Episode 162 – Station To Station

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

In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss Matt’s successful return from Canada, an update on the contest, whether you can be a fan of a team that doesn’t exist anymore, Dylan failing to make up a fake name, Matt struggling with his thesaurus, Matt Adams turning things around, Dylan’s unabashed Rich Hill love, Matt’s review on all things Canada, Matt’s opinions on watching the Blue Jays, and food carts vs. food trucks.

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Updated Feb. 25, 2017

Aug. 16, 2016: Updated Alex’s xBABIP equation and added Andrew Dominijanni’s xISO equation.
May 23, 2016: Published.

Jump around in this post:
Hitter metrics: xBABIP | xISO | xHR/FB | xOBA | xK%
Pitcher metrics: xHR/FB | xLOB% | xK% | xBB%

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Do you frequently use RotoGraphs’ “X” (expected) metrics? Do you wish they were easier to find? Have you ever commented to ask if they could be added to the leaderboards or at least wished they were all located in one spot? If so, you may want to…

BOOKMARK THIS PAGE!

I don’t know if there will ever be a time when FanGraphs has a leaderboard devoted to “X” metrics. The fantasy analysts at RotoGraphs have taken a largely vigilante approach to creating descriptive and predictive expected metrics over the years. Moreover, each metric typically undergoes an iterative process by which we improve it when new data is made publicly available to the authors.

So, this is it. This is my best attempt, on behalf of RotoGraphs’ staff and at the polite and enthusiastic behest of its readers, to centralize the freshest versions of the relevant metrics the RotoGraphs staff most frequently cites. I have also built primitive Microsoft Excel-based calculators for some (but not all) of the metrics that crunch the numbers as long as you provide the appropriate inputs. It should save us all an extra minute or two and preserve our sanity a little bit.

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Last week, I identified five hitters whose batted ball distance suggested better HR/FB rate days may be ahead and another five hitters who may be in for a sudden HR/FB rate decline. That’s one way to use a hitter’s average home run and fly ball distance — as a predictive metric to speculate on improvers and regressers moving forward. The other use is to validate as a backwards looking tool. Player X’s HR/FB rate has spiked, has his batted ball distance surged as well? The batter would seemingly have a better shot at sustaining that increased HR/FB rate if it came with a similar trend in his distance. Of course, he may not sustain the distance, in which case the HR/FB rate would fall. But we still want to see the two match up.

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You know what I’ll just never understand? Today’s a holiday in Canada, and the Blue Jays aren’t playing at home (or at all). In what world does this make sense? I know scheduling is incredibly complex and difficult, but this seems like a no-brainer, right? Instead, we’re left here to watch Game 4 of Raptors-Cavaliers. And you know who Mark Shapiro is rooting for…

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5/22/16

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

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• @sporer
• @enosarris
• @jasoncollette

Strategy Section: Struggling Aces Continue

• Chris Archer (3:30)
• Dallas Keuchel (11:00)
• Sonny Gray (19:00)

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After two rough outings in mid-May, Steve Cishek has bounced back in his last two save opportunities pitching two clean innings, and earning his 12th save today. The heart of the Seattle bullpen pitched well tonight, as Joaquin Benoit bounced back after giving up a run in his first appearance coming off the DL by pitching a clean inning today. Nick Vincent was also perfect today, as he has not allowed a run in five straight games, and could be inching his way up to the second in line designation. Vincent has appeared in twenty games this season and has only allowed an earned run in 3 of those appearances. He has 24 K’s in 19.1 innings with only 2 walks. For leagues that count holds, he can be a valuable asset right now as he earned his 9th hold of the year, and will help in the rest of your categories outside of saves (at least, so far).
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Sam Dyson was immediately thrust into action after being named closer for the Rangers, and his first appearance was not so hot, despite earning the save. He faced five batters, giving up two hits and one run, while striking out one. Tonight was a different, cleaner story as Dyson pitched a perfect inning earning his 4th save of the season. The rest of the Rangers bullpen has also been strong this weekend, particularly Jake Diekman striking out four over the pas two innings. Diekman is sporting a career best 35% K rate this season, as well as a career-low 6.2% BB rate. Based on usage, Diekman is certainly next in line if Dyson ends up struggling, but may not get the role because he is one of two lefties in the Rangers pen right now. Matt Bush is the sexy name right now, as he has impressed in his small sample so far in his call-up. Tonight he earned his first hold, going through the heart of the Astros line-up, giving up his first baserunners this season. He still struck out two and managed to get out of the mini-jam he created. I don’t see Dyson losing the closer role in the near future, so Diekman and Bush appear to be guys to lean on for those holds. We’ll also monitor Tolleson’s usage moving forward to see if all trust has been lost, or if he will be a primary source for holds as well.

Carson Smith was placed on the disabled list yesterday after returning to the Red Sox on May 3. He has only pitched in 3 games this season, and felt soreness in his elbow after pitching a long outing against Oakland on May 9th. Smith was supposed to be a major addition to the Red Sox pen, and although John Farrell does not think he will need surgery, there is always concerns when it comes to the elbow. Junichi Tazawa has pitched in that 7th inning role and has been excellent this season posting a 1.58 ERA (2.47 FIP) striking out 31.8% of the hitters he has faced. I wouldn’t be surprised if he soon takes over the 8th inning role, as Koji Uehera has not been his typical dominant self. The K’s are slightly down and the BB’s are slightly up. His ERA  is up to 3.94 (3.09 FIP), which isn’t a huge alarm for concern, but Tazawa has just been that good.

Miguel Castro made his first appearance yesterday since being placed on the DL, pitching a scoreless 8th and surrendering only a double. I moved him back into the grid as second in line, but can easily see him jumping into the first in line very shortly. Castro has impressed in his brief appearances this season, but so has Carlos Estevez. Colorado has some nice arms in their pen and I am curious to see how this scenario plays out the whole season. I predicted McGee to get 40 saves in my bold prediction piece, and I think he is still in line for that. He just has unexpected protection before him, and this would go a long way to legitimizing part of Colorado’s pitching staff.

Closer Grid:

	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
Arizona	Brad Ziegler	Daniel Hudson	Tyler Clippard
Atlanta	Arodys Vizcaino	Jason Grilli	Hunter Cervenka
Baltimore	Zach Britton	Darren O’Day	Mychal Givens
Boston	Craig Kimbrel	Koji Uehara	Junichi Tazawa
CHI (NL)	Hector Rondon	Pedro Strop	Justin Grimm
CHI (AL)	David Robertson	Nate Jones	Zach Duke
Cincy	Ross Ohlendorf	Tony Cingrani	Jumbo Diaz
Cleveland	Cody Allen	Bryan Shaw	Dan Otero
Colorado	Jake McGee	Carlos Estevez	Miguel Castro
Detroit	Francisco Rodriguez	Mark Lowe	Justin Wilson	Bruce Rondon
Houston	Luke Gregerson	Ken Giles	Will Harris
KC	Wade Davis	Kelvin Herrera	Joakim Soria
LAA	Joe Smith	Fernando Salas	Jose Alvarez	Huston Street
LAD	Kenley Jansen	Pedro Baez	Joe Blanton	Yimi Garcia
Miami	A.J. Ramos	David Phelps	Kyle Barraclough	Carter Capps
Milwaukee	Jeremy Jeffress	Tyler Thornburg	Michael Blazek	Will Smith
Minnesota	Kevin Jepsen	Trevor May	Fernando Abad	Glen Perkins
NY (NL)	Jeurys Familia	Addison Reed	Hansel Robles
NY (AL)	Aroldis Chapman	Andrew Miller	Dellin Betances
Oakland	Ryan Madson	John Axford	Sean Doolittle
Philly	Jeanmar Gomez	David Hernandez	Hector Neris
Pittsburgh	Mark Melancon	Tony Watson	Neftali Feliz
St. Louis	Trevor Rosenthal	Kevin Siegrist	Seung Hwan Oh
SD	Fernando Rodney	Brandon Maurer	Ryan Buchter
SF	Santiago Casilla	Cody Gearrin	Hunter Strickland	Sergio Romo
Seattle	Steve Cishek	Joaquin Benoit	Joel Peralta
TB	Alex Colome	Erasmo Ramirez	Xavier Cedeno	Brad Boxberger
Texas	Sam Dyson	Jake Diekman	Shawn Tolleson	Keone Kela
Toronto	Roberto Osuna	Gavin Floyd	Drew Storen	Brett Cecil
Wash.	Jonathan Papelbon	Blake Treinen	Shawn Kelley

[Green light, yellow light, red light: the colors represent the volatility of the bullpen order.]

Agenda

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

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Somehow, the NBA decided that they didn’t need a playoff game yesterday, which left this Roto Riteup author with more time for white hot baseball analysis.

On the agenda:
1. Various News and Notes
2. Streaming Pitcher Options

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Hey we’re getting this going a bit later than expected this week. Covering the Twins complicates the rest of my days when they’re in town, but I hope you can still use this information even now on Saturday.

Here’s how we’ve done so far:

14-9
3.62 ERA
8.0 K/9
2.9 K/BB
1.30 WHIP
20 quality starts

I’d call those results to be proud of, but feel free to tell me in the comments if you feel differently. Anyway, here’s who I like this week (with team wRC+ in parentheses):

RHP Jimmy Nelson – 31.5% ESPN – @ATL (67), v. CIN (79)

Jackpot. Maybe Nelson’s ownership is a bit too high — we still use 50 percent as the barometer but I’m open to changing that — but he’s got a couple of mint matchups this week. For the most part Nelson has been able to keep away the blowups; seven of his nine starts have resulted in two or fewer earned runs. He’s held opponents to a .221 batting average thanks to a surprising swing-and-miss fastball (.114 BAA, 11.5% whiff rate) and the slider has been good too (.330 OPS against, 13.6% whiff). I really, really like his week ahead here. Read the rest of this entry »