As we march toward the final month of the season, we will continue to see many new faces in starting pitching rotations. Let’s discuss a trip of such in the American League.

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I am super stoked about Players Weekend coming up later this month. Check out the awesome jerseys!

These are ridiculous and I love them. #PlayersWeekend pic.twitter.com/rH3X0ibVUD

— Cespedes Family BBQ (@CespedesBBQ) August 9, 2017

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In the aftermath of the Brandon Kintzler trade, the Twins were going to use a committee to close games, but those committee meetings have not been well-attended. Ever since the Twins dealt Kintzler on July 31, Matt Belisle has been the only closer the Twins have called upon (not including Dillon Gee’s four-inning save on Tuesday), and he is the only one they have needed.

Belisle was brought in for the ninth inning against the Brewers on Wednesday and he struck out the side, but with a four-run lead, he was not credited with a save. However, he closed out the series opener against the Brewers on Monday as well as the finale against the Rangers on Sunday. While Taylor Rogers has looked better in his last few outings, Belisle seems to have a firm grip on the job. He has not allowed an earned run since June 24, and since the beginning of June, he has a 1.61 ERA with one home run allowed.
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8/9/17

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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Strategy Section: Breakout Hitters

• Aaron Judge (4:00)
• Andrelton Simmons (13:34)
• Marwin Gonzalez (18:20)
• Michael Conforto (25:50)
• Marcell Ozuna (28:15)

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With the Oakland Athletics deciding to dispatch of seemingly any and all of their near bottom-of-the-barrel veterans, that has made way for some intriguing young talent to grace the tattered remains of the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum. The trade of Trevor Plouffe, and subsequent realization of Ryon Healy’s relative uselessness on defense, has opened up the door for Matt Chapman, who could potentially serve as an impact piece for Oakland to also trade farther on down the line. For now, though, his ability to make an impact at the plate is starting to make him a relatively intriguing commodity in the home stretch, even if his numbers don’t necessarily indicate it.

In fact, Chapman’s numbers through almost 140 plate appearances are relatively paltry in general. His slash features a .223 average, while he’s reaching base at a clip of just .304. Not working in his favor are a BABIP of just .267 and a strikeout rate up near 30%. However, his OPS (.800) and ISO (.273) indicate that his bat has been a bit more impactful than some of the other figures would tend to indicate.

Actually, in the most general sense possible, hits of the extra base variety have sort of become Chapman’s specialty throughout his brief time at the Major League level, far more than any other hit type that finds its way onto the stat sheet.

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I’m already thinking about 2018. It’s not that my teams are doing poorly; they’re fine, for the most part. It’s that the economist nerd in me, when thinking abut fantasy baseball, most often evaluates the disparities between perceived and actual values, and how long, if ever, it takes for the market (aka fantasy owners) to come to equilibrium, to use economic parlance.

For example: you may or may not be aware that Kevin Gausman, despite his atrocious start to the season, has been magnificent the last five weeks. In seven starts from July 2 onward, he’s posted a 3.24 ERA (supported peripherally by a 2.81 xFIP and 3.40 FIP) with 11.4 strikeouts and 2.6 walks per nine innings. The strikeout rate is fueled by a 15% swinging strike rate (SwStr%), which have come consistently, ascending into double-digit percentages in all seven starts (and in eight of his last nine). His strikeout-to-walk differential (K-BB%) by month: 2.0%, 8.8%, 9.2%, 23.4%, and, in one August start, 28.0%.

Meanwhile, he’s inducing ground balls almost half the time (49.5% GB). You could say he’s due for batting average on balls in play (BABIP) regression, and he probably still is. His BABIP constantly hovering above .349 does not inspire confidence, but few pitchers have ever been BABIP’d so hard in a single season — I discussed this phenomenon in regard to Robbie Ray. All said, while there’s no guarantee his BABIP regresses before October, Gausman still shows the promise we once expected of him — perhaps more — and it’s going largely unnoticed because of his downright repulsive first half. (He’s baseball’s #12 starter the last month.)

Such is the gist of this post, in which I’ll briefly touch upon players I anticipate to have average draft positions (ADPs) in 2018 that will lend themselves to relatively low-risk, high-reward opportunities in standard mixed leagues. Whether such expectations become reality is another story; that’s why I’m relying on ownership levels as a proxy for perceived value. All ownership levels likely retain some amount of draft day inertia, for better or for worse — in other words, leftover ownership (or lack thereof) in abandoned leagues — so take it all with a grain of salt.

Please note this is, by no means, an exhaustive list — just the first few players who come to mind, mostly because I’ve paid close attention to them all season.

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Publicly available Statcast data is just over two years old. Eric Logenhagen posted his first set of prospect grades before this season started. I have decided to say screw it to small samples and see how well Eric’s power grades match up with exit velocity number. Even with the limited sample, the results ended up fairly consistent.

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Are hitters consciously deciding to hit more balls in the air, now that more data is available? I don’t know. There is certainly evidence that more players have hit the ball in the air over the past 2 years. Maybe it’s the ball. Maybe it’s the availability of StatCast, though teams have had more batted ball data than what is publicly available for some time. Would more widely available data be all that was needed in order for a player to see the merits of hitting the ball in the air?

I’m skeptical. Perhaps, hitters have always known that hitting the ball in the air is valuable, but now we have a standardized way of articulating these changes? These are just a couple of questions that sift through my head as we sort our way through changes in league wide batted ball tendencies over the past 2 years.

We know that expected production based on qualify of contact changes as we change launch angles and increase exit velocities, with the least valuable batted balls being those hit under 0 degrees and over 39 degrees. Balls in play fall into these buckets nearly 50% of the time.

Given this, I was curious if players increasing their launch angle are, on average, increasing their expected production. Much could be said about Yonder Alonso deciding to hit more fly balls. It’s worked out well for him, but there’s some survivor bias involved here. We remember Alonso because he has succeeded. Has everyone who has added more lift to their swing seen similar improvements? Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re fishing in the bottom of the ocean, or even the middle layer, you might uncover these hidden gems…

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They say that no one remembers your name when you’re strange, but I’m pretty sure that’s bass ackwards. Yep, strange of me to resurrect that ’90s phrase.

AGENDA

1. Stupid Silly Plays
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. SaberSim Says…
5. TDG Invitational Returns!

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