We’re already about 10% into the season, so it’s time to take a look at some of the weird, the wonderful, and most extreme of performances. For as long as these types of results remain atop and at the bottom of the leaderboards, we know we’re still in small sample size territory! So let’s review some of the hitting outliers through a couple of weeks of the 2024 season.
I’m sure everyone who has sauntered over to Victor Scott II’s page immediately looked at his 2023 stolen bases totals. First, there are the 44 steals in AA. And they need to be added to the 50 steals in High-A. Yes, those 94 steals are now in play with Scott being named the Cardinals starting center fielder. So should roto managers get ready to pay for the young speedster?
There was some fantasy love for the 23-year-old speedster throughout draft season. Before March 1st, he was being drafted at an average spot of 586th in NFBC drafts. When Spring Training started and it was obvious Tommy Edman was not going to be ready for the season’s start, his ADP (average draft position) jumped to 440. And then the news came out yesterday that he was making the team because of Dylan Carlson’s injury and in the 47 Tuesday drafts, his ADP jumped to 254. It should possibly be higher. Read the rest of this entry »
Every year, spring training performances inflate, and sometimes deflate, auction prices and ADP. The vast majority of the time, it’s the wrong reaction. But sometimes, it’s the right move. We do learn new information during spring training, such as exit velocities, pitch velocities, new stances, new pitches added to a repertoire, etc etc. That’s what I care about, not that a hitter is batting .450 (unless it results in more projected playing time) or a pitcher holds a 1.37 ERA (unless it wins him a rotation spot or the closer role). So let’s talk about my starting pitcher targets, plus a bonus hitter sleeper.
I just got done writing up my hitter breakouts and need to make several playing time adjustments based on my projected lineup spot. I needed to find out how many plate appearances the lineup spot generated. After about a half dozen lookups, I decided to just create a simple table with the values. Read the rest of this entry »
With Jacob deGrom and Walker Buehler coming back from their second Tommy John surgery (TJS), I wanted to go back and look at how pitchers performed after going under the knife a second time. While I had high hopes this study would find some useful adjustments, the results were mixed and probably point to the pitcher being more of the same. Read the rest of this entry »
A few years back, I created pERA (pitch ERA) to help give each pitch a grade based on its results. For each grade, I never included any kind of walk rate until the final value when I added it in BB/9. It was never included in the individual pitches. A few months back, I looked into Ball% and immediately knew I needed to add it to the pERA formula. On top of that, I added a weak contact element. After a new finding, I needed to go back and tweak the batted ball numbers. Read the rest of this entry »
This past season, the minor leagues experimented with several rules including pre-tacked baseballs and automatic strike zones. The following is a look at how those rules changed the amount of expected production from players.
First off, I’m not going to weave a narrative around this data dump. There is no polishing this turd. The information can be referenced later as fantasy managers begin to dive into 2023’s results while preparing for next season. Read the rest of this entry »
Now that the regular season has ended, it’s recap time! Over the next couple of weeks (months?), I’ll be reviewing all my preseason articles. I want to always be held accountable for the advice I provide, but also it’s fun to find out what actually happened and if I was right. We’ll start with the first in my new series this year, the 2023 Projection Showdown, which pitted THE BAT X against Steamer in various hitting categories. We begin with the first category of home runs. In part 1, I identified the hitters who THE BAT X projected for a higher 600 at-bat home run pace than Steamer. Let’s find out which projection system proved closer.
There are too many stats (“Welcome to FanGraphs”), so I decided to take a step back and try to remove as much noise as possible when making decisions. I’m not reinventing any concept, just concentrating on the most important factors. The fewer, the better. Today, I’m going to focus on my “new” power factor and mention how I settled on Contact%.
I know several other sources have a focus on keeping their inputs basic, but each one disagrees with the results. I decided to add to the disagreement and pick out the best options for the standard roto game. Read the rest of this entry »
I have a major love-hate relationship with the STUFFF metrics. After just a few pitches, useful information becomes available to determine if a pitcher has improved or not. On the other hand, the issue I have against STUFFF is the lack of transparency and values change as the dataset increases. With all the STUFFF talk, all I want to know is how changes in it will affect a pitcher’s fantasy-relevant stats. In my first article, I set some ERA baselines for the STUFFF values. The next step is to understand what a change in a STUFFF value has on a pitcher. For example, if I hear their Stuff+ jumps from 90 to 110, why should I care? Is the pitcher’s ERA going to drop by 1.00 or by 0.10 or not at all? I decided to just make a major data dump to have a reference when a STUFFF value does move.
Caution: The following values may or may not be predictive. They could just be descriptive. There is just not enough information (2 years of information) to run any ideal predictive test at this point, especially with STUFFF’s vagueness and everchanging nature.
