Today represents the final Prospect Stock Watch of the year… Soon, we’ll be transitioning to the annual series called ‘A Minor Review of 2016: ’ so keep your eye out for that feature. Today’s final stock watch looks at an infielder with crazy-good contact skills, a ready-for-The-Show slugger, and sleeper outfield prospect.

Max Schrock | 2B | Athletics
ETA: 2017
Value: Rising

There aren’t many big leaguers like Schrock — who was recently traded from Washington to Oakland. He makes a crazy amount of contact and his strikeout rate actually sits below 10% in his two-year pro career. That’s allowed him to produce a .325 batting average. The downside to his game, though, is that he’s almost 100% reliant on his ability to hit for average as he doesn’t walk much and has almost zero power. At 5-8, 180 pounds — and with a line-drive approach — he doesn’t project to add much pop. As a result, while the contact is impressive, he probably doesn’t project as anything more than a big league utility player or second-division starter at second base. Schrock, 21, has played all but 12 games in his career at second base so it’s probably about time that Oakland begins to expand his defensive repertoire. With that said, second base has been a blackhole for the A’s so the young infielder is likely earmarked for a shot at the position in mid-to-late 2017 unless the club looks at other internal and external options.

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It’s September, which means things are about to get a little weirder on the fantasy front. That brings positives and negatives – there may be a few more streaming options and extra bats in the free agent bin, but some of those options will be far shakier, and playing time as a whole will now be distributed across a greater number of players. Team success doesn’t always matter in fantasy team building, except when it comes down to September and competitive teams are the easiest to project playing time for.

Anyway, can we all agree that September should never again be limited to just four games on a day’s slate? This is me, looking for baseball to watch as I got home from a four-day Baltimore road trip:

Yesterday was tough. And there’s not a ton to talk about, so let’s narrow in on what September may bring.

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Short and sweet for this four game slate…

Unfortunately for the Atlanta Braves, Arodys Vizcaino is back on the shelf with shoulder inflammation. Fortunately for the Braves and fake baseballers alike, veteran Jim Johnson still has some gas in the tank. August was kind to the 33 year-old right-hander, who picked up saves in 7-of-8 chances with an 18:2 K:BB while allowing just one earned run. And he started off September on the right foot as well. The Braves entered the final frame of tonight’s tilt with the Padres up five runs, but summoned Johnson to the hill to end the Friars’ three-run rally and pick up his 14th save of the season. For a guy that’s green, induces worm burners over 57% of the time and owns a career best 16.4% K-BB%, Jim Johnson should be owned in a few more than 50% of Y! Formats at this point in the season — unless most of those folks at the bottom of the barrell have moved on….
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[Sorry! I read the tables wrong! I’ve updated this piece to be more… correct. I read the tables wrong the first time. Thanks for your patience.]

When it comes to the stolen base, it’s not immediately obvious who’s to blame for one.

Is it the pitcher, with his slow time to home base? That would make sense for Noah Syndergaard, who may be as bad at holding on runners as he is at pitching well.

Is it the catcher, who has had his pop times and throwing arm measured throughout his time in the game? We make a big deal about big arms like the one Gary Sanchez used to throw 88 miles per hour and nab Julio Borbon this week.

Could it be all on the baserunner? Billy Hamilton has stolen bases against the best batteries, and was recorded running 22 miles per hour this week.

And should we ignore the fielder? Some middle infielders are adept at the swipe tag, others whiff on the runner or let the ball bounce by.

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Last week, I examined hitters who had a known injury they were playing through and then determined how their Stat Cast exit velocity changed. Today, I am moving on from back looking at injuries (reactive) to forward-looking (predictive). Any important conclusions drawn this early in the process should be taken with a grain of salt, but I will trudge along on anyway.

One issue I will continue to run into when looking at this data is the lack of data. Having less than two season’s worth of data is frustrating to work with. Five to six years from now, we will likely be laughing at the work that was done with so little information. Just be skeptical of the information provided as I am trying to be at the tip of the spear so I am likely to get cut a few times.

The more I looked at the data, it seemed a large drop of around 5 mph to 6 mph was indicative of a major injury. The one problem I ran into was players like A.J. Pollock who have both speed and power. Charlie Blackmon and Starling Marte as other similar players. They have wider normal ranges in exit velocity, so instead I went with looking at a half of the standard deviation of the player’s exit velocity to help flag injured players. Most of the time this value is around 5 to 7 mph.

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Alright so we’re back here for another edition of #2xSP. There aren’t many left of these this year, so maybe it’s time to reflect, or at least look forward. I think a reasonably fair goal is to keep the ERA under 4.00, strikeouts above 8.0 per nine innings and maybe, just maybe sneak that K/BB up over 3.0. It’s fair to say this year has gone markedly better than last: 4.66 ERA, 7.1 K/9, 2.2 K/BB and 1.41 WHIP, and this year is more consistent with the previous two years in the now four-year (?!?) track record of this column.

Here’s where we stand so far this season:

42-40 record
3.95 ERA
8.2 K/9
2.9 K/BB
1.33 WHIP
59 quality starts
Real-world equivalent: roughly Jake Odorizzi?

Here are this week’s recs (with opponents wRC+ in parentheses):

LHP Tyler Anderson – 20.6% ESPN – v. SFG (101), @SDP (87)

With Anderson it flat out boils down to the fact that I love him. I love a guy who can get strikeouts (8.3 K/9), grounders (53.5%) and doesn’t walk many (2.2 BB/9), and that is even more true at Coors Field. He’s posted a 3.43 ERA that checks out peripherally, and I just don’t see that many red flags with him after 15 MLB starts. I’m cautiously optimistic he can handle Coors long-term, as he’s posted a 3.11 ERA at home versus a 4.21 mark on the road, but his opposing batter splits are flipped in that respect. Batters have hit .266/.318/.409 against him at Coors Field, and just .211/.267/.383 on the road. Even if the answer is somewhere in the middle, I think he’s a really solid guy moving forward. Read the rest of this entry »

While his ERA only dropped marginally from 2014, last year Chris Archer vaulted into the elite, thanks to pumping up his slider usage, which dramatically boosted his strikeout rate. Unfortunately, the 2016 season did not begin the way he, or his owners, imagined it would. He ended the month of June with an ugly 4.76 ERA, his control had deteriorated, and he was giving up homers like never before. So how did he cure his issues? By throwing even more sliders, of course. Let’s break down his season into two parts, which seem to correlate with the time he further upped his slider usage.

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The calendar has flipped to September, which means we’re down to the final stretch of the season. As a result, there are a plethora of characters and stories circulating through baseball, but at the moment I’m particularly interested in three outfielders; Bryce Harper, Jason Heyward, and Jay Bruce.  Three national league right fielders, each playing for a contender, and each going through various stages and degrees of struggle.

Jason Heyward came into the season with a newly minted 184 million dollar contract, which he has presumably framed somewhere in his house.  If it were me, I’d probably have a copy framed in every room of my house, but that’s neither here nor there.  Bryce Harper entered the season as the reigning NL MVP, with many claiming he was going to officially dethrone Mike Trout as the greatest player in the sport.  Jay Bruce, well, he might not be as accomplished or wealthy as the other two, but was acquired by a New York Mets team that placed huge hopes that not only would he help them down the stretch this season, but also act as leverage to perhaps extend Yoenis Cespedes, or even replace Cespedes altogether next season. Those are big shoes to fill.

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Agenda

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

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The star of yesterday’s Rays-Red Sox day game was Hanley Ramirez, whose fifth-inning grand slam erased a three-run deficit en route to an 8-6 victory for the Red Sox. Batting ninth in the order, Jackie Bradley was out of the spotlight, but his performance was likely more important to the team’s playoff aspirations given his recent struggles and history of streakiness. Bradley was on third base for Ramirez’s grand slam following a leadoff hit in the fifth inning. He added his own home run to extend the team’s lead to 6-4 in the sixth inning. And he added the team’s final run with a double to right field in the eighth inning. It was Bradley’s first three-hit game since July.

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