Three weeks ago, I compared 2015 average draft position (ADP) numbers to end-of-season (EOS) rankings. I intended to ascertain which fielding positions are more reliable in terms of fantasy utility relative to their draft position. In other words: I wanted to calculate the probability a player drafted within a particular tier at a particular position would bust.

Granted, the probability that a specific player will bust depends a lot on the player himself: age, recent performance, injury history, and so on. But if you wipe all names from the draft board, looking at only the overall draft slot, the player’s defensive position and his end-of-season rank, we can establish not only which positions are riskiest but also when in the draft they appear to be riskiest.

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Two weeks ago, we inaugurated what will likely still be a few more weeks of depth chart discussions in the form of playing time battles. RotoGraphs staff will discuss and assess noteworthy battles for playing time and/or starting gigs for position players and, separately, pitchers. Here, specifically, this author will investigate the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ position player situations.

Around the horn.

Catcher

No surprises here: Yasmani Grandal will assume the primary backstop role while A.J. Ellis sticks around for his defensive acumen. Grandal is the only name you care about here; he has pretty easy 20-homer power if he can make it through an entire season unscathed. The BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is ugly, no thanks to his lack of speed and his non-ideal tendency to pop balls up, but the league’s 7th-best on-base percentage (OBP) helps mitigate those losses, especially in OBP leagues (obviously).

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Two weeks ago, we inaugurated what will likely still be a few more weeks of depth chart discussions in the form of playing time battles. RotoGraphs staff will discuss and assess noteworthy battles for playing time and/or starting gigs for position players and, separately, pitchers. Here, specifically, this author will investigate the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in Both Orange and Los Angeles Counties‘ pitching situations.

As an Orange County native, this is not fun for me to write. It’s embarrassing. As it stands, the Angels project to record the 3rd-worst pitching WAR (wins above replacement) in all of baseball — worst in the American League. What proceeds will likely be more tirade than objective analysis.

The Good Part

The Angels are not short on depth. With at least eight legitimate starters at their disposal, the team likely won’t suffer any embarrassing midseason shortages, especially in light of a woefully shallow farm system.

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Last week inaugurated what will likely be several weeks of depth chart discussions in the form of playing time battles. RotoGraphs staff will discuss and assess noteworthy battles for playing time and/or starting gigs for position players and, separately, pitchers. Here, specifically, this author will investigate the San Diego Padres‘ pitching situations.

#4 and #5 Starters

Behind James Shields, Tyson Ross and Andrew Cashner, the Padres’ rotation looks feeble. At least six arms could see a handful of starts — and, to avoid burying the lede, few warrant attention in standard mixed leagues. But, alas, playing time battles are playing time battles. In order according to FanGraphs’ depth charts:

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“Death, taxes and fantasy baseball ADP attrition.” — Benjamin Franklin, probably

In his infinite, albeit cryptic, wisdom, Ben sagely alluded to a particularly critical truth: about 40% of the rosters you draft this March will turn over during the season.

Indeed, whether it’s by poor performance or injury, about two in every five players will be bad (or injured) enough to warrant being replaced by another. Some will generate enough value to justify owning but not doing so at their respective costs. It’s inevitable, unavoidable — no one drafts a perfect team, period. The only thing you can hope to do is (1) maximize your return on investment (ROI), and (2) minimize your risk.

For this exercise, I compare FantasyPros’ composite average draft positions (ADP) to their end-of-season (EOS) rankings for 2015. (If you happen to know where I can find historical ADP data, or if you happen to have some on hand and are willing to share, please let me know!)

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Yesterday inaugurated what will likely several weeks of depth chart discussions in the form of playing time battles. RotoGraphs staff will discuss and assess noteworthy battles for playing time and/or starting gigs for position players and, separately, pitchers. Here, specifically, this author will investigate the Cleveland Indians‘ position player situations.

Third Base

As these keystrokes hit digital paper, FanGraphs and MLB.com list Giovanny Urshela as Cleveland’s primary third baseman. Outside of Rajai Davis, he projects to produce the least amount of value relative to his position; in absolute terms, second-least by a hair.

You would think the Indians have a better in-house solution, even if it’s merely a less-pathetic one. Lonnie Chisenhall, former third baseman of the future, looks to make playing right field a mostly full-time gig, with occasional spells from Colin Cowgill and others. This complicates things.

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Today inaugurates what will likely several weeks of depth chart discussions. RotoGraphs staff will discuss and assess noteworthy battles for playing time and/or starting gigs for position players and, separately, pitchers. Here, specifically, this author will investigate the Toronto Blue Jays‘ rotation and bullpen situations.

The Rotation

Frankly, it seems clear-cut at the top. Marcus Stroman isn’t an ace, contemporarily speaking, but his blend of sharp command and ground ball tendencies make him an attractive mid-rotation option. R.A. Dickey, the former National League Cy Young Award winner, hasn’t generated much in the way of fantasy value in standard leagues but, nonetheless, slots in as the team’s #2.

I wouldn’t say it gets dicier from there, but: it gets dicier from there.

Marco Estrada is, presumably, the Blue Jays’ #3. And while a two-year, $26 million contract would certainly warrant it, keep in mind that Estrada hasn’t stuck in the rotation for a full season — ever. Well, except in 2013, he did, but he only started 21 games. Why has he bounced back and forth, you ask?

You didn’t ask, because you already know. The answer screams in your face: Estrada has allowed 92 home runs in 99 starts. His 1.42 HR/9 as a starter is the second-highest among those who have thrown at least 550 innings since 2011. If the Blue Jays want to let their opponents to go punch for punch with Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, they found their man.

Problem is, the solutions aren’t significantly better. J.A. Happ comes off his best season, during which he scraped together one-third of his career WAR (wins above replacement) in about one-sixth of his career playing time. Fractions, man. Anyway, he shaved off a big chunk of the walk rate (BB%) that made him largely ineffective for the majority of his rather long and decidedly lackluster career, and it propped him up.

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Yesterday, I borrowed PITCHf/x data from Baseball Savant to investigate how changes in batted ball velocity affected batting average on balls in play (BABIP) to a hitter’s pull side. If you’re too lazy to click, the short of it is: more velocity coincides with a better batting average. However! Lefties consistently fare worse than righties on ground balls to the pull side at all batted ball velocities.

This phenomenon can perhaps be attributed to the defensive shift. Or to the ease with which second and first basemen can convert singular outs at first base compared to their shortstop and third base counterparts due to the distance (and, thus, difficulty) of the throw. Or, most likely, to both.

But that’s not why I’m here. I’m not in the business to speculate — not today, at least. I’m just here to provide the facts in the form of some numbers I crunched in Microsoft Excel that, if you read yesterday’s post, you will probably find interesting. It has a nifty graph, if words aren’t your thing.

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Baseball Savant, a website maintained by Daren Willman, is a thing of beauty. Aside from some great leaderboards and applications, Willman hosts a database of PITCHf/x data. Using it without a game plan is like entering the Amazon without a machete — it can be unwieldy and overwhelming. Navigating just right bears ample fruit, however. I would like to share some of my fruit with you.

Because in 2015, PITCHf/x data began including batted ball velocity for most balls in (and out!) of play. Batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is a critical component to player success, and while there has been plenty of focus on it in the last decade — more so than, say, pitch framing, which is a popular but still-raw area of research — the baseball community would still benefit from a better understanding of BABIP, especially in light of more frequent employment of defensive shifts.

Intuition tells us that a harder-hit ball in play will have a greater probability of resulting in a hit. (Indeed, my expected BABIP equation from last year that helps corroborate such a claim.) Specifically, in regard to ground balls and defensive shifts, a hard-hit grounder will have a much greater chance of clearing a crowded first-base line than would a softly hit grounder.

Enter Baseball Savant and its very granular PITCHf/x data. Read the rest of this entry »

Felix Hernandez’s days as an elite starting pitcher are over. That’s not a knock on him, nor does that make him any less of the ace that he is for his ballclub. It’s just that King Felix posted a season that pretty much replicated his production in 2010 and 2011 — production that, in between those two seasons, earned him the #2 spot on Razzball’s 2011 preseason top-20 starting pitchers — and he finished 16th.

The King dominated in 2015 the same way he has dominated for the better part of the last decade. But everything is relative, and his performance was relatively underwhelming given the glut of young talent that has emerged at the Major League level. To attest:

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