Matt Boyd (45 CV/50+ FV)
8/28 vs Blue Jays

Game Thoughts
• The 24-year-old lefty was very blahh in the start I saw.
• His fastball was 89-94 mph, straight and thrown high in the zone. It may even have a bit of “rise” to it
• His slider was 77-78 mph with 11-6 break and the only pitch he has which can create ground balls.
• His change was 78-80 mph and straight. It follows the same path as his fastball, but 10 mph slower. It eats up right-handed hitters.
• Finally, he threw a few curves which were at 69-72 mph with 11-6 break
• Boyd’s high fastball and change are going to give up some flyballs. Among starters with 40 IP, he has the 7th lowest GB% at 32.4%. He could end up with home run issues as he is this season with a 2.6 HR/9.
• He throwing away too many pitches which aren’t even near the strike zone. He gets into too many long at bats and ends up working from behind.
He lost a little velo as the game went on never getting over 93 mph on his fastball after the 3rd inning.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Sorry about not getting Thursday’s MASH report out, so today’s post covers the past seven days.

• Jung-ho Kang will miss the rest of this season and probably part of next with a fractured tibia and torn meniscus.

Kang’s native Korea did not take the news well, either. The fans are reportedly irate over the Chris Coghlan slide that took Kang out at second, and out of action until possibly late-May of next season.

This injury sucks in so many ways.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, I have had making a two-start evaluator on my to-do list for a while. With the help of Jonah Pemstein, the project is done. A problem is its usefulness with only two weeks left in the season. I am going to roll it out anyway and take comments over the next couple of weeks. It will then be ready for full implementation to start next season.

The setup is pretty simple right now.
•Find the games a pitcher is expected to start this upcoming week.
• Determine the starters projected Steamer stats per start.
• Use my Standing Gain Points formula I calculated to start the season to give each pitcher a weekly value. Then rank them by this value.

This is all the data available for now, but running it for the first time I found a few ways to improve it going forward.
• I ran into a coding error for pitchers who have no more projected starts (end of the list like Hudson or Moore) according to Steamer. I am trying to get the depth charts updated to make sure this doesn’t happen in the future.
• On the same note, the stats for pitchers who are swingman (starter and reliever) may be a bit inflated because of the improved reliever rates.
• Wins are just funky but needed to show the value of the chance to pick up two Wins. Ideas?
• The strength of opponent and park factors are not shown or worked in yet. I am working on this portion now but wanted to make the list available before next week.

Read the rest of this entry »

I will use player grading on the scouting scales of 20-80. I will use Kiley McDaniels scale he discussed in this article.

I will give a value for where I think the pitcher could currently fit in on the average team (CV=current value) and where they could end up (FV=future value). I am sure I will disagree with some grades from others, but I am only looking at one game.

Note: If I say a pitch moves 11-5, it is from the pitcher’s perspective.

Aaron Nola (CV: 60/FV: 70)
8/23/15 vs Marlins

Game Thoughts

• The 22-year-old righty had a slightly funky delivery. He threw from a low 3/4 release across his body, which is a little unusual for a right-handed pitcher. Additionally, he had a little late leg lift which may be a little distracting for the hitter.
Read the rest of this entry »

• Troy Tulowitzki is expected to miss two to three weeks with a cracked shoulder.

Toronto won’t definitively know whether Tulowitzki can make it back for at least another week. His progress will be closely monitored, and not only does the bone have to heal, but some internal bleeding has to subside and the muscles need to recover.

“I think there is a chance,” Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos said Sunday morning. “Just talking to the doctors, they do think it is a little early to try to set a timetable on it.

“We’ll know more in the next few days, but if they had to guess, and it really is only a guess at this point, could be two to three weeks and then he could be back for October. Hopefully we’re playing at that time. That’s really all we have, but we’ll know more as the next few days come along.”

To me, it sounds like they have no clue when he will be back. I went and looked through my injury databases and only found one player who had a fracture in his shoulder. Carlos Gomez missed 37 games in 2011 because of a fractured shoulder.

Read the rest of this entry »

Javier Baez has been getting quite a bit of acclaim since returning to the Cubs with his reduced strikeout rate. In 2014, Baez had a 42% strikeout rate (K%) in the majors and 2015 value of 22% K% looks to be a huge improvement. Don’t get too excited about this small sample of data as his swing strike rate (SwStr%) points to a strikeout rate which will likely increase quickly.

Historically, a hitter’s strikeout rate correlates almost identically to their swinging strike rate. The reason to use SwStr% instead of K%  is because it stabilizes a bit faster. I took all hitters since 2002 who had at least 200 plate appearances in a season and found the linear correlation between their strikeout rate and swinging strike rate. The R-squared between the two values was .947 with the equation working out to:

K% = 2.25 * SwStr%

With this little bit of information, here is a look at Baez’s stats in the majors the past two seasons.

Season: SwStr%, Predicted K%, Actual K%
2014: 19.2%, 43.2%, 41.5%
2015: 18.5%, 41.6%, 22.2%

Read the rest of this entry »

• Ryan Zimmerman will miss significant time with an oblique injury.

Nationals first baseman Ryan Zimmerman remains out of the lineup because of a left oblique injury. Although he is listed as day to day, two sources expected Zimmerman to miss a significant amount of time because of the injury.

• Manuel Banuelos will be shut down for the rest of the season with elbow discomfort.

Banuelos exited Sunday’s disappointing outing against the Nationals with some elbow discomfort. The Braves held out hope that the pain would subside as this week progressed. But before Wednesday’s series finale against the Phillies, Atlanta manager Fredi Gonzalez revealed the rookie left-hander would be re-evaluated by Dr. James Andrews next week.

“We don’t think there is anything significant there, he’s just in pain right now,” Braves assistant general manager John Coppolella said. “He wasn’t feeling great. We had hoped he might come in and feel really good today. That didn’t happen.”

Read the rest of this entry »

• I better give my two cents on the Matt Harvey situation. In my opinion, there should not have been any big blow up on his innings limit this past weekend. Both sides should have gotten together before the season and discussed how Harvey should be handled in case the Mets make the post season. The general outline of this agreement should have then been made public so everyone has an idea of what is going on. This discussion should not be happening now in early September, but when the season started. The Mets, Harvey, and Boras created this mess and now they need to figure it out. Anyone who wants to point fingers needs to do so at all parties.

Read the rest of this entry »

After three months, my kids are back to school and I finally have some additional time to restart my Quick Looks column. Today, I am going to start with a couple pitchers I saw at a while back but didn’t have time to type up. Hopefully each week, I will get a look at three to five pitchers and give you my take.

I will continue to implement player grading on the scouting scales of 20-80. I will use Kiley McDaniels scale he discussed in this article.

I will give a value for where I think the pitcher could currently fit in on the average team (CV=current value) and where they could end up (FV=future value). I am sure I will disagree with some grades from others, but I am only looking at one game.

Note: If I say a pitch moves 11-5, it is from the pitcher’s perspective.

Taylor Jungmann (CV: 50/FV: 55)
7/19/15 vs Pirates

Game Thoughts
• The 25-year-old righty really liked to pitch downhill keeping the ball low in the zone. Additionally, is fastball has some natural sink at times, so he should get a decent number of groundballs (46% on the season).
• His fastball was possibly two different pitches and Pitchf/x had problems labeling them. When the fastball was in the 93-95 mph range, it really straightened out and had little sink. When he kept it around 91 mph, it would get a nice amount of sink.
• His curveball was 75-76 and was a nice pitch. He used it as a swing-and-miss pitch and also for called strikes if needed.
• His change was between 84-86 mph with some release-side run. In this start, it was not consistent at all. Sometimes it broke, other times not. It seemed to improve a bit as the game went on.
• He would really pound the bottom of the zone and if he gets an ump with a higher zone, he may have walk issues.
• He could have some bad games were he gets BABIP to death with the ground balls.

Final thoughts: None of his pitches stood out as plus, but the combination really worked good together. It would be nice to see his walk rate drop a bit more. I see him being a 4th to 5th starter in 12-team leagues next year

Cody Anderson (CV: 40/FV: 40)
7/4/15 vs Pirates

Game Thoughts
• The 24-year-old righty had a nice start to the season, but as regressed quite a bit since then.
• His fastball was at 92-95 mph and can get some nice sink at the lower velocities.
• He had an 86-90 mph cutter/slider with some sinker/downward action. If that description sounds confusion is because the pitch was all over the place.
• His 83-85 mph change was straight as an arrow.
• He threw a curve at 81 mph with 12-6 break.
• None of the pitches had any swing and miss. His results are going to be determined by the quality of sacrifices he makes to the BABIP gods.
• He throws from a 3/4 release point and keeps the ball down. He lives on the edge of the strike zone with the change being the only pitch he throws into the heart of the zone.

Final thoughts: There is nothing here to be excited about. He is nothing more than a long reliever who will get a spot start now and then. There is no reason to own him. He needs to get his strikeouts in the 6 K/9 for me to be interested

• September 1st is such a mess with all the transactions. A bunch of semi-hurt players came off the DL. Also, several minor league DL players moved to the MLB 60-day DL to increase roster spots. With no real reason to put players on the DL with the expanded rosters, I will try to keep track of those players in another table after the official DL players. I hope I got everything, but let me know if I missed anything.

• Mark Teixeira’s bone bruise is going to keep him out at least two weeks. Historically, hitters take a little longer to return, but the time frame is close.

Read the rest of this entry »