For a change, it’s no longer about injuries! As we hit the final two months of the season, teams who are already throwing in the towel on a playoff run are looking to the future. That means reducing the playing time of disappointing veterans and giving the youngsters a shot.
If you’re a H2H league owner, September could be a frustrating time. It’s when veterans sometimes take a seat as their out of contention teams choose to give young hitters a look and young pitchers reach their innings limits and get shut down. The worst part of it is that these may have been the players that helped you achieve the best record in your league, yet come playoff time, you can’t even count on them to contribute to your championship run. So let’s discuss some of the pitchers who are definitely or possibly on an innings limit. Whether their teams decide to skip a start here and there to keep the innings down or just shut him down with two weeks or so to go, I don’t know. But either way, an innings limit would take a bite out of the pitcher’s value the rest of the way.
This is an updated version of an article posted in 2013.
As we get closer to our league trade deadlines and the effect any individual player will have on our place in the standings gradually diminishes, this time of year represents a final chance to improve our teams. It probably doesn’t need to be stated, but it’s important to reiterate for those still clinging to preseason values. At this point, you need to essentially throw player values out the window and trade for needs based on your position in the various statistical categories. Don’t worry about overpaying if you still expect the trade to net you positive points. Obviously, you want to make a trade that brings back the greatest value in return and gain you the most standings points. But if the best return available to you is a so-called $15 player for your $25 player, it’s still easily worth accepting if you expect that it gains you points.
Ignoring those who reinjured themselves or were moved to the bullpen, all of the American League starting pitchers who underwent Tommy John surgery last season have now returned. Typically, I ignore these pitchers in fantasy leagues during their first year back and then analyze their results and velocity when forecasting their performance the following season. But a blanket ignore on every TJ surgery returnee might not be prudent, as evidenced by the superhuman Jose Fernandez, whose performance suggests that he hasn’t skipped a beat. So let’s take a look at our three.
In the wake up the Troy Tulowitzki trade, it’s an all-Rockies waiver wire edition this week. That’s because the speculation is that the newly acquired Jose Reyes won’t be spending very much time in Colorado and may very well be shipped right back out. The two names highlighted here could be manning shortstop the rest of the way. Or not, and remain worthless, if Reyes stays in Colorado.
As we head into the trade deadline, this time of year marks the unofficial fantasy league deadline for when trades might still have some effect on the standings. So let’s use the batted ball distance leaderboard to identify those batters with strong distance marks, but HR/FB rates that don’t quite measure up. These seven hitters all seemingly have some upside over the final two months, assuming they sustain their distances.
If you didn’t consider either the Aramis Ramirez or Scott Kazmir trades last week the first blockbuster of this year’s deadline deals, then you can certainly cross that event off your list now. Johnny Cueto leaves the only team he has played for and travels West to the darling Kansas City Royals. Does Cueto’s value “receive a big boost”, as one popular fantasy news site suggests?
Let’s take a gander at the American League starting pitcher leaderboard for SwStk% over the last 30 days. Since that time span typically comprises just four to five starts, such dominance could get lost in the full season numbers. So I’ll highlight some of the more interesting names among the leaders.
I feel like I’m becoming a broken record when I say that once again, injuries have opened up opportunities and as usual, play a role in this week’s dive into the free agent pool.
In 2013, I began polling you readers on which group of pitchers you think will post the better aggregate ERA post all-star break. The two groups were determined based on ERA-SIERA disparity, pitting the underperformers versus the overperformers during the pre-all-star break period. You can view the results of the first experiment here. For some strange reason, it appears I never actually calculated the results of last year’s experiment, but here was the original poll.
I came up with this idea given my faith in using SIERA over smaller samples, rather than ERA. I generally ignore ERA completely during the middle of the season and it’s interesting to see how everyone else thinks. Will the SIERA outperformers continue to outperform, perhaps due to continued strong defensive support or will the magic vanish? And is it just bad luck that is due to reverse course for the SIERA underperformers or are they being hurt by something that should continue to play a role the rest of the way?
My population group consisted of 97 qualified starters, which included some that are no longer in a rotation. I have decided to only include those who will remain a starter. Group A is composed of the 10 largest SIERA outperformers, while Group B is composed of the 10 largest SIERA underperformers.
Group A – The SIERA Outperformers
| Name | IP | ER | K% | BB% | BABIP | LOB% | HR/FB | ERA | SIERA | ERA-SIERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Young | 87 | 29 | 16.0% | 6.9% | 0.212 | 77.3% | 6.9% | 3.00 | 4.80 | -1.80 |
| Zack Greinke | 123.1 | 19 | 22.8% | 4.3% | 0.233 | 89.5% | 6.3% | 1.39 | 3.17 | -1.78 |
| Hector Santiago | 108.1 | 28 | 22.0% | 7.6% | 0.244 | 88.9% | 8.4% | 2.33 | 3.95 | -1.62 |
| Yovani Gallardo | 113.1 | 33 | 16.8% | 8.5% | 0.267 | 77.4% | 6.6% | 2.62 | 4.22 | -1.60 |
| Shelby Miller | 113.2 | 30 | 20.4% | 7.5% | 0.276 | 78.8% | 5.9% | 2.38 | 3.73 | -1.35 |
| Nick Martinez | 97 | 37 | 13.4% | 8.0% | 0.286 | 76.3% | 9.3% | 3.43 | 4.76 | -1.33 |
| A.J. Burnett | 119.1 | 28 | 20.5% | 6.8% | 0.314 | 81.7% | 4.7% | 2.11 | 3.43 | -1.32 |
| Sonny Gray | 123.2 | 28 | 22.4% | 6.2% | 0.249 | 79.0% | 4.8% | 2.04 | 3.25 | -1.21 |
| Kyle Gibson | 113.2 | 36 | 16.7% | 7.7% | 0.268 | 80.6% | 13.4% | 2.85 | 3.95 | -1.10 |
| Scott Kazmir | 101.1 | 28 | 23.3% | 8.3% | 0.265 | 77.2% | 7.9% | 2.49 | 3.59 | -1.10 |
| Total | 1100.2 | 296 | 19.6% | 7.1% | 0.262 | 80.9% | 7.3% | 2.42 | 3.84 | -1.42 |
Group B – The SIERA Underperformers
| Name | IP | ER | K% | BB% | BABIP | LOB% | HR/FB | ERA | SIERA | ERA-SIERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kyle Lohse | 108 | 74 | 17.0% | 4.9% | 0.312 | 64.2% | 15.4% | 6.17 | 4.07 | 2.10 |
| Rick Porcello | 100.2 | 66 | 18.1% | 5.3% | 0.331 | 64.8% | 14.5% | 5.90 | 3.86 | 2.04 |
| CC Sabathia | 100.1 | 61 | 19.3% | 4.6% | 0.332 | 69.0% | 17.1% | 5.47 | 3.65 | 1.82 |
| Drew Hutchison | 98 | 58 | 21.0% | 6.9% | 0.358 | 65.2% | 9.7% | 5.33 | 3.75 | 1.58 |
| Rubby de la Rosa | 110.1 | 62 | 21.1% | 6.2% | 0.299 | 70.6% | 20.2% | 5.06 | 3.51 | 1.55 |
| Carlos Carrasco | 108.1 | 49 | 27.7% | 5.2% | 0.339 | 70.3% | 11.0% | 4.07 | 2.73 | 1.34 |
| Taijuan Walker | 102.1 | 55 | 22.9% | 6.2% | 0.307 | 68.9% | 13.1% | 4.84 | 3.50 | 1.34 |
| Matt Garza | 99 | 61 | 15.3% | 7.4% | 0.317 | 65.3% | 16.0% | 5.55 | 4.38 | 1.17 |
| Jeremy Hellickson | 94.2 | 53 | 19.4% | 6.6% | 0.309 | 69.2% | 11.6% | 5.04 | 3.91 | 1.13 |
| Kyle Kendrick | 103 | 68 | 12.0% | 6.4% | 0.287 | 70.3% | 16.8% | 5.94 | 4.89 | 1.05 |
| Total | 1024.2 | 607 | 19.4% | 6.0% | 0.319 | 67.8% | 14.6% | 5.33 | 3.82 | 1.52 |
Amazingly, the two groups have nearly identical SIERA marks, but a nearly three run difference in ERA. The outperformers have exactly half the HR/FB rate as the underperformers, along with a lower BABIP and significantly higher LOB%.
