Category: Relief Pitchers | Page 14 | RotoGraphs Fantasy Baseball

How to Project High HR/FB% Pitchers

August 13, 2021

For the second week in a row, I had to voice my amazement that JT Brubaker was cut in the NFBC Main Event. While Brubaker’s results have not been great (4.95 ERA), there are several signs that point to him being closer to a 4.00 ERA pitcher. The stat that sticks out is his 1.9 HR/9. The home runs have him with a 4.98 FIP while his xFIP is a full run lower at 3.98. I wanted to see if I should blindly assume that his home run rate will drop. With the expected drop, will his FIP and ERA regress downward to his xFIP? Also, are there any measurable traits that make a pitcher more home run prone? I ended up with a “maybe” and a solid “no”.

Brubaker isn’t the only pitcher who fits this mold. Bailey Ober has a 2.2 HR/9. His 4.99 ERA is almost identical to his 5.18 while his xFIP is down at 4.12. Another is Yusei Kikuchi (1.6 HR/9, 4.37 FIP, 3.47 xFIP). Adbert Alzolay (2.0 HR/9, 5.03 FIP, 3.89 xFIP). The season is over halfway over and fantasy managers are losing patience. Read the rest of this entry »

Beat the Shift Podcast – Episode w/ Jerry Blevins (Former MLB Pitcher)

by Ariel Cohen

July 16, 2021

The latest episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Jerry Blevins, Former Major League Pitcher

Interview

All-Star Game Uniforms
Life after baseball
Jerry Blevins Trivia
Game planning
- Pitching to power versus contact batters
Thoughts on new MLB rule changes
- 3 Batter Minimum
- Extra Innings Rule
- 7 Inning Doubleheaders
Sticky Substances Ban
Cheating in Baseball
Injury counts on the rise
Progression of baseball analytics throughout Jerry’s career
Balance of scouting & analytics in baseball
Pitching against childhood hero, Ken Griffey Jr.
The Love of Baseball
Philly Cheasestakes in the visiting clubhouse
Autograph story – Jeremy Blevins

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast (beat-the-shift): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Was Rostering Ranger Suárez the Correct Decision?

by Jeff Zimmerman

July 2, 2021

This past Sunday, there were just a few available middle relievers who seemed to be better additions than some starter, so my co-owner Fred Zinkie settled on Ranger Suárez. Right now, Ranger Suárez has a 0.93 ERA, 0.72 WHIP, and 8.1 K/9 and is ranked as the 52nd pitcher according to our auction calculator. While his strikeout rate isn’t the highest, he does average 1.7 IP for each appearance and accumulates 1.5 K in each of those appearances. Also, he has been able to get 3 Wins so far this season (18% Win Rate).

The other option was Giovanny Gallegos who has also been great this season (2.53 ERA, 0.70 WHIP, and 10.3 K/9). He’s averaged throwing 1.2 IP per appearance with 1.4 K per appearance. He’s been able to get 5 Wins during that time (14% Win Rate).

Since the pitcher was supposed to take a starter’s spot, the hope was to get good ratios, some strikeouts, and possibly vulture a Win. After historically finding pitchers with these traits, our two choices were fine with a major flaw. We ignored recent usage.
Read the rest of this entry »

Do Reliever Release Points Matter?

by Lucas Kelly

June 3, 2021

It’s well known amongst MLB The Show players that certain pitchers are difficult to hit due to their, dare I say, funky, delivery. It’s a testament to how realistic the video game is, or, so it would seem. I’ll never actually know. Regardless, The Show players often rely on relievers like Pat Neshek, Sergio Romo, or, more recently, Huston Street to throw off their online competitors. If you’ve gotten used to seeing the ball released from a certain point or angle for 7 innings, then a quick and drastic change from that look can be challenging. Outside of the fantasy world of video games are real-life relievers who can either throw very similar to the starter they are relieving or, drastically different. I wanted to know if there was a major difference in performance between the two.

Read the rest of this entry »

Searching For The Best Reliever Release Point

by Lucas Kelly

May 21, 2021

Let’s imagine that Jacob deGrom is pitching for the New York Mets and has just faced the number nine batter his second full time through the order. Let’s also imagine, and this one is hard to do, that deGrom isn’t himself this fine day and shouldn’t go through the order a third time. Manager Luis Rojas pulls a hot dog style folded paper out of his back pocket and looks at multi-colored charts, doodles, heat maps, and whatever analytical imagery made its way into tonight’s report. Could the image below ever make its way onto that paper?

Read the rest of this entry »

Young Openers or Middle Relievers?

by Lucas Kelly

April 29, 2021

There have been some really exciting starts from young pitchers so far this season. On Sunday, Michael Kopech pitched five innings, faced 18 batters, and struck out 10 of them. When I saw that he was starting in place of Lucas Giolito on Sunday morning, I totally rolled the dice and got lucky. Adding a young pitcher who I’ve been rooting for over the past few years and it paying off was great. But, I’ll admit, it made me feel a little empty inside.

As I stared at the tv and excitedly encouraged whiff after whiff I slowly began to realize that a win wasn’t going to be possible. I knew Kopech would be on a pitch count and I knew he wasn’t going to suddenly become a rotation mainstay, but I went for it anyway, dropping a set-up reliever in order to gain some strikeouts. I felt oh-so-sad when Tony La Russa effectively looked into the camera and told me not to get used to it. Monday morning had me reflecting, was it worth it? Which is better to roster, low-pitch count starters like Kopech or middle/set-up relievers?

Read the rest of this entry »

Looking for The Next Great Middle Reliever

by Paul Sporer

April 7, 2021

There’s this phenomenon in writing where you have an idea and you start putting together the piece. In the midst of writing it, you may take a random break and pop onto your Twitter feed. Whilst scanning said feed, you may run across an article posted with not only your exact premise, but damn near the same title, too. This is what Nick Pollack and Alex Fast at PitcherList have termed “Getting Sullivan’d” based on outstanding Fangraphs alumnus Jeff Sullivan.

Well, PitcherList got one back on Fangraphs: