confusing platoon situation with Neil Walker facing Christian Bergman, punting with Tyler Flowers, beginning again with Brandon Finnegan, being more enthusiastic about Jose Reyes than Jose Reyes, comparing Matt’s hatred for Juan Pierre to his hatred for Ben Revere, Rich Hill’s incredible performances of late, Matt’s office presentation, and “The Challenge.”

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