Yesterday, Indian-for-life Michael Brantley signed a two-year deal with the Astros. Paul Sporer analyzed the implications for the Astros. Now let’s find out how the change in parks might affect his performance.
Last Thursday, the Mariners were involved in a fun three team trade, bringing Edwin Encarnacion to the Northwest. Though how long he remains there is anyone’s guess. First, there was a report that Encarnacion was going to be flipped to the Rays, but then soon after word was that he wasn’t going anywhere. So let’s pretend he’s now in Seattle for good. How might the change in parks affect the soon-to-be 36 year old? Let’s check the 2017 park factors.
The Indians, Rays and to everyone’s surprise, Mariners made a trade last week with the following final results:
For my analysis, I’m going to focus on just Diaz and Bauers. Both have shown great potential but their minor league results have not yet translated to the majors.
With Jason Kipnis and his $17M contract likely to play second and Jose Ramirez at third, Diaz wasn’t guaranteed to play in Clevland. He is now in Tampa.
The flurry of trades and signings has continued, this time with the White Sox getting into the action. The Pale Hose traded a minor leaguer to Cleveland for first baseman Yonder Alonso, despite the fact they already possessed a perfectly good first baseman who they don’t intend to trade. But whether Alonso or Jose Abreu play first and the other DHs doesn’t really matter, except during interleague games, which means it’s likely that Alonso will lose some plate appearances. How might the move from Progressive Field (Cleveland) to Guaranteed Rate Field (GRF – Chicago) affect Alonso’s offense? Let’s check in with the 2017 park factors.
On Wednesday, the Angels signed Justin Bour to a one-year deal. After a mini-breakout in 2017 when he hit .289 with 25 homers, his batting average dropped to .227 with only 20 home runs in more plate appearances last season. This signing made perfect sense for the Angels who will have Shohei Ohtani rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and Albert Pujols being a member of the walking dead. Overall, this move just about killed what little value any fantasy the three had in weekly leagues but could make them sleepers in daily lineup leagues.
The biggest key is to understand the risk behind each player and let’s start off with the one who has the most questions surrounding him, Ohtani. He’s also considered a safe pick by some analysts. According to reports, he should be able to contribute sooner than the normal nine to 10 months timeline for most hitters returning from the surgery because he’ll only DH.
After spending his first nine seasons in Pittsburgh, Andrew McCutchen will now be joining his fourth team in two years. McCutchen agreed to a three-year deal with the Phillies, likely spoiling Roman Quinn’s sleeper hype. Having played the vast majority of his career in home parks that seriously favored pitchers, will the move to Citizens Bank Park boost his offense? Let’s check the park factors.
The current fantasy focus is evaluating the top-100 or so players, especially the first couple rounds. I’m going to deep dive and investigate some later round values. I will group 10 players together and pick which one I would take earlier than the others.
201: Arodys Vizcaino
202: Jonathan Schoop
203: Kevin Gausman
204: Luke Voit
205: Chris Taylor
206: Jake Arrieta
207: Forrest Whitley
208: Ross Stripling
209: Odubel Herrera
210: Yusei Kikuchi
There are several players I really like in this group like Taylor, Stripling, and Herrera but easily the best bargain is Kikuchi.
Kikuchi isn’t on par with Asian imports Ohtani or Darvish but he’s still extremely talented. He’s considered to be a better talent than Miles Mikolas and Mikolas is going 86th overall. I believe once Kikuchi signs and everyone gets to know him, his ADP will be cut in half and around a top-100 pick, if not double digits.
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Though as I type this it hasn’t been made official yet, word is that Billy Hamilton has signed a one-year deal with the Royals. If only they still had Jarrod Dyson, they would essentially have two of the same player on their roster! Amazingly, Hamilton has yet to crack a .300 wOBA, but his superb fielding in center field has kept him in the lineup on most days. Is there any hope for a park-switch related boost to his offense? Let’s check the park factors.
Last Thursday, Jonathan Schoop signed a one-year deal with the Twins, bringing him back to the American League after a short stint with the Brewers in the National League. After posting the highest wOBA of his career in 2017, his offense sunk this season, as his wOBA dipped below .300, thanks primarily to a dramatic decline in BABIP. Will the move to Minnesota help him rebound? Let’s see what the park factors have to say. Since h played nearly his entire career in Baltimore, amassing just 134 plate appearances in Milwaukee, we’ll keep the comparison between Baltimore and Minnesota.
This study came about from a comment made in passing by Jeff Erikson and Scott Jenstad in a RotoWire podcast. They were discussing how they were worried more about hitters who were striking out on fastballs instead of breaking balls. They figured it was worse to strikeout on fastballs and it showed the hitter was in decline. I don’t remember the exact show but I agreed and now have time verify. And as usual, the pair was right with three-hitter groups differentiating themselves from the pack.
The first key was that I wasn’t interested in the batter ability to tell balls from strikes. Instead, I wanted to focus on pitches right down the heart of the plate while keeping the strike zone as big as possible to increase the sample size. In the end, the taken pitches in the zone used were called strikes 97% of the time.
Next, I found the swinging strike rate for pitches in the strike zone. I grouped the pitches into several groups.
