Chris Carter is off to a bad start. This is an unambiguously true fact. Jeff Sullivan, among other Twitterers (Tweeters?), have succinctly illuminated this unambiguously true fact:

selection of players with ISO of .000 Curtis Granderson Brandon Phillips Desmond Jennings Logan Morrison Chris Carter

— Jeff Sullivan (@based_ball) April 21, 2015

Carter has supplemented the zero extra-base hits with four singles, 21 strikeouts and nary a run batted in to speak of through 51 plate appearances. (FYI, that’s a 41.2-percent strikeout rate.) His atrociously bad start is the talk of the Twitter town, and it has Astros Manager A.J. Hinch dropping him in the batting order. As of last night, Carter’s ownership had dropped to 67.7 and 73 percent in ESPN and Yahoo! leagues, respectively, as owners have jumped ship.
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Cursing at the injury Gods already? Yeah you are. Let’s see what your free agent pool might offer in your deep league.

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Episode 220

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss the rash of catcher injuries while offering up some potential replacements and also talk about the two hot new call-ups: Addison Russell and Carlos Rodon

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Episode 219

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette discuss a bunch of different players with no real unifying theme this time around: Nelson Cruz, Danny Salazar, Brandon McCarthy, Chris Carter, Steven Souza, Carlo Rodon, and Alex Rodriguez as well as several other guys currently battling injuries.

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Episode 218

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss the news surrounding Yasmany Tomas, Danny Salazar, Carlos Gomez, Adam Ottavino, and Mark Melancon. And then they dive into some hitters of note and discuss whether or not they have changed their tune on them based on the early start.

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If fantasy baseball were a marathon, we’d all have run about a mile and a half. Most races don’t even have their volunteers stand with trays of water cups this early on, so you’d better pace yourself if you’re already tired. I think I forgot to stretch.

Here’s an obligatory sentence reminding you about the caveats about small samples while attributing a shred of validity to them. OK, now that the formalities are out of the way, let’s talk ownership trends. National League outfielders are a promising bunch, especially in regard to the youth movement. I’ve been sold on a handful of them prior to the start of the season, and I’m surprised by their meager ownership numbers. They aren’t completely unowned, as my misleading title alleges, but they’re close enough.

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The title of the article is an allusion to Schott’s Miscellany, which you should definitely check out if you never have and feel compelled to know that a group of larks is called an exaltation or that a member of the 32nd degree of Freemasonry is known as a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

–Fast Fastballs—

In deeper formats like Ottoneu where setup men can still be usable, I like to take early looks at which relievers are throwing hard each season. Every now and then, those relievers turn out to be Tom Wilhelmsen or Dellin Betances, and you can end up with an elite closer for no cost other than a used roster spot for a month or two. Here are the relievers with one or fewer saves and two or more innings so far this season:

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Episode 217

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss the injury news surrounding Alex Rios, Rusney Castillo, Ivan Nova, and Drew Smyly. They finish the news discussing the Colorado pen before jumping to their main topic: notable starters. The guys discuss five pitchers of note, including three featured in Eno’s recent piece on Rotographs. Read the rest of this entry »

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Yesterday I analyzed the ultra small sample size of one outing when discussing four starting pitchers. But that’s kinda okay because fastball velocity stabilizes quickly and instantly provides useful information. Since I don’t know what else one writes about a week and a half into the season, let’s talk about a couple of more names with regards to fastball velocity.

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Fastball velocity has seemingly received increasingly greater attention over the past couple of years. Perhaps it’s because it just keeps rising. A quick Google search yielded this interesting article detailing recent trends and confirming that average fastball velocity has risen every year since 2008. For us fantasy owners, velocity is important because a spike is often the precursor to a breakout. So let’s talk about a couple of pitchers and what we have seen from their velocity in the early going. These guys have all started just one game, which is as small a sample size as ever. But, velocity stabilizes very quickly, so it’s still worthwhile to discuss.

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