Category: Featured | Page 33 | RotoGraphs Fantasy Baseball

A human wrote this article. Some humans’ caffeine levels can fluctuate in predictable patterns and correlate strongly with “time of day” data points. Yet, there’s no telling how many milligrams were present in the author’s typing fingers at the various stages of writing this article. It was an iterative process that took the author much longer than he had originally expected. While a human wrote this article, a machine wrote and generated many sections, namely ChatGPT’s “gpt-4o” model. From here on out, anything written or output by the very friendly and human-helping artificial intelligence (be careful…they’re listening…) will be italicized.

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Mining the News (11/20/24)

by Jeff Zimmerman

November 20, 2024

American League

Angels

• Kyle Hendricks will start the season in the rotation.

Minasian said Hendricks will start and be part of a rotation that’s also expected to include veteran left-hander Tyler Anderson and right-handers José Soriano and Jack Kochanowicz. They have other internal options, such as lefties Reid Detmers and Sam Aldegheri and right-handers Chase Silseth, Caden Dana, Sam Bachman and George Klassen. The Angels are still looking to add one more starter to that mix, and Minasian wouldn’t rule out bolstering the bullpen as well.

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First Pitch Swingers and Takers

by Lucas Kelly

November 12, 2024

In the 30 plate appearances leading up to the playoffs, Harrison Bader had gone three for 25 with four walks. His 13-game slash line was .120/.233/.120 heading into the Wild Card Series against the Brewers. Bader was slumping. Though he was brought in as a defensive replacement in that series against the Brewers, Bader did not record a plate appearance. His next at-bat came against Tanner Banks in game one of the NLDS against the Phillies when he was brought in as a pinch hitter in the top of the ninth.

Bader swung on the first pitch:

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Mining the News (11/9/24)

by Jeff Zimmerman

November 9, 2024

Free Agents

• Some teams are considering using Jeff Hoffman as a starter.

ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel reported within his ranking of the offseason’s top free agents that some clubs have considered pursuing Hoffman as a starting pitcher. The Athletic’s Matt Gelb backs that up in his own report, further pointing out that Hoffman is represented the same agency (CAA) that represented Reynaldo Lopez during his own switch from the bullpen to the rotation last winter.

Notably, McDaniel opines that Hoffman is still likelier to sign as a reliever. It’s the role in which he’s dominated over the past two seasons, and while he’s not the No. 1 reliever in this offseason’s free agent class — most publications, including MLBTR, assigned that honor to lefty Tanner Scott — Hoffman has a case to be considered the No. 2 or No. 3 bullpen arm on the open market this winter.

As a reliever, Hoffman has three pitches that have great grades and results.

Pitch: SwStr%, BotOverall, Pitching+
Four-seamer: 15%, 67, 103
Slider: 21%, 49, 104
Splitter: 18%, 49, 107 Read the rest of this entry »

Projections-Fueled Top 25 Pitching Prospects Entering 2025

by Jordan Rosenblum

November 8, 2024

Continuing an annual tradition, this article ranks the top 25 starting pitching prospects by peak projected MLB ERA heading into 2025 (skip to the bottom for the ranking!)

Like the other projection systems at FanGraphs, my projections capture the usual ingredients: past performance weighted by recenecy, regression to the mean that accounts for a player’s probability of making the major leagues, major league equivalencies to adjust for minor league difficulty, aging, park effects, and league scoring environment. The peak projections make use of aging curves to translate a player’s forecast to a late-20s peak forecast. Regardless of where the “true” peak age is, there is broad consensus that most growth happens in the teen years and early-20s, however.

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Mining the News (11/8/24)

by Jeff Zimmerman

November 8, 2024

Free Agents

• Trey Mancini is attempting a comeback.

A comeback, Mancini realizes, is no easy feat.

But the fire that wavered after his life-altering and life-threatening cancer diagnosis has rekindled. He feels more well-rounded — there’s so much more than baseball — because the year away allowed him to work through what was “a lot to process.” Now, he hopes, a full offseason of work will lead him to one more opportunity to play the game he loves.

“Honestly, for a couple months, I thought I was going to be done. And I really enjoyed this year. I’ve enjoyed life. But at the same time I really do think I have something left to give the game,” Mancini said. “I’m going to prepare and act as though I’m going to spring training, and just hoping and trying and praying that the opportunity arises.”

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