Nobody said scouring waiver wire trash bins was going to be pretty, and this week provides a case in point, as we focus on two pitchers whose value is limited to mono league owners.
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I am often asked what I use a hitter’s average fly ball and home run distance for. There are various ways the distance number could be used, such as identifying potential HR/FB rate surgers and decliners. This is a good method to uncover short-term breakouts and busts, but batted ball distance isn’t exactly a predictive statistic. It merely tells us what has already happened.
A few years ago, I remember hearing Keith Law on some podcast talking about how scouting comes down to a yes or no answer, either acquire or do not acquire. Scouts can’t waffle. You either want the player or you don’t. I like the bottom-line certainty of that in this confusing world of the false notions of hope and change, globalization, automation, rapid technological change, and yet a seemingly permanently stagnant economy. Wait, what? I don’t know; the point is the world is a very confusing place in 2014.
And so but my fantasy strategy this season was to buy the bats early and get young pitching later. I was able to draft Jeff Samardzija (1.46 ERA), Sonny Gray (1.99 ERA), Yordano Ventura (2.80 ERA) and Michael Wacha (2.54 ERA). Samardzija isn’t exactly young (29 years old), but there’s probably less mileage on his arm given his college football background. Those three are a pretty solid rotation foundation.
The guy I was most confident in, however, is already toiling in Triple-A. Danny Salazar was still missing bats (25.5 percent strikeout rate) with Cleveland this year after a dominant ten-start showing in 2013. When I saw him throw late last year I immediately put him into my “acquire” pile for 2014. What’s not to like about a guy averaging 96 mph on the heater with a plus-plus change? Unfortunately, Salazar had control (9.2 percent walk rate) and command issues (1.77 HR/9) over eight starts to open this season, earning a demotion. His average fastball velocity was down three ticks from last year.
Salazar is out and former (and arguably current) top prospect Trevor Bauer is back in the Cleveland rotation. Bauer is a good cautionary tale for those ready to pull the plug on the talented Salazar. Like Salazar, Bauer had some early-career velocity dips. After averaging 92.8 mph on the fastball last year, Bauer’s velocity is up to 94.6 over his two big league starts this season. With the velocity bump has come an increase in strikeouts. In 2013, Bauer struck out 19.3 percent of Triple-A hitters and just 13.6 percent over four starts with Cleveland. So far in 2014, he’s fanned 24.2 percent at Triple-A and 26 percent in the big leagues.
The real question with Salazar in the long-term might be his health. He had Tommy John surgery in 2010 which, combined with the sudden velocity loss, could be construed as evidence that health is the problem here. That’s obviously just speculation; perhaps his problems are just mechanical. We don’t know what the problem is, but we do know that something isn’t right with Salazar in the here and now when everything looked pretty great just a handful of months ago.
If Salazar could dominate in the big leagues before, he can certainly do it again. He’s only 24 years old, he has swing-and-miss stuff, and he’s had recent professional success. It’s far too early to quit on a talent like this, just as it was too soon to give up on Bauer.
The 23-year-old Bauer was the third pick of the 2011 draft and a top-ten prospect in 2012. The 24-year-old Salazar looked like a future ace last year. Arms like this don’t grow on trees, and they also don’t always grow on a linear trajectory towards stardom. There are often bumps in the road, and stardom isn’t guaranteed. However, in the final analysis, Bauer and Salazar remain two young arms worth riding the waves of struggle with towards fantasy success and perhaps renewed hope in Cleveland.
In January, I wrote about my optimism regarding Jon Singleton. Coming off a disastrous 2013 season in which he slashed just .220/.340/.347 in Triple-A, he has rebounded in a way that should find him back in the upper tier of prospects. I’ve had the opportunity to see Singleton play quite a bit this year — throughout this piece, I will revisit my remaining concerns about Singleton from four months ago, discussing how the 22-year-old has easily surpassed even my own high expectations in 2014.
The first signs of life came in winter ball, as he led the Puerto Rican Liga de Beisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente with nine home runs. At the time, I wrote the following:
It’s only a 35-game sample, but he hit .268/.396/.537 and he showed more power against lefties than ever before, swatting five homers in just 49 plate appearances against left-handers. While it’s obviously a tiny sample, consider the fact that Singleton had hit just five homers in his previous 443 plate appearances against lefties over the last three years. The one bad trend from his stint in winter ball? His strikeout rate remained a bit high, at 24.8%.
You want to see three of the best new change-ups in baseball? Call up the highlights for Jacob DeGrom, Chase Whitley, and Chase Anderson. Of course, there’s not a heralded prospect in the trio, so something must be awry. Let’s use the pitch type peripherals to get a sense of their strengths and flaws.
• Just a bit more analysis on Jose Fernandez. He admits the pain started during the game and pitched through the pain.
Fernandez said he felt discomfort in his elbow during his last outing on May 9, a loss to the Padres in San Diego when he was roughed up for six runs in five-plus innings. He discounted speculation that the injury occurred because he might have altered his delivery after being hit in the knee by a line drive against the Dodgers on May 4.
Even after feeling discomfort during his next start, Fernandez said he didn’t think it was anything serious.
“It never popped, it was just a little pinch,” Fernandez said. “I don’t think I altered my delivery. Everything was the same because I was trying to not let anybody see that I was in a little pain. I was trying to pitch with it without anybody knowing, not even [catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia]. I didn’t think it was anything to worry about.”
A theory I have been pondering is “Pitchers throwing at the extreme limitations of their body have to be more cognizant of possible injuries/changes”. One small change in motion could just destroy them. For pitchers who aren’t throwing as hard, a little bump isn’t as big a deal. Take a car getting a flat tire. If a Civic is driving 30 mph and hits small unexpected bump, not much damage could happen. Now if a sports car hits the same bump doing 120 mph, th resulting crash will make the 10 o’clock news.
-March and April were kind to 41-year-old LaTroy Hawkins. The Rockies’ closer converted all nine of his save chances while holding opposing batters to a .237/.267/.349 slash line and a .273 wOBA in 11.1 innings. However, May tells a different story for the veteran right-hander. He is 2-0 with one save (in two chances) this month, but he’s allowed five earned runs in his last seven appearances. And hitters are slashing .444/.464/.741 with a .513 wOBA against Hawkins across six frames this month. When looking at velocity splits between the months, nothing strikes me as red flag worthy. Hitters seem to be finding the holes a bit more in May (.440 BABIP) versus March/April’s .243 average on balls in play. He’s stranding fewer this month (69% LOB%) as well, so maybe it’s just numbers catching up with the old fella?
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The Mash Report is on the paper thin side today. I have been a bit busy. I was able to go through all the injury updates and add them into the DL spreadsheet. I plan to go into more detail on some players such as Cliff Lee, Andrew Cashner, Carlos Gonzalez and others in an additional Mash Report tomorrow. I will also have up-to-date PAIN and HURT reports.
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim couldn’t have asked for Hector Santiago’s first season with the club to begin much worse. He’d had a good spring, with a 3.63 ERA and a 24:9 K/BB, but he opened 0-6 with a 5.19 ERA, 7.8 K/9, 4.7 BB/9 and 1.56 HR/9 in seven starts (34 2/3 innings). The Halos moved him into the bullpen a couple of days after his May 7 start, against the Yankees. He’d made two relief appearances, eight days between them, before the club optioned him to Triple-A Salt Lake.
The moves may be for the best. Mike Scioscia acknowledged that his team has been putting the left-hander in a tough position. Although the skipper almost certainly didn’t mean to implicate Santiago’s teammates, it’s clear that the rest of this heavenly cast hasn’t helped him much, start by start. Jose Serrano looked into how so a couple of weeks ago at Halo Hangout. Basically, the Angels have played poor defense, and they did so particularly on nights when Santiago pitched. They gave him abominable run support.
Wins is the flukiest stat in fantasy baseball, and that is particularly irksome for starting pitchers since, without saves, they only have four categories to earn roto value. Over a couple of months, artificially high and low win totals can obscure the realities of pitcher performances and reasonable expectations for their rest-of-season fantasy production.
