Before taking a short vacation, I reviewed the first preseason Pod vs Steamer Projections series posts, focused on home run upside. That article discussed the hitters whose home run Pod Projection was significantly greater than his Steamer projection. Today, I’ll recap the players I identified as possessing significant home run downside compared with Steamer. With the record setting home run total, this shall be interesting.

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Thanks for coming out!

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A few days ago, Travis Sawchik ask me to help find some comps for the Shohei Ohtani using a 2016 Davenport translation. The list of potential hitters with similar 2018 Steamer projections was impressive (Charlie Blackmon, George Springer, Mookie Betts, Carlos Correa, Yasiel Puig, and Aaron Judge). Additionally, I found pitchers who had similar 2018 projections to his 2016 translation but the list wasn’t as impressive (Jimmy Nelson, James Paxton, Jon Gray, Luis Castillo, Luke Weaver). Thanks to Dan “The Man” Szymborski, a 2018 projection now exists and results will be a little disappointing.

First, from what I heard from most fantasy websites, Ohtani’s will be two separate draftable players. Ohtani the pitcher and Ohtani the hitter. No site, that I know of, has yet to combine the two. If they did, they will likely have to count all the hitting stats accumulated by all pitchers. I hope this doesn’t ever happen.

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Last season’s trades — especially those with Houston and Chicago (NL) — gave new life to the Tigers system. Plus, 2016 first rounder Matt Manning could be an absolute stud and should see his value skyrocket in 2018 as he enters pro ball. The club should also consider moving Matt Hall from the starting rotation (where he’s a fringe prospect) to the bullpen (where he could develop into a key reliever).

The Graduate: Jeimer Candelario, 3B: The Cubs flipped veteran players Justin Wilson and Alex Avila to the Cubs at last season’s trade deadline with Candelario as the key player received in return. However, I’ve never been a huge fan of the young third baseman and I doubt he’s going to be a star. Candelario, who turns 24 in a few days, is pretty average across the board in terms of his ability to hit for average or power (although the juiced ball has everyone hitting 20-30 homers). His biggest asset at the plate is his strong eye, which allows him to produce good on-base numbers. Defensively, he has a chance to be steady but unspectacular.

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11/16/17

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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Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles/Game Play

• Ryon Healy trade (2:00)
• Giancarlo Stanton rumors (8:30)
  • Eno’s piece
• NL ROY Down ballot in ‘18 (19:56)
  • Paul DeJong (200 ADP)
  • Rhys Hoskins (38.5 ADP)
  • Luis Castillo (160 ADP)
• Corey Kluber & Max Scherzer win Cy Youngs – both 1st rounders? (39:50)
• Chad Green likely to start (46:15)
• Archie Bradley likely to relieve (47:55)
• Alex Reyes targeting May 1st & likely RP to start (49:50)
• Thyago Vieira to CWS for Int’l $ (55:25)
  • Seattle gearing up for Ohtani? (57:30)
• AFL Final Thoughts
  • Michael Chavis (1:02:45)
  • Austin Riley (1:08:27)
  • Sheldon Neuse (1:12:02)
  • Kyle Tucker (1:15:00)
  • Touki Toussaint (1:18:30)

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Major league batters are generally shifting towards a fly ball approach. The idea is to hit more balls in the air. Not necessarily fly balls, in fact there are those who wish to only hit line drives. When I say in the air, I mean ‘not on the ground.’ You want the ball to leave the infield before it bounces, ideally. Preferably this happens at a very high speed.

Duh, no kidding, right? Well, yeah. Obviously hitting the ball out of the infield is the goal for just about everyone. The goal isn’t the key, we’re talking about the approach used to actualize the goal. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve finally compiled the 2017 Disabled List (DL) information. The main change from the last few seasons is the transition from the 15-day DL to 10-day DL and the subsequent increase in DL trips. With the total trips up, the number of days lost is down which makes it tough to draw any major conclusions. It’s time to dive into the numbers.

First off, I collected the information from MLB.com’s transaction list. I like to use this list because it is easy to go back and check. I waded through it and it wasn’t pretty. It took me twice as long to compile the data compared to previous seasons. I would just like to give a big thank you to ProSportsTransactions.com for having most of the missing data.

With my venting out of the way, here is how the days missed for pitchers and hitters compare over the previous 4 seasons.

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Everybody makes a bad trade every now and then. I made dozens of trades during the 2017 season – most of which were very favorable to me. But two trades and one non-swap came back to haunt me when the season concluded. Let’s explore.

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In my most recent article, I estimated that a typical power hitter should lose 7.6 RBI over the course of a season if he bats second in the order compared to if he bats fourth. From a narrow perspective, that’s bad news for fantasy owners. But typical fantasy formats deal with more than just RBI, and runs scored in particular seem to have an inverse relationship with RBI where, as a hitter moves toward the front of the order, his runs should increase to offset some or all of his RBI loss. The question is which influence is bigger.

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I planned to include Rhys Hoskins in my blind résumés post from Monday, but I couldn’t find any realistic comps for him. Part of the problem is no one does for a full season what Hoskins did for 50 games. Part of the problem, also, is no one does for a full season what Hoskins would be expected to do for a full season, based on his peripherals. It’s a fairly unique skill set (although let’s not conflate “unique” with “the best” or any kind of superlative like that… yet).

Hoskins had himself a real, real nice debut. This isn’t the first time you’ve read about him in the last couple of months and it will be far from the last. Andrew Perpetua, for all intents and purposes, regressed his batted balls from 2017 and he still would’ve had an awesome season. In Eno Sarris’ heart, as well as mine, Hoskins was the runner-up National League Rookie of the Year to Cody Bellinger.

Hoskins had himself a real, real conveniently sized debut as well. His playing exactly 50 games prevents me from arbitrarily choosing a cutoff and having to justify it. A cutoff for what, you ask? Well, Hoskins, in exactly 50 games, posted a .359 isolated power (ISO) while swinging and missing only 7.1% of the time. He struck out a fair deal, but he also walked a ton. Take this snapshot of a season and, as aforementioned, you’ll be hard-pressed to find comps.

Which is exactly why I set out on a very pseudo-scientific quest to find any of Hoskins’ contemporaries who have done this — this, being the aforementioned 50 games of a .350-ish ISO and a 7%-ish swinging strike rate (SwStr%) — at any point in their careers (or within windows of their careers that I’ve curated). I’m winging it here, plucking names from my brain who have elite power and at least above-average plate discipline (assuming Hoskins might, but it’s not a foregone conclusion) and scouring their careers for similar streaks. Any omitted hitters are a product of my lack of memory or imagination, not of malice. Except for Giancarlo Stanton.

Mike Trout

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