The catcher position was already weak heading into the season. Then Salvador Perez got hurt and was lost for the year, further eroding the projected total value earned from the group. As we near July and the all-star break, I continue to refer to the position as a wasteland. I should stop it now, given the risk of sounding like a total fool.
Who wants to own a 32-year-old first baseman sporting a disgusting .256 wOBA and playing on a sub-.500 team likely to look toward the future soon? I do, that’s who. Yonder Alonso has been awful during the first half the season and with Daniel Palka crushing it at Triple-A, it might not be much longer before the White Sox give the latter another chance, pushing the former to the bench or packing. And while I acknowledge that there has been some skill degradation here and there for Alonso, his excruciatingly slow start appears to be driven more by terrible fortune. Let’s dive in.
On Tuesday, I tried to figure out why Jose Ramirez‘ home run power has disappeared. After much research that led to multiple dead ends, I discovered that his fly ball launch angle (LA) had increased significantly this season to a its highest mark in the Statcast era. I opined that perhaps his fly balls had become overly elevated and were too close to a pop-up than a line drive, driving down his HR/FB rate. This discovery piqued my interest in fly ball LA, so I decided to embark on a not-too-scientific study.
Welcome to an all White Sox edition of the deep league waiver wire!
Yesterday, I analyzed Ketel Marte’s power breakout, identifying what has driven his 20 home run total. Today, we’re going to flip to the sad side of 2019 performance. Jose Ramirez has been one of the season’s biggest busts, after he delivered both elite fantasy and real baseball production over the past two years. Now, nearly half way through the season, he’s sitting with just four dingers. He’s managed to swipe 16 bases, despite a sub-.300 OBP, though, so at least us fantasy owners are getting something for our hefty investment. Let’s find out what happened here.
If you had told me during spring training that Ketel Marte would enjoy a fantasy breakout during his age 25 season, I would have guessed it would include something like 15 dingers and 30 steals. Fast forward two and a half months, and Marte is indeed enjoying that fantasy breakout, but the shape of that breakout is rather shocking. As I type this, Marte ranks tied for seventh in baseball in homers with 20. TWENTY! He’s now on pace for about 44 homers. Heading into the season, he had only hit 22 throughout his entire career, and that came over 1,402 at-bats! His HR/FB rate stood at a measly 6.7%. Measly no longer describes Marte’s power.
On Tuesday, I published the results of my research calculating correlations for various pitching metrics as pitchers transition from the minors to the Majors. Today, we’ll look at the hitters. Just like for pitchers making the jump from the minors to the Majors, hitter correlations are very similar to what Matt Klaassen calculated for MLB batters year-over-year. That may be a surprise, but it does mostly suggest that there’s not as much development from the minors to the Majors as we might expect. A baseball player is who he is, for the most part, on average. Now let’s get to the details.
It’s deep league wire time and during my treasure hunt, I happen to uncover a pair of (potential) gems.
Yesterday, I identified and discussed 11 starting pitchers significantly outperforming their SIERA marks, suggesting potentially major impending regression. One such pitcher on the list, ranking second in SIERA outperformance, was Mike Soroka. Through 10 starts and 65.1 innings, Soroka has allowed an amazing microscopic HR/FB rate of just 2.9%, which easily leads all qualified pitchers in baseball.
Last Thursday, I identified and discussed six starting pitchers worth targeting in trade given their dramatic SIERA underperformance. Today, let’s discuss the pitchers that SIERA is screaming SELL SELL SELL, if SIERA was human. These are the guys whose ERA marks are significantly outperforming their SIERA marks.
