The great, powerful, and unbelievably handsome Justin of Friends With Fantasy Benefits (and of course, RotoGraphs) is hosting four early mock drafts. I am participating in one of them.

All 4 #2EarlyMock drafts are running! https://t.co/F8MVltwVHThttps://t.co/voN0u0qhxohttps://t.co/Zs0dRbc3ZQhttps://t.co/b4kc4XbBk5

— Justin Mason (@JustinMasonFWFB) September 21, 2017

In each draft, the following four pitchers went first without exception.

Last season in NFBC drafts, these four were included with the first six pitchers drafted on average. While Kershaw and Scherzer were 1st and 2nd in each draft, Madison Bumgarner and Noah Syndergaard were taken, on average, before Chris Sale and Corey Kluber. Both Bumgarner (bruised ribs, strained shoulder) and Syndergaard (torn lat muscle) missed most of the 2017 season. Because of their current injuries and unknown future health, their ADP has fallen in these four mocks.

The trepidation about owning them is understandable but owners still need to value the pair. It’s not going to be easy.

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In last night’s chat, Paul Swydan and I got a ton of questions on Mike Trout’s trade value because of his recent injury. It’s a simple yet loaded question with so many different league types and possible roster construction rules. I will discuss some basic starting valuations for Trout which owners can use.

When looking at possible trade options, I like to start with Yahoo!’s Trade Market page. It lists the most recent trades involving any player. It just lists the last 25 trades so the page can be refreshed with updated information. Here are some post-injury one-for-one trades from the page:

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Note: I am using velocities from BrooksBaseball.net which has corrected their values from the 2016 to 2017 transition.

Dylan Bundy -2.5 mph (2016 FBv: 94.8mph, 2017 FBv: 92.3 mph)

Bundy’s decline is being obscured by the fact he relieved in 2016. Owners can see the 2017 drop and chalk it up to the normal velocity difference between starting and relieving. After removing the 2016 relieving values, his velocity is still down 2.5 mph.

For reference, here are his 2016 stats as a starter all of his 2017 ones.

Bundy’s approach and results are almost a textbook example of fastball velocity loss. The swinging strike rate on his fastball has dropped from 8.2% to 4.8% and therefore his strikeout rate dropped. Bundy realized his fastball isn’t the same, dropped its usage (61% to 50%) and relied on breaking pitches more.

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Last week, I analyzed the 2016 home-to-first times for hitters. With the background information out of the way, I’ll examine at the 2017 speed data to find who’s running the faster and slowest, who’s changed the most since 2016, and how home-to-first times compare to Bill James’s speed score.

With all the Statcast batted ball data getting analyzed, I continue examining the home-to-first times. Fantasy owners may believe speed is mainly used to determine stolen base threats. It’s more than that.

It’s an input to many other fantasy related factors which can help explain a player’s age-related decline. Faster players will beat out a few extra ground balls for hits thereby raising their batting average and on-base percentage. Speed allows a player to score more once on base. It can add to a hitter’s power profile. Also, speed can help keep a player maintain their fielding range at a premium defensive position instead of moving to a statue-like position (e.g. first base). Finally, a drop in running speed may point to an injured player.

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Traditional pitching metrics, such as innings pitched, and pitch counts, have often missed the mark when it comes to preventing pitcher injuries. As a result, I developed the Fatigue Units metric – which shows promise in illustrating how extreme workloads can influence pitchers in the subsequent seasons.

As a quick refresher – Fatigue Units are calculated by looking at an interaction between the number of pitches thrown, the velocity they are thrown at, the time taken between pitches, and the number of days between appearances. In the 2015 and 2016 season – these were your FU leaders.

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Current Trade Value: Eric Thames

The industry’s “Buy Low/Sell High” talk frustrates me because 90% of the time no context is given. Owners should expect to get some players at a discount but what are the player’s owners expecting and valuing in a rebound.

Ryan Zimmerman seems to be a sell high candidate. He’s having a great season with a .420 AVG and 11 HR. Pretty much everyone expects him to regress. But how much regression? Don’t guess. Do a little research and see how other fantasy owners value him by checking on actual trades.

The best source I’ve found to track 1-for-1 trades is Yahoo’s Trade Market. The site has a major limitation: only trades from that day are listed so it’s best to check in the evening. I will do a quick analysis of the league’s other hot hitter, Eric Thames.

Yesterday, I found Thames was traded straight up for Aroldis Chapman, Khris Davis, and Stephen Strasburg. Thames’s ADP was 182 or around a 15 round value. The other three had ADPs of 46 (Chapman), 50 (Strasburg), and 102 (Davis). They average out to around 66 with the two 50’s pointing to a possible higher value.

The players taken around 66 overall were Kyle Seager, Andrew McCutchen, Carlos Carrasco, and Kyle Hendricks. Good but not elite players. It’s still a huge move up for Thames.

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Quick Look: Jordan Montgomery

Montgomery is probably getting a little more press than the average 24-year-old mildly-touted pitching prospect because he’s a Yankee. I decided to see what is behind the hype by watching yesterday’s start.

• He’s a left-handed pitcher with a high 3/4 arm slot and pitches straight to home. No weird left-handed pitcher angles going on here.

• Fastball (Four-seam: 30, 2-seam: 50): He has a two and four-season fastball which both sit at 89-92 mph. He’s able to command both of them around the plate, but the two-seamer should perform better. It has some nice late life as seen here.

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With the 2017 changes MLB Advanced Media implemented with their StatCast pitch tracking data, I’ve been scrambling to recode my pitcher injury finder. Well, it seems to be working fine and here are some pitchers it found to be concerned about.

Note: I have bumped up all 2016 and earlier values to be equal with higher 2017 readings.

John Lackey

It’s tough to tell if Lackey is hurt or he’s at a new, lower talent level. His last start was the most concerning. Here are his velocity and spin rates over the past two seasons.

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• At Farnam Street, they recently quoted Richard Nisbett on how humans attribute blame.

Our susceptibility to the fundamental attribution error—overestimating the role of traits and underestimating the importance of situations—has implications for everything from how to select employees to how to teach moral behavior.

After covering injuries for years, I think this a great way to divide injury causes between factors out the player’s control (hit in the head with a pitch) to those he controls (hurting a back carrying deer up steps with Todd Helton).

Two hitters whose value has taken a hit from injuries are Bryce Harper and Giancarlo Stanton. Here’s how I would step through the procedure to divide the blame starting with Harper.

Here are his injuries over the past three seasons and how much blame I would give to him.

• ’13 Knee (DL): Ran into wall fielding ball. 60%
• ’14 Thumb (DL): Head first slide. 85%
• ’16 Shoulder (speculation): Unknown and head first slide. Too much unknown for much blame. 20%

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A lot was expected from Matt Harvey and the New York Mets starting rotation in 2016, but aside from the Norse God of Thunder, the season was a bit of a let down (to say the least). Having fully recovered from Tommy John Surgery, and a consequent missed season in 2014, Harvey missed the end of the 2016 season when he was diagnosed with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome and opted for season-ending surgery. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, chances are baseball fans know what Tommy John Surgery is, and where the ulnar collateral ligament resides. A lot less is known about Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, so let’s dig in.

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