Sandy Alcantara enjoyed a nice breakout season in 2021, but it didn’t come without reason. Sandy worked hard to change his arsenal and his pitch mix to take a step forward towards becoming an elite pitcher. In the past, analysts loved mentioning Sandy so they can use the “Oh Sandy,” Grease line but it has now turned into analysts saying “Is Sandy Alcantara a top 10 pitcher?” I don’t want to hone in on that subject though, I want to focus on what got Sandy into that conversation and where the 205.2 innings pitched, 3.19 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, and 24.0 K% line came from.

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What’s the first thing you do when you get a new spreadsheet? My answer; sort ascending, sort descending. That’s what I did on the 2021 pitching leaderboards. I looked at the plate discipline metrics for qualified pitchers and sorted the sheet by descending swinging-strike rate (SwStr%). The names I saw were not surprising. Corbin Burnes leads the group at 16.6%. He’s followed by Max Scherzer (15.9%) and Robbie Ray (15.5%). José Berríos is not in the top 30. In fact, when you sort the same list by ascending swinging-strike rate, he’s in the top 10, meaning he had one of the lowest swinging strike rates in the league (9.9% to be specific). The lowest swinging strike getters in the league this year were Adam Wainwright (8.1%), Chris Flexen 플렉센 (8.6%), and Dallas Keuchel (8.7%).

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Reviewing the Bold Predictions is always a fun time of the year. Sure, it’s great when you hit some homers, but I know a lot of you enjoy looking back at laughing at the huge misses.

Let’s see how I fared! (Here is the original piece if you would like to read the thought process behind these picks)

Lourdes Gurriel Jr. Goes .300-35-100

Let’s cut to the chase: this is a loss. Gurriel Jr. went .276/.319/.466 with 21 HR and 84 RBI in 541 PA, so it’s pretty straightforward… however, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out how he turned his season around after a hideous 33-game start. He had just a .492 OPS to that point, but if you jumped off at that point then you missed 108 games of .879 OPS with 19 HR and 74 RBI, which would’ve paced to 28/111. Astute readers will notice that even that pace would be a loss, too, but as someone who was heavily bought in on Gurriel Jr., I feel alright about how he saved the last 4+ months of his season.

0-for-1

—

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65-97 (5th in Division; 25th in MLB)

[PREVIOUS REVIEWS]

SP Wins: 42 (17th)

RP Wins: 23 (2nd)

Saves: 36 (22nd)

1+ Save: 4 (Brad Hand 21, Kyle Finnegan 11, Tanner Rainey 3, Paolo Espino 1)

100+ Ks: 4 (Max Scherzer 147, Patrick Corbin 143, Erick Fedde 128, Joe Ross 109)

.260+ AVG (min. 350 PA): 5ish (Trea Turner .322, Juan Soto 313, Josh Harrison .294, Alcides Escobar .288 – in 349 PA, Josh Bell .261)

65+ Runs: 3 (Soto 111, Bell 75, Turner 66)

65+ RBI: 2 (Soto 95, Bell 88)

10+ HRs: 5 (Soto 29, Bell 27, Kyle Schwarber 25, Turner 18, Ryan Zimmerman 14)

5+ SBs: 4 (Turner 21, Soto 9, Victor Robles 8, Harrison 5)

BEST BUY: Lane Thomas

Thomas had a fantastic third of a season after being traded for Jon Lester. He posted a 127 wRC+ with 7 HR and 4 SB in 206 PA and should be in line for a full-time role with the Nationals in 2022. He is 26 with a collection of league average or better skills at the dish as well as plus speed and plus defense in the corners annnd a great opportunity at playing time. Soto is the only locked in outfielder for the Nats heading into 2022.Thomas is a bit platoon heavy favoring his work against lefties, but if he can maintain some at or better than the .715 OPS he had versus righties with Washington, then he can avoid a short-side platoon.

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I’ve always wanted to do a projection analysis, especially at different time points. I had it started in 2020 and everything fell apart with the shortened season. I’m starting off simply today by looking at at-bat projections from March 1st with the Wisdom of the Crowds prevailing.

The reason I chose March 1st was that The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational (TGFBI) started drafted that day. I pulled all 14 projections that morning. I contacted the paid providers and all but one agreed to have their name associated with the results. They are:

Projections

• Steamer (FanGraphs)
• ZIPS
• DepthCharts (FanGraphs)
• The Bat
• The Bat X
• Davenport
• ATC (FanGraphs)
• Pod (Mike Podhorzer)
• Masterball (Todd Zola)
• PECOTA (Baseball Prospectus)
• RotoWire
• CBS
• Razzball (Steamer)
• Paywall #1

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The Live Episode from First Pitch Arizona 2021 of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Derek Carty

What’s new in THE BAT X for 2022?

Strategy Section

• Risk
  • How to deal with injury risk
  • How to discount for binary risk
  • Low risk players / consistent players
    • Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
  • Categorical Risk
    • Who would you rather draft – Bo Bichette or Vladimir Guerrero Jr.?
  • Replacement Level Risk
    • The risk of paying up for a super elite catcher (Salvador Perez / J.T. Realmuto).
  • Ace Pitcher Risk – Should you draft pitchers in the first few rounds?
  • Stacking Risk – Doubling up in one league vs. spreading out in two different leagues
• Auction
  • Spread the Risk vs. Stars & Scrubs
    • League depth matters
    • Grab value in every price tier
  • The value at the corner infield position
  • The Joey Votto nomination strategy

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Podcast (beat-the-shift): Play in new window | Download

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10/18/21

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to our Patreon!!

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host
• @jasoncollette – Co-Host
• Huge thanks to James Gale for producing!

PATREON

• Join our Patreon

TAKEAWAYS

• A general takeaway or two from the guys
  • Kameron Misner

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61-101 (5th in Division; 27th in MLB)

[PREVIOUS REVIEWS]

SP Wins: 28 (29th)

RP Wins: 33 (17th)

Saves: 25 (29th)

1+ Save: 3 (Richard Rodríguez 14, Chris Stratton 8, David Bednar 3)

100+ Ks: 2 (JT Brubaker 129, Wil Crowe 111)

.260+ AVG (min. 350 PA): 2 (Adam Frazier .324 [w/PIT; he hit .305 altogether], Bryan Reynolds .302)

65+ Runs: 1 (Reynolds 93)

65+ RBI: 1 (Reynolds 90)

10+ HRs: 3 (Reynolds 24, Gregory Polanco 11, Colin Moran 10)

5+ SBs: 1 (Polanco 14)

BEST BUY: Bryan Reynolds

Nothing sneaky here, their best player is their best buy. His rough 2020 proved to be a small sample fluke and his 2021 (142 wRC+) picked up right where his 2019 breakout (130 wRC+) left off. He went 90/90 R/RBI on the Pirates for crying out loud! He has great plate skills, a high AVG floor, and above average power.

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60-102 (5th in Division; 28th in MLB)

[PREVIOUS REVIEWS]

SP Wins: 33 (25th)

RP Wins: 27 (28th)

Saves: 31 (27th)

1+ Save: 5 (Ian Kennedy 16, Joe Barlow 11, Spencer Patton 2, Josh Sborz, Joely Rodriguez 1)

100+ Ks: 3 (Jordan Lyles 146, Dane Dunning 114, Kolby Allard 104)

.260+ AVG (min. 350 PA): 2 (Isiah Kiner-Falefa .271, Nathaniel Lowe .264)

65+ Runs: 3 (Adolis García 77, Lowe 75, Kiner-Falefa 74)

65+ RBI: 2 (García 90, Lowe 72)

10+ HRs: 6 (García 31, Joey Gallo 25, Lowe 18, DJ Peters 12, Nick Solak 11, Jonah Heim 10)

5+ SBs: 9 (Kiner-Falefa 20, García 16, Yonny Hernandez 11, Leody Taveras 10, Lowe 8, Solak, Charlie Culberson 7, Gallo 6, Brock Holt 5)

BEST BUY: Nathaniel Lowe

Lowe’s season was buoyed by an 8-for-8 effort on the bases and even with that he was just 20th at 1B. If the speed contributions are legitimate, he’s a mini-Goldschmidt coming into his own with a strong foundation. Even if it regresses, there is power and AVG upside that could yield a .280 AVG/30 HR season.

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This season I went add/drop crazy. I made 344 moves (adds/drops/trades). The next highest person in my league made 167. There were times when it was so incredibly uncomfortable to drop a quality player, releasing him to the waiver wire. When sharks are circling the boat, it’s not a good time to take a dip. However, as I’ve mentioned many times before, one of the leagues I care most about is a shallow 10-team, 5×5 roto league where turning and burning is almost a requirement, and turn and burn I did!

All season I was looking for indicators that would predict small clumps of player performance. xwOBA did a tremendous job of evaluating in-season talent. But, this offseason I will be looking for more ways to catch those small clusters of player performance that seem to elude me. When MLB The Show releases its monthly awards I’m usually like, “What? Really? How did I miss that?” To be fair, those players were usually rostered during that time, but it’s the ones that sneak onto the list that I’m trying to create a system for.

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