Author Archive: Paul Sporer

It was a weird year at catcher. We came in acknowledging the incredible lack of depth with 4-5 reliable options and then just an unmitigated mess. It’s turned out to be rather deep, just with a group we could’ve never predicted. Those top 4 (and 5 if you include Ramos) have delivered and will remain atop the ranks heading into the 2020, but it again becomes a wide open pool ripe for debates after that.

Other 2020 Rankings:

• SP
• 1B

Let me know what you think in the comments.

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9/4/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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• @sporer – Host

2019 FALLOFFS

• Mookie Betts (2:45)
• Khris Davis (9:45)
• Matt Carpenter (17:40)
• Lorenzo Cain (30:45)
• Paul Goldschmidt (41:26)
• Victor Robles (48:35)
• Manny Machado (50:31)

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Down the stretch, we’ll be covering the probable starters and highlighting our favorites to stream as you chase down your fantasy titles. Let’s get started with Wednesday’s slate. The pitcher in question must be available in 50% or more of leagues according to FantasyPros.com which combines ESPN and Yahoo! roster rates (sometimes exceptions just over 50% will be mentioned if they are really good and should have a much higher roster rate).

Edwin Jackson (3-8, 9.35 ERA) at KC | 0%: No, of course not.

Jakob Junis (8-12, 4.93) v. DET | 17% roster rate: Just about anyone facing the Tigers is going to be a “yes”. While Junis has a near-5.00 ERA on the season, he’s down at a passable 3.96 over the last 10 games with 59 strikeouts, 17% K-BB, and 1.26 WHIP in 61.3 innings. He hasn’t allowed more than 4 ER in any of those starts, including a 6 IP/2 ER/6 K gem against these Tigers back on August 11th.

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8/30/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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• @sporer – Host
• @pitcherlist – Co-Host

Paul and Nick review PitcherList’s excellent rest of season schedule list for starting pitchers identifying teams with good/bad schedules before highlighting some specific pitchers who could rise or fall based on their remaining schedule.

Check out the list here!

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Transcript is below! Thanks for coming out!

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We’ve spent a lot of virtual column inches, podcast minutes, and tweets discussing the new reality of offense in baseball. Call it the rabbit ball, super happy fun ball, or bouncy ball, whatever you want, but we know that the current structure of the league’s baseballs has fueled an explosion. It’s not the ball alone, players are more in tune with their swings and more of them are understanding the importance of putting the ball in the air to maximize power output.

A quick scan of your own team likely gives you an idea of how different this environment is as many player lines look complete already and we still have a month left. But where exactly are we in relation to previous seasons? Let’s take a look:

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8/28/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer

NEWS

• Jose Ramirez hamate bone (3:40)

2019 SURPRISING BREAKOUTS IN 2020

• Carlos Santana (7:15)
• Yordan Alvarez (14:42)
• Ketel Marte (21:25)

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What in the Melville?

You might not remember Tim Melville’s first 14.7 innings as a major leaguer, thrown in 2016-17 split between Cincinnati, Minnesota, and San Diego. I wouldn’t blame you for that as he had an 11.05 ERA, 2.59 WHIP, and 9.90 FIP with a hot 0% K-BB ratio. You might’ve even missed his 12 innings this year, an emergency start against Arizona during which he allowed just one run on two hits and two walks and then five shutout innings in Coors against the Braves thrown yesterday afternoon.

It’s hard to put much credence in any of the samples, but it’s clear that he’s markedly different than he was in 2016-17. First, he’s throwing 4 mph slower than he did in 2017, down to 89.7 mph, but he’s also not really throwing a fastball. In these 12 innings, he’s thrown his heater just 32% of the time. Instead, he’s decided to become a slider-first pitcher, throwing it 55% of the time so far.

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8/26/19

Originally uploaded the wrong file, that has been corrected as of 7:40 Central on 8/26

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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• @sporer – Host

SEPTEMBER CALL UPS

• Kyle Tucker (1:45)
• Nate Lowe (5:18)
• Gavin Lux (7:50)

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8/23/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host
• @pitcherlist – Co-Host/Producer

FIRESIDE CHAT: 2020 SPs

Paul and Nick take a closer look at Paul’s early 2020 SP rankings. Nick highlights some of his disagreements including Mike Clevinger, Jack Flaherty, and Stephen Strasburg among others.

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