Johnny Cueto: Sabermetric Anomaly

I am on a mission, to try to explain why some pitchers don’t fit into normal molds. I created pERA to help explain the advantages pitchers who have a mix of high and low groundball pitches experience. I tackled the Robbie Ray/Michael Pineda group of pitchers who can only throw their fastball for strikes. The next pitcher whose production can’t be explained by the above methods is Johnny Cueto. He just a hard player to figure out and here is why.

• Over the past six seasons, his ERA-FIP is the 4th lowest (-0.59) among all starters with at least 600 IP. The other pitchers surrounding him are low ground ball pitchers (and R.A. Dickey) who will see their BABIP suppressed because flyballs and popups are easy outs. Cueto’s 48% GB% is by far the highest among the ERA-FIP leaders until Doug Fister says hi at #22. Read the rest of this entry »

Early ADP Results

This past week I was in Arizona watching some Arizona Fall League ball action and was at Baseball HQ’s First Pitch Forum as a presenter and taking in as much information as I could. I came back with a ton of articles ideas, but one piece of information I think people will find useful now is how owners are currently valuing players. Here are the top 30 players drafted in two NFBC drafts by a mix of experts and forum participants. Additionally, the entire first 23 rounds can be seen in these two images (sorry for the one image being almost too blurry).
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I will continue to help define how to value a prospect for fantasy purposes. Last week, I examined how major league position players’ production lines up with the standard scouting grades. Today, I go the other way and look at how graded prospects perform in the majors.

I believe I am making this study about two years too soon. I would love for there to be more MLB information after the player received his grades and his 4-5 year production. I don’t have that luxury right now. I feel any answer I come up with will be a nice anchoring point but will need to be adjusted later.

To do this study, I took the grades given by Baseball America (2011 to 2014) and MLB.com (2013 to 2014). With each of these players, I looked at those who had 300 plate appearances in their career. With this fairly encompassing group, I would only able to match of 118 seasons. In some of these cases, the same player was compared. For example, both BA and MLB had their own 2013 grades for Xander Boegaerts. Like I said, a person can shoot about 20 different holes in this study, but I am just working with what I have been given so far.

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First, a few words about my offseason writing at Rotographs. Besides reporting any possible relevant fantasy news, I plan on systematically going through two groups of players and work on their 2017 values. I will start at the top of the 2017 rankings and also somewhere in the middle and work my way down each list. I may be able to do a handful of players each article or I might by limited to just the two players. Either way, I will start putting together a 2017 draft ranking.

Additionally, I will try to follow Eno’s schedule for the other writers (e.g. players on playoff teams for the next couple of weeks). If they are looking at outfielders for that specific week, I will also look at outfielders.

The other project I will work through is being able to put a better evaluation on prospects for fantasy purposes. I will use the evaluations of various prospect writers and publications and put their evaluations into something which can be used in fantasy circles. I have some ideas of what I want to accomplish, but I am sure there will be some roadblocks and detours on the way. I will start this series Friday.

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As Augusts wanes and football starts to rev up, a large percentage of fantasy baseball players begin to lose interest. Whether it is because they are falling (or have fallen) out of contention in their redraft leagues or the long grind of 162 games have begun to wear them out, mid to late August is where people start to check out. Read the rest of this entry »

I have spent the last few weeks rewatching Breaking Bad. For those who have never watched it, it is arguably the greatest show of all time. It is the classic story of a high school chemistry teacher that gets terminal cancer and becomes a drug kingpin to make sure he leaves something behind for his family. Let’s be honest, the story of Walter White could be any of us, minus the drugs, Mexican cartels, violence, terminal cancer, money, and ability to make thermite in our kitchen. Read the rest of this entry »

I introduce to you today the third part of an ongoing and rather aimless series regarding my research on average draft position, or ADP. Yesterday, I reprised an earlier piece of work in which I look at how often players “busted,” on average, in certain points of drafts. A bust included both low production by (1) poor performance, (2) lack of playing time due to injury, or (3) both.

Before I proceed, I’d like to make a quick acknowledgment. I’ve been asked on multiple occasions how often busts are attributable to injury rather than poor performance. Unfortunately, I would have to comb the data and handle each red flag on a case-by-case basis. While it’s not totally unruly, I don’t really have time to tackle it right now. I was also asked how age might play a part in ADP. I don’t have an answer for that yet, but I do have future research planned that examines the upward bias regarding organizational (or universal) top prospects. Again, it’s something for a future post, but not today.

Lastly: scroll to the bottom for quick results on yesterday’s poll and for another pseudo-interactive segment.

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Three weeks ago, I compared 2015 average draft position (ADP) numbers to end-of-season (EOS) rankings. I intended to ascertain which fielding positions are more reliable in terms of fantasy utility relative to their draft position. In other words: I wanted to calculate the probability a player drafted within a particular tier at a particular position would bust.

Granted, the probability that a specific player will bust depends a lot on the player himself: age, recent performance, injury history, and so on. But if you wipe all names from the draft board, looking at only the overall draft slot, the player’s defensive position and his end-of-season rank, we can establish not only which positions are riskiest but also when in the draft they appear to be riskiest.

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2/14/16

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

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Strategy Section

• Pick a Hitter
  • J.T. Realmuto (172 ov, 10th C) v. Yan Gomes (176, 11th) (3:30)
  • Carlos Santana (187, 16th 1B) v. Byung-ho Park (188, 17th) (6:49)
  • Starlin Castro (196, 14th 2B) v. Ben Zobrist (200, 15th) (11:45)
  • Adrian Beltre (99, 9th 3B) v. Maikel Franco (106, 10th) (14:05)
  • Xander Bogaerts (60, 4th SS) v. Francisco Lindor (64, 5th) (17:25)
  • Starling Marte (24th, 7th OF) v. George Springer (25, 8th) (20:45)
  • Billy Burns (153, 39th) v. Kevin Pillar (156, 40th) (26:28)
• LABR Talk (35:28)
• Email
  • Shea – Keepers (46:30)

We have a new email address for questions: sleeperpod@gmail.com. Send your fantasy-relevant questions. You can send keeper questions, but those are much better for Twitter. Questions most likely to get selected are those that apply more broadly, as opposed to specific trade or keeper queries. However, if you do ask a league-specific question, please include the league size and categories.

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Approximately 57 minutes of joyous analysis.

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Everybody has their sleeper lottery tickets. By that, I don’t mean known quantities like Adrian Beltre who may be slightly underpriced. Players like Lance McCullers, Corey Seager, and Xander Bogaerts have flashed impressive talent, but they’ve yet to truly prove it’s sustainable. We’re making informed guesses when we reach for them in the draft. Today, we’ll talk about three reaches that I just don’t get.

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