Rob Refsnyder & Tyler Naquin: Deep League Waiver Wire
June 8, 2016
Deep league waiver wire, when injuries are your friend. As usual, injuries have opened up playing time for this week’s candidates.
Author Archive
Fun With Small Samples & Statistical Anomalies – An Update
June 7, 2016
About a week and a half into this season, I decided to have a little fun with small samples and statistical anomalies. Anything could happen over a tiny number of games, and indeed anything did. We stress here not to overreact to performances over the first couple of weeks, so let’s see where things stand for the players I highlighted. Did that early start hint at things to come?
Hitter xBABIP Overperformers
June 6, 2016
Last week, I took Alex Chamberlain’s xBABIP equation for the first drive of the 2016 season, identifying those hitters whose xBABIPs most exceeded their actual BABIP marks. That was your potential BABIP surger list. Today I’ll check in on the flip side, those hitters whose BABIP marks greatly exceed their xBABIP marks. These hitters are at serious risk for BABIP, and resulting batting average, regression.
2016 AL Starting Pitcher Tiers: June
June 2, 2016
It’s that time of year again, American League starting pitcher tier update time! I still pay no attention to ERA, as it’s not a metric I use for evaluation and ranking pitchers for rest of season performance. Player movement between tiers will only occur when there’s a change in underlying skill, pitch mix, or velocity.
Tiers are named for the best characters on the brilliant FXX show, Man Seeking Woman.
Michael Bourn & Michael Feliz: Deep League Waiver Wire
June 1, 2016
If you were dying to roster a Michael, today’s deep league waiver wire gives you two options. Given that Michael is the world’s best name (I’m obviously not biased), then why wouldn’t you be racing to the free agent pool to dive in and catch one?
Hitter xBABIP Underperformers
May 31, 2016
It’s hard to believe that we’re now about two months into the season and this has been my first post on xBABIP all year. Well, here it is. While I developed my own xBABIP equation back in early 2015, the availability of new data since my formula was published allowed Alex Chamberlain to create an equation I prefer and use instead. Not only is the r-squared slightly better, but all the metrics are available here on FanGraphs. When I’m looking to buy low, the most attractive targets are hitters whose power is fine, but are simply suffering from an unfortunate BABIP. Below is that list of hitters.
For the first time, I have included all the components of the xBABIP equation so we can get a better sense of which component(s) each hitter is excelling in and where he could improve.
Batted Ball Distance & AL Starting Pitcher HR/FB Rate Improvers
May 26, 2016
Last year, I determined that pitcher batted ball distance allowed was correlated with HR/FB rate to a reasonable degree. This was fairly obvious, though the correlation was much lower than I expected, and less significant than that of hitters. It’s why I rarely discuss pitcher batted ball distance, along with the fact it doesn’t correlate from year to year all that well. But the correlation is there and it does convey meaning. We could run the same analysis for pitchers, comparing their distances with HR/FB rates to identify those due for improvement or regression. So today I’ll look at American League starting pitchers with highly inflated HR/FB rates, but distances that suggest major improvement is on the horizon.
While some of these players will obviously improve due to how high their HR/FB rates are, you might wonder if that improvement means a 10% mark going forward or a 14% mark the rest of the way. This analysis should help form those expectations.
Robbie Grossman & Tim Lincecum: Deep League Waiver Wire
May 25, 2016
It’s deep league waiver time. Please contain your excitement.
Validating Low Hitter HR/FB Rates With Batted Ball Distance
May 24, 2016
Last week, I identified five hitters whose batted ball distance suggested better HR/FB rate days may be ahead and another five hitters who may be in for a sudden HR/FB rate decline. That’s one way to use a hitter’s average home run and fly ball distance — as a predictive metric to speculate on improvers and regressers moving forward. The other use is to validate as a backwards looking tool. Player X’s HR/FB rate has declined, has his batted ball distance plummeted as well? The batter is seemingly at greater risk of maintaining that decreased HR/FB rate if it came with a similar trend in his distance. Of course, he may improve the distance, in which case the HR/FB rate would rebound. But we still want to see the two match up.
Validating High Hitter HR/FB Rates With Batted Ball Distance
May 23, 2016
Last week, I identified five hitters whose batted ball distance suggested better HR/FB rate days may be ahead and another five hitters who may be in for a sudden HR/FB rate decline. That’s one way to use a hitter’s average home run and fly ball distance — as a predictive metric to speculate on improvers and regressers moving forward. The other use is to validate as a backwards looking tool. Player X’s HR/FB rate has spiked, has his batted ball distance surged as well? The batter would seemingly have a better shot at sustaining that increased HR/FB rate if it came with a similar trend in his distance. Of course, he may not sustain the distance, in which case the HR/FB rate would fall. But we still want to see the two match up.