Archive for 10 Tidbits

At this point in the year, full season lines are heavily influenced by how a player started. That first month-to-6 weeks can hold a player down or prop them up for quite a while. Here are 10 players who have surged or fallen from their early season work. And yes, I grant that some of y’all have probably noticed a few of these and if that’s the case, just exclude yourself from the headline and roast the dweebs who aren’t as cool as us.

Yes… that’s right. As cool as us.

I ran Volume 1 of this column a couple weeks ago.

HITTING

Avisaíl García has been a Top 20 OF on the year. You may recall that The BAT loved Garcia initially, but then had to drop his projection when the Brewers brought on Jackie Bradley Jr. since it was setting up to cut Garcia’s playing time with Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich being guaranteed two spots. JBJ has been a complete non-factor and both Cain and Yelich have missed time clearing the path for a full-time role for Garcia which he has taken full advantage of with a .270/.341/.493 line, 24 HR, 76 RBI, 59 R, and 7 SB in 449 PA. Only 17 qualified outfielders have topped his 120 wRC+.

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At this point in the year, full season lines are heavily influenced by how a player started. That first month-to-6 weeks can hold a player down or prop them up for quite a while. Here are 10 players who have surged or fallen from their early season work. And yes, I grant that some of y’all have probably noticed a few of these and if that’s the case, just exclude yourself from the headline and roast the dweebs who aren’t as cool as us.

Yes… that’s right. As cool as us.

PITCHING

Kenta Maeda has a 2.98 ERA and 0.99 WHIP in his last eight starts since July 1st. In that time, he has a 31% K rate and 6% BB rate across 45.3 IP. In his first 12 starts, he had a 5.56 ERA, 1.55 WHIP, 21% K, and 8% BB in 56.7 IP.

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Only 6, what gives?! I know, I know, but this article would’ve gotten a bit out of hand in terms of length if I included four more. We’ll be back at 10 next week. By the way, if there’s someone you want me to cover in this piece, please include them in the comments and I’ll gladly take a look.

Robbie Grossman is Raking

Grossman smacked his 4th HR on Monday night, pushing his line to .288/.447/.627 and chipping in 4 SBs with those home runs. He’s always had a strong plate profile with a 13% BB rate and 21% K rate heading into this year, but it yielded essentially a league average line at a 102 wRC+. He’s still walking a ton – a career-high 18% in fact – and he’s actually striking out less than ever at 16% so what’s the difference? He’s attacking a lot more in hitter and even counts.

Grossman has dialed up his swing rate in hitter counts and the results are flowing in. He’s making contact at a 93% clip, tied for 7th-best in the league and only Daniel Murphy is swinging more (62%) than Grossman’s 46% rate in those situations. The attack-heavy approach has delivered a 1.484 OPS in hitter’s counts, well above the 1.164 league average.

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I started this new column last week looking at 10 interesting things going on in baseball and giving my thoughts on them, particularly as they relate to fantasy baseball.

Zach Plesac is the Latest Product of the Cleveland Pitching Machine

We’re starting to see why Cleveland wasn’t worried about letting Corey Kluber via trade for what felt like a light return. Plesac and Aaron Civale have been excellent through four starts, joining Shane Bieber, Mike Clevinger, and Carlos Carrasco to form perhaps the best rotation in baseball. Plesac opened his season with eight shutout innings against a strong White Sox lineup that included 11 strikeouts and 0 walks.

He went to Cincinnati for his second outing and stood tall yet again with just a pair of home runs doing the damage in seven strong innings with 6 strikeouts and 1 walk. Nicholas Castellanos battled back from an 0-2 count to get it full and then hit a homer to left-center while Plesac battled back from a 2-0 count against Joey Votto to draw it full before the veteran lefty went yard in right field.

Plesac has dropped his fastball usage 15 points to 36%, leaning into his slider (up 5 points to 24%) and changeup (also up 6 points to 26%) with extraordinary results. He has a 32% strikeout rate, 2% walk rate, and he’s tied for the 6th-best Called Strikes+Whiff rate at 35% (min. 6 IP which yields 111 pitchers). Batters are 0-for-17 with 8 strikeouts against his slider.

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Over the course of the 60-game season I’m going to run a 10 Tidbits piece each week just highlighting 10 pieces of info that I find fantasy relevant. They won’t necessarily be linked and sometimes I might even go past 10. None of them are likely worth their own article so this will essentially be a news & notes piece with a different alliterative name.

Kyle Lewis is Still Crushing the Ball

Lewis smacked 6 HR in 75 PA during his blazing hot cup of coffee last year, but his 39% K and 4% BB rates in that span made some nervous about him coming into 2020. He’s already hit another 2 HR (not has 8 in 93 MLB PA) and while the strikeout rate is still sky high at 44%, his walk rate has jumped to 17%. At worst, we have a Hunter Renfroe-esque profile here with premium power and a mediocre-to-poor batting average. At best, he keeps hitting the ball hard enough to generate a BABIP that outruns his strikeouts and deliver a .250-.270 AVG. Either way, I’m a fan.

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