The trade that jettisoned both Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher opened up opportunities for two players to make some sort of impact in deep leagues. So today is an all Indians edition of the deep league waiver wire.
As we have learned more about what drives hitter BABIP in recent years, we have talked a lot about batted ball type distribution. Joey Votto is always the example of what the ideal profile looks like for posting an inflated BABIP. It’s not necessarily the profile that leads to the highest wOBA (that’s more an individual ideal), but what would typically result in the highest rate of balls in play falling for hits.
According to our prospect guru Kiley McDaniel, Miguel Sano was the game’s 15th best prospect and the Twins second best. After missing the entire 2014 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, he figured to prove he was healthy at Double-A this season before eventually (hopefully) earning a promotion to Triple-A. Perhaps a September cup of coffee was in the cards, though more likely he was expected to make his anticipated Twins debut in 2016. Instead, the Twins decided to get aggressive and promote the 22 year old to the Majors, completely skipping Triple-A. This is typically a risky move as anecdotally hitters endure a tougher transition jumping straight from Double-A to the Majors than do pitchers. Sano, however, never received that memo.
Episode 262
The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!
In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette talk about the Jose Fernandez injury, the hot streaks of Carlos Gonzlaez, Khris Davis, and Josh Donaldson and then hit on some guys who could be worthwhile waiver pickups.
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Preston Tucker was a 7th round pick for the Astro’s in 2012 out of fabled Plant High School in Tampa Florida which produced a number of Major Leaguers including Hall of Famer Wade Boggs. Normally a High School prospect with plus power from the left side, a reportedly high Baseball IQ, and good plate discipline would be drafted fairly high but not in this case.
It’s not that Tucker wasn’t noticed by scouts who liked his powerful yet unorthodox swing and developed arms, but what was mentioned more often than not was that he had a “bad body”—scout parlance that encompasses a number of physical shortcomings and in this case it was his lack of height at just under 6 feet tall. Considered the 14th best prospect in the talent rich Houston Farm system in 2014, Tucker isn’t even considered the best prospect in his family, as his brother Kyle Tucker who is 6’-4” was recently drafted by the Astro’s as their # 2 pick.
I have a friend who is quite successful at fantasy baseball despite not really being much of a baseball fan. He know the stars, loved Griffey Jr. as a kid, and will watch a playoff game here and there, but he doesn’t know the next-in-line closer or on-the-cusp prospects for every team. He doesn’t have associations with every player’s name and utilizes the numbers for his success. He posed an interesting question to me the other day: “have you ever thought of trying to draft your fantasy baseball team name-blind?”
I haven’t thought about it and I’m not sure I could pull it off even if I were interested, but it got me thinking about one of my favorite exercises to do with baseball: the blind resume. Presenting the numbers without the names can alter your perspective of a player oonce you learn the name. It’s not that names aren’t important, though. Knowing a player can offer context for the numbers and help improve your judgments of those numbers. But they can also muddy the water substantially.
Today, we are going to look at several pairs of players without the names associated. The point isn’t that one player is definitely better than the other, but rather that removing the names might actually improve your perception of the players in question. Sometimes the names make us lazy. A star-level player who isn’t quite performing up to his normal level will be given a longer leash while an unproven newcomer often needs to prove himself more to get credit for his performance.
For a change, it’s no longer about injuries! As we hit the final two months of the season, teams who are already throwing in the towel on a playoff run are looking to the future. That means reducing the playing time of disappointing veterans and giving the youngsters a shot.
If you’re a H2H league owner, September could be a frustrating time. It’s when veterans sometimes take a seat as their out of contention teams choose to give young hitters a look and young pitchers reach their innings limits and get shut down. The worst part of it is that these may have been the players that helped you achieve the best record in your league, yet come playoff time, you can’t even count on them to contribute to your championship run. So let’s discuss some of the pitchers who are definitely or possibly on an innings limit. Whether their teams decide to skip a start here and there to keep the innings down or just shut him down with two weeks or so to go, I don’t know. But either way, an innings limit would take a bite out of the pitcher’s value the rest of the way.
Yasiel Puig is a mercurial talent and as such expectations are very high. This season has been marred by subpar performance especially when compared to his 2013 campaign. Puig quickly became a star in his rookie season and we all know how rare that is. He batted .319 that season with 19 homers, 42 RBI’s and a .925 OPS in 104 games. By means of comparison, Mike Trout erupted in his 2nd season. Many may forget that Trout batted just .220 in his 40 game introduction to MLB and he started his magical 2012 sophomore breakout season in the Minors. So shrouded in the veil of high expectations, this is the lens that we should use to look at Puig today.
Ignoring those who reinjured themselves or were moved to the bullpen, all of the American League starting pitchers who underwent Tommy John surgery last season have now returned. Typically, I ignore these pitchers in fantasy leagues during their first year back and then analyze their results and velocity when forecasting their performance the following season. But a blanket ignore on every TJ surgery returnee might not be prudent, as evidenced by the superhuman Jose Fernandez, whose performance suggests that he hasn’t skipped a beat. So let’s take a look at our three.
