Monday wasn’t just Labor Day, it was an exciting time for fantasy leaguers and baseball fans alike. It was roster expansion day! Yesterday, Eno discussed a whole bunch of names that were recalled, but concluded that none of them were very intriguing for this year given playing time concerns. However, two players called up before Monday are of interest.
In an effort to spruce up their offense, the Athletics acquired Adam Dunn on Sunday. He should slot in as the team’s regular designated hitter against right-handers and hit in the clean-up spot in his Oakland debut. We have just a month left of the season so small sample size shenanigans tack precedence, but let’s take a gander how Dunn is affected by the change in home park.
Right or wrong, significantly greater weight is given to how a player finishes a season than how he began it. If a hitter endures a second half swoon, he’ll be considered a prime bust candidate the following year, regardless of what he did during the first several months. The same goes for pitchers. Let’s discuss a trio of those second half starting pitcher busts in the American League.
The White Sox finally saw enough of second basemen Gordon Beckham and traded him away last Thursday. That opened up a gaping hole at the position, which is the theme of this week’s wire.
Yesterday, Jeff Zimmerman decided to have a little bit of fun by sharing with all of us his value calculations based on RoS Steamer/ZiPS projections. These were meant to be the earliest look at potential 2015 preseason value, though it is important to note that no adjustment for position was made so catchers in two catcher leagues would be worth significantly more than the spreadsheet indicates. With playing time a huge question mark for many players given that this season still has over a month to go, the rub was that every player’s stats were extrapolated over 600 plate appearances. So this was more like a fantasy skills like valuation, which is still plenty useful. It could assist in identifying guys who could be very valuable if they fell into additional playing time. It also provides a super early glimpse of what next year’s cheat sheets may look like. So who are some of the surprises in the top 30?
We’re heading toward the end of August, which means there’s only about a month remaining in the regular season. Though I’m sure many of your league’s trade deadlines have already passed, I’m quite confident that a lot of yours have not, but are certainly coming up soon.
For the first two months or so of the season, I’m all about trading for value. That is, my preseason dollar values guide my trade offers and responses. It’s far too early to determine what my team’s strengths and weaknesses are at that point, so I just want to accumulate as much value as possible.
We know that fastball velocity tends to increase as the season progresses. We all generally panic in April when our favorite sleeper’s velocity is down a mile per hour from last year, but usually by the end of the month, his velocity has returned and you’re able to sleep well at night again. But when we see a downtrend in velocity during the season, it’s a troubling sign. And the velocity charts on these three pitchers are concerning.
This is the “who????” edition of the deep league waiver wire as I dig deep to uncover hidden gems that could contribute in your mono leagues. If you need speed, you have come to the right place.
Yesterday, I used my updated xK% formula to identify several pitchers who potentially have some strikeout rate upside. Today I will check on with the pitchers on the other side of the list — those whose xK% marks are most below their actual strikeout rates. These are some of the more interesting names.
It’s been a while, so it’s time to take another gander at starting pitcher xK% marks using my updated formula and compare those to actual strikeout rates. While strikeout rates do stabilize relatively quickly, there is still luck tied to sequencing that the formula attempts to strip away. These are the more interesting names that xK% suggests could enjoy a strikeout rate improvement the rest of the way.
