In the aftermath of Wednesday’s trade that saw the White Sox send Todd Frazier, David Robertson and Tommy Kahnle to the Yankees, it was widely presumed that Anthony Swarzak would inherit the closer’s role on the South Side of Chicago. Then came the announcement later on Wednesday that Rick Renteria would be turning to Tyler Clippard, who came over in the deal from the Yankees, instead.

The fantasy community let out a collective groan. Clippard’s second tenure with the Yankees ended with a thud, as he allowed 16 runs over his final 13 1/3 innings with 10 walks and five home runs allowed. His White Sox debut against the Royals did not go much better. He entered in the bottom of the 10th inning with the game knotted at 6-6. Clippard began by allowing back-to-back singles to Alcides Escobar and Alex Gordon and then loaded the bases with a walk to Jorge Bonifacio. The fourth batter Clippard faced, Whit Merrifield, walked off with a sacrifice fly.
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The second-best part about Tommy Pham is I can basically recycle this post I wrote about Domingo Santana three and a half weeks ago. Like, I could replace Santana’s name with Pham’s throughout it and you wouldn’t blink. Pham, through his first 628 plate appearances, has hit a home run on more than 28% of his fly balls (28% HR/FB); if sustained for another 72 PA, it would be the third-best mark through a player’s first 700 PA in the last 15 years (among more than 600 qualified hitters).

The best part about Tommy Pham, though, is something Santana doesn’t have, and it’s something more than skin deep. Depending on whom you ask, Pham has swung at pitches outside the zone only 19.8% (BIS), 22.2% (Pitch Info) or 22.9% (PITCHf/x) of the time. Those rank, in order, 6th, 11th and 18th among 205 hitters with at least 250 PA — in other words, the 95th percentile (for the former two) or at least the 90th (for the lattermost). In short, he forces pitchers to pitch to him. Few in the game have been more selective, and few in the game have shown this much power this early in a career. (“Early,” by number of games, obviously, because Pham, at 29, is hella old for a guy who barely has a full season’s worth of PA.) The coincidence of his selectivity and his power is nice, to say the least.

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A couple of National League Central starting pitchers have caught my eye. Both are owned in a lower percentage of fantasy leagues than they should be, and both are flame throwers. One of the two has already received not just one endorsement from Paul Sporer earlier this month, but also a second after pitching decent in Colorado and brilliantly in Arizona. The other hurler hasn’t received the same level of praise, but Jeff Zimmerman noted a new breaking ball this righty’s added to his mix, and his results of late are intriguing. Read the rest of this entry »

All I want from life is to trade Jon Lester for a halfway decent closer. Like Ken Giles. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

AGENDA

1. Another Interruption of Service
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. SaberSim Says…
5. TDG Invitational Returns!

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Episode 281 – I Felt That One Was A Little Forced

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

In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss Matt surviving an Adam Conley pick, trying to trust Trevor Cahill on the road, believing in CC Sabathia again for a moment, the Yoan Moncada Twinkie story, Collin McHugh’s return, the first Billy Burns reference in a while, Dylan’s new place and the neighbor dog, Dylan’s overt plans to title the episode, Derek Holland’s wheels falling off, Dinelon Lamet’s big splits, and Matt explaining VaporTrap.

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7/20/17

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!

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Leading Off: Question of the Day

• Brewers interested in Justin Verlander: does he get traded by the deadline? (4:45)

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It’s time to check in on my preseason bold predictions.

Note: For all the rankings, I used ESPN.com’s Player Rater.

BOLD prediction #1: Trea Turner will perform 20 spots worse than his ADP suggests.

I’m going to luck into getting this one eventually. Turner was going way too early compared to my projections. I saw him more as a 2nd to 3rd round talent.

He was proved me wrong by stealing 35 bases until he fractured his wrist in late June and will likely miss all the 2017 season. He currently ranks 7th overall but his value will continue to drop as others continue to rack up the counting stats.

Batting 1.000

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Stanton pops his 30th HR:

.@Giancarlo818 is on an absolute TEAR. #Crushed pic.twitter.com/wGIyH1SqKb

— MLB (@MLB) July 18, 2017

It might finally be happening! The super elite Stanton season might finally be upon us!!! Stanton is just 10 homers away from his first 40 HR season and the way he’s smashing homers of late (9 in 15 July games), he could drop a 50 burger on the league. I’ll say he hits 52.

On the Agenda:

• Arenado pops 3 HR
• Sanchez Blistered Again
• Meyer Masterful v. Nats
• Rodon Rocked
• Dyson’s Resurgence
• Other News
• Whiff Watch
• WTWT

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I’ve always been interested in the contextual differences of player seasons. Take two random starters. Over the course of a season, they will have subtle differences in their frequencies of starts in pitcher-friendly parks and their frequencies of starts versus various teams and divisions. If the two starters are from different leagues, they will face a major difference in the number of designated hitters and pitcher batters that they face. Most of those factors are small on their own, but it feels like they could snowball on each other in extreme cases enough to make a noticeable difference in the difficulty of the pitchers’ strength of schedules.

It has taken me a while, but I think I’ve finally found an elegant way to test for those types of differences. It involves result frequencies and is best illustrated with a specific example. Stephen Strasburg started the season with a game against Miami. The first batter he faced was Dee Gordon. At that time, Gordon would reasonably have been expected to hit a single on 22.9 percent of his plate appearances versus a right-handed pitcher. He would have been expected to hit a double 3.2 percent, a triple 1.5 percent, and a home run 0.7 percent of the time.

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