Episode 149 – I’m Cheating With The Giants

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

In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss an obligatory Star Wars reference, Dylan’s modest bragging about a Steven Wright pick, Matt’s possibly crazy prediction about Jose Quintana, a history of bad starters in the back of the White Sox rotation, loving every Giants hitter as a pick again, learning how to pronounce Sean Manaea’s name, Dylan being more of a Chris Carter guy than a Joey Votto guy, reasons to like Brett Nicholas, looking into the very small sample size that is Chris B. Young’s splits this year, remembering John Danks, and scoping out things on iTunes that aren’t quite “Field of Streams.”

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It’s a strange season for stolen bases so far, is it not? It seemed to us, just impressionistically, that there have been a lot more caught-stealings this year than last, and so it proves statistically. You don’t have to be Bill James to notice that last year’s success rate for stolen bases was 70% and this year’s is 68%–the lowest, if it persists for a full season, since 1999.

Other numbers paint the picture even more clearly. Teams are attempting to steal bases a tiny (and thus insignificant) bit more than last year—5.6 attempts per Stolen Base Opportunity in 2016, 5.43 in 2015. And the total number of stolen bases this season is exactly what you’d have expected, given last year’s numbers. But there have been way more caught-stealings—roughly one per day more, across all of MLB, which seems like a lot. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re hurting for outfield help in your deep mixed or mono league, this week’s deep league waiver wire is to the rescue!

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When your steaming recommendation gives up three home runs, five walks, and five runs in five innings:

The Nicholas Tropeano suggestion was, well, this, basically:

Oh well. You can’t wear these for long. On to the next.
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Seattle’s Tony Zych will be placed on the 15-day DL for rotator cuff tendinitis, as the origins and timetable for return are not known. Last year in a small sample Zych looked very strong. Zych was continuing to open eyes with a 14.25 K/9 this season, but his control was also concern with a BB/9 of 6. Steve Johnson was called up to fill his roster spot, but not his role as the second set-up man. Johnson impressed in AAA this year with 20 K’s and 2 BB’s over 16 innings. Yet in his limited major league exposure, Johnson has produced a 4.25 ERA (4.33 FIP) with a good K rate (10.49 per 9) and poor BB rate (5.46 per 9). Nick Vincent will be second in line for saves it seems, and he has performed well this season. Vincent had been a solid low leverage reliever for the Padres, and there appears to have been improvements made this year. His strikeouts are slightly up from the past and he has yet to issue a walk. The two dings on his numbers this year have been the two home runs he gave up this year, but I’m still intrigued by the batted ball data. His previous career high GB/FB ratio was 1.26. This season: 2.17. I know, it’s early and we need to see more if we can conclude whether something has changed. He can still be a nice source for Holds while Zych is sidelined.
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Previous rankings:
March/April (Preseason)

* * *

For this post, I had written something entirely different, but I woke up early to change it. All of it. I didn’t dream about it — no, not quite. But I came close. This month has proven to be pretty difficult. Maybe “finicky” is the word.

So many hitters are producing at similar levels with similar peripherals to support them that it’s hard to tease them apart. I tried a full re-rank and I had clustered something like 20 or more guys together twice. I try to limit each particular tier to maybe a dozen hitters, so coming away with only three-or-so tiers was problematic. That’s why I decided to wake up early and do this over. The ranks haven’t changed much, but certain guys have moved a lot, and I will try to identify which guys are most likely to move up or down by the time the June iteration of these rankings roll around.

Also — and this is totally unrelated — I think more readers were infuriated by my omission of Tommy Pham (who has all of one plate appearance this year) than my ranking of A.J. Pollock over Bryce Harper. Y’all crack me up sometimes.

You know the drill: I rank National League outfielders, you yell at me in the comments. Consider all rankings fluid within tiers but not between them (except at the top and bottom of each tier, perhaps). Normally, I would tell you that players should be reserved to their respective tiers, but I think there’s much more opportunity for movement here than ever before (ever before, in the context of me doing this since the beginning of last year). Lastly, if I omit a name, politely let me know in the comments.

Unless it’s Tommy Pham. Then shhhhhhhhhh.

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Agenda

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

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In this episode of OttoGraphs, Tom and Joe discuss some players who have changed their value in the early going, specifically with respect to the Ottoneu FGPts format.

Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions you may have about this episode or future topics. We can be reached individually on Twitter:

@OttoneuTrades

@JustinVibber

@TomHasOpinions

@Fazeorange

Lastly, special thanks to Treemen who provided our intro and outro music. If you like what you hear, please check out their other work at http://treemen.bandcamp.com/

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Episode 148 – The 18-8 White Sox!?

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

In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss Jon Gray’s outing, trusting in every hitter in the Giants lineup against Jon Moscot in Cincinnati, having no faith in anyone in the matchup in San Diego, Dylan’s five-year plan for podcast sponsorships, bad lefties representing DFS gold, looking at a few batter-versus-pitcher records (and recognizing how pointless they probably are), picking against Matt Wisler again, returning to Matt’s theory on the White Sox advance scouting department, Collin McHugh having bounceback potential, what would happen if Dylan and Matt ran a baseball team, Steven Wright, and baseball hats.

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