Episode 292

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris have a huge episode full of transaction analysis. The guys are talking about 15+ moves including Zack Greinke, Jeff Samardzija, Shelby Miller, Mark Trumbo, Starlin Castro, Ken Giles, and Brett Lawrie. It’s pretty great.

*air horn sound*

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• The Mets Wilmer Flores fractured his ankle playing winter ball. He should be ready for the start of spring training, but his playing time may be limited with the addition of Asdrubal Cabrera to the team.

• The Brewers have been awarded the Martin-Monahan award for “keeping its players on the playing field and off the disabled list”. This is the second year in a row the Brewers have gotten the award.

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A couple weeks ago, I lamented the state of trading in my dynasty league, The Devil’s Rejects. I run a team with Chad Young in this 20-owner, 45-player roster, keep-28 league. At the time of my last piece, Chad and I had run into a snag. When we tried to trade good veterans for prospects we were told to take a hike. When we tried to trade prospects for good veterans, we were told to take a hike. Frustrating…

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Jeff and I will be covering the fantasy implications of key transactions all winter long here at Rotographs. You can catch up on past deals here. The Winter Meetings wrap up early today with the Rule 5 Draft, but the last full day of action gave us a couple more high-impact trades:

To HOU: Ken Giles

To PHI: Vincent Velasquez, Brett Oberholtzer, Derek Fisher, and Thomas Eshelman

Primary piece(s): It seemed pretty clear that it was a “when” not “if” situation regarding the Astros acquiring a closer. They have been tied to all the available big-time closers and finally landed their guy in Giles. This might actually work out best as others they were targeting either lacked long-term control (Aroldis Chapman – I’m not ignoring his awfulness off the field, but that came to pass when Houston was already out of the running) or cost a pretty penny for said control (Andrew Miller).

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Admit it, you were a Gregory Polanco owner, held onto him all season long, and were disappointed by his performance. Though you felt he wasn’t a bust per se, it sure felt like he failed to earn his cost, right? If you recall, and I promise not to get upset if you do not, the RotoGraphs five ranked him 46th overall among outfielders in the preseason. Now tell me if it surprises you that he actually finished 32nd in value, earning $14.58. Because that is what happened according to Zach Sanders’ calculator.

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Jeff and I will be covering the fantasy implications of the Winter Meetings moves all week long here at Rotographs. You can catch up on past deals here. Tuesday night offered up two nice fantasy-relevant deals and then a Wednesday morning deal came in as I was finishing this up!

To NYY: Starlin Castro

To CHC: Adam Warren

Primary piece(s): Warren performed better last year, but he is unlikely to have a role relevant to all fantasy leagues making Castro the piece that matters most here. Castro enters his age-26 with six full MLB seasons – four good, two bad. Unfortunately, the two bad have come within the last three, including 2015. Castro hasn’t really run since 2012 with just a 55% success rate in 33 attempts. His path to resurgent fantasy value is with the bat.

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It was a busy Tuesday at the Winter Meetings. Starlin Castro and Shelby Miller were traded, Ben Zobrist signed with the Cubs, previous signings were officially announced, and other talks progressed closer to the finish line. So, here’s the question, what can the hot stove teach us fantasy baseball aficionados?

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Prepare for an adventure in which we fly over to the FanGraphs leaderboard, choose a minimum of 120 plate appearances, and sort in descending order by ISO. Unless you played in an AL-Only league and were trying to catch the standings leader who owned this very character, you might be shocked who sits ranked second. Obviously, I gave it away in the title of this article. But if you remain stumped, it was 32-year-old Franklin Gutierrez. The man didn’t even play in 2014 due to health reasons and came into 2015 with a career ISO mark of just .135.

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At some point in the next few days, or perhaps in the hours between when I wrote this and when it will be posted, you’ll be treated to an article about Billy Hamilton. Said post will come courtesy of my colleague Alex Chamberlain. Alex always offers a few nuggets of analytical gold. I’m looking forward to what he digs up regarding the preeminent burner in the league.

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Baseball, in all its glorious history, bears as its fruit some remarkable encounters between legends of the game. Allow me to recount a charming, wholly undocumented, 100%-real encounter between some of baseball’s greats:

…And then Billy Hamilton, to whom his colleagues and comrades affectionately referred as “Billy Hams,” appealed to the Baseball Gods:

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