My article today spawned after listening to The Sleeper and the Bust podcast when Paul Sporer interviewed NBFC’s Main Event champion Rob Silver. The entire podcast is a must listen, but one part sparked my interest. Rob mentioned he uses infield flyball rate plus strikeout rate minus walk rate to value pitchers (55:45 point). Silver successfully targeted Kevin Gausmann, Marco Estrada, and Rick Porcello late in his draft by using this stat combination. I will create the same filter to find 2017 sleepers.

There is no easier ball to catch than the infield fly. It’s an easy out. In those few instance when they errantly fall to the ground, a fantasy owner shouldn’t worry since the rest of the inning’s runs won’t count because of the error.

Besides being an easy out, a player’s infield fly rate stabilizes with just over a half season’s data. While infield flies don’t stabilize as fast as strikeouts, they do become stable within a season.

Infield fly rate (IFFB%), especially as we represent it here at Fangraphs, misleads the user. The IFFB% listed indicates the percentage of flyballs (FB%), not all batted balls, which are hit in the infield. To get the infield popup rate, the IFFB% must be multiplied by the FB%. The confusion doesn’t end yet.

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Groundball Pitchers Suppressing ERA

I am going to play with fire and refute a Dave Cameron comment. In a recent article about Brad Ziegler, Cameron said:

So Ziegler basically breaks every mold you can think of. And he even breaks our models. His career FIP is 3.38, but his career ERA is 2.44, almost a full run lower. Part of that is that groundball pitchers get to count more of their runs as unearned because there are more errors on groundballs than on flyballs, so ERA systematically is biased in favor of groundball pitchers.

After the work I just did on pERA, I was worried about its validity. Previously, I found that groundball and flyball pitchers exponentially suppress their ERA as they move to extreme ends of the batted ball spectrum.

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Minor Trades

The Royals traded Jarrod Dyson to the Mariners for Nate Karns

The trade’s current winner is Jarrod Dyson’s playing time. While I wasn’t able to grab our playing time projections before the trade, Dyson’s playing time was likely projected at a half season of at bats. In the Baseball HQ Forecaster, they projected 259 at-bats and now we have him slotted in for 441 at bats. The additional playing time could help to push up his stolen base numbers into the forties.

I’m worried the Mariners may limit Dyson attempts. Last season, the Mariners were 24th in stolen base attempts. I tried several ways to see if team philosophy or talent controlled stolen base attempts.

A key factor I found was success rate which helped ease my concerns. A .44 r-squared exists between stolen base attempts and success rate. While the correlation isn’t perfect and some survivor bias exists in it, if players are successful, they continue to get the green light. Dyson had a sky-high 85% success rate over the past four seasons. If he can keep up the rate, he should be able to keep running.

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Adam Duvall found a home in left field for the Reds. He did it by playing acceptable defense and hitting 33 home runs. Additionally, he maintained a decent batting average with the help of a sub-30% K%. The production was split between the season’s two halves.

In the first half, he hit 23 home runs with a .302 ISO. In the second half, the hit just 10 home runs and a .203 ISO. While some regression should be expected from the first half, he recently mentioned the home run derby cost him some power.

“After the All-Star break, my forearms and hands were tired from the Derby. Maybe I was a little mentally tired from the adrenaline and everything,” Duvall said.

An interesting development. Using corrected StatCast exit velocity, here are Duvall’s batted ball production.
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Note: I didn’t write much during the Holiday season and am now just catching up on fantasy relevant news. I didn’t get through all my information and will continue tomorrow.

Nationals Bullpen Situation

I figured Shawn Kelley would be the Nationals closer if they didn’t trade for or sign a proven closer. Last season, his K-BB% was the sixth best among qualified relievers to go with his 2.64 ERA. Simply, he’s a stud. But people are thinking Blake Treinen will get the job. Paul and Eno discussed the option during The Sleeper and the Bust (Episode 412 at 1:20:17). Treinen was also discussed as an option in a James Collier article.

They have numerous in-house options with the arsenal and the perceived “makeup” to pitch the ninth inning, even if they lack experience in that role. Shawn Kelley has the profile with his strikeout ability. Blake Treinen has the ability to induce ground outs, and did so often last season in significant spots with inherited runners.

Treinen induces a ton of groundballs. His 66% GB% is ranks only behind Zach Britton. I can see why people Treinen’s groundball rate could make him a closer since similar pitchers are Sam Dyson and Brad Ziegler. These two closers are serviceable but not elite. The pitchers similar to Kelley’s K-BB% are Aroldis Chapman and Seung Hwan Oh.

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Cleveland Indians signed Edwin Encarnacion

For fantasy purposes, I see no positive impact on Encarnacion’s value from this signing. The almost 34-year-old goes from a home ballpark with a 107 Home Run Park Factor for right-handed hitters to one with a 95 Park Factor. Instead of a 40 home run projection, his projection moves closer to 35 home runs.

As for changes in Runs and RBI, I think they will drop a bit. The Blue Jays averaged 4.7 runs per game (R/G) in 2016 which was down from their 2015 5.5 R/G. The Indians averaged 4.8 R/G in 2016 and are projected for 4.8 in 2017. They both should have a similar number of team runs, but Encarnacion will have five less home runs and the automatic Runs and RBI which go with them.

I don’t see much movement in his normally consistent .260-.270 AVG and two to three stolen bases. Encarncion’s value took a hit, but not a ton. I eyeballed some numbers and his draft value is down about six spots.

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Time to talk a little Kyle Schwarber

I touched on it yesterday, but Schwarber’s fantasy value is going to fluctuate a ton depending on each league’s settings. In all my keeper leagues, he is getting the Utility tag because he didn’t make the minimum five games played last year (just two games in the outfield). I can’t emphasize enough, know your league settings. Most leagues require five starts until a player is eligible at a position, so I see him getting outfield eligibility the first or second week depending on the schedule and weather.

For him to get the five games at catcher to gain eligibility, let me say I am skeptical of him catching just one game, let alone five. Just to make sure I wasn’t off kilter, at least on this subject, I ask my Twitter followers when they thought he would reach the five games.
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Johnny Cueto: Sabermetric Anomaly

I am on a mission, to try to explain why some pitchers don’t fit into normal molds. I created pERA to help explain the advantages pitchers who have a mix of high and low groundball pitches experience. I tackled the Robbie Ray/Michael Pineda group of pitchers who can only throw their fastball for strikes. The next pitcher whose production can’t be explained by the above methods is Johnny Cueto. He just a hard player to figure out and here is why.

• Over the past six seasons, his ERA-FIP is the 4th lowest (-0.59) among all starters with at least 600 IP. The other pitchers surrounding him are low ground ball pitchers (and R.A. Dickey) who will see their BABIP suppressed because flyballs and popups are easy outs. Cueto’s 48% GB% is by far the highest among the ERA-FIP leaders until Doug Fister says hi at #22. Read the rest of this entry »

Statcast data is now everywhere and everyone seems to be using it in some form. While detailed pitch information has been available via Pitchf/x, full season batted ball data was missing. Now the batted ball data is leading to some interesting findings, but it’s not a true answer. So far, 12.6% of the batted balls is missing data. I wouldn’t see this as an issue if the missing data was evenly distrusted, but it is biased. I have made a simple correction to the data and now how have available corrected overall data and leaderboards.

I went over the procedure I used to correct the data in this previous article. Here is a quick review of the problem and corrective procedure:

• 12.6% of all the batted balls are missed by Statcast. No bunts or foul balls were counted though.
• Most of the missing data are weak infield popups and groundballs. As a general rule, weak, groundball hitters are missing the most data. For pitchers, groundball pitchers are obviously the ones with more data.
• I found the average value for all detected batted balls fielded by each position.
• If the data is missing, I replaced it with the calculated league average values.

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Stephen Strasburg plans on decreasing his slider usage. The impact on his fantasy value could be huge. First the facts. The stated reason for the change is to stay healthier.

Stephen Strasburg added a new slider to his repertoire this past season, and while the pitch was devastatingly effective, it may have led to the elbow injury that ended the Nationals right-hander’s season prematurely and forced him to miss the postseason.

Strasburg, who left the mound on Sept. 7 with what would later be diagnosed as a slight tear in his right pronator tendon and weakness in his flexor mass, believes the issue developed during the season in part because he became too reliant on the slider. After it was virtually not used at all previously, the slider became Strasburg’s second-most-used pitch in 2016 (behind his fastball).

While the exact medical implications won’t be known for a while, Strasburg knows his body the best and any move to stay healthy is good news.

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