Hey AL-only players, you didn’t think Santa Paul forgot about you, did you? I offered two NL arms on the rise on Tuesday, one for all-formats and another geared toward to deeper leagues (at least until he proves himself some more), and I’ve got the same for the American League today.

Carlos Rodon, CWS – pick 238 in early November, pick 158 in a draft last week

I think you can ignore that early November price because you won’t get him that late in other drafts. He jumped 80 picks in less than a month based on nothing and then I did a 12-teamer just this week (the roster setup is different than these other two drafts so I didn’t include the ADPs on purpose) and he was up at pick 140. He’s likely to live in the 130-175 range.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Greg Johns of MLB.com gave an update on former prospect Danny Hultzen.

The plan for Hultzen is to just get him pitching again and see if he can get his shoulder strengthened up enough to compete at some level for a full season. I don’t think they’re worried about rushing him to the Majors or stretching him out for future years. At this point, he just needs to get back on the mound and show he can stay healthy, and the short-term thought is that might be easier in a relief role. One step at a time there.

• Joe Lemire of USA Today wrote an article on the current state injuries and their prevention. Not a bunch of groundbreaking data, but I did find a bit of data I could study.

“We know teams will shut players down if they see certain changes,” TrackMan Baseball general manager John Olshan said, adding that conversely some clubs will hold back a player in rehab until his pitching measurements reach a certain threshold. “They might not know why that’s happening, but they know that somehow the player is compensating.”

I am not sure I am going to go back through the 2015 season look for data, but may be able to track through the 2016 season.

• At the Hardball Times, my year in review on the disabled list. The one item I was happy to make available is this time on the DL estimator. Not the most useful now, but will be great to use once the season starts.

• The Astros finalized their 2016 medical staff.

Players possibly on the DL in 2016

The Red players have had updates since the last report. Click on the “Date” for a link to go to the latest article on the player.

I’m pretty sure Joe Panik was never supposed to be anything. References to him as a prospect scream “utility.” Instead he parlayed a lucky-ish 2014 debut into a monster 2015. He posted 4.2 WAR in just 432 plate appearances.

He’s only a two category fantasy player – runs and average – with a possible hint of pop.  Panik still managed to be a positive fantasy asset despite missing a third of a season. And Mr. Sanders’ valuation method is rather harsh on time missed too.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s easier to identify pitchers you’re excited about, pitchers that you like better than the rankings say you should, than it is to do the opposite. At least for me. It’s easier to believe in a pitcher than to hate on them. At least for me. Lists of sleepers seemingly go on forever, while lists of busts are shorter. At least for me.

The fact remains that only half of the top 20 from 2014’s end-of-season rankings repeated on this year’s end-of-season rankings. We should have reason to hate on at least half of this year’s best pitchers. So, despite the season, let’s hand out some coal to last year’s aces. All of them.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s take a short break from the starting pitcher reviews and move onto recapping something I did for the first time this year. Since we had five rankers for our preseason consensus, it was only natural that there would be some players we disagreed on. Sure, we didn’t rank everyone exactly the same, but most were in the general vicinity. For these players that were part of our preseason top 100, our opinions were all over the map. Let’s find out who got it right.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve got two guys in the Senior Circuit – one for all formats and one for deep-leaguers particularly – who I think could have big seasons in 2016 while costing you relatively little on draft day (especially the second guy). I’ve done two drafts already (I know, right?) and the earliest either of these two went was the 10th round of a 15-teamer so even some winter helium isn’t going to send them into the cost-prohibitive territory where they have to perform to return value.

Raisel Iglesias, CIN – pick 165 (to me) in early November, pick 147 from a draft last week

Iglesias was one of those guys who probably landed on three or four teams throughout the course of the season in your league with the best work coming for whoever had him last.

Read the rest of this entry »

Steamer, a reputed projection system, offers predictions of the reliability for each player’s projected stat line. (These can’t be found in FanGraphs’ database, but they are available in the raw download from Steamer’s website.) James Shields‘ Streamer projection scored the highest reliability probability for the 2015 season. Shields was basically a 4-WAR starting pitcher for the eight years following his 2006 debut; when the San Diego Padres acquired him, they expected to acquire consistency. Alas, Shields’ MLB-highest 80.8% reliability was, and still is, understandable.

Except Shields cashed in a most unusual age-33 performance, and that’s why more, not fewer, numbers make the sport more special: you can marvel at and appreciate the game through any of an infinite number of lenses, and it never gets old. Neil Weinberg astutely detailed this anomaly, so I will politely not rip open San Diego’s wound as it heals.

I will, instead, turn my focus to Max Scherzer who, similarly to Shields, disrupted an 11th-best 79.3% reliability score on his projection. Unlike Shields, however, Scherzer made even better on his promise.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time for another Pod Projection review and today it’s new top 10 starter Jacob deGrom. After a dominating performance during his 2014 rookie campaign that essentially came out of nowhere, we all wondered how much regression he would experience in 2015. Instead, he laughed at the notion of regression and took his performance to further heights, earning more than $24 and finishing as the ninth most valuable starter. Refresh your memory by reviewing my initial Pod Projection post.

Read the rest of this entry »

There was a point earlier in the year when I felt bad for Jose Reyes. He was on a contender until they unceremoniously dumped him for a better declining shortstop. Reyes was decent with the Blue Jays, and many of us thought he could rebound even more in Colorado. Alas, it appears that joining a non-contender ruined his focus. He posted a meager 62 wRC+ in 208 plate appearances with the Rockies.

As I said, there was a point when I felt bad. No longer. While visiting Hawaii this winter, Reyes was charged with abusing his partner. His will be the first major test of MLB’s new domestic abuse policy. In light of the NFL’s consistent mishandling of domestic abuse, look for Rob Manfred to hand down a harsh penalty. And that could open doors in Colorado.

Read the rest of this entry »

My fellow RotoGraphs writers and I have been working through our 2016 player evaluations. I was tasked with the declining J.J. Hardy. I noticed that two of his core hitting traits, the ability to make contact and pull the ball, had degraded from 2013 to 2014. While Hardy saw an overall decline in his skills when these two skills declined, I wanted to see it was common among other players. I was able to find that decline in these two areas is a sign of a player on a fast decline.

Read the rest of this entry »