So Zack Greinke has returned to the American League and that is typically a bad move from a fantasy perspective. Obviously, if you’re in an AL-Only league, you’ll be bidding on him no matter what, but still must decide exactly how much of your FAAB to use. Mixed league owners are now no doubt wondering how this affects his value. Let us examine the various factors at play here, between the league switch, team switch and park switch.
I’m on a trending binge right now and today’s American League starting pitcher spot means it’s a good time to check out the strikeout rate surgers. There are many factors that could contribute to a surge in strikeout rate and often times, these are sustainable changes that lead to an increase in true talent level. So it can be wise to check out the surgers to spot these trenders early. As usual, I checked out the last 30 day leaderboard to come up with the names.
In today’s waiver wire column, I look at two hitters who will see increased playing time due to some surprising roster moves. Let’s dive in…
Last week, I looked at starting pitchers who have been trending both positively and negatively, by examining their last 30 day SIERA marks. Today I jump over to the hitters and check on the surprising ISO (isolated slugging percentage or SLG minus AVG) positive trenders.
On Thursday, I looked at American League starting pitchers who showed up on the last 30 day SIERA leaderboards that would be considered surprising. Today, I will cover the entire league, but look at the opposite end of the spectrum. These are the pitchers whose skills have really declined over the last 30 days. Is it the beginning of a trend or just small sample randomness over a long season? Let’s find out.
A simple way to determine which pitchers are “hot” is to use the Split filter and choose any one of the small time frames and then sort by SIERA. Since I think subtle changes in mechanics and other various factors could actually trigger a performance spike, I believe looking at the SIERA leaders over the last 30 days could be useful despite the small sample size. Here are some of the surprise leaders in the metric over that time span.
This week’s waiver wire includes two players who are complete opposites. One has just been called up and will get his first taste of the Majors, while the other has been playing for the past 20 years. Whether it’s speed or power you need, there’s a player for you to be had.
On Saturday, I analyzed the five hitters whose HR/FB ratios have increased the most since last season and using various tools and metrics, tried to determine whether we might see a decline in the second half. Today I will look at the opposite end of the spectrum, those hitters whose HR/FB ratios have declined the most. Will they experience a second half power surge?
For me personally, it feels like offensive surprises and busts are harder to evaluate during the year because we have fewer tools to analyze. Power is one skill that is difficult to decide how real a spike or drop is, but Jeff Zimmerman has been mentioning a tool at Baseball Heat Maps that gives you the distance of a hitter’s batted balls, which may really help in this type of analysis. In the past, I have used the ESPN Home Run Tracker site to help determine how flukey a change in HR/FB ratio is, but I think looking at the raw average distance is a less flawed method. I looked at the five hitters whose HR/FB ratio has increased the most this year and then added their 2011 and 2012 average home run plus fly ball distances to the table.
These tiers are a bit later than the rest of the crew, as my vacation delayed my writing. All can breathe easily now as they have finally arrived! You can check out my June update here. A quick note: I have removed pitchers who were demoted to the minors since I have no idea when and if they will be returning to the Majors.
