Hooray, we survived a full moon on Friday the 13! I consider myself lucky, particularly considering we also made it through Y2K and the Mayan 2012 end-of-the-world scenario.
On today’s agenda:
1. Thoughts on Juan Francisco
2. Oscar Taveras down to Triple-A
3. Return of Mat Latos
4. The daily five
Agenda
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C.J. Wilson is taking the ball for the Angels today. I’ve written a little about him before, but yesterday I was fooling around with the pitch value leaderboards after reading Dave Cameron’s post on Johnny Cueto, and noticed something that I found pretty neat: Wilson has three pitches that have been top 10 offerings this year. His fastball, slider, and change-up have all graded out phenomenally. He’s facing the Braves tonight, a team that has hit left handed pitching very well, so it’s a very interesting matchup. And speaking of the Braves, Julio Teheran also has three pitches in the top 10 (fastball, curveball, change-up). Adam Wainwright comes close; his curveball currently sits twelfth, but his fastball and cutter are firmly planted near the top. Side bar: Please be ok, Adam.
There are a lot of fun ways to grade out pitches. Whiff rates are my favorite, and we all know they’re Eno’s favorite. The pitch values are also fun though, because it’s always nice to know how these pitchers come to their over numbers. Most of the time, at least to me, the parts that make up the whole are more interesting when they’re viewed as separate entities.
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Quite possibly my favorite sporting event — yes, perhaps even above baseball — kicked off yesterday. Though the refereeing was less-than-stellar, I enjoyed the opening game of the World Cup. I’ll be rooting for South Korea as well as the USMNT. Here’s to hoping both can make it out of their groups. They’ll need some luck to do so.
On today’s agenda:
1. Brock Holt keeps mashing
2. The return of Jesus Montero
3. Nick Swisher is activated
4. The daily five
Agenda
FanDuel has unleashed the World Fantasy Baseball Championship; a week-long, $5,000,000 celebration of Fantasy Baseball in Las Vegas! The WFBC has something for everyone, from the $250,000 single-entry championship, to the live $3,000,000 DFBC Final in Las Vegas.
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We’ve lightly discussed in this space before the utility of rolling out a relief pitcher for daily fantasy.
In short, the cost per point can be favorable and some of the best value available, but the risk of posting a zero is high –the most heavily used closers, Cody Allen and Mark Melancon (31 appearances each), have appeared in fewer than half of their teams games (not to mention each started the year as a setup man – Francisco Rodriguez leads full-season closers with 30 appearances, 46 percent of his team’s outings).
Whether you choose to deploy a closer or not will largely depend on your risk preference. To try and help out, the table below shows how often closers have pitched with certain rest (it includes seasons since 2010 in which a pitcher notched at least 10 saves).
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That’s me in the corner. That’s me in the spot-light, crying like a baby. Trying to write for you, and I don’t know if I can do it.
Oh, hi there. The Roto Riteup is below.
On today’s agenda:
1. Uh oh, Adam Wainwright’s Elbow
2. The Bauer-Ventura Duel
3. Phil Hughes is on fire
4. Fun with arbitrary endpoints
5. The Fine Five
Agenda
FanDuel has unleashed the World Fantasy Baseball Championship; a week-long, $5,000,000 celebration of Fantasy Baseball in Las Vegas! The WFBC has something for everyone, from the $250,000 single-entry championship, to the live $3,000,000 DFBC Final in Las Vegas.
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Jason Hammel is on the mound today, so let’s chat about him! Hammel was signed by the Cubs in the offseason. Undoubtedly, the Cubs’ plan was to have him perform well, and then be flipped for future assets. So far, so good.
| Player | K-BB% | ERA- | FIP- | xFIP- | WAR | RA9-WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jason Hammel | 18.0% | 67 | 74 | 92 | 1.8 | 2.6 |
| MLB Rank | 15th | 12th | 11th | 35th | 18th | 11th |
Hammel’s having a career year – the first three columns are all career bests; the fourth is second only to his 2012 campaign. His K-BB%, perhaps the best in season predictor of future success, is due to both an increase in strikeouts and a decrease in free passes. We love it when a pitcher improves their strikeout or walk rate, but when they improve both? That’s the dream.
His run prevention, so far, has outperformed peripherals a little bit; undoubtedly because he’s sporting a career low HR/FB rate. Regression is accounted for and baked into his xFIP-, which is still rather good. The worst thing we can say about Hammel’s performance so far is: his ERA could easily be around 3.50.
Jeff Samardzija gets all of the trade headlines in the Windy City. That’s fine. He’s phenomenal in his own right, but perhaps it’s time we pay a little more attention to Hammel. Samardzija will garner a larger prospect package for the Cubs – due to multiple reasons – but the team that acquires Hammel is likely acquiring one hell of an upgrade for their stretch run.
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Nationals pitcher Tanner Roark continues to prove the doubters wrong. In fairness, for a long time, it didn’t seem like Roark would turn into much. After toiling in the minor-leagues, and putting up average numbers, something changed in 2013. Roark’s numbers took a turn for the better, earning him a call-up to the majors at age-26. While his performance was impressive, none of it seemed sustainable. His peripherals were good, but his stuff didn’t seem overwhelming, and he only tossed 53 2/3 innings, most out of the pen. Even the Nationals seemed unsure about Roark, putting him in a competition for the fifth starter spot in spring training. Doug Fister’s injury may have given Roark a job by default to begin the season, but he’s done more than enough to prove he belongs in the majors.