As an important reminder, it’s always instructive to check the weather for each ballpark before setting daily lineups. Luckily, Mike Trout is not only one of the best fantasy players going, he’s also a major asset for your research department.
Here’s @MikeTrout with tonight’s weather report! pic.twitter.com/rZmbq6365j
— Angels (@Angels) April 26, 2016
A few quick notes from Sunday:
• Jake McGee had a bad night allowing five earned in less than an inning. Every dog has it’s (bad) day and I don’t think McGee’s job is in danger but we’ll keep Colorado yellow for now. Miguel Castro who pitched himself into setup duty was put on the DL with an apparent non-serious shoulder injury. Chad Qualls and Boone Logan both move up a spot with McGee still ahead provided he doesn’t repeat last night’s performance.
4/25/16
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Strategy Section: Three Fast Starts in the AL
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• The most impactful injury this week is the hamstring injury sustained by Carlos Carrasco.
The severity of the setback is not immediately known, but manager Terry Francona said Carrasco will be placed on the disabled list, meaning Bauer could be poised for a move back to the starting rotation.
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After his abrupt departure in the third inning, when he sustained the injury while hustling to cover first base, Carrasco headed back to Cleveland to undergo an MRI exam.Francona said the team will likely have more details on the extent of the issue on Monday, when the Tribe opens a three-game road series against the Twins.
Right now we know he is out at least 15 days with more information coming today (the news might be available by the time this article runs). Just looking back at pitchers with hamstring strains and sprains, they usually return in just over 30 days.
I previously took a look at hot starts at the keystone, so today let’s do the opposite. Last time, I examined three players who were outside the top 15 in our experts’ preseason rankings. Today, I’ll discuss three guys from inside the top 15, who find themselves scuffling at the plate. Obviously, it’s still early and we’re dealing with small samples across the board, but there’s legitimate reasons to worry in certain cases.
Anthony Rendon (preseason No. 9, current No. 40) – SELL
As I wrote last fall, Rendon’s future value is tough to evaluate, due to his extensive injury history. He’s torn ligaments in his right ankle, which he later broke. He also fractured his left ankle, as well as spraining his left MCL and left oblique. Throw in the strained right shoulder that limited him to DH duties for nearly his entire junior season at Rice, and that is one heck of an injury history for a guy who’s still only 25 years old.
At the time, I wrote the following regarding Rendon’s injuries and potential future production:
The optimist in me looks at the list of ailments above and is thankful that his 2015 injuries were not recurrences of prior issues. The pessimist in me sees a 25-year-old whose legs may not be able to support a lengthy career in professional athletics.
Even without a doomsday scenario like that, it’s easy to see Rendon’s skills deteriorating in the next few years. If he suffers another injury or two, he could be in a steep decline by the time he should be reaching his prime. It’s already clear that certain aspects of his game aren’t what they used to be.
This year, the Nats moved Rendon back from second base to third, possibly having realized that it might not be smart to have a player who has broken both of his ankles playing a position where baserunners come diving at your legs. This is a good thing. What isn’t a good thing is his complete lack of offensive production to this point in 2016.
When it comes to fantasy baseball, not all prospects are created equally. In keeper leagues and dynasty leagues it’s important to have strategies around your prospects; you don’t want to just randomly grab a Top 10 or 20 prospect and hope for the best.
Along with skill, knowing a player’s ETA is key. Is the player advanced enough to help in 2016… or is he headed for a 2019 debut? Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is a talented dude but he’s not likely to visit the Great White North until 2020. Chicago (AL) drafted Carson Fulmer in 2015 with the eighth overall pick but he’s considered advanced enough to perhaps help the club in ’17. And then there’s Colorado’s Trevor Story, who turned the Jose Reyes soap opera and a strong spring into a ’16 starting gig.
Agenda
Episode 142 – Pro Pie Counterculture
The latest episode of “Field of Streams” is live!
In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss the crazy weekend in baseball, Matt’s birthday, Matt being speechless because of Miguel Gonzalez’s matchup, the legend that is Juan Uribe, Brad Miller being almost as cold as Logan Morrison, the bad Cincinnati bullpen, Enrique Hernandez as a “legitimately pretty decent ballplayer,” making up numbers to estimate the success of a Raisel Iglesias fade, strong opinions on cake and pie and Funfetti, the John Lackey rule, and trying to figure out what to do with Ian Kennedy.
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This kind of post is right in Mike Podhorzer’s wheelhouse. We have a lot of common interests as far as baseball research topics are concerned — namely, xK%, xBB% and xBABIP — but he’s typically the one who periodically updates RotoGraphs with x-leaders and x-laggards.
So, again, this would be the kind of post Pod would tackle: an update on which starting pitchers will likely regress in their strikeout rates (xK%). But instead of using the xK% equation, to which the above paragraph is hyperlinked, I want to focus on a particular metric: zone contact rate, or Z-Contact%.
I’ll be up front about this: I haven’t done much research regarding pitcher zone contact rates and how it sticks from year to year. That’s primarily what this post will entail, and my evidence is largely anecdotal. But it’s important to note that zone contact rate plays a profound role in determining a pitcher’s strikeout rate; the Pearson correlation coefficient between K% and Z-Contact% is -0.72. In other words, K% and Z-Contact% are strongly negatively correlated.
Last week, Eno discussed swing rate and ground ball rate changers as we finally started hitting the stabilization points of certain offensive metrics. Now, many hitters have reached the point at which strikeout rate become reliable, which has been found to be at 60 plate appearances. Obviously, all else being equal, a better strikeout rate will lead to better results. More balls in play equals a higher batting average, more home runs, and additional opportunities to drive in and score runs, and steal bases. So who has improved their strikeout rates the most so far compared to 2015?