Agenda
Episode 165 – Cereal Day
The latest episode of “Field of Streams” is live!
In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss tackling a five-game slate, scrambling for pitcher options, a strong change of opinion on Matt Wisler, a confusing Kevin Gausman tweet, recognizing Jackie Bradley’s hitting streak, being unable to take Wily Peralta in any matchup, and Matt planning on tanking the peanut butter and jelly sandwich eating contest at work.
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From the day I started playing fantasy baseball, I have placed a premium on players eligible at shortstop because all of the analysis I read and performed myself suggested that the replacement level at shortstop was less productive than the replacement level at other positions. Even in the shortstop boom of the late 90s that featured exceptional fantasy shortstops like Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Jeter, and Barry Larkin, the cliff to non-productive replacement options happened much sooner at shortstop than other positions.
Over the last two seasons, we have entered another shortstop boom as elite prospects like Carlos Correa and Francisco Lindor have made their way to the majors. You can check out the Last 365 Days split on the leaderboards to get a taste of their fantasy potential. Over that time frame, Correa has 29 home runs and 22 steals. Lindor has 15 and 21. Xander Bogaerts has hit .335 with 14 steals, and he has projectable power growth ahead of him. Even though players like Mike Trout and Paul Goldschmidt have been projected to have better fantasy statistics, I was prepared to thrust the likes of Correa and Lindor to their rankings neighborhood because I believed that positional scarcity would bridge the gap in their production. I no longer believe that is true.
Last year, I determined that pitcher batted ball distance allowed was correlated with HR/FB rate to a reasonable degree. This was fairly obvious, though the correlation was much lower than I expected, and less significant than that of hitters. It’s why I rarely discuss pitcher batted ball distance, along with the fact it doesn’t correlate from year to year all that well. But the correlation is there and it does convey meaning. We could run the same analysis for pitchers, comparing their distances with HR/FB rates to identify those due for improvement or regression. So today I’ll look at American League starting pitchers with highly inflated HR/FB rates, but distances that suggest major improvement is on the horizon.
While some of these players will obviously improve due to how high their HR/FB rates are, you might wonder if that improvement means a 10% mark going forward or a 14% mark the rest of the way. This analysis should help form those expectations.
I once went to a Jays-Yankees game and sat near a guy in head-to-toe Red Sox gear. Tonight, I saw someone with a Timofey Mozgov Cleveland Browns jersey in Cleveland. I, myself, own a signed Andrea Bargnani jersey, an Eric Hinske jersey, and any number of other awful apparel and memorabilia items.
None of it is anywhere near as bad as this jabroni:
You’re doing it wrong, buddy. pic.twitter.com/FSdjWFikYv
— Chris Hrabe (@chrabe) May 25, 2016
Who hurt you, fam?
Read the rest of this entry »
• Ben covered the Twins bullpen in fair detail last night, but we got to see them operated with one of those “lead” things today. Kevin Jepsen actually looked mildly competent in locking down save number four, tossing a clean inning working around a hit (striking out one). Of additional relevance is that the team moved Glen Perkins to the 60-day DL earlier in response to his latest setback (although this was somewhat procedural given that he wasn’t coming off the DL soon). As Ben pointed out, Jepsen remains the guy to own here but let’s not pretend his peripherals are good. While Paul Moliter confirmed what we’ve all seen (that guys like Fernando Abad will start seeing high-leverage innings), I’m not ready to sell all my shares of Trevor May yet. Yes, the 5.56 ERA is ugly, but the 15% SwStr% (top 25 in baseball) and 30% K% are elite. The walk rate remains below 10% and the SIERA sits at 2.86. Yeah, part of that .373 BABIP is the 37% Hard%, but the stuff is too good for him to be this bad going forward. He’s backed up in this pen based on his performance to date, but if there’s one guy you can buy here who possesses the biggest upside as a fantasy option in the second half, it’s May. I scooped him up dirt cheap in all my deep leagues.
5/25/16
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The 2016 season obviously has not gotten off to the start that the Arizona Diamondbacks envisioned when they signed Zack Greinke and acquired Shelby Miller via trade. At the same time, there have been several success stories throughout the roster, particularly in the field. Paul Goldschmidt is his typical all-world self, for the most part, and we’ve touched on the emerging Jake Lamb. One player who could use some more notoriety, though, is Brandon Drury.
Drury is still clinging to third base eligibility despite the fact that the spot is largely held down by Jake Lamb. He came up through the minor league ranks as a third baseman, but has demonstrated impressive versatility in his time with the Diamondbacks. Lucky for us, we’re not worried about what he brings to the table in terms of his defense at this point, anyway. What Drury does present with the stick, though, is a source of great intrigue, especially as he begins to see a larger opportunity at the Major League level.
I had no idea how I was going to follow up my extremely well-received article from last week, but then I realized it is the last Wednesday of the month which means it is time for my AL Outfield Tiers! Hooray! As always, these are my rest of the season ranks for the position and you can check out my previous versions below as well as Alex Chamberlain’s NL versions. Read the rest of this entry »
As I did last month, I’m once again going to take a look at the Depth Charts rest of season projections for hitters, and compare them against the preseason projections. Once again, all points per game figures and positional rankings are shown using ottoneu points scoring.