Today, I start the process examining who the industry, owners, and myself missed on with their preseason evaluations. Did a smoking gun exist and everyone missed it or was there no way to guess the outcome?  I’m going to start with two pitchers who had smoking guns, I wrote about the smoking guns, and then I totally ignored them.

The two starters are Gerrit Cole and Anibal Sanchez. Back in February, I highlighted both in a pitch mix change article. Looking back, I made a convincing case for taking a chance on either one. I spent a few hours doing the research and when it came to draft day, I never picked up a share. I failed as both overperformed.

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I’ll have much more on these rankings next week. The pitching landscape is in a rough spot right now and the talent globs are more indistinguishable than ever. The second you start to feel comfortable with someone, they trash your line with a dud or three. Stay tuned for more info to help separate these globs in our final two months of the season.

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Yesterday I posted my first run of a Top 30 for 2019. The comments have been lively discussing players y’all would’ve included or asking about certain players so I figured I’d show you the rest of the pool I was choosing. I had a list of about 70 guys that I whittled down to 30 and there were some tough cuts.

My toughest was Carlos Correa and I think that push-come-to-shove, I’d take him over at least Corey Kluber and Clayton Kershaw and maybe even Gerrit Cole and Aaron Nola, too. Those four made up the final four of my Top 30. Here are my next 10 in order and then a positional look at the others who were considered:

31. Carlos Correa, SS, HOU: He’s never been bad (lowest wRC+ was 123 in 2016), but he’s also topped 109 games just once (153 in that same 2016 season). He’s already missed a month with his current injury (back stiffness) and isn’t due back for another couple of weeks.

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It’s time for the bi-weekly look at under-the-radar pitching prospects. As a reminder, here is what the rankings are and aren’t:

Are

• A supplement to Eric’s and Kiley’s prospect rankings. This set utilizes stats, age, and some regression to find potential overlooked prospects before they start showing up on major prospect lists.

Aren’t

• A complete list of every prospect. Some will be missed. I don’t care as I’m digging for one-offs. The most likely reason for not being on the list is they haven’t performed, not played much (major factor), or have graduated to the majors. Major league results are also not included.
• The order doesn’t matter at all, at least to me. Why one person is #8 over some guy at #14 compared to other lists is irrelevant. These top prospects are already owned in most leagues. I feel the order only matters to desperate fan bases looking for some much-needed hope.

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Yesterday, I examined hitters who owners missed on preseason and what could be done to prevent such mistakes in the future. Today, the underachievers go under the microscope. In my previous article, I used Paul Sporer’s “All First Half” articles for reference. With no underachieving articles out yet, I will look for players with differences in ADP and current rank using our auction calculator.

Extended Injury Stays

Daniel Murphy

I lamented last offseason about missing out on J.D. Martinez’s great 2017 season. I didn’t want to miss out again and was willing to take a chance on Daniel Murphy’s discount.

When I created his projection, I account for six weeks off but it was on the short side. Additionally, once he returned, he wasn’t productive for a few weeks but has a .859 OPS in July.

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The All-Star game has come and gone, but the festivities are ongoing here at RotoGraphs. It’s time to rank the first half’s “All-Sell-High Team.” These are players who had big first halves, but who aren’t necessarily the best bets to repeat that performance in the second half. Without further ado, let’s get right to the list: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time for the bi-weekly look at under-the-radar hitting prospects. There seemed to be some confusion on the point of the rankings which is to find under promote good prospects. Today, I will try to clear up the and dive into a few hitters not represented on top-100 prospect lists.

The last time I ran this report, there was some questions on why some hitters were missing. After investing, I found out it’s was a database issue which missed some newly signed players, changed the position labeling, and mislabeled when players lost their rookie eligibility. I’ve made sure everyone is included but added a few adjustments.

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I’ve decided to update my 2018 pERA rankings since I’ve been diving for some starter sleepers. Usually, this procedure helps to find underperformers with inflated ERAs. This time, it was mainly under the radar pitchers.

If anyone is unfamiliar with pERA, it combines the swinging strike rate and batted ball data from each pitch along with the walk rate into an overall ERA estimator (full explanation). Besides the few pitchers listed below, here is a link to the full 2018 values.

The top starters are as expected:

Rank. Name: pERA
1. Max Scherzer: 2.34
2. Chris Sale: 2.44
3. Jacob deGrom: 2.52
4. Noah Syndergaard: 2.57
5. Ross Stripling (w/ RP stats): 2.65
6. Trevor Bauer: 2.75
7. Gerrit Cole: 2.83
8. Justin Verlander: 2.88
9. Patrick Corbin: 2.91
10. Dereck Rodriguez: 2.92

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I recently updated my Starting Pitcher ranks for July and as always, there was some difficult arms to place. Here are some thoughts on the tougher ranks:

#19 Patrick Corbin – After a velo spike to start the seasons (), Corbin has been sitting 89-91 over the last two months which was jarring to see as a velo dip can portend trouble, but he’s posted a 3.50 ERA and 1.15 WHIP in that time with ERA indicators that like him even more (2.82 FIP). He has a 21% K-BB rate during these 12 starts and appears to be just fine with the lowered velo. Since he’s more two-seam/sinker, the lower velo might actually be an aid in terms of movement. I eventually left him in his top-20 spot because he hasn’t done anything to be removed.

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It’s time for my latest computer based pitching prospects. In my last article, there was some confusion on how the rankings are to be used. Here’s a breakdown of what the rankings are and aren’t.

Are

• A supplement to Eric’s and Kiley’s prospect rankings. This set utilizes stats, age, role, and some regression to find potential overlooked prospects before they start showing up on major prospect lists.

Aren’t

• A complete list of every prospect. Some will be missed. I don’t care as I’m digging for one-offs. The most likely reason for not being on the list is they haven’t performed, not played much (major factor), or have graduated to the majors. Major league results are also not included.
• The order doesn’t matter at all, at least to me. Why one person is #8 over some guy at #14 compared to other lists is irrelevant. These top prospects are already owned in most leagues. I feel the order only matters to desperate fan bases looking for some much-needed hope.

Read the rest of this entry »