We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

The always-stingy Colorado Rockies ranked 21st in the majors in salary by the end of the season, cracking the $100-million for the first time in franchise history. Their biggest expenditure, though, may have been the outlay for physical therapists specializing in neck injuries, as their pitching staff likely suffered from a great deal of whiplash in 2015.

The Rockies employed the second-worst pitching in baseball by wins above replacement, with the staff as a whole owning a 5.04 ERA, 4.56 FIP, and 4.33 xFIP. And sure, that xFIP-ERA gap is enormous thanks to a 13.2-percent home run per-fly ball rate, but that’s almost always going to be the case for a team that plays half its games at Coors Field – as a team, they haven’t outperformed their FIP or xFIP since 2007, the lone time they’ve done so in franchise history.

To combat this, the Rockies have eschewed strikeouts in favor of ground-ball pitchers, owning the fourth-highest ground-ball rate and the No. 28 strikeout rate a season ago. Whether or not that’s a sound strategy – limiting balls in play with high-whiff arms might better counter the Coors effect – is almost beside the point, because the Rockies haven’t made significant changes to the rotation for 2016.
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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

Well, would you look at that. Another season down, another season where the St. Louis Cardinals cycle through an embarrassment of riches on their way to one of the best records in baseball, and earn another playoff spot in the process. Yawn.

The Cardinals rode a 2.94 staff ERA, by far the best in baseball, in 2015, and while their peripherals – a 3.48 FIP and 3.71 xFIP – didn’t quite back up that dominance, their pitchers still produced the sixth-highest wins above replacement in either league. That’s not necessarily some Cardinals-specific magic, as it’s only the second time in five seasons their ERA has beaten their FIP. Still, thanks to a pitcher-friendly home park and a great bullpen to help strand runners, the Cardinals as a rotation outperformed their xFIP for a fourth consecutive year.

That bullpen was even a shade better than their rotation, a ludicrously high bar considering their entire rotation together had a sub-3.00 ERA. Trevor Rosenthal and company have just got it like that.

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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

A few bad contracts, delayed success for a sputtering prospect, and another Dustin Pedroia injury conspired together to sink the offense of the Boston Red Sox in 2015, leading to a disappointing 78-84 record. The Sox aren’t used to being a pedestrian offense, and that’s decidedly what they were a year ago, on an adjusted basis, ranking 13th in baseball with a weighted runs created-plus of 98 despite ranking fourth in total runs scored.

The Sox still did well getting on base despite an average walk rate, thanks in part to a .305 team batting average on balls in play and one of the league’s lowest strikeout rates. That represented a shift from the past two seasons, when they were far more true outcome-heavy, to strong results in 2013 but mediocre ones in 2014. A moderate lack of power outside of David Ortiz was somewhat unexpected, and relying on a 40-year-old in his victory lap season, however good that 40-year-old is, is a risky proposition.

With so much long-term money committed to Hanley Ramirez, Pablo Sandoval, and Rusney Castillo, the Sox opted not to make an offseason splash on the lineup side. That doesn’t mean this offense won’t be better, though. Progression from several intriguing young players, the chance for veteran bounce-backs, and a better optimization of playing time will work together to make the Sox one of the most dangerous offenses in baseball once again.

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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

Few teams got quite as much from their rotation as the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2015, and repeating that success will be paramount if they hope to win their first division title since 1992, finally avoiding the coin-flip of a Wild Card game. Last year’s rotation threw 967.1 innings, seventh in baseball, and they backed a 3.53 ERA up with a 3.34 FIP, good for the sixth-highest Wins Above Replacement among all major league rotations.

That group boasted a sky-high ground-ball rate and did well to suppress home runs as a result, and their primary subtraction was the only pitcher in the group with a fly-ball tendency. Gone is J.A. Happ and perhaps the Pirates Pixie Dust they sprinkled him with, with the lefty hoping his newfound approach can produce results in Toronto, too. A.J. Burnett is gone, too, leaving the Pirates preciously thin on starters with initialed names.

Of course, there’s still a lot to like at the top, some intriguing arms on the way, and what could wind up being one of the better relief squads in the National League.
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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

The 2015 Toronto Blue Jays owned baseball’s best offense no matter how you slice it. They outscored the next-highest team by 127 runs, they topped the league in home runs, they set the pace in on-base percentage and slugging percentage, and their weighted runs created-plus of 117 was the league’s high-water mark dating back to the 2007 New York Yankees. The Jays will return their top eight players in terms of plate appearances from a year ago, plus deadline-week acquisition Troy Tulowitzki, so there’s little concern this won’t be an elite offensive outfit once again.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t question marks. The Blue Jays are set at six positions but have playing time at three spots up for grabs, plus a major batting order question to answer.
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Sunday in this space, we outlined some of the hitters who gain the most and the least in the switch from DraftStreet scoring to DraftKings scoring, where strikeouts no longer hurt a hitter. On Monday, we did the same for pitchers.

If you haven’t yet, by the way, you can transfer your account here.

Today, as a final wrap on the “transition” period, we’re going to look at how scarce total points are in each format, so you can begin to re-calibrate your “dollar per point” perception (though we don’t have comparative data on the relative payout differences between the two). There’s not really a “clean” way to do this, so I’ll all do is compare the total budget and the points earned by hitter/pitcher (I excluded relievers because, while it may be instructive in some ways, they are entirely out of the decision set now).
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Yesterday in this space, we outlined some of the hitters who gain the most and the least in the switch from DraftStreet scoring to DraftKings scoring, where strikeouts no longer hurt a hitter.

If you haven’t yet, by the way, you can transfer your account here.

For pitchers, things change far less, though there are a few points worth noting. For one, relievers are out – saves and blown saves don’t do anything, and you only have two pitcher spots to work with. For another, strikeouts are slightly more valuable now relative to other stats, gaining 186 percent in value compared to 150 percent for innings pitched and 140 percent for hits and walks allowed. A final note is that losses no longer cost you anything, so pitchers on bad teams with strong matchups can be dialled up with less hesitation.
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Well, it’s been a week since I last threw down here and, wait what, DraftStreet acquired by DraftKings? You got it, bub. And you can easily transfer your account here. It does change some things for us in these pages, but not really by all that much.

The budgets are different, and so the player pricing is different (you’re not going to be spending $20,000 on a pitcher any longer). It will take some getting used to but identifying value will come to you pretty quickly going from one format to the other.

Here’s Landon Jones on the key differences beyond pricing:

As far as I can tell, there are four main things to address: lineups, pricing, mobile app and scoring. With Draftstreet, you had the option to start three starters, if you wanted, or you could only buy two and purchase a reliever. Draft Kings isn’t set up that way. You get two pitchers; relievers no longer matter. Lineups will now be consisted of: P (2), C (1), 1B (1), 2B (1), 3B (1), SS (1), OF (3); utility spots are a thing of the past.

The biggest change, however, is that strikeouts don’t hurt you any longer. The table below shows the biggest and smallest gainers with the new scoring system (everyone gains because points are easier to tally, but some obviously gain far more than others):
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A lot can change between now and July 31, whether due to trades, injuries or a shift in a team’s set of goals for the remainder of the season. That can have an impact on shortstop playing time, and for those who play in deeper leagues and/or those with a middle infield roster spot, playing time surges at the margins kind of force their way onto the radar.

What follows is a brief look at the potential value of a handful of names who could see more playing time coming out of the All-Star break.
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I need to show some respect to Landon, who handles these daily posts a few times a week. I have two slots, and I believe he has four. I have no idea how he comes up with something interesting and useful to write in the space so many times a week. Yesterday, I talked about air density, for crying out loud.

But here we are, a second day in a row, and I could use a rebound. I got shelled yesterday but, as always, this is a process over results game in the short term, and you trust that if you make the right plays over the long run, you’ll be paid out as such. It doesn’t mean going back to check if and where you erred isn’t valuable, though.

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