Justin Morneau looks to be back and somewhat healthy this season. He has played in the first 10 Twins’ games this season with Tuesday being his first day off. In nine games, he was the designated hitter and on Monday, he played in the field as the first baseman. It is nice to see him on the field more, but what can be expected offensively from him going forward?
Before the season started, fellow writer Chad Young examined a few starter eligible relievers. He had some great recommendations like Alexi Ogando and Alfredo Aceves. Today, I am going to examine a few more SP qualified relievers that Chad did not look at in his article.
(Owned rates are ESPN and Yahoo)
Brett Myers (91%, 53%) – Myers looks to be the Cadillac of relievers that are starter qualified because he is the only one currently picking up saves. On a starter’s off day, Myers can just be plugged into the starter’s roster spot thereby giving a team an extra slot picking up saves. While Myers is not playing for a team that will rack up a ton of wins for him to save, they are still saves. If he is able to close for the entire season, his number of saves should be around 30.
In Tuesday night’s After Dark chat, several people wanted to know if Austin Jackson is having a breakout season. A triple slash line of 0.500/0.583/0.850 definitely looks impressive, but those numbers are just not sustainable. With such a small sample, I will look to see if he is showing any signs of real improvement.
The most important note to remember is that Austin has only had 24 PAs this season. That number is just too few a number of at bats to draw any definite conclusions. In past seasons, he has reached similar numbers in other 6 game spans:
Apr 28th to May 3rd 2010: 0.571/0586/0.750
Jul 20th to Jul 25th 2010: 0.500/0.500/0.692
Jun 3rd to Jun 8th 2011: 0.400/0.438/0.533
Aug 30th to Sep 4th 2011: 0.552/0.567/1.069
Almost all players will get on an extreme hot hitting streak at some time. Jackson just seems to be the player starting the season on one.
The main cause of Austin’s improved performance is his unsustainable 0.643 BABIP. His career BABIP (0.374) has always been high, but not in the 0.643 range. Last season, Adrian Gonzalez led the league with a 0.380 BABIP. Using my xBABIP Spreadsheet, which uses batted ball data, his xBABIP projects a BABIP of just 0.428. A main contributor for the difference between his expected and actual BAPIP values is a 25% infield hit percentage (IFH%). Normally, a player’s IFH% maxes out around 14% in a season. For example, here are the 2011 and 2009 to 2011 IFH% leaders:
IFH%
2011: Cameron Maybin: 14.2%
2009-2011: Ichiro Suzuki: 13.8%
While Jackson has always had a decent BABIP, his 2012 value will eventually come down. People should expect Austin to max out with a BABIP south of 0.400.
The other factor for the increase in production is a drop in his strikeout rate from his previous average of 26% to 20% this season. The drop in K% is supported by his Swing % dropping from 46% to 42% and his contact % going from 63% to 75%. In his few PAs, he seems to be a little more selective with his swings and when he does swing, he is making more contact.
Of the higher BABIP or lower K%, I would track the K% to see if it stabilizes at a new level. With a lower K%, he will see a nice bump in AVG. Here is a what his AVG will look like with a 20% and 25% K% assuming a 0.380 BABIP:
25% K%: 0.285 AVG
20% K%: 0.304 AVG
It is way too early to draw any real conclusions from Austin Jackson’s start to the season. Most of his production has come from a completely unsustainable BABIP. Besides the high BABIP, he is also showing improved plate discipline. While the sample size is way too small right now, I would continue to track his K% and see if he has better control over the strike zone as the season goes on. Any chance for a breakout will be tied to lowering his strikeout numbers.
A few closers seem to be on shaky ground with their starts to the season, most notability Chris Perez and Sergio Santos. Both have started out horribly, but how horrible do they need to be to lose their jobs? Today, I am going to look at how bad a pitcher needs to suck to lose their closer role.
Here at Fangraphs, we have been writing quite a few articles on the fastball speeds (here and here and here and here). The main reason for the articles is that fastball speeds stabilize fairly quickly. They can be used to understand how a pitcher may perform in the future because fastball speed is directly related to both strikeout rates and runs allowed. With this knowledge, I am going to look at how a few pitchers, that saw their velocity drop in 2011, are doing in 2012.
Today, I am going to have a rundown on some position battles and lineup movements for various 2B. Mainly, I am looking for any last minute changes in a player’s value.
Position Battles
Royals – Chris Getz ,Yuniesky Betancourt and Jason Bourgeois – When the Royals demoted Johnny Giavotella to AAA, Chris Getz looked to be the everyday 2B. With his supposed new found swing, he looked to be given the Royals 2B job. Almost immediately, it was stated that Getz and Betancourt would have to share the 2B duites.
Yost isn’t designating either of them as the starting second baseman.
“We’ll play them both there, we’ll mix-and-match now,” Yost said.
Stock down
Aaron started out 2011 with a bang. He had a 2.08 ERA, which he rode into the All-Star game as the Royals’ only invitee. The problem was that he was riding a bit of a lucky streak led by a .243 BABIP. He regressed quite a bit in the second half of the season when his ERA jumped to 4.34 because of a .393 BABIP. Also in the second half of the season, he did not record 1 Save or Hold. He was though able to accumulate five Blown Saves during that time frame.
Going into spring training, he attempted to become one of several relief pitchers league wide to transition into becoming a starting pitcher. After a few weeks, the experimentation was stopped when Joakim Soria was lost for the season and Crow was moved back to the bullpen.
Like last week, I will continue to look at players officially on the DL that may be be picked up in a league and stashed in a DL slot. I am not looking at DL eligible players owned in almost all leagues like Michael Pineda, Chris Carpenter and Scott Baker. I will try to look a little deeper for players to fill a team’s DL slots.
Maximizing pitchers that make 2 starts in a week is a strategy used by some fantasy owners, especially in H2H leagues. The owners cycle through less desirable starters each week and get a new set the next week in order to win the counting stats. The first week of the season offers a unique situation because most of the 2-start pitchers are #1 and #2 starters for a team. Most of these pitchers are already owned. Today I am going to look at some of the few 2-start “aces” that may be available in a league
(Owned % are ESPN and Yahoo)
Erik Bedard (7%, 39%) – Erik is by far the best option among the pitchers I will look at today. His main issue in the past has been staying healthy. While he has a lower chance of getting a Win than a starter on a better team, he will supply a decent number of strikeouts (ZiPS projection is 8.15 K/9). Since an owner is looking to have him around a only a week, they might as well take the chance on him stating healthy that long. In a deep league, owners should actually look to keep him until he eventually goes on the DL.
Brandon Morrow has always been an enigma to me. He has great stuff, but just can seem to put it all together for one good season. I am going to try to look at similar pitchers from the recent past to see if there is any hope of him breaking out.
Since the right-handed pitcher broke into the league with Seattle in 2007, here is where he ranks among the 156 starting pitchers with 400 or more innings.
K/9: 1st (10.0 K/9)
BB/9: 149th (4.5 BB/9)
% of PA that end in a BB or K: 1st (37.3%)
Brandon is a true outcome pitcher with most at bats ending up as either a walk or a strikeout. Besides being a true outcome pitcher, his career ERA has been significantly worse than his ERA predictors:
ERA: 4.37
FIP: 3.85
xFIP: 3.94
SIERA: 3.71