Is the headline a reference? Is it a play on words? Is it just three words – two distinct words – arranged in an arbitrary order avec comma?
AGENDA
With managers relying more on relievers and less on starters last season, and with the emergence of fantasy-relevant non-closers like Chris Devenski, Chad Green and Archie Bradley, fantasy owners have been taking more interest in relievers who aren’t in line to get steady saves. Andrew Miller has long been on the fantasy radar, and he is currently owned in more than 60 percent of ESPN and CBS leagues. However, Bradley and Adam Ottavino are about as popular as some lower-end closers, as both are owned in more than one-third of the leagues on ESPN and CBS. Devenski, Green and Dellin Betances aren’t far behind in popularity.
On Thursday, the season reached its three-week mark, so we are not quite one-eighth through the schedule. In 2017, only five relievers exceeded 80 innings, but so far this season, there are already 43 relievers who have pitched at least 10 innings. Not everyone in this group will keep up this pace, and it’s not hard to imagine that some who stay on this pace will wear down and may even need some DL time.
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To say things have gone very, very well for the Los Angeles Angels so far in 2018 would be an understatement. The club sits quite handily in first place in the American League West division and features two of the most exciting players in all of baseball in Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. The one thing the club hasn’t done exceptionally well in recent memory, though, is develop players. It’s had a bottom third system for quite some time now.
But things are beginning to change for the better. I looked at the Angels Top 10 prospects list back in mid-March and identified a list that was slowly evolving into an impressive collection of players. Today, I’m going to take an early peek at how the top prospect, Jahmai Jones, is doing… along with one player I identified as a “just-missed” sleeper in pitcher Griffin Canning and a third player that I didn’t talk about at all in Taylor Ward.
The Roto Riteup reminds you to always stay observant!
Evan Gattis forgets number of outs, walks into triple play ?? pic.twitter.com/Ntj6PgRMJk
— MLB Memes (@MLBMeme) April 19, 2018
4/19/18
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This week’s exploration of lightly-owned hitters includes an aging veteran, a versatile defender with upside and a slugger on the rise. As always, each of the players featured here is worth considering in mixed leagues with at least 15 teams.
Note: Ownership percentages are listed in parentheses, with CBS listed first and Fantrax listed second.
Jose Bautista, OF/3B(?), Braves (9/27): The Braves signed Bautista to a minor league deal on Wednesday, and they are sending him to extended spring training to see if he can handle playing third base. If all goes well, Bautista would spend some time in the Florida State Leauge — perhaps within a week — and then presumably take over third base duties from Ryan Flaherty. Though Johan Camargo was activated from the 10-day disabled list on Wednesday, he would likely fill a utility role, so playing time shouldn’t be a concern for Bautista. In his final season with the Blue Jays, Bautista showed he still had some power left in the tank, slamming 23 homers, but both his hard contact and overall contact rates were on the wane. Taking a flier on Bautista is not without its risks, but if your team is short on power and well-positioned for batting average, he could be a good fit.
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So you drafted, say, Taijuan Walker, Joe Musgrove, or Dinelson Lamet—a starting pitcher you had reason to think would be useful, and now, because of injuries, isn’t and might not be for quite a while. What do you do? It depends, as always, on how deep your league is. In a relatively shallow league, there will be starters who are available as free agents and whose acquisition by you isn’t tantamount to outright surrender.
You could get, for example, Trevor Cahill or Steven Brault (both of whom we like), Brian Johnson (whom we kind of like), or Junior Guerra (whom we don’t trust at all), and no one will laugh at you. But if you play in a deeper league, all those possibly-useful starters are gone. You could of course plug the hole in your roster with a good do-no-harm reliever, perhaps even someone who has a shot at getting saves if something untoward befalls his team’s closer (Scott Alexander and our heartthrob George Kontos come to mind).
But you want something more: a Cahillesque bullpen pitcher who should provide good stats while there, but has a decent shot at becoming an effective starter should injury or failure befall a member of his team’s rotation. Yes, yes—by all means get Collin McHugh if he’s available. But is there anyone less obvious who might work out for you? Read the rest of this entry »
In response to the title: inconclusive.
AGENDA
As it remains far too early to actually analyze results (like ERA and WHIP), let’s continue discussing the underlying skills driving those results. Those skills are significantly more important when projecting for the future. So let’s find out which American League starting pitchers have improved their in-zone whiff rate the most. In FG metric parlance, that means calculating who has reduce their Z-Contact% by the greatest rate.
The Roto Riteup wants to remind you that deception is key:
wyd, Tanner Roark? https://t.co/NF5MrmCDtD pic.twitter.com/SuGTB8Fo3w
— Cut4 (@Cut4) April 19, 2018