Soon. More baseball is coming soon. We were teased with a taste of real games already, but now the season will be upon us shortly.
On today’s agenda:
1. Carlos Quentin may open the season on the disabled list
2. Lingering wrist issues for Mark Teixeira
3. Grady Sizemore named starting center fielder
4. Doug Fister to open the season the DL
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Before we get started on the fantasy baseball news, let us acknowledge and celebrate the 15th anniversary of “Futurama.” That’s right, 15 years ago my favorite cartoon — barely edging out “Rocko’s Modern Life” and “Archer” — debuted. Normally I would have a scene or clip picked out to link to, however attempting to boil Futurama down to a single clip is impossible. Since the debut and the original four seasons, it has spawned four movies (okay, really a fifth season) and two additional seasons. Personally I think Futurama’s (multiple) endings have sewn up the show for me, however I would not be against additional seasons; I’m looking at you, Netflix.
On today’s agenda:
1. Cole Hamels officially on the disabled list
2. Corey Kluber is still available
3. The hot corner on the north side
4. Archie Bradley to Triple-A
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Tomorrow will mark the 12th anniversary of the Taking Back Sunday album Tell All Your Friends. This album more than any other had a big effect on me back in high school and I’ll admit this song played on my MySpace page. As a matter of fact, I still put this album on the ol’ record played and jam to some old school alternative rock.
On the agenda:
1. Geovany Soto to miss 10-12 weeks
2. Trevor Bauer to the minors
3. Billy Hamilton: Shortstop?
With two games that matter already under our belt, let’s dive into today’s Roto Riteup.
On the agenda:
1. A brief breakdown of last night’s starters
2. The Houston Astros bullpen
3. Skip Schumaker to miss up to a month
4. Jake Odorizzi named Tampa Bay’s fifth starter
Welcome to official start of the 2014 season! Hopefully by the time you’re reading this it is the afternoon, because you slept in after waking up at 4 am to watch a baseball game. That’s the behavior of a normal person, right?
On the agenda:
1. Bruce Rondon to have Tommy John surgery
2. Tanner Scheppers continues to impress
3. More injuries for the Cincinnati Reds
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Welcome back! Today marks the first Roto Riteup of the 2014 season with yours truly. Just like last season as well as 2012, Zach Sanders and I will be bringing you relevant fantasy baseball tidbits from the previous day.
On the agenda:
1. David Freese’s RBI chances
2. Addison Reed officially named closer
3. Jose Iglesias could miss the entire season
4. Los Angeles Dodgers lineup notes
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You guys know I like to swing from the heels on these, so buckle up for my 10 bold predictions for this season. We can forget about my uber-platinum sombrero on last year’s predictions. It was a bad day that turned into a season long slump.
1. Drew Smyly will be more valuable than Doug Fister
This isn’t a knock on Fister, I’m just a believer in Smyly’s strikeout rate. Fister may end the season with more innings pitched, however in standard 5×5 leagues, Smyly will edge him in terms of raw value. I don’t expect Smyly’s 10.7% swinging strike rate to continue as a starter, however he should still be able to edge out Fister’s pedestrian strikeout rate.
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Okay, technically Petco Park is in the 619 area code, however Kanye West never had an album that sounded similar to “619s & Hearbreaks.” With that out of the way, we can now take a look at my thoughts on a long time favorite, Andrew Cashner. Minds smarter than my own have already compiled the consensus starting pitcher rankings, but there was dissenting opinion regarding Cashner. His highest rankings were 35 and his lowest was 64, meaning that the jury was still out on Cashner’s ability to put up strong fantasy numbers as a starter.
There were plenty of reasons to fall in love with Cashner’s ability. He kept the ball on the ground with his 52.1% ground ball rate. Moving from Wrigley Field and the windy city to spacious Petco Park should have (and did) help his home run rate. Last season Cashner managed to post a 3.09 ERA and trimmed more than a walk off of his BB/9 rate. So why am questioning my love for Cashner?
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Fellow RotoGraphs contributor Howard Bender was kind enough to allow me to participate in a mock draft yesterday afternoon. What follows is pick-by-pick breakdown of the team I ended with. I’m a pretty tough critic on myself, but I really do think this team would not have played out very well for me had this been a real draft. It was a standard non-keeper 5×5 roto league. It had 2-catchers, no bench, but corner and middle infield instead, making them 23-man rosters. The full draft results can be found here.
Round One, Pick Five
Carlos Gonzalez
Gonzalez has gone 20-20 for four straight seasons, which is even more impressive given that he has averaged just 130 games per season. Health is always a question mark when it comes to fantasy baseball, but with CarGo, that question mark is in bold, italics, and underlined size 72 font.
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The Pittsburgh Pirates bullpen combined for the third best bullpen ERA last year, which is especially impressive given they finished 27th in strikeout percentage. That their relief corps finished with a sub-3.00 ERA was largely due to their 78.3% left on-base percentage — which ranked in the top five in baseball. The pen of the Bucs managed to post a second best .272 BABIP which of course helped keep the LOB% high and the ERA down. Curiously the Pirates relief corps maintained a low BABIP while also posting the highest ground ball rate in the league last year, 52.0%. The fantasy talent dries up quickly after the closer and setup men, though there are holds to be had if one can find strikeouts elsewhere.
The closer
Jason Grilli
No surprise here as Grilli has been spectacular for the past several seasons. Rather than fitting in with the rest of the bullpen by getting ground outs and a few strikeouts, Grilli is the opposite. He 14.5% swinging strike rate last year led to a 36.6% strikeout rate, nearly a career high mark. Grilli does a superb job of keeping the ball in the yard, especially considering his tendency to record plenty of fly outs. His 33.0% GB% was tied for fourth lowest of any reliever with at least 10 saves, getting more grounders than only Ernesto Frieri, Huston Street, and Joe Nathan. On top of his home run prevention, last year Grilli’s 6.4% walk rate was the lowest single season mark of his career. Despite this being his age-37 season, Grilli still has plenty of zip on his fastball — it averaged over 93 mph last year — and he effectively mixes off-speed pitches to induce whiffs. While he did miss time last season due to a forearm strain, Grilli managed to come back in September and even finish the season as the closer.
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