Hi. It’s Wednesday. This is the Roto Riteup. I sort of like your face.
On today’s agenda:
1. Mat Latos to debut Saturday
2. Joey Votto returns
3. On Cody Asche and Maikel Franco
4. The Feral Five
Agenda
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It’s hard to put into words how excited I am was (note below) for tonight’s Cleveland-Kansas City match-up. In case you didn’t know, Corey Kluber and Yordano Ventura (thank you, Based God, for sparing his elbow for now) are squaring off tonight. Kluber’s 2014 dominance isn’t a secret. Ventura’s prowess and potential is well known thanks to his triple digit heat. But let’s get some numbers involved.
| Name | Team | K% | BB% | K-BB% | HR/9 | AVG | WHIP | BABIP | LOB% | ERA- | FIP- | xFIP- | ERA | FIP | xFIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corey Kluber | Indians | 27.30% | 5.50% | 21.80% | 0.63 | 0.25 | 1.22 | 0.336 | 74.30% | 84 | 68 | 71 | 3.23 | 2.49 | 2.73 |
| Yordano Ventura | Royals | 22.30% | 7.80% | 14.50% | 0.85 | 0.243 | 1.28 | 0.298 | 77.50% | 84 | 88 | 88 | 3.41 | 3.46 | 3.41 |
There’s a ton of sexiness in that chart. Obviously, Kluber’s been the better pitcher – only Felix Hernandez has been better in 2014. His peripherals have been impressive for quite some time, but so far, his run prevention stats have caught up as well. Despite the Indians’ terrible defense, he’s still rocking a sub 3.30 ERA. Rather impressive.
Ventura might lack results at this point, but he’s one of the most aesthetically pleasing pitchers in the game. We all know about his fastball, which has averaged a tick over 96 mph to this point. His change-up, however, seems to be overlooked a little. According to pitchf/x, 14.4% of the pitches he’s thrown thus far has been a change-up, and they’ve averaged 86.2 mph – roughly a 10 mph difference. That difference in mph, combined with the pitch’s movement, has lead to a swSTR of 15.3%.
Edit: Thanks to the rain, Jason Vargas was pushed back until tonight. I’m leaving the chart and notes because Ventura is awesome, and Kluber is still pitching. Thanks for nothing, weather.
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Today marks the seventh anniversary of the final episode of “The Sopranos.” The last episode wasn’t at all what I expected — particularly the final scene — though I still find myself going back and watching select episodes of the show.
On today’s agenda:
1. Lonnie Chisenhall’s big day
2. Strong game from Scott Van Slyke
3. Michael Cuddyer to the disabled list
4. Grégory Polanco gets the call
5. 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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I feel like all I ever talk about when writing about daily fantasy is platoon splits. Last week I talked about the best and worst starters against batters of each handedness, and today I want to mention a few teams that have some weird splits.
No team has a bigger difference in their performance versus left-handed and right-handed pitching than the Braves who are 30% better than league average against left-handed pitching and 22% below average against right-handed pitching. To be fair, we’re still dealing with some really small sample sizes. Justin Upton and Evan Gattis are leading the way against left-handed pitching as they each have a wRC+ vs. LHP north of 300 but each have less than 50 PA against LHP. That can’t keep up, and the gap will certainly narrow as the season goes on, which is something that can be said for any teams discussed below. But only pick on the Braves with right-handed pitchers.
The Cubs are another team you might like to pick on, but they’ve got a wRC+ of 112 against left-handed pitching. Against right-handed pitching, they’re the worst team in the league with a wRC+ of 73. The Phillies are also much worse against righties. As are the Rangers. In years past you were probably avoiding the Rangers offense on most days, but right now you only need to avoid them with left-handers.
On the flip side, the Indians and Dodgers are tied for the fifth best wRC+ in the league, but they’re doing their damage against right-handed pitching. If you’re going to dominate pitchers of one handedness, right-handers are the ones to dominate since about two-thirds of pitchers are right-handed. But avoid them the third of the time when they face lefties. The Reds offense is another that might have been avoided in the recent past, but they’re the fourth worst offense in the league according to wRC+. You can use pitcher’s of either handedness against them, but their 71 wRC+ vs. LHP is the worst in the league.
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This may just be one man’s opinion, but I’m not too sad that it’s Monday here at the Roto Riteup.
On today’s agenda:
1. Jonathan Singleton’s early going
2. Chris Archer continues his hot stretch
3. Rougned Odor hurts his shoulder
4. The Floppy Five
In the past week or so, we’ve looked at a couple of different ways to evaluate an opponent from a starting pitcher’s perspective. First, with an offense’s fantasy output as the measure, and then with a rough approximation of a pitcher’s output against an offense.
For today, I had the time to actually pull all of the game logs so far in 2014, allowing me to break down the actual, not implied, production of pitchers against each offense in baseball. Those tables are after the jump, should probably be bookmarked and will probably be updated in this space once a month moving forward.
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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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Sticking with the 1980’s film theme from yesterday, today is the 31st anniversary of the film “Trading Places.” This scene depicts the scheme and events to get even with some shady bosses.
On today’s agenda:
1. Kendrys Morales finds a home
2. Thoughts on Khris Davis
3. Russell Martin: on-base machine
4. The daily five