Archive for Fantasy & Reality

Quick Looks at Gray, Hoffman, and Stripling

I decided to catch one of Vince Scully’s last games and went with Friday’s game. With the game, I was able to collect my thoughts on a few pitchers.

Jon Gray started for the Rockies and this is the first time I have intently watched him since he was in college. He didn’t have his most productive game and it was off from his last start when he went nine innings and had 16 strikeouts. While he was still was able to get 10 K’s in four innings of work, he was completely inconsistent. Here are my thoughts on the game.

• Plus hair.
• FB: 94-98. He cranked it up and did a few times going for the third strike. Has a little release-side run. The pitch is only speed with almost no break.
• SL 89-92 mph, 11-5 break, Damn this pitch is nasty at 90 mph. It has a 24% swinging strike rate on the season.
• CB: 80-81 mph, It has 12-6 break. While he could throw it for strikes, it was inconsistent.
• CH: 84-86mph Petty much straight, but slow. Gets nice results with hitters trying to catch up with his fastball.
• Inconsistent delivery in the 1st inning in which he needed 38 pitches to get through it. His main issue was that he couldn’t control his fastball enough to get it over the plate to the point he walked the pitcher.

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Quick Look: Blake Snell

I was fairly high on Snell coming into the season, but not as high as others because I didn’t manage to get him in any league. Snell is 18 starts into his pro career with mixed results. He has a decent ERA at 3.65 and a 9.8 K/9. The bad is that he is walking 5.2 BB/9 which is the worst in the league (min 80 IP).

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Jharel Cotton Quick Look

Cotton was originally signed by the Dodgers, he was just traded to the Athletics in the Rich Hill trade. MLB.com currently has him as the 12th ranked prospect in Oakland’s’ system with the following prospect grades:

• Fastball: 60
• Curve: 45
• Cutter: 45
• Changeup: 60
• Control: 50
• Overall: 50

Additionally, he started out the season as the 9th ranked pitcher in the Dodgers’ system with also an overall 50 grade.

For a game to watch, wanted to I picked his last one when he faced the Astros on August 19 but the A’s camera angle is horrible, so I went with the Royals game on the August 13.

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Bryce Harper Disappoints

Coming into 2016, many people had Bryce Harper rated as the top fantasy player. This season has been a disappointment for sure after a .330 AVG and 42 home runs last season. It just seems like injury related struggles are derailing his potential.

For example, he popped again on my batted ball injury finder for this last week with just a 78 mph average exit velocity which is 11 mph less than his season average (89 mph). Over that time frame, he hit .067/.263/.067. The last report of an injury was a neck issue in early August, but I would not be surprised he is dealing with something new. He can’t be an MVP caliber player and just not show up for an entire weeks at a time.

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• Sorry for the lack of material as I am continually dealing with my basement taking on ground water after a flood last Friday. I sort of have the situation under control, but I see my work being sporadic over the next few weeks as I deal with the situation.

Putting a value on Felix Hernandez

I am not going to sugar coat this, the 30-year-old is performing like he is done as a fantasy option. Kaput. First, his velocity is at a career low with his previously deadly sinker averaging just over 90 mph. The velocity loss has his K/9 (7.4) at a career low. Additionally, the pitch is not sinking as much as it previous did and it is getting hit hard. Posting a career high 1.1 HR might be keeping him away from the strike zone. His Zone% (42%) is at a career low which has pushed his walk rate to 3.9 BB/9 (career high).

Some of Felix’s struggles could be related to a calf injury he spent time on the DL nursing it. Since returning, he has hasn’t performed any better. Sadly, pitchers can age quickly to a lower talent level. Right now that Felix’s talent level is an unplayable pitcher and I would guess he is projected near a 4.50 ERA for next season.

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Note: Some of these notes were written before the games were played on Tuesday, so the stats may be a day old.

Quick Looks: Robert Stephenson

The 23-year-old Stephenson’s star has fallen a little bit since the start of the season. Here is how MLB.com and Baseball America graded him out to start the season.

Baseball American had him graded out quite a bit higher with his curve and change being borderline elite pitches. MLB.com on the other hand graded his fastball higher.

The one aspect both publications could agree on is his lack of control. His inability to find the plate can be seen in his 4.0 BB/9 or greater since he has been promoted to Double-A.

I watched his start on the Aug. 5 versus the Mets and here are my thoughts.

• The fastball was between 93-96 mph. Most of the time it was straight, but did show some cut action. Besides the speed, this pitch is very blah.
• His curve was between 80-83 mph with 12-6 break. At times he could throw it for strikes.
• His change was 84-86 and really inconsistent. Sometimes it was straight as an arrow. Other times it had a nice 12-6 break. Even other times it bounced in front of the plate. This inconsistency can be seen in a 20% Zone% on the season. Hitters will soon find they can just let this pitch pass.
• While I mentioned specifically that his change was going to be inconsistent, he lacked command on all his pitches.

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Joey Wendle and JaCoby Jones: The other callups

Most of the current prospect buzz is on Yoan Moncada with our own Eric Longenhagan covering him in detail. Besides Moncada, a couple light hitting shortstops have gotten the call, the Athletics’ Joey Wendle and the Tigers’ JaCoby Jones. Let me start my examination with Wendle.

Wendle’s call to fame is that he was the main piece the A’s got for trading away Brandon Moss. Let me start with some comps to his 2016 prospect grades given by MLB.com.

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First, I would like to apologize for recently covering quite a few players at or below the fringes for most leagues. After moving over from tracking injuries, it seems like a ton of new players have entered the league I know little about. I will probably keep up looking at fringe guys until the season’s end, especially with roster’s expanding. Once the season ends, I will mainly stop with the fringy guys and will go to the top and start making a 2017 draft list.

The Newest Mets’ Starters: Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman

All the Mets’ rotation, with the exception of Noah Syndergaard, has gone on the DL this season. Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman are two of the pitchers called up to be replacement starters and here is my stat only based look at each one.

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A.J. Cole Breakdown

The National’s righty made a spot start for the Nationals on August 22 and allowed four runs over seven innings of work. To start getting a profile of Cole, here are his pitching comps using his 2016 MLB.com grade. Additionally, I included his previous grades which I will discuss in a bit.

The pitcher list isn’t that exciting with most pitchers falling into the #4 to #5 starter range.

The big note I took away from the grades, was his declining fastball grade from MLB.com. It was 70 in 2014, 65 in 2015, and 55 this year. Additionally, here are the velocity speeds stated in the Baseball America Handbook for each year.

Season: Fastball Speed Description
2014: “… sits at 94-95 mph and regularly hits 97.”
2015: “… pitched comfortably at 91-93 … and bumped 96.”
2016: “… sits comfortably in the low 90s, pushing as high as 96 mph …”

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Pitch Velocity Effects on Groundballs, Exit Velocity, and Swinging Strikes

Last week, I examined Danny Duffy and several other writers have examined at him also. If you want to read up on various theories on my he is performing great and why that may change, go ahead. Instead, today I am going to concentrate on his fastball velocity changes and how the results change as the velocity changes.

Danny Duffy is starting to get some Cy Young consideration after spending part of the season in the bullpen. One cause for the turnaround is his fastball velocity increasing from 93.8 mph to 95 mph. The average velocity was even higher earlier in the season but it has been steadily dropping.

So what difference does it make if he is throwing 96 mph or 94 mph? Today, I am going to lay the groundwork for finding such an answer.

Simply, I looked at three different factors, exit (or batted ball) velocity (EV), groundball rate (GB%), and swinging-strike rate (SwStr%) and how each compared to a 1 mph velocity block. To help smooth out the results, I looked velocities between whole values like 90 mph to 91 mph and labeled them 90.5 mph. Also, I looked at values between 90.5 mph and 91.5 mph and put them in the 90 mph bin. I know there is overlap, but I hoped the higher number of samples would help smooth at the final results, especially with a limited number of samples at both ends of the data range.

To start off, here are Duffy’s average exit velocities for a given range of fastball velocities.

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