Our quest for stolen bases now takes us to San Diego, where there may be some reason to tarry. New manager Andy Green seems a bit more willing to steal bases than his several predecessors last season were. This year, the Padres are attempting to steal 7.32% of the time they have a Stolen Base Opportunity. That’s 5th in MLB; the average is about 5.5%. In 2015, their SBA/SBO percentage was a below-average 5.3%.

Of course, just because you try to steal a base doesn’t mean you steal it. Last year, the Padres stole 74% of the bases they tried to steal. This year, it’s only 66%. But they try so much more often that their ratio of Stolen Bases to Stolen Base Opportunities is higher this season (4.80 vs. 3.92). Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to another edition of the deep league waiver wire, where there’s another opportunity to take advantage of an injury and a preemptive move for an imminent returnee.

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Some days, you’ve just got it like that.

Ender won’t save them, but he’ll make them a little more watchable.

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5/10/16

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

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• @sporer
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Strategy Section:

• Jason Heyward (3:25)
• Justin Upton (8:20)
• Prince Fielder (13:30)
• Adam Jones (15:45)
• Carlos Gomez (19:30)
• Troy Tulowitzki (24:50)
• Anthony Rendon (29:45)
• Kendrys Morales (34:00)

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A few notes from Monday:

• Aroldis Chapman is back playing for New York. There was no save opportunity but Chapman came in the game throwing is normal ~100 mph heat. Chapman allowed a run to score but he didn’t issue a walk and struck out two batters throwing his regular velocity. Whether or not he stays in the Bronx all season long, Chapman must be considered a top-five closing option in fantasy moving forward.

• Bryan Price has yet to name a closer but after his save last night, Cingrani has now recorded the last two saves for the Reds. Two successful saves is about as good as anyone has done on the Reds so I would expect Cingrani to continue to be the ninth inning guy.

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I shop in the bargain bins when it comes to pitching, and I usually do okay. But there’s a pitfall to shopping in those bins, and it comes from velocity. Or lack thereof — the lightly touted, the guys with no pedigree, the guys you find in those bins, they usually don’t have big fastballs. Or they’d be the darling of every scout.

So what, you might say. If they have command and great secondary stuff, then they can ball. Look at Aaron Nola!

Yes, that’s true. But there are inherent difficulties with a bad fastball. So let’s rummage through the bad fastball bucket and see what we find.

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When Dylan Higgins invited me on to the Field of Streams podcast last week, he asked me what I typically like to write about. My answer was an incoherent, stammering mess, but the gist of it was I like to write about all sorts of things. The trajectory of my writing has changed a lot over time.

I think I originally wanted to write primarily about market inefficiencies in fantasy baseball. The constant instantaneous misvaluation of players fascinates me, and effectively exploiting these inefficiencies make champions. Occasionally, I return to this topic.

That occasion is today, and today, I’m in the mood for blind résumés. I cherry-picked some stats for three players, whose names I stripped away, and I want you to decide, before reading any farther, in which order you would take these players.

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Agenda

1. Strasburg Hot Take
2. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard
3. Daily DFS
4. SaberSim Observations
5. Tomorrow’s Targets
6. Factor Grid

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Episode 153 – Miley vs. Smyly

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

In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss Hawk Harrelson’s autobiography, Stephen Strasburg’s extension, Matt sending out an SOS, a Yonder Alonso vs. Melvin Upton Jr. challenge, somehow endorsing Jeff Francoeur, an interesting matchup for Joe Ross, what to do in the contest with Mike Wright being bumped, Matt wanting to pick the same pitcher twice in one day, and the best thing Dylan discovered on Monday evening.

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