Author Archive: Mike Podhorzer

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 »

On Thursday, I discussed the American League starting pitchers who have experienced the largest changes in their fastball velocity since last season. Although still extremely early, and at a time where velocities are at their lowest points of the season, the data stabilizes rather quickly and still provides a ton of insight. Today we’ll check in on the National Leaguers.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re only a week and a half into the season and therefore no American League starting pitchers have started more than two games. With such a tiny sample size to work with, there simply isn’t enough data to analyze that would yield any sort of insight. However, we know that velocity stabilizes very quickly and so it would therefore be worthwhile to check in on the biggest velocity surgers and decliners. Velocity gradually increases as the season wears on, so it would be most accurate to compare current velocities with last April. However, too many pitchers came up later in the year and had no velocity readings to compare to. So to make things easier, I am comparing to the full season.

Read the rest of this entry »

It wasn’t a set plan to have an all-Astros edition of the deep league waiver wire. But judging by how many Astros players I own in Tout Wars (five), it’s clear that I think there’s some intrigue here. Heading into spring training, there was a plethora of first base/DH/outfield candidates, but those position battles have been somewhat sorted out at this point, leaving many of their players undervalued.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I analyzed the five players most added in CBS leagues. Was the juice worth the squeeze? For the most part, no. Are fantasy owners also dropping players too hastily? It follows that if fantasy owners love to chase the hot player du jour, they also get too trigger happy when jettisoning players from their rosters. Let’s discuss the five most dropped non-injured players in CBS leagues. Are fantasy owners justified for their decisions and if these players are now available in your league, should you pounce?

Read the rest of this entry »