Sunday FAAB & Waiver Wire Chat
| 7:32 |
: OK, it’s time to start the chat. Here are the Tout Wars 15-team FAAB results: |
Author Archive: Jeff Zimmerman
One Up, One Down: Brinson & Jones
I’m of the belief that there is a group of similarly talented players who owners should keep churning to find the latest true breakout. Lewis Brinson (64% FanTrax ownership) and Jacoby Jones (24% owned) are two such players. While Brinson was part of the draft endgame with a 275 NFBC ADP, Jones was waiver wire fodder in almost every league with an ADP of 660. If given the option, I’d gladly own Jones right now.
What’s wrong with Lewis Brinson?
Brinson has been a highly touted prospect for several seasons with Baseball Prospectus having him on their Top-101 back in the 2013 but he jumped onto all major lists starting in 2016.
Leaderboard Watching: Gonzales & Anderson
The 26-year-old lefty is straight up dealing with a 10.7 K/9 and only a 1.6 BB/9. No pitcher with a strikeout as high as his has a lower walk rate. His K%-BB% is the 12th best among qualified starters.
Gonzales’s great start is being hidden by a .406 BABIP fueled 4.37 ERA. While he struggled giving up runs in his first three starts, he allows nothing in his last two. Gonzales may finally be living up to some of his prospect status from a few years back.
Believing the Breakouts: Haniger & Lowrie
No one seemed to be targeting Mitch Haniger this draft season with a final NFBC average draft position (ADP) of 219. I picked him up in Tout Wars for $2 in the end game. He seemed to be a player in which owners settled for but didn’t necessarily want. Times have quickly changed as Haniger belted his 8th home run of the season last night and is 8th on ESPN’s player rater. While some regression is possible, most of his early results are sustainable.
Besides the home runs, the 27-year-old outfielder hasn’t been “lucky” to start the season even though his slash line is .324/.395/.716. His .314 BABIP is under his career make of .319. While both his walk (10%) and strikeout (20%) rate have improved, they are each with 2% points of his career numbers.
Pitchers Trending Down: Kimbrel, Gausman, & Sanchez
The Kimbrel discussion starts with this graph:
Plenty of narratives can exist explaining the initial velocity drop. He missed a good part of spring training. The cold weather is keeping his velocity down. He’s still warming up.
The drop doesn’t bother me as much as the trend. If he’s still building strength for the season, shouldn’t his velocity start trending up at some point?
Preseason Unknowns: Villanueva, Canha, and Seven Scrubs
I’m going over hitters who are getting regular at-bats who I didn’t consider rosterable in the preseason. It’s now time to see if I missed anything.
Everyone missed on Villanueva to start the season. He got no prospect love anywhere and the only preseason profile I found called him a “utilityman”. I don’t like to miss this badly on a player and set up a filter to find these gems. I’m not sure I can.
To start with, he had a decent Triple-A season hitting .296/.369/.528 and continued the results in the majors.
Lineups Update (4/18/18)
I look at each lineup to find any recent changes. Big thanks to Baseball-reference.com for tracking the lineups.
Angels
- Since Ian Kinsler has returned, he’s led off three of the four games with Cozart moving down to the 5th/6th spot.
Astros
- Since returning, Yulieski Gurriel has batted in the 4th and 5th spots.
- Last night, Alex Bregman dropped from the 2nd spot to the 5th spot with the normal players in the lineup. The likely reason is Bregman’s struggles (.214/.321/.300).
Three Struggling Pitchers: Archer, Gray, & Duffy
This is going to get ugly fast. Here is my current Tout Wars pitching staff:
That’s right, it contains three of the biggest disappoints so far this season. The results have my team posting a 4.88 ERA. The next closest is at 4.35. The destruction has my WHIP also in last place. It’s time to examine the trio to see if there is any hope.
Before getting to these three, owners should now start examining their pitchers in detail to see what is and isn’t working. Spending a minute or two on each pitcher can possibly unearth items such as lost velocity or a new pitch mix.
I knew Archer was a risk with his two-pitch arsenal which may get lit up later in games. This season, he can’t even make it to those later innings.
Finding a Simple Ideal Launch Angle
On Friday, I examined hitters with new plate approaches focusing on launch angle and plate discipline. I notice Brad Miller, Javier Baez, and Leonys Martin had each dropped their groundball rate but I didn’t have an idea of what is the ideal value. After spending way too much going down way too many paths this past weekend, the simple answer is average 20 degrees (32% GB%) with weak and/or fast hitters needing to push the value down to 15 degrees (42% GB%).
There is no need for readers to hang around any longer if they have more pressing matters like setting their daily or weekly lineups. For those looking for a little more explanation, thanks for staying around. I went through several methods I’m not going to discuss. I like simple useable answers and that’s what I’ll provide today.