During the offseason, I caught up on the news every couple of weeks. The news is picking up so I’m going to have to now go weekly. This article is too long but I didn’t want to cut anything useful. Sorry for the length and I try to keep them shorter.

• Teoscar Hernández will start the season with full-time at-bats.

Even though he’s managed to improve there in each of his three seasons with the Jays, it seems likely Hernández’s ceiling as an outfielder will never be higher than below average. Still, his big second half of 2019 (142 wRC+), and the fact that his platoon splits were even over that span (144 wRC+ against left-handed pitching, 141 against right-handers), means that he should be playing every day — at least until he proves that was a mirage. In a perfect world, he’d do so at DH, but that would force one of Alford or Shaw to the bench against right-handers, which isn’t ideal.

• Mitch Haniger will be out six to eight weeks because of hernia surgery.

“He’s gone through his surgery and we think it was successful,” Dipoto said. “We’re just fingers crossed. We have no expectation on his timeline until we actually see him live [at Spring Training]. We’re not going to push him. Mitch will return at his own pace. Whether that is some time around Opening Day or sometime around the middle of the season, I have no idea. We’re going to see where it takes us.”

Haniger was expected to miss at least 6-8 weeks after feeling an issue in his core muscles while ramping up his hitting program two weeks ago in Menlo Park, Calif.

Dipoto indicated at that time that Haniger almost certainly would still be sidelined at the start of the regular season in late March, but he was less specific on Tuesday as the team edges closer to the start of Spring Training.

Read the rest of this entry »

02/05/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host/Producer
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host

Paul and Justin take you through their entire LABR Mixed league draft. You can find the full results here:

• Draft Board
• Tweet thread

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

02/05/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host/Producer
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host

Paul and Justin set up their gameplan for Tuesday night’s LABR Mixed league draft (a 15-team 5×5 league).

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

02/05/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host

Paul gives his thoughts on the massive trades that went down on Tuesday night with Mookie Betts, David Price, Kenta Maeda, Joc Pederson, Alex Verdugo, Brusdar Graterol, and Luis Rengifo on the move, plus some prospects and a pending “big league starter” (plllleeeaaassseee be Ross Stripling!!).

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Early this offseason, I determined that Mike Matheny doesn’t hate stolen bases, but could be a boost to the Royals stolen bases. At the time, I noted to check on Joe Maddon’s tendencies but never got to it. Then, my podcast mate, Rob Silver, basically begged me to run the same analysis for Dusty Baker. After that, one of my other team owners brought up Joe Girardi and Gabe Kapler. I was done talking to people before every manager needs to be analyzed on their stolen base tendencies. The following are the numbers on the four and the results were a little surprising.

To examine the managers’ tendencies, I compared how the baserunner’s tendencies changed with or without the manager in question. There were three groups of hitters to examine

1. The hitters who were on the manager’s team and then on a different one that same season.
2. Hitters who were on a different team the season before or after a season on the manager’s team.
3. The hitters who were on the manager’s team the season before or after his tenure started and ended.

Also, I combined all the values for an overall rate.

Read the rest of this entry »

Players who play multiple positions are being valued more and more every year. The act-first nature of FAAB has made the flexibility very useful. If you can find room for the best free agents every week by shifting players around the lineup to ensure you’re cutting your worst (or perceived worst since there’s obviously some guesswork with it), you’re adding value. There is no real consensus on how much extra value to give players with multiple positions so it’s more art than science. At the very least, I’d use it as a tiebreaker, favoring the guy with another position or two.

Let’s take a look at the guys with multiple positions heading into 2020. The industry standard is 20 games so we’ll start with that, but I’ll do this with 10+ games and list the games played at each position so you can see exactly where they qualify and apply your league rules. I’m going to go position-by-position using their primary as the starting point. I really don’t believe you should ever use a catcher at a different position so I’m not listing those.

Read the rest of this entry »

Some of the best investments at the draft table can be the players who were hyped up the year before but failed to deliver on expectations. Often their price plummets and unless their profile greatly changed for the worst the year before, they still carry the upside that made them so popular in the first place. Here are 10 guys I’m looking at rebuying in 2020 drafts:

Travis Shaw – 3B – TOR | 2019 ADP approx. ~85; 2020 ADP: 357

After a pair of really solid 30+ HR seasons, Shaw melted down with a 47 wRC+ effort in 270 plate appearances last year. In a recent Mining the News, Jeff had a tidbit about how Shaw revamped his swing a bit to disastrous results and he was too far gone once he tried to revert back. Despite the overall nightmare, I am heartened by the fact that Shaw put up a 147 wRC+ in 174 PA at Triple-A so he didn’t completely forget how to hit. At this price, how could I not take a shot on him reverting back to his 2017-18 form?

Read the rest of this entry »

One potential avenue to finding a playing time gem is searching for those who are out of options and thus cannot be sent down to the minors without having to clear waivers. Some of these guys would clear waivers and wouldn’t be great even with some playing time, but I’m still including them just to be thorough. I’ll obviously highlight my favorites. The new 26-man roster will definitely save quite a few of these guys.

• American Leaguers

NATIONAL LEAGUE EAST

Atlanta Braves

Adam Duvall – We’re getting further removed from his back-to-back 30+ HR seasons (2016-17) and there’s no room in the Atlanta outfield right now. He’s a capable 4th OF and would make a nice power pickup if extended time opened up.

Charlie Culberson – He gets more at-bats that his profile page suggests because he definitely plays a handful of games every year in Dansby Swanson’s jersey and I simply cannot be convinced otherwise.

Read the rest of this entry »

Depending on league type and tendencies, there is a group of five pitchers who I have a problem differentiating their value. They are Chris Sale, Mike Clevinger, Jack Flaherty, Stephen Strasburg, and Shane Bieber. While the ideal spot would be to take the last of this group, not every owner will have that option. There will be instances where if an owner passes on one of this group, none will make it back to their next pick. I needed to dig in a bit to differentiate them.

The first elephants in the room to deal with are Walker Buehler and Blake Snell. I went through the following analysis and Beuhler came out a bit ahead of the ground and Snell a bit behind. I completely understand if someone wants to include them. All these pitchers are close but currently, they are easier for me to rank. I’m sure someone can’t wait to write a small essay in the comments on why I’m wrong. I can’t wait to ignore it.
Read the rest of this entry »

One potential avenue to finding a playing time gem is searching for those who are out of options and thus cannot be sent down to the minors without having to clear waivers. Some of these guys would clear waivers and wouldn’t be great even with some playing time, but I’m still including them just to be thorough. I’ll obviously highlight my favorites. The new 26-man roster will definitely save quite a few of these guys.

AMERICAN LEAGUE EAST

Baltimore Orioles

Renato Núñez – It might seem odd to call someone coming off a 31 HR-99 RBI season “fringe” but tell that to Chris Carter. That said, he’ll be on the club, likely the full-time DH, and a safe bet for another 25+ HR.

Hanser Alberto – Coming off an insane out-of-nowhere season, Alberto has a secured spot after hitting .305 in 550 PA, but it was heavily influenced by short-side platoon domination. He hit .398/.414/.534 against lefties with a .435 BABIP and .238/.269/.340 against righties with a .237 BABIP. Don’t overpay.

Pedro Severino – Backup catcher with some AL-only 2C appeal.

Richard Ureña – Glove-only utilityman.

Read the rest of this entry »