Author Archive: Mike Podhorzer

It’s updated tier week! As usual, these rankings represent my fantasy value expectations over the rest of the season. While I am not completely ignoring what has happened so far, its effect on my rankings is to merely expand the body of work by a pitcher from which to analyze. Unless there is a dramatic change in underlying skills that looks sustainable or an injury, there shouldn’t be a whole lot of movement after just 30 to 40 innings pitched.

While the preseason tier rankings were technically in descending order of my projected value, most pitchers within a tier are so close to each other that you could basically consider them interchangeable. An extra win, an additional 10 strikeouts, a .290 BABIP versus .295 BABIP are all pretty much random, but can shift a pitcher’s value by a couple of bucks. I didn’t bother moving players around within a tier, which is something I used to do, but provides little incremental value.

Read the rest of this entry »

The beauty of playing in a mono league such as AL Tout Wars is that I am able to see first hand who the hot FAAB pickups are. Rather than scour my CBS league’s free agent pool to find players worth considering, I could browse through the players actually bid on in a deep league. Having said that, only one of the two players here were actually added this week. The other was drafted. I’m sure you could guess which is which.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I used my xBB% equation to identify starting pitchers whose actual walk rates were most above their expected marks. This group should be expected to enjoy a decline in their walk rates moving forward. Today I check in on the guys who may be due for regression. This is your list of fantasy relevant starting pitchers whose xBB% marks are most above their actual walk rates.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I used my expected strikeout rate equation to identify the starting pitchers whose actual strikeout rates are most below their expected marks. Today, I’ll look at the other primary skill metric — a pitcher’s walk rate. I developed an expected walk rate equation as well and still use essentially the same one now, unlike the xK% formula which I had since tweaked. The walk rate equation isn’t as good as the strikeout rate one, but it’s the best I have seen out there.

Read the rest of this entry »

Given his top prospect pedigree and strong minor league results pre-2013, Tyler Skaggs was already a trendy sleeper heading into spring training with his new American League ball club. Then reports hit that Skaggs’ fastball velocity was way up and suddenly he was no longer just a potential undervalued asset, but a legit breakout candidate. And so far with a 3.21 ERA and 1.11 WHIP, his performance has been everything us owners could have hoped for. Except that the way he has achieved such performance is nothing like we expected. Meet the new Tyler Skaggs.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s edition of the deep league waiver wire is for those with a truly barren free agent pool scrambling for an injury replacement. Even better, both have dual position eligibility, which is extremely helpful when you’re faced with so few pickup options.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I unveiled the xK% regression equation 2.0 and used it to discuss pitchers who may enjoy a strikeout rate surge in the near future. Today I am looking into the opposite group — those whose xK% suggest a decline in strikeout rate may be imminent. Similar to the surgers, I am only going to list those pitchers with actual K% marks of at least 20%. If he’s only posting a 15% mark to begin with, but should really be at 10%, do we really care?

Read the rest of this entry »

A year ago, I developed a regression equation to estimate what a pitcher’s strikeout rate (K%) should be. That formula used a trio of strike type rates found at Baseball Reference, including a pitcher’s looking, swinging and foul strike percentages. While the original formula was a strong estimator, I have since tweaked it slightly.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to your regularly scheduled Carlos Carrasco update. It’s another season, but two starts in, Carrasco has already disappointed his biggest fan. It’s easy to point to his 3.51 SIERA, ridiculous .400 BABIP and 53.8% LOB% and claim he’ll enjoy better luck moving forward. Similarly, it’s also simple to call him a head case, perform no analysis whatsoever, and move on. But of course, I’m not going to do either of these things. With a repertoire that seemingly appears fantastic, why isn’t Carrasco the best pitcher in baseball?

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s deep league waiver wire might bring back memories of seasons yonder. Don’t rush over to the calendar, we haven’t time traveled back to the past. The two men in this week’s recommendations are the short-term beneficiaries of injuries to the incumbents. Often times, this is what a deep leaguer needs to do — follow injury situations closely and just play the carousel rotating in hitters getting full-time at-bats to fill a weak spot on your roster. Admittedly, I won both these players through FAAB in AL Tout Wars this week.

Read the rest of this entry »