The Twins infield will not have a drastically different look personnel-wise from last year, but that isn’t to say there hasn’t been some shuffling of the deck chairs.

Quasi-catcher Ryan Doumit was shipped off to the Braves, and Justin Morneau signed with the Rockies after an August deal sent him to the Pirates. Infield mainstay Joe Mauer is shifting over to first, and the latest reports seem to suggest that newcomer Kurt Suzuki will get the first crack at reps behind the plate catching a largely re-made rotation.

Given this, here’s a peek at the Twins infield situation heading into the 2014 campaign:

The Givens

1B Joe Mauer (2014 Steamer Projection .297/.388/.439 | .361 wOBA) Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a Miami Marlin fan, you have a few things to cheer about. You have Jose Fernandez. You have Giancarlo Stanton. You don’t need to pretend to care about what Logan Morrison thinks anymore. And heck, your team is supposed to finish higher in the standings than at least one other team in the division, which is progress. But from a fantasy baseball perspective, there are actually a few other players to keep an eye on, which makes this Marlin team even more interesting.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s no sense beating around the bush here: the 2014 White Sox don’t look like they’ll be very good. In fact, they figure to be downright unwatchable most of the time. That is, except for roughly 30 games.

The ones Chris Sale starts, specifically.

Chicago finished last season with the second worst record in the American League, ahead of only the lowly Astros. The team’s record (63-99) was barely worse than its Pythagorean record (67-95). It has also recently concluded an offseason in which its big acquisitions were Jose Abreu (a slugging Cuban import who may or may not be awesome) and Adam Eaton (a solid outfield prospect who has played exactly 88 games in the major leagues, for which he has accrued exactly 0.2 wins above replacement).

So, yeah, Chris Sale. Let’s start with him as we consider expectations for the White Sox rotation in 2014.

*I swear this will be the only terrible Sale-related pun in this post. Honest.

Read the rest of this entry »

For many in my generation, when one thinks of starting pitching, the focus immediately turns to Atlanta. It’s been an overwhelming constant for the Braves, whether we’re talking Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Tim Hudson or (at least last year) Mike Minor. In fact, since The Strike, the Atlanta Braves have enjoyed the best starting pitching in Major League Baseball. Their cumulative 3.73 ERA is well-ahead of the pack, with the Los Angeles Dodgers being the only other team with a sub-4.00 ERA from their starters since the 1995 season.

Thus, it’s not surprising the Braves trotted out yet another effective rotation last year. Even without the injured Brandon Beachy, their rotation featured three top-30 fantasy starters in Mike Minor, Julio Teheran and Kris Medlen. The trio are poised to headline the rotation once again in 2014, so in terms of a fantasy outlook, there’s plenty to like.

Read the rest of this entry »

Using Razzball’s early 2014 auction values, the Cleveland infield comes in a tie for tenth for the most valuable fantasy infield. Four of their infielders are easily fantasy relevant, and they have a fifth that makes for an interesting late sleeper option at his position.

Jason Kipnis is responsible for about half of the fantasy dollars projected to be spent on Indian infielders ($26). Kipnis was the second most valuable second baseman last year according to both Zach Sanders’ end of season valuations and ESPN’s player rater. Sanders’ values had him as the 37th most valuable player overall, and he was 20th overall on the player rater. In his second full season, he stole 30+ bases again and had the exact same run total (86). He hit a few more home runs (17 from 14) and upped his RBI total (84 from 76). But the biggest improvement came in his batting average, which jumped from .257 to .284.

The thing that jumps off the page when considering Kipnis’ improved batting average is that it was accompanied by a 50+ point spike in BABIP (.345 from .291). But thanks to a BABIP-friendly batted ball profile led by a top 20 line drive rate (24.7%), Kipnis’ xBABIP was .352 last year. Automatically assuming Kipnis’ batting average will regress because of a high BABIP is a mistake. He has a career line drive rate of 23.5% and a career xBABIP of .341. A little bit of line drive and BABIP regression may be in order, but it should only result in a slightly lower average.

Another reason to potentially fear batting average regression is the rise in Kipnis’ strikeout rate (21.7% from 16.2%). The main culprits were a 6.3% drop in O-Contact% and being a bit too selective with the fourth lowest swing percentage and a 1.6% drop in his Z-Swing%. More strikeouts tend to make you think the batting average should drop, but the batted ball profile seems to be more determinant of batting average. Below is a list I somewhat arbitrarily created of the hitters with a batted ball profile most similar to Kipnis’ last year. As you can see, all but one of the six players listed had a healthy line drive rate, and Kipnis had the lowest batting average of that subset. The one guy on the list with a bad line drive rate had an ugly batting average. Read the rest of this entry »

Over at our depth charts, we have 13 different relievers listed for the Mets. 13! And that doesn’t even include Kyle Farnsworth, but it does include Jose Valverde and Erik Goeddel and Steven Matz and Jeff Walters, and it’s okay if you want to admit now that you’ve never heard of two of those names. It’s not pretty, but for a Mets team that probably isn’t going to be contending for anything seriously in 2014, it makes sense. Throwing money at relievers at this point in the team’s development is often money wasted, and so Sandy Alderson and friends will instead try to go with what they’ve got.

But from a fantasy perspective, that makes it difficult. It’s hard to know for sure who is even going to be in this bullpen, much less contributing — I imagine it’ll be something of a revolving door all season long — and that limits fantasy utility. Still, someone has to get saves, and we can start with the likely closer and go from there.

Read the rest of this entry »

Having the flu is a nightmare. The sweats, the all-night restlessness, the purging of all sorts of disgustingness from the body, it’s awful. Some like to huddle up under the covers all day for comfort. Some like to sip on some warm chicken soup. You know what makes me feel better? That’s right — the Kansas City Royals bullpen. Last season’s darlings in powder blue collectively posted a 7.3 WAR (second in the majors), a 9.57 K/9 (first), and a collective 2.55 ERA (second) over 461.2 innings. It was a thing of beauty, and best of all, they’re all returning again this season. Read the rest of this entry »

The Miami Marlins have just $36.1 million in salary committed for 2014 at present, and a large chunk is being spent on relievers. Of course, that’s misleading since $4 million is money owed to the departed Heath Bell, but they’ll also pay Steve Cishek $3.8 million in his first arbitration year, pay Mike Dunn $1.4 million in the same situation and signed Carlos Marmol for $1.25 million. Chump change for any other squad, a surprising 29 percent of the budget for this “small-market” squad.

So does this mean you should expect a strong Marlins bullpen? Well, yeah, it kind of does, but not because of the money. A deep pen is necessary given that the bullpen ranked 10th in innings pitched in 2013 (11th in ERA, fourth in FIP) and there’s not really a sure bet for 200 innings in the rotation. There is a surprising amount of talent here, especially when it comes to piling up strikeouts. There’s hardly a safe, lock-down name, as good as Cishek’s been, but there’s nary a soft-tosser in the bunch.
Read the rest of this entry »

Coming off a 99-loss season, the White Sox made a pair of tremendous moves to add youth to their lineup. First, they traded reliever-turned-starter Hector Santiago to the Angels in a three-team deal that netted them Diamondbacks’ center fielder Adam Eaton. Next, they sent closer Addison Reed to the Diamondbacks for third base prospect Matt Davidson, who could easily become their Opening Day starter at the hot corner.

Turning relievers into pre-arbitration assets is Rebuilding 101 and seems especially likely to pay dividends for the White Sox, who have enjoyed a lot of success in building their pitching staff through their farm system in recent years. However, it does create some uncertainty in their bullpen, where a new closer will have the chance to replace Reed and his 40 saves.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today has been a newsful day for the Philadelphia Phillies. They acquired a 37-year-old, front of the rotation starter while announcing that their putative number two would miss the start of the season. Big fantasy news abounds.

Read the rest of this entry »