Reports are out that Patrick Corbin has pulled a stunner and will sign not with the Yankees nor the Phillies, but the Washington Nationals in a six-year, $140 million dollar deal (with no opt-outs):
Source confirms that Patrick Corbin's six-year deal with the Washington Nationals is for $140 million.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 4, 2018
For fantasy baseball writers, this time of year means only one thing, player profiles. Dozens and dozens of player profiles to slog through. While writing up some hitters, I can to the realization I didn’t have a quick method to flag hitters who may be shifted. While I could navigate to the splits page, scroll down, and calculate each player’s shift rate, I wanted a quick and dirty method to flag them. While I went over several methods, I settled on one stat and two values.
I did some shift work for an older edition of a The Hardball Times Annual but I have stayed away from the topic over the last few years. My initial conclusions stand which are the shift really affected some hitters and the rate of effectiveness slowly declines more players are shifted. The shift isn’t going away though. It’s still effective against slow pull hitters.
I initially thought a hitter’s pulled groundball rate would be a major factor, but it was not. Just pull rate was enough.
2018 was undoubtedly a disappointing season for Joey Votto. After pairing his high average, high OBP production with the second highest home run total of his career (36) in 2017, Votto saw his full-season home run total drop below 20 for the first time. And it wasn’t just the home runs that disappeared. Votto posted the lowest slugging percentage (.419) and ISO (.135) of his career.
12/02/18
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!
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11/30/18
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!
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GET THE SLEEPER & THE BUST T-SHIRT FROM ROTOWEAR!
PitcherList Mock Draft (#PLExpertsMock)
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Let’s take a quick look at nine pitchers who have slid down draft boards or fallen off the radar completely whether because of injury or poor recent track record who could end up making an impact in 2019. I tried to give a wide-ish range of guys – well, as wide as you can with a group of lottery ticket-type guys.
Jimmy Nelson | Milwaukee Brewers – Nelson put up a fantastic 2017 season with a 3.49 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, and 21% K-BB in 175 IP, but he missed all of 2018 to a torn rotator cuff suffered while diving back into first base after a single because the National League inexplicably still lets pitchers bat. Cool, National League. Cool. Nelson curbed the usage of his fastball, favoring his curveball instead with great results.
I heard in passing from a credible source:
“The effectiveness of a pitcher’s slider relies on it having the same spin as his fastball.”
I figured it would be an easy test and could help to immediately identify top-rated sliders. After looking at the data every conceivable way and came up with the following conclusion: publicly available spin information has near ZERO correlation to a slider’s effectiveness. But while rooting around, I did find two factors which do matter, fastball velocity and the difference in slider and fastball velocity.
The theory behind the quote is that a hitter has a tougher time differentiating a fastball and slider if they are spinning at the same rate. So, the closer the difference, a higher chance for a swing-and-miss.
I compared 2018 pitchers with at least 200 sliders and 200 four-seamers thrown. Then, I compared just the difference, the absolute value of the difference, square of difference. Nothing tangible. Nothing matched.
Have you guys heard of Adalberto Mondesi? No one’s been talking about him the last few months, so I figured it was my duty to discuss him. He’s obviously been surging up early draft boards after a remarkable close to the season. He went 73rd on average in the #2EarlyMocks and then Top 50 in both my AFL draft the PitchersList Mock.
It’s not hard to see why everyone is excited. The 23-year old former prospect had 14 HR and 32 SB in just 75 games and no matter how many times we suggest not taking brilliant numbers like that and extrapolating, we all do it. Even if it’s just to get drunk on the insane numbers for a little bit. Just for the record, his 162-game pace was 31 HR and 70 SB… annnddd now I’m wasted.
After the first twenty-five starters are off the board, it gets a bit dicey. As we’re seeing in the PL Experts Mock, starters went quickly in the first six rounds (23 gone in the first 72 picks!), but just twelve were plucked in the following five rounds. The cliff hits suddenly and owners are taking their time to pick up their fourth and fifth starters.
But when the time comes, who should they target? Here are five names to consider during the middle rounds of your drafts.
J.A. Happ (Free Agent) – At 35-years-old, Happ continued to produce, registering his fourth straight season under a 3.70 ERA while boasting career bests in WHIP (1.13), strikeout rate (26.3%), and over swinging-strike rate (10.4%). His new affinity for the K began when he elevated four-seamers consistently and even a transition to the Yankee squad didn’t hold back the punchouts. The major pushback from owners is his elevated Hr/9, which rose to a 1.37 mark along with his career-high 13.4% HR/FB rate.
There’s a case to be made that all but the worst landing spots will help keep the longballs down while I expect his strikeouts to stay elevated near the 23-25% mark given his strong high heat approach. Mix in his ability to produce solid H/9 and walk rates and Happ transforms into a prime option for owners to pad their rotation.
It’s been a chilly offseason thus far, even with the big James Paxton trade last week, but the Braves have singlehandedly helped spark the hot stove with a couple big moves on Monday. Let’s take a look at the fantasy fallout from the latest set of moves:
Nationals Sign Kurt Suzuki
This is actually a return for Suzuki as he spent part of 2012 and 2013 with them, though you might’ve missed it given his meager .239/.297/.344 line with the larger sample in ’13 netting just a 57 wRC+ in 79 games. He meandered his way through three mediocre seasons in Minnesota (86 wRC+) before landing in Atlanta where he enjoyed a mid-30s surge. He put up the best work of his career with a robust 116 wRC+, 31 HR, and 100 RBI in 697 PA in a dynamic platoon with Tyler Flowers.
