5/31/18

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, 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 SLEEPER19!

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Each week through the season, I’ll be looking at the collection of starting pitchers owned in under 15% of leagues (consensus Yahoo/ESPN ownership from Fantasy pros) and pointing out the options to consider if you need an extra arm or two at the end of your staff.

It’s been another week of Fantasy Baseball, and the waiver wire has shifted. Let’s highlight my ten favorites, roughly ordered from top to bottom:

Anthony DeSclafani (Cincinnati Reds) – Tony Disco threw his final rehab start today and he may be worth the add if you’re looking for some stability at the backend of your staff. His 2016 season returned a 3.28 ERA across 20 starts with a 1.22 WHIP that works incredibly well in the current SP landscape. It doesn’t come with the largest ceiling, but those in deep leagues should be all over Desclafani.

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Michael Taylor

I was a little surprised to find the 27-year-old available in my Tout Wars league where every semi-decent full-time player seems to be owned. While I didn’t need outfield help, I examined his profile and jumped at the opportunity to roster him.

I valued Taylor as an endgame option coming into the season based on his low AVG and suspect playing time with Victor Robles ready in the minors. The 2018 Nationals outfield has been decimated with injuries so far, so Taylor’s playing. The playing time could end with Adam Eaton attempting to return but, for now, Taylor’s roster spot is secure.

As for Taylor’s talent, he falls into the Drew Stubbs player profile, horrible AVG/OBP skills but a decent combination of home runs and stolen bases. Combining his 2017 minor and major league totals, he posted 20 home runs and 21 stolen bases. While the home runs haven’t come this season, he has hit four with 13 steals in 14 attempts.

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• On one hand, Brad Ziegler is 9/10 on save opportunities. That’s pretty good! On the other hand, he has a 7.83 ERA and 5 losses. That’s pretty bad! Ziegler entered last night’s contest in a 2-1 game in the bottom of the ninth and walked Franmil Reyes to start the inning. Raffy Lopez flied out for an out, then Freddy Galvis hit a double. With runners on first and second, Ziegler walked Manuel Margot to face Hunter Renfroe who hit the game winning, two RBI single.  After the game, Don Mattingly said “you want to get something dependable at the end of the game.” At the moment, it’s clear that isn’t the case. Whether someone else sees the next save chance we don’t know, but Miami is on red alert. I would run to pick up Kyle Barraclough with Tayron Guerrero and Drew Steckenrider behind him. Barraclough has a pretty 1.48 ERA but a 4.06 FIP and 4.07 SIERA suggest some regression might come.  Barraclough’s SwStr% and K% are essentially matching last year’s numbers but they’re also down from his 2016 when he was a whiff monster. A 5.55 BB/9 may not hold for too long in the ninth inning, so despite Steckenrider’s inflated 5.01 ERA he’s also someone to keep an eye on as his ERA indicators are a bit bteter with a 3.12 FIP and 2.98 SIERA, along with Guerrero ahd his 3.55 FIP/3.40 SIERA and 98 mph heater.

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UPDATE 2: Here’s the aforementioned podcast.

AGENDA

1. TDG Invitational
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. SaberSim Says…
5. Click Bait

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It seems like it’s been a decade that we’ve been waiting for a Kyle Gibson breakout. But, this is only his sixth MLB season. Surprisingly, to me at least, he’s actually already 30 years old. It’s not often that a 30 year old pitcher with six seasons under his belt suddenly breaks out.

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With the first overall pick of the 2018 MLB Draft, the Detroit Tigers select:

#RallyGoose: A baseball story. pic.twitter.com/soMUNhRGx3

— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) May 31, 2018

Not surprisingly, other teams had interest in the Rally Goose:

We sent our Canada Goose to scout the competition. ?

— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) May 31, 2018

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Brad received a PSA in his chat yesterday that he then shared with us on our Slack channel regarding Jameson Taillon and his new slider:

Joey Boom Bats wasn’t lying! I mean, of course he wouldn’t lie about that. Who would lie about something that is so easily verifiable? Anyway, Taillon does in fact have a new slider and after dabbling with it a few times here and there in previous starts, he had it on full display this past Sunday against the St. Louis Cardinals.

WARNING: We’re about to go GIF-wild!

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Yesterday, I mentioned some hitters’ ownership rates. I planned on referencing this previous article which applies ownership rates for different leagues sizes and host website. Then, I noticed it was from 2010. It’s time for an update.

Sadly, there will little-to-no analysis today. I’m dumping data after spending  too much time scouring several websites for the needed information. I was tempted to submit his article with just the graph but I better add some “words” so it’s an “article”.

Simply, I collected the top 550 ownership rates from four major sites, ESPN, Yahoo, CBS, and Fantrax. With these values, I created this graph.

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Tuesday’s most interesting closer development actually came in a non-save situation. Felipe Vazquez — much to the surprise of many fantasy owners — reportedly said he would be ready to pitch on Tuesday, even though he had to be lifted early from Sunday’s loss to the Cardinals due to forearm discomfort. As a man of his word, Vazquez pitched the ninth inning of Tuesday night’s contest against the Cubs, even though the Pirates were behind, 8-4.

Pirates director of sports medicine Todd Tomczyk concluded that Vazquez had minor flexor muscle irritation that required rest and treatment. Vazquez did seem to be fine on Tuesday, getting all three hitters he faced to ground out while averaging 100.0 mph on his fastball.
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