Quick Look: Mike Foltynewicz

The people spoke and I watched Foltynewicz’s start this past Friday.

Who should I watch (and then write about) this afternoon?

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) April 7, 2017

I’ve seen him throw previously and nothing has changed. He’s got a hard straight fastball and owners seems to be hoping one or more of his non-slider breaking pitches eventually play up. I only tracked his progress for the first two or so innings and quit once the rain at the game started coming down. Here’s what I saw.

Fastball (Grade 55): 92-97. Straight. Some rise. Heavy early use. The ball comes in fast and sometimes leaves even faster.

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One week into the season, it’s obviously too early to place much weight on any player’s performance thus far. In these early days of the season, I like to instead take a look at situational trends that alter players’ fantasy potential going forward. From position battles to lineup placement, there’s plenty to talk about from a fantasy perspective, without looking too much into small-sample statistics.

I identified three middle infielders whose fantasy arrows are pointing up, two of whom are widely available on waiver wires. (Position eligibility and ownership percentages from Yahoo.)

Marcus Semien – SS – 47% owned

When this season opened, it didn’t look like much changed for Oakland’s starting shortstop from the start of last season. Semien worked his way up the batting order as last season went on, bouncing around between the No. 2 and No. 7 spots from mid-May onward, and even saw 16 starts in the leadoff spot. However, 2017 started with the 26-year-old right back down at the bottom of the lineup, batting ninth twice and eighth once in the team’s first three games.

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Today, we continue our look at the Top 10 prospects for 2017 in each of the six leagues. The lists have been created by blending potential playing time, MLB-readiness and overall skill to take a stab at predicting the most valuable rookies for the coming season. Recently, we reviewed the NL East, the NL West, the NL Central, and the AL West.

Top 10 Prospects for 2017: AL East
 
1. Andrew Benintendi, OF, Boston: Benintendi has already received a lot of press and is easily the favorite for AL Rookie of the Year. He already has 34 games of big league experience under his belt and has yet to look fazed. He’s hit well and shown promise in the field. Benintendi is not a huge guy but he’s shown extra base pop and could eventually threaten 20 homers to go along with his 30-40 doubles in a full season. He should also regularly come close to producing a .400 on-base percentage with his ability to hit for average and tendency to walk more than he strikes out. He’s going to be a beast and reminds me of Mike Greenwell in his prime.

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Episode 253 – Caution: May Contain Baseball-Like Substance

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

In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss Matt being king of the podcast, Charlie Morton’s resurgence, Dylan stealing Matt’s pick, not trusting Rockies rookies, Toronto being less scary, Jeremy Hazelbaker’s hot start, K-rod facing Ichiro in 2025, the legacy of Jesse Chavez, the first matchup duel of the year, taking any lefty against A.J. Griffin, Miguel Gonzalez being the American League Tom Koehler, Bronson Arroyo technically surviving his first start of 2017, giving MMA nicknames to MLB players, and checking in on the show’s iTunes reviews.

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One week down, 25 to go. How did you do? I made a few bucks. Coulda, woulda, shoulda been more. Today’s values are from FanDuel.

AGENDA

1. Notable Sunday Recaps
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. Fade Fade Fade
5. SaberSim Says…
6. TDG Invitational Returns!

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I’m a sucker for velocity spikes. We know that all else equal, higher velocity is better. And when a pitcher makes it to the Majors with certain expectations, those expectations are built upon his current velocity. What if that velocity improves? Well, then we should probably increase our expectations. So when I was reading of Shelby Miller’s velocity surge during spring training, my interest went from zero to, well, not zero.

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Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, I have returned to the Roto Riteup to spread knowledge, sarcasm, and just enough grammatical errors to annoy you on a daily basis. Starting today, I will be covering the Monday through Thursday shifts and I aim to please… my bosses at Rotographs. Let me know if there are any topics, ideas, or features that would make the Roto Riteup Great Again!

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Good news, bad news time. The good news is that The Daily Grind weekend edition will run on Sundays. The bad news is there will be frequent conflicts with my personal baseballing schedule. So this weekend version will be truncated. How truncated you ask? Well, behold!

AGENDA

1. Weather Reports
2. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
3. Fade Fade Fade
4. SaberSim Says…

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It’s 2017 and Jeremy Guthrie and Bronson Arroyo started on the bump for their teams. Quite a treat, right?

Not really.

MLB’s app couldn’t handle what the Phillies did to Jeremy Guthrie.

His 135.00 ERA doesn’t fit on one line. pic.twitter.com/XTOL8K4vee

— Joe Giglio (@JoeGiglioSports) April 9, 2017

Arroyo lasted only four innings in his first big league start since 2014. He allowed six hits, six runs, and three walks Saturday against the Cardinals.  Read the rest of this entry »

4/8/17

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 18, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER18! 

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer
• @enosarris
• @jasoncollette
• @almelchiorBB

Leading Off:

• How’d those Charlotte Knights look?

Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles/Game Play

• Collin McHugh shutdown for 6 weeks
  • Joe Musgrove 34% Y!, 18% E, 54% C
• Rich Hill to DL w/blister
  • Alex Wood at CHC, v. ARI 3% Y!, 2% E, 20% C

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