I survived the late night seagull attack in San Francisco last night. I appreciate everyone’s thought and prayers. Read the rest of this entry »
It has only been three starts, but already after starts one and two, my FanGraphs colleagues have sounded the alarm bells on Felix Hernandez. Now it’s my turn to speculate after outing number three. I greatly dislike speculating and do my best to avoid temptation. But when the signs are there, it’s difficult to ignore them.
There were a lot of save opportunities today and the closers (one set-up man) were perfect in converting these saves (or at least when I published this). I won’t get into every save tonight, just the more interesting ones.
Sean Dolittle faced one batter in the 8th inning tonight after surrendering a home run the night before down by a run. Instead of turning to Doolittle for the four-out save, Bob Melvin went to Ryan Madson for the first time since he gave up two runs to the Angels. Madson wasn’t perfect and gave up an unearned run, but he did get himself his third save of the season. Using Doolitle on Friday was not necessarily ideal for Melvin, so there will still be some save opportunities ahead for Doolittle. Doolittle has given up runs in his previous two appearances, so it’s not a rock solid hold on the closer role, which seems to be inconsistent anyway with the A’s using their top relievers in high leverage situations for the most part.
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The American League’s first player of the week was, you guessed it, Tyler White. The same Tyler White who most people did not project being even the back-up first baseman coming into spring training is absolutely raking so far. Much of the talk regarding fantasy value for prospects who surprised early has been going towards Trevor Story, but Tyler White is another player who is garnering significant attention. Last week, when I wrote about undrafted first basemen, White was owned in 36% of CBS leagues. Today? 87%. August Fagerstrom did a wonderful job developing comps for White, which I still think are applicable. What I want to do today is try to assess his fantasy value for you.
Juan Nicasio has been the fantasy headline of spring among pitchers, and despite a rough outing on Tuesday that inflated both his ERA and walks per nine to 5.00 through a pair of starts, his 11.0 strikeouts per nine will keep us interested for at least a month or two. Many have speculated that Pirates’ pitching coach Ray Searage may have fixed Nicasio, and Paul Sporer yesterday shared evidence of Searage’s mythical powers. It will take some time to learn whether Nicasio’s control has really improved, but his ERA and strikeout rate with the Dodgers last year suggest that getting out of Coors Field had at least a hand in the healing process.
Weirdly, it’s not even Nicasio that inspired me to write this column. It’s Jhoulys Chacin. Chacin was thoroughly off my fantasy radar well before he left Colorado. I had to turn to our stats pages to remember that he made four starts for the Diamondbacks in 2015 after spending the bulk of the year in Triple-A and dealing with shoulder injuries. But on Tuesday, Chacin made a start for the Braves against the Nationals in which he struck out eight batters, walked none, and did not allow a run. More than likely, that start means nothing. For one, it was a spot start. He could be back in the minors if the team calls on one of their starter prospects like Mike Foltynewicz or Aaron Blair. For another, it was one game, and bad pitchers have good games all the time. But Chacin’s success coupled with the excitement about Nicasio got me thinking about pitchers who leave Colorado.
So today is normally American League starting pitcher day, but that’s going to be pushed back. Perhaps to Monday. That’s because we’re only a week and a half into the season and there are still some crazy performance metrics being posted. I wanted to highlight them, laugh at them, and discuss them. By next Monday, they could be less crazy and there would be less laughing to do. And nobody wants them.
Statistics as of April 12, but will weave in performances from yesterday’s games when relevant.
Mike talked earlier this week about being patient, essentially arguing that the best moves you can make this early in the season are no moves. In other words, the season is so young and the sample size so small that you shouldn’t overreact. While that is probably true, it doesn’t hurt to prepare yourself to pounce on a potential free agent waiver pick up if you see a skill or talent that looks convincing. Sometimes you need to jump early to find the best bargain of the season, so here are four players that I’m watching closely over the next week or two.
I considered titling this article “Buying Low on Sleepers.” But what is low? It feels more relative than the term discount. We have a general idea of what a player’s preseason market value was. Acquiring a player at less than said market value would be considered buying at a discount. So that’s what I’ll go with here, as the phrase “buying low” is generic advice that lacks the proper context to take action.
Rather than start changing and editing my initial tiers after less than a week of games, I am going to take a page out of Justin Mason’s book and go over some of those undrafted first basemen. The guys you had no room for or simply didn’t think about as those last couple rounds just flew by you.
Unless you are in very deep leagues, you should still have better options available to you at first base. These are guys you should reserve for deeper leagues or if you completed punted on first base or suffered an injury. In no way are these guys you should build your squad around. I tried to key on guys who are garnering relatively regular playing time and can help you in those counting stats, with the last two guys giving a potential boost in BA and OBP.
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