Quick Looks: Julio Urias

Last Saturday, I was watching the Cards-Cubs game until Alex Reyes was done pitching. I moved over to the Dodgers hoping to see what Brett Anderson looked like. I missed his one inning start. After a brief appearance of Josh Fields, the Dodgers brought in Julio Urias and I got some bonus prospect coverage.

I was not impressed at all with his current production level. He seems to be a thrower in the Tim Lincecum mold and doesn’t really know where the ball is going at times. This wildness can be seen in his 4.1 BB/9.

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Quick Looks: Kyle Hendricks, Luke Weaver, and Alex Reyes

Saturday’s Cardinals-Cubs game made for some good pitcher watching with three young pitchers taking the mound. Let me start with Hendricks.

A couple of years back, I did a Quick Look at Hendricks and here were my thoughts:

I just have not seen enough of him to convince me he can keep up the results. I would not be surprised one bit if his ERA from now to season’s end was near 4.00 (which is where his ERA estimators are hanging out).

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Valuing Danny Duffy

Putting a future value on Danny Duffy is fairly difficult because he has never performed like he is right now. Here are some of his stats after his one run complete game last night.

• 9 wins
• 2.82 ERA, 3.14 FIP
• 10.0 K/9
• 1.8 BB/9
• 1.0 HR/9

Let’s start with the biggest changes and the one value which sticks out, the 10.0 K/9. Duffy is getting more strikeouts by getting hitters to swing at his pitches at career high rate (52%) and they make contact at a career-low rate (72%). This dual combination has led to a career high swinging strike rate (14%). By using the simple rule K% = 2 * SwStr%, Duffy is projected to have a 28% K% and it is 29% this season. With these matching up, I expect little regression with his strikeout rate.

A search for why the transformation as occurred begins with a 1.5 mph increase in his fastball velocity. The velocity increase raised his swinging strike rate on the pitch to a 13.6%. With the fastball velocity increase, his other pitches are playing up with his slider (15%) and change (21%) being at career highs in swinging strike percentage. I am not sure why these two pitches are performing better this season. They made be playing off his fastball as hitters are concentrating on his fastball. The pitches have a bit more movement and this could be the cause. Also, he may have changed his deception some. Or it could be a combination of several factors. All I know it is working.

Besides the increase strikeouts, Duffy continues to bring is walk rate under control which hurt his value early in his career. In 2012, his BB/9 was at 5.9 and this season it is a third of that value (1.8). The drop in walks along with the increase in strikeouts put his season’s K%-BB% at 23% for 6th best in the league.

The final aspect to understand with Duffy is he lives up in the strike zone and will give up a ton of fly balls which hurts and helps him. More fly balls mean more home runs and he will likely always have an HR/9 at or above 1.0. One the good side, the additional fly balls lead to more easy outs and he will normally have a suppressed BABIP (.286 on career) and an ERA less than his FIP (3.58 ERA vs 3.98 FIP in his career).

The big question is if Duffy can keep the high strikeout and low walk values going forward. It’s tough to tell, but we still have a month and a half of starts to monitor. Additionally, Duffy pitches at a spring training park with a Pitchf/x system installed so we will have an idea where his velocity sits next spring. I see his 2017 value being a major discussion point this offseason.

What’s left of Carlos Gomez?

Gomez was designated for assignment by the Astros and may end up a free agent soon. He was a top hitter from 2012 to 2014 when he averaged over 20 HR, 35 SB, and .270 AVG per season.

Examining his stats, the two big keys to his decline are his declining power and complete inability to make contact this season. With his power, it climbed steadily until he was 27 and has been falling fast as seen here.

Additionally, his Contact% (66%) abruptly fell to a career low. Gomez has always been a free swinger, so with his ability to make contact deteriorating, he has seen his strikeout rate jump 10 percentage points to 31% and batting average drop to .210.

Looking forward, overcoming both factors is going to be tough for him. He has not been able to stop the three-year decline in power. Even if he does, how much will it jump up? I don’t see him turning this issue around much. I could see him make quite a bit more contact since the drop was all at once. Even if the contact rate increase, will the lack of power just make him a bottom of the order player which produces some stolen bases?

With him, I am watching two items. Where he ends up this year and does that team try to make an improvement in his contact rate. The second is what his spring training and early season contact rate are next year. Right now, I don’t see him being productive and should only be taken as a late-round flier.

Michael Pineda’s Sky High ERA

Michael Pineda has seen a nice steady rise in his velocity to go with a 10.4 K/9 and a reasonable 2.6 BB/9.

With these great numbers, Pineda has a 5.07 ERA because he is getting hit hard as seen by his 1.4 HR/9 and .338 BABIP. The biggest issue I see with Pineda is he is basically just a fastball-slider pitcher (rarely throws a bad change). Hitters are holding off swinging at the slider (which he rarely throws for strikes) and looking for his fastball. Here are the triple slash lines when he is ahead, even, or behind in the count.

Behind: .345/.510/.628
Even: .312/.319/.563
Ahead: .186/.192/.314

He becomes dominant once ahead, but hitters are sitting on his fastball in all other counts because it is the only pitch he can throw for strikes. Unless he can start throwing the slider for strikes or develop a third league average pitch, he is going to continue to get hit hard.

Leaders in Home Runs Plus Stolen Bases

A few years back I created a metric to help find pitchers who are showing signs of a possible injury. I named the metric PAIN (Pitcher Abuse INdex). While I can easily publish the information at all times, I have not been able to dive into the results  as often as I would like. With the new arrangement with BJ Maack and me with the MASH Report, he will be looking at more of the daily and rehab updates and I can then dive into some deeper topics. Today, I will give an update on possible pitcher injuries.

There are just two inputs into the PAIN metric, fastball velocity, and Zone%. I have found drops in both to be indicators of possible pitcher injuries, so I decided to include the pair in the metric. Initially, I had to do a little back fitting to get the system to work. I have made a few minor tweaks over the years, but it has remained relatively constant.

One of the more recent tweaks I have made is to lower the bar for the players at risk. Initially, I made 100 the threshold for risk, but looking back, values of 90 are injured quite often. At some point in the future, I may adjust the formula so 100 is the threshold again.

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Cardinals Pitcher Call-Ups: Reyes and Weaver

The Cardinals called up Alex Reyes and he made his first major league appearance for the Cardinals bullpen last light. Reyes is a talent pitcher and here is some comparable pitchers with similar grades to his 2016 Baseball America prospect grade.

The list is dominated by hard throwers with good curve balls which describes Reyes.

Moving onto his Triple-A production this year, the 21-year-old has been a strikeout machine with 12.8 K/9, but he has some issues with walks (4.4 BB/9). Last night he averaged 99 mph with his fastball and was 98 mph in the Arizona Fall League last year. Besides the fastball, he has an above average curve ball. He is a talented pitcher and should be a top 20 pitcher for years to come if his change up is serviceable.

But to put it simply, all the talent doesn’t really matter this season. Reyes will not be useful in most leagues since he will be relegated to the bullpen and is currently not in line for Saves. In redraft leagues, let others fight over him. In keeper leagues, understand his value is limited this season. Now, if I was a non-contender in a keeper league, I would look to see if one of the contenders has Reyes and would try to pick him up for a piece which could help them win a championship.

Luke Weaver is the pitcher owners should be targeting this season instead of Reyes. To start with, here are some comparables for Weaver using MLB.com’s 2016 grades.

The list of pitchers doesn’t bring a ton of excitement to Weaver’s debut on Saturday. The key when looking at these grades is if he can get his curve or slider to be his third league-average pitch. Weaver has been extremely productive in Double-A posting a 1.40 ERA and 10.4 K/9, but a pitcher can dominate the minors with just two pitches. If viewing his start on Saturday, watch to see how his curve and slider work. If he can’t get them going, he may struggle the second or third time through the order.

As for fantasy, I think he is worth a stash in all leagues to see how he performs. I think he could be in the Cardinals’ rotation until the season end because he has only thrown 83 innings this year after throwing 124 IP last year so workload may not be an issue.

Dylan Bundy: Quick Look

I have been intrigued on how Dylan Bundy looks since moving to the Orioles rotation in mid-July. With his injuries and starting the season in the bullpen, I wanted to get an idea of what to expect from him as a starter. For the game, I picked his last start on August 7. Here are my thoughts:

• His fastball was at 92-97 mph with sink at the lower velocities. He had good command of this pitch and seemed to constantly hit is spots with it. This will help him get ahead of hitters who are looking for a pitch in the middle of the plate. His fastball seems to have a couple different movements and I would not be surprised if he has a four-seam fastball and a slower two-seamer.
• His split-change was at 85-87 mph also with plus late sink. This pitch was the best pitch he threw.
• His final pitch is a classic 12-6 curve at 77-80 mph which he used as a chase pitch for called strikes.
• As with any pitcher, when he hung the curve or change, they got crushed.
• If he throws like he did during this game next year, he is going to be a strikeout machine.

For next season, I like the possible production from him and he could be a top-20 to 40 pitcher …. if he stays healthy which is a huge if. I think he will be more valuable in shallow leagues where the replacement level is higher. In deeper leagues, he may end up a wasted pick if he goes back on the DL again for the season. Right now I would put a 140 IP, 9 K/9, and a 3.50 ERA on him for a 2017 projection.

T.J. House: Back in the majors

Going into last season, I had a huge crush on T.J. House after he put up some great numbers at the end of 2014. I bragged him up over the offseason and picked him up where ever I could. Right out of the gate of the 2015 season, House stunk it up and ended up the DL with an injury.

The biggest key I took away from my House love affair, for non-prospect who break out, any kink in their armor will probably make them unplayable. In House’s case, his velocity lost 2 mph from the previous season. There was no way he could keep up his 2014 production with a batting-practice fastball.

His return to the majors is only to the Indians bullpen and his fastball, which he should throw harder from the bullpen, only sits at 90 mph. He is unplayable in all leagues right now, but I will always remember the bond we shared that one offseason.

Introduction

I plan for this new series, Mixing Fantasy and Reality, to examine in detail how real happenings in baseball affect fantasy valuations. I had several projects I have worked on like xBABIP values and velocity differences in which I plan on including. The MASH Report took up quite a bit of my time compiling and tracking all the injuries and I didn’t have time for other outlets. Today marks a new beginning where I have an opportunity to make additional information available. This series will run on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday

I am not going to completely ignore injuries. If a major injury happens or I think one will happen, I will include the information. Additionally, every Thursday I will write a detailed article exclusively on a few in-depth injury topics like my HURT and PAIN reports.

As for future articles, the format will likely be two to four main areas of discussion and maybe some interesting tidbit not found elsewhere. I am not sure if I will have a set topic rotation or if I will just follow the news. For a few articles, I will need to set some ground work to reference in future articles, so don’t expect all the articles to be full of background information like the first few. I hope you enjoy the change and let me know if you have any suggestions.

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• Today marks the end of the MASH in its current format.  New writer, B.J. Maack will be taking over all the current injury news. I will not be going away though.

Starting Monday, I will be publishing one in-depth injury article on Thursday on subjects like my PAIN and HURT reports. Also, I will be writing three additional articles for RotoGraphs each week name “Mixing Fantasy and Reality” in which each article will be a short dive into three or four topics like a promoted prospect or a Quick Look at a pitcher. I am not 100% sure what the final format will eventually be, but my goal is to provide in-depth content not available anywhere else. It was not easy taking a step back from the MASH Report, but I am relieved to be moving on to covering a wider range of subjects. I am glad for the nice (kept me going) and harsh (kept me improving) comments over the years. Thanks. -Jeff

• Trevor Story will miss the rest of the regular season with a torn ligament in his thumb.

Story was hoping to be playing now, with his team surging in the National League Wild Card standings, but the injury he suffered Sunday in New York nixed that. Recovery from Thursday’s operation, which will be performed by hand and upper-extremity orthopedic surgeon Dr. Jennifer Kummer, is ex-pected to cost him the rest of the regular season.

But with an eight-week recovery time, Story could return if the Rockies make the playoffs.

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• Wade Davis is back on the DL and this time, it is a strained flexor muscle.

The Royals appeared to receive some good news regarding closer Wade Davis: An MRI perfohttp://m.royals.mlb.com/news/article/192680486/royals-closer-wade-davis-put-on-rmed in Kansas City on Sunday revealed Davis has a low-grade (Grade 1) strain of his right flexor muscle.

“The MRI showed his elbow was clean,” manager Ned Yost said before Sunday’s 5-3 loss to the Rangers in the series finale at Globe Life Park.

While I don’t like to see pitchers get hurt, I do love how this story broke.

This is how you break a story. Good job Casey pic.twitter.com/YPkzZCcH5C

— Jimm (@jimcclintock) July 31, 2016

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• Brett Lawrie has a minor hamstring strain. The White Sox will be playing some interleague games, so to have a bigger bench, he was placed on the DL.

Lawrie hasn’t played since leaving a game on Thursday against the Tigers. Infielder Carlos Sanchez, who was removed from Triple-A Charlotte’s game Tuesday night, was called up to replace Lawrie.

“It just seemed like he was going backwards today,” manager Robin Ventura said of Lawrie on Tuesday. “There’s no way you can go over there [to Wrigley] and play the National League rules with nobody on the bench.”

• Trevor Rosenthal will be out with an inflamed shoulder.

Following an appearance in the Cardinals’ 9-6 loss to the Dodgers on Sunday, Rosenthal asked to have his shoulder looked at, and the right-hander was checked out on Monday.

“It was news to us at the time,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said. “We let him get it looked at, and he’s going to continue to get some more tests [done].”

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• I should say I am sorry about no MASH Reports last week, but I am not. I took a much-needed vacation and I am now back to work. The report is quite long today as I had to catch up on all the injury information. It is like three-reports-in-one.

• The Rangers sent both Prince Fielder (herniated neck) and Shin-Soo Choo (inflamed back) to the DL. Fielder is dealing with a similar injury he had two years ago.

The herniation is just above a previous injury that was surgically repaired on May 27, 2014, which forced Fielder to miss the rest of that season. Fielder has been bothered by the problem for some time, but did not report it to the Rangers until Monday.

Fielder had an MRI on Tuesday and was examined on Wednesday in Los Angeles by Dr. Robert Watkins, who recommended surgery. Fielder is going to get a second opinion on Fri-day from Dr. Drew Dossett, who performed the surgery two years ago, before a final course of action is decided.

“The way it has been described to me is that a fused vertebrae puts added stress above and below,” Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said. “The initial fusion he had is still intact. The new herniation surfaced above it.

I stayed away from Fielder in 2015 because I was worried about a re-injury. I was a year too early, but I think Fielder owners will from now on need a draft-day backup plan if the draft him.

Choo had been playing through this back injury for a bit and should only need the minimum time until he returns.

Choo has been dealing with inflammation in his lower back for the past couple of weeks. He also had an MRI and examination from Dr. Watkins. Choo received an anti-inflammation injection and is expected to be sidelined 10-14 days.

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