Stephen Drew signed with Boston for a year and ten mill, hoping to use that pillow contract to bounce back and get a better long-term deal in the future. For a player that sports an above-average career walk rate and some positive fielding years on his ledger, it’s certainly possible that Drew provides good real-life value but remains a fantasy enigma. After all, there’s a decline in many of his numbers that has nothing to do with his horrific injury at the end of the 2011 season.

Read the rest of this entry »

In some leagues, reliever-eligible starters are useful for their ability to rack up starters for a team punting saves. But usually it’s the starter-eligible relievers that can keep ratios down out of the starter spot. Some times, the move back to starting from relieving can work out for the pitcher in question. But usually they are just about as good as they were when they started before. Wade Davis will attempt to buck these trends and be useful next year.

Read the rest of this entry »

The short version of the old book on James Shields that he was a flyball and strikeout guy with a home run problem. That version of James Shields might care about leaving a home park that suppresses home runs. Except that version of James Shields doesn’t exist any more and his new home park is even friendlier.

Read the rest of this entry »

There are going to be buckets of “ones by land” in Philadelphia next year. Ben Revere has been traded to the Phillies, where he’ll continue to ply his speed-based game. Most fantasy players don’t have to be concerned with questions about defense or patience, but there are flaws to his game that are worth spotlighting.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Washington Nationals found a new one-year pitcher to replace Edwin Jackson. This time, it’s Dan Haren coming to the capital for $13 million for the 2013 season. The projections up on this site are upbeat about his chances at a bounce-back, but those projections aren’t privy to the doctor’s reports. Neither are we, really, but we do know that there are problems with Dan Haren’s body.

Read the rest of this entry »

Andrew McCutchen is a toolsy Pittsburgh outfielder with a good eye at the plate that just put it all together and showed career bests in most categories in his age-26 season. He did it with a fraction of the flair of the last version of this Pirates phenomenon — unassuming dreadlocks replacing a the more ego-focused flash of the earring — but the timing and location of his breakout still lead to an easy comparison.

Yes, putting McCutchen up against Barry Bonds may dull his shine. As is usually the case with a player coming off a career season, a little scuffing up may do him some good.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to two excellent researchers, we have two different pitcher xBABIPs nestled within the posts on this site.

Matt Swartz has an xBABIP that’s part of SIERA. He was nice enough to re-run it with all pitchers with 40 innings pitched or more for 2003-12. He did not adjust for usage by weighting pitchers with high IP more heavily, but he did regress BABIP using factors that his research has shown to influence the number. His pitcher xBABIP formula is:

BABIP = .290 + .045*GB% – .103*K%.

Steve Staude used batted ball data to find a pitcher xBABIP in the Community Blog a while back. Of course, the weakness of a model using line drive percentage is the fickleness of that stat from stadium to stadium and year to year, but it does make a lot of sense intuitively: give up fewer frozen ropes and you’ll give up fewer hits. His regression led him to the following pitcher xBABIP formula:

xBABIP = 0.4*LD% – 0.6*FB%*IFFB% + 0.235

Read the rest of this entry »

For a 31-year-old outfielder, we have surprisingly little information about Josh Hamilton. 3000 or so plate appearances, three full seasons, and he’s already on the long side of thirty. We all know the reasons why, but it leaves us looking at his different peripheral metrics — all oscillating — and wondering which number should get our focus. None of it might matter as much as his age, on the other hand.

It’s not all bad. Hamilton set career highs in isolated slugging percentage (.292), home runs (43), runs (105), and full season walk rate (9.4%). He hit more home runs per fly ball than he ever had (25.6%), and his line drive rate remained above-average (and above 21%), as it has every year he’s played in the big leagues. We shouldn’t get too wrapped up in his September / October failure (a “terrible” .245/.330/.543) if he’s going to continue being a high-average slugger with center-field eligibility, right?

Read the rest of this entry »

The Tigers — Hanshin, not Detroit — have lost their closer. After years of trying to convince his team to post him, the 32-year-old Kyuji Fujikawa is a free agent now and touring the United States. Though he’s got an interesting arsenal, there’s already some decline in his Japanese numbers. His future depends, as it does, on his landing spot.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hey! I ate some raw garlic last night and am still not functioning well enough to do an actual post. I won’t chat on Turkey day, so consider this the best I can do for now. apologies from my rotten gut. Please try to give all relevant league information and keep it to one or two questions at first.