Archive for Head to Head

–Francisco Rodriguez’s grasp on the ninth-inning role in Milwaukee may have grown little tighter this evening, without even throwing a pitch. The Brewers’ former closer, Jim Henderson, who had been lurking in Rodriguez’s shadows waiting for another shot to close games, imploded in the eighth-inning of a tie-game and took his first loss on the year. Henderson yielded five earned runs on four hits and an intentional walk, while striking out one in his two-thirds of an inning, 18 pitch effort. Prior to tonight’s implosion, Henderson was 2-0 with two holds and a 3.38 ERA (1.22 WHIP). He’s been striking out more (37.2% K%) and walking less (7.0% BB%) batters than he has in the past despite the velocity on his two primary offerings being down a tick. Henderson sat 91-94 on the 4-seam fastball tonight, while his sliders came in at 84-85. Rodriguez is a perfect 13-for-13 in save chances this season with a 0.00 ERA. All green here for the time being.
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Today’s edition is really short. I was working on a detailed analysis to see how Kershaw may produced with a fastball around the 89 to 91 mph range. Basically I ran out of time. So I will finish up the analysis later tonight and write it up and we will run it tomorrow.  But the short answer is …. he looks like he will be fine.

• Clayton Kershaw’s average velocity in his last minor league start was around 90 mph

89-91, touched 92 a few times. RT @gq2scoops: Anybody know how Kershaw’s velocity was tonight?

— Dustin Nosler (@DustinNosler) May 1, 2014

With him expected to start Monday, how will the loss of velocity effect him? Wait until tomorrow for the details, but he should be fine.

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With about a month of baseball played so far, let’s take a look today at some of the players hitting into an infield shift. Some players have always been shifted like David Ortiz and Ryan Howard, but other hitters are seen the shift deployed against them for the first time. Today, I will look at some early season trends on some players and the effects they may be seeing.

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On Wednesday, Tony Cingrani put forth another disappointing outing, the third of his in 2014 in which he failed to complete more than five innings. Two of those starts have come against the Chicago Cubs, for whatever that’s worth. He’s expended more than 20 per pitches per inning in each of those three semi-clunkers, and each has resulted in a sub-50 Game Score.

The fact that he might labor through some starts isn’t surprising. No one expects him to lead the league in quality starts. He’s allowed seven earned runs total in the first stanza, one in the second and four in the third in 2014. I figured I’d try to discern what the particular problem or set of problems is when the folks at “MLB Tonight” on MLB Network threw a graphic on the screen comprised of those tallies. Such exaggeration doesn’t seem to have existed in his splits last season, according to info from Baseball Reference.

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The Milwaukee Brewers are the surprise team of the first month of the season. After an 88-loss season a year ago, they currently lead baseball with a 20-8 record, which includes a 5.5 game lead over the reigning NL champion Cardinals for first place in the Central division.

The team success may have come as a surprise to many, but fantasy owners were optimistic about the production of several Brewers before the season, especially in the outfield. Perennial fantasy first-rounder Ryan Braun was back from his suspension, and concerns over the effects of his banned substance use were not enough to push him out of the top two rounds in most drafts. Early returns had rewarded the owners that invested in him in spite of his persistent thumb problems, but an oblique strain has his return on hold for the time being.

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It’s updated tier week! As usual, these rankings represent my fantasy value expectations over the rest of the season. While I am not completely ignoring what has happened so far, its effect on my rankings is to merely expand the body of work by a pitcher from which to analyze. Unless there is a dramatic change in underlying skills that looks sustainable or an injury, there shouldn’t be a whole lot of movement after just 30 to 40 innings pitched.

While the preseason tier rankings were technically in descending order of my projected value, most pitchers within a tier are so close to each other that you could basically consider them interchangeable. An extra win, an additional 10 strikeouts, a .290 BABIP versus .295 BABIP are all pretty much random, but can shift a pitcher’s value by a couple of bucks. I didn’t bother moving players around within a tier, which is something I used to do, but provides little incremental value.

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It’s always interesting to see the players who are often available versus owned in the fantasy baseball realm’s popular platforms. At least it is to me. I don’t know why I allow myself to be surprised. The masses flock to results, regardless of the level of talent and statistical support that come with them. That’s where FanGraphs comes in, at least for those who want to know even a little more of the why. I don’t feel as if I fit in, but I enjoy the chance to learn from the experience and hope to share a little something of value along the way.

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I’m not a connoisseur of much of anything pop culture, and I don’t consider myself the most well-informed citizen on any particular subject. I probably give myself less credit than I deserve, relative to the general population. Which is full of people who know what is “just the best,” even though it’s something different every other day. Which of course instantly discredits them because of their failure to understand the function of a superlative. But that doesn’t mean I won’t worry about my own qualifications.

I have doubts about whether the kind of fancy tier names I’ll generate will be worthy of those that have graced the virtual pages of FanGraphs. Howard Bender classified the catchers based on lodging chains at which he’s stayed (I’m just assuming, probably incorrectly, but amusingly) last month. That’s a good theme, fairly simple. I’ll try to follow that lead.

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Welcome to the regularly updated Top 50 Impact Rookies for 2014. This ranking tool grades freshman players based on their projected MLB impacts for 2014 only (not future years) so it will vary significantly from typical Top 50 or 100 prospects lists.

*Masahiro Tanaka (and other Japanese hurlers) has been omitted due to his service time in Japan, as well as the level of competition. Cuban and Mexican imports have not been omitted due to the lower level of competition in their respective countries.

Updated: April 28, 2014

RoY Fav Jose Abreu | White Sox (1B)

April 28: It’s been an up-and-down month for Abreu’s value but he’s currently leading rookies in WAR at 0.9, as well as in home runs with 10, RBIs with 31 and weighted runs created (wRC+) at 152. In fact, he’s leading the Majors in home runs and RBI. The White Sox would be kind of lost without him right now.

April 21: Just over a week ago, commenters were up-in-arms that Abreu wasn’t No. 1 on this list but we’ve now seen what makes The Show so damn tough. After striking out just five times in his first 10 games, the Cuban import has gone down on strikes 11 times in his next seven contests. His batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is sitting at .224.

April 10: Abreu, a Cuba native, entered the 2014 season with a lot of question marks given his lack of track record in North America. A solid spring and respectable start to the MLB season has helped to alleviate some of those concerns.

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Occasionally, the collective fantasy baseball community reflects on a productive single-season performance and sees a top-10 value that doesn’t really fit the underlying skills. The title of this column belies the vagueness of that opening line, but the upshot is something many people said last year and repeated ad nauseum over the winter. While Brandon Phillips was the sixth-ranked fantasy second baseman in 2013, many people were concerned with the declined skill set that lurked below the surface — a surface that was largely buoyed by his 103 RBI.

In 2013, his ISO dropped to .135, which was a career low. He only stole single-digit bases for the first time since 2005, when he only had nine plate appearances with the Cleveland Indians. He continued swinging at more pitches outside the strike zone, and his swinging-strike rate eclipsed 10.0% for the first time since the 2008 season.

Phillips essentially experienced a drop-off in many major peripheral statistics, and he people suddenly became concerned that he was on the wrong side of 30 and about to experience a precipitous decline. I ranked him as a fourth-tier second baseman coming into the season and noted significant concerns throughout the offseason.

Of course, the overarching point of this article is to illustrate that those concerns were fully justified. Brandon Phillips has been brutal throughout the month of April, and if we pull back the veil and peak at the underlying numbers, the picture becomes even more bleak and troublesome. Things aren’t getting better. They’re getting much worse, and as the title suggests, I’m turning my back and sprinting away from him as much as possible.

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