Last week, I analyzed the 2016 home-to-first times for hitters. With the background information out of the way, I’ll examine at the 2017 speed data to find who’s running the faster and slowest, who’s changed the most since 2016, and how home-to-first times compare to Bill James’s speed score.

With all the Statcast batted ball data getting analyzed, I continue examining the home-to-first times. Fantasy owners may believe speed is mainly used to determine stolen base threats. It’s more than that.

It’s an input to many other fantasy related factors which can help explain a player’s age-related decline. Faster players will beat out a few extra ground balls for hits thereby raising their batting average and on-base percentage. Speed allows a player to score more once on base. It can add to a hitter’s power profile. Also, speed can help keep a player maintain their fielding range at a premium defensive position instead of moving to a statue-like position (e.g. first base). Finally, a drop in running speed may point to an injured player.

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In my AL-only league, I needed to fill in a couple pitching slots with James Paxton and Corey Kluber on the DL (and Berrios still in the minors). With almost no time for research (8 pm Sunday deadline), I bought both JC Ramirez and Mike Clevinger on a whim. Here’s what I ended up with.

JC Ramirez

Ramirez was exclusively a reliever in the majors until his last five starts. While his 3.74 ERA is not ideal, he has an 8.8 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9. I went back and watched his start on April 19th against the Astros (great camera angle). Here’s what I saw.

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Finally. I’ve always wondered why home-to-first times weren’t publicly available. It seems like every other stat is tracked but not the information every scout is tracking. Now I’ve got my hands on the data to analyze. It’s still not publicly available yet but after quite a bit of nagging, I was able to convince MLBAM to let me have the 2016 season data. Here’s my initial breakdown.

I needed to get the data in a useable format with an idea of the hitter’s top speed. Every hitter doesn’t go all out to first base on every play. I wanted just the top times. The problem with just using the best times was many were bunts. Historically, home-to-first times are calculated from contact on a normal swing to when the batter touches first base. Here is an example with Mike Trout.

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Tout Wars Outfield

I knew coming into the season, my Tout Wars outfield would not be the strongest. Usually, I wait on outfielders until they become great values which happen around the $15 mark. The only outfielder I send more than $15 on was Jose Ramirez and he is now at second base with Logan Forsythe on the DL. I need to start four these five with Bellinger taking the other outfield slot.

Beltran is easily the odd man out. The 40-year-old had a decent 2016 season with 29 home runs and a .295 AVG (.337 OBP). This year his ability to make contact is gone dropping from 83% to a career low 74%. The lack of contact has driven his K% to 25% (first time over 20%) and his BB% down to 2.5%.

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Cody Bellinger’s Outfield Defense

As long as Adrian Gonzalez can physically take the field, Cody Bellinger will not be the Dodgers regular first baseman. He will need to be able to play the outfield until the Dodgers part ways with Gonzalez. To find out if Bellinger has what it takes to play the outfield, I will break down his physical traits.  here are his available scouting grades.

First, here are his available scouting grades.

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Major League Baseball Advanced Media collects and distributes the hit and pitch tracking data. This data gives the general public some additional information previously unavailable like pitch spin and batted ball angle. The system has almost removed the need for stringers (people who collect batted ball and game data) except for plays wich get immediately described for the Gameday feed. Each batted ball get the designation of a bunt, ground ball, fly ball, line drive, or popup. Sometimes, it’s tough to designate each batted ball type. Today, I am going to look at the triple point for line drives, pop ups, and fly balls.

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Nick Pivetta

Pivetta (Phillies) was not on my radar coming into the season but I was intrigued by his five strikeouts in five innings start. Here is what I saw from the 24-year-old righty in his start on April 30th against the Dodgers:

• Fastball: Four-seamer at 92-97 mph with some release side run. He got a decent number of swings-and-misses with the pitch (10%). He may have a 2-seamer he broke out a few times.

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It’s time to understand how ownership trends are playing out this year. I will start by breaking down one of the most common fantasy sites, ESPN. I will go over the batter ownership rates for different league sizes so owners know which players are applicable to them. Additionally, I will find the current replacement level player for each position.

With fantasy experts using ownership rates to help find potential waiver targets, it is important to know each league’s ownership level. Historically, I know I should only worry about players owned in 10% of leagues or less but not everyone plays in 15-team or deeper leagues.

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Current Trade Value: Eric Thames

The industry’s “Buy Low/Sell High” talk frustrates me because 90% of the time no context is given. Owners should expect to get some players at a discount but what are the player’s owners expecting and valuing in a rebound.

Ryan Zimmerman seems to be a sell high candidate. He’s having a great season with a .420 AVG and 11 HR. Pretty much everyone expects him to regress. But how much regression? Don’t guess. Do a little research and see how other fantasy owners value him by checking on actual trades.

The best source I’ve found to track 1-for-1 trades is Yahoo’s Trade Market. The site has a major limitation: only trades from that day are listed so it’s best to check in the evening. I will do a quick analysis of the league’s other hot hitter, Eric Thames.

Yesterday, I found Thames was traded straight up for Aroldis Chapman, Khris Davis, and Stephen Strasburg. Thames’s ADP was 182 or around a 15 round value. The other three had ADPs of 46 (Chapman), 50 (Strasburg), and 102 (Davis). They average out to around 66 with the two 50’s pointing to a possible higher value.

The players taken around 66 overall were Kyle Seager, Andrew McCutchen, Carlos Carrasco, and Kyle Hendricks. Good but not elite players. It’s still a huge move up for Thames.

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Our Dark Overlord, David Appelman, finally acquired a minor league pitch-by-pitch database as seen by the new minor league stats available like Contact and Groundball rates. I hoped it would help to better understand the disconnect between a prospect’s Hit tool grades and major league results.  I made some progress but created more questions than answers.

When I examined the database, I was hoping to find some batted ball information as Eli Ben-Porat used at the Hardball Times. No such luck. But there was some x,y data … for every pitch.

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