Note: I’m reading through some articles on certain players that were published right before the season ended and I didn’t have time to process them at the time. I know the articles are dated but the info is still useful for next season.

American League

Athletics

• Ken Waldichuk believes he can come back next season with better velocity and control.

Even with my [velocity] being down this past month, I think if I come back with better stuff next year, I think I’ll see some success.”

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One area Waldichuk will look to improve for next season is limiting walks. Entering Friday, his 4.5 walks per nine innings was fifth-worst in the Majors this season among pitchers with at least 130 innings.

“Being in the zone is the biggest thing,” Waldichuk said of his takeaways from the season. “Know how to attack guys and figure out what they’re looking for based on reading them and knowing what to throw them based off that.”

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Since both Shohei Ohtani and Drew Rasmussen got an internal brace in their elbow instead of the full Tommy John surgery, I decided to see how other pitchers who got the brace performed … and the study didn’t take long. With fewer than a dozen samples, there is no study.

Using Jon Roegele’s Tommy John surgery database, the following five major league pitchers got the surgery and returned to the majors. The surgery failed with Matt Bush and he eventually needed a full Tommy John surgery.

Again, with a sample size of just five, I’m not going to draw zero conclusions from the list.

Additionally, these four guys got the brace and never returned to the majors.

No analysis from me but the information is here if anyone wants to break out their Jump-to-Conclusions mat.

A few years back, I created pERA (pitch ERA) to help give each pitch a grade based on its results. For each grade, I never included any kind of walk rate until the final value when I added it in BB/9. It was never included in the individual pitches. A few months back, I looked into Ball% and immediately knew I needed to add it to the pERA formula. On top of that, I added a weak contact element. After a new finding, I needed to go back and tweak the batted ball numbers. Read the rest of this entry »

American League

Blue Jays

• Alek Manoah has not requested a trade and will be fighting for a rotation spot next year.

The GM also said Manoah hasn’t requested a trade. Realistically, the Blue Jays might explore deals for the starter, but his trade value is at an all-time low, so the return may not be better than the upside of hoping he can rebound in 2024. Odds are, Manoah will be competing for a spot in Toronto’s rotation next spring.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tommy John surgery week continues with the hitter edition. With both Riley Greene and Jasson Domínguez (Shohei Ohtani got the brace procedure) getting a Tommy John surgery, I wanted to know how their performance changed from when they were healthy, to hurt, to fixed.

Note: I’m pushing my limits on what I’d like with a sample was 26 hitters. Sometime the matched seasons doesn’t lineup thereby pushing the number even further down. I understand if someone feels the sample is too small and blows off the results.

I found the change by using a weighted change from season to season. The hitters who had the most matched plate appearance got the most weight. Read the rest of this entry »

• Yuki Matsui is considering signing with an MLB team.

Star closer Yuki Matsui looks to be interested in a potential move to Major League Baseball, as a Yahoo Japan report (Japanese language link) indicates that Matsui has exercised his international free agent rights, as well as his rights to freely negotiate with other Nippon Professional Baseball clubs.

• Here is a full list of all players with some form of an opt-out that must get decided this winter.

• Rich Hill plans on signing after the season has started, hopefully with a contending team.

Hill might not sign over the winter, however. While he’d previously expressed an intent to play in 2024, the 43-year-old (44 in March) now tells Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune he’s giving some thought to waiting until midway through the campaign before joining a new team.

…

There are a few reasons behind Hill’s decision-making. The most straightforward one is health. MLB’s oldest active player, Hill conceded to Acee he has “a pretty good gauge and a monitor on my body” and considers “half a season … much more palatable than a full season.” Hill also pointed to a desire to spend more time with his family, noting that he’d like to watch his 12-year-old son play during his final year of Little League baseball next spring. By waiting until midseason, he’d also have a chance to survey the competitive landscape and look to land a spot with a playoff contender.

If a contending team signs Hill, they won’t be contending for long. Read the rest of this entry »

The following Asian player comps came about because I was tired of not having a reference when a player signed in the stats from Japan or Korea. The projections seemed off as either being too enthusiastic or just hated the player. This is my solution.

First off, this method is far from perfect. It’s not even close. The main problem is that the largest group to make the jump, pitchers from Japan, only have a sample size of 50 players with most of them being bullpen arms. Those who make projections are using the same sample. I wanted to know who was in that sample. One fact I fact I found while compiling this list is that any projection will have wide error bars so being close is a major achievement.

To create a reference I could use, I took all the players who made the jump from Japan or Korea. I took their single-season stats before the jump to their major league stats. I grouped similar players using z-score on a few core stats. Read the rest of this entry »

First, I know no one, and I mean absolutely no one besides myself cares how I performed this year. While I needed to do a final inventory of my teams, the following should be more of a guideline on how fantasy managers should evaluate their season. First, try to find any systemic holes in a strategy. Second, make a list of what worked and what didn’t work for you.

I always look back on my season and really try to figure out what went right and wrong. Over the season’s last few weeks, I was disappointed in my season with many of my teams out of contention and the few in contention were just scraping by. In the end, I turned a nice profit thanks to winning my NFBC Super, but overall I was disappointed with my performance. Here is a look at those teams. Read the rest of this entry »

This past season, the minor leagues experimented with several rules including pre-tacked baseballs and automatic strike zones. The following is a look at how those rules changed the amount of expected production from players.

First off, I’m not going to weave a narrative around this data dump. There is no polishing this turd. The information can be referenced later as fantasy managers begin to dive into 2023’s results while preparing for next season. Read the rest of this entry »

• Jung-hoo Lee 이정후 might get posted this offseason.

Lee doesn’t have Yamamoto’s high profile and he’ll come at a significantly lower price tag, but Lee could very well land a healthy contract himself during an offseason that is generally short on premium free-agent position players. Like Yamamoto, Lee is also 25 years old, would be subject to a posting fee, and has impressed observers over seven seasons of international ball.

Lee has hit .340/.407/.491 over 3946 career plate appearances for the Heroes, with 65 homers and 244 doubles. His resume includes KBO League MVP honors in 2022, five KBO Gold Gloves for his defense (mostly in center field), and a standout performance for South Korea’s team in the last World Baseball Classic.

• Reliever Yariel Rodriguez is now a bullpen option for teams to consider.

Per reporter Francys Romero, Cuban right-handed reliever Yariel Rodriguez has been granted his release by the NPB’s Chunichi Dragons. Rodriguez figures to apply for MLB free agency in the near future, which could put him on the radar to sign with a big league club ahead of the 2024 season. The Dragons have not confirmed the report.

He pitched for Cuba during the WBC but took this past season off.

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