Angels
• Luis Rengifo has started three of the last four games at shortstop. He is hitting .250/.308/.500 since being recalled.
• Jo Adell is up to batting fifth after hitting .297/.366/.568 with 3 HR and 1 SB over the last two weeks.
Astros
• In the six games since Chas McCormick (.767 OPS) has been off the IL, he’s started in two games while Jake Meyers (.816 OPS) has only started in three games. Read the rest of this entry »
You’ve seen it before. In ESPN leagues it’s that little red exclamation point. In Ottoneu, it’s a red X. It means your guy isn’t in the starting lineup tonight and you have a decision to make. Do you sub him out for your replacement level bench guy? Or, do you roll the dice, leave your “not in the starting lineup today” player in, and hope he comes in with a big at-bat off the bench?
Today is likely the final new everyday starters post of the week, unless a flurry of players are recalled and expected to play regularly. This trio is an interesting mix, so let’s dive in.
I’m back from vacation, so it’s time to review the newest starters. Are any of these names worthy of a roster spot? Let’s find out.
A few days ago, I saw this post from Eno Sarris:
Farhan Zaidi on older player value. “I don’t know that the old aging curves are especially helpful now. Players work on themselves year round in a way they didn’t. Actuarial results gleaned from census or overall data may be less valuable than what we know about the individual.”
— Eno Sarris (@enosarris) August 13, 2021
Zaidi’s mention of the “old aging curves” led me down an aging curves rabbit hole, where I read excellent posts from Mitchel Lichtman on creating aging curves (part 1 and part 2) and a few more recent studies by Jeff Zimmerman. I created my own aging curve using wRC+ as the metric and I looked to see where the Giant’s players fell on the line. Using the same techniques as described by Lichtman and Zimmerman, I used the delta method on all players who recorded at least 10 plate appearances in each season between 2008 and today. Here is the league-wide aging curve including the current year:
Let’s finish off my week with three more hitters playing every day in the NL.
Let’s once again continue reviewing new everyday starters, but flipping over to the National League.
The carousel of everyday starters never ends, so instead of jumping to the NL, we’ll continue with the new faces in AL lineups today.
As we push through the dog days of the summer, the backend teams of the league are churning through their reinforcements, and it is not uncommon to come across someone you just don’t know that well. You might’ve forgotten about them if they were once notable, or they may be deep on prospects lists (if they are listed at all) and you are just wholly unfamiliar with them. Let’s take a closer look at 10 such hitters and see if there might be some fantasy value to uncover.
Jorge Mateo | BAL, OF – 71 wRC+, 2 HR, 8 SB in 129 PA
Mateo might fall under the Yankee Prospect Hype Machine wherein a prospect gets a bit more juice than they deserve simply by being in the Yankees org. He was traded over to Oakland in the Sonny Gray deal where he continued to generate interest but failed to get a chance (even with a rabbit ball-fueled 19 HR season at AAA in 2019). He was traded to a worse situation when the A’s flipped him to San Diego, though he finally debuted in 2020 with a meager 20 wRC+ in 22 PA. A 57 wRC+ in another 57 PA was all San Diego needed before he was selected off waiver by Baltimore.
With a number of new faces showing up in the starting lineup each day over the last couple of weeks, let’s get back to discussing these new everyday starters. We’ll break it up by AL and NL this time. We’ll start with the AL.