Archive for Roto

Episode 264

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris talk Hisashi Iwakuma, Miguel Sano, Aaron Hicks, Greg Bird, Curtis Granderson, Stephen Vogt, Todd Frazier, Salvador Perez, Hanley Ramirez, and Jon Lester.

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As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions.

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Approximately 50 minutes of joyous analysis.

The title of the article is an allusion to Schott’s Miscellany, which you should definitely check out if you never have and feel compelled to know that a group of larks is called an exaltation or that a member of the 32nd degree of Freemasonry is known as a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

—Chris Bassitt’s Differential–

Chris Bassitt is the type of player that I tend to miss on in fantasy. He has never been a heralded prospect. Our own Kiley McDaniel did not rank him in the White Sox’s top prospect list in 2014, and he finished just 16th on his new team Oakland’s list prior to this season. In the upper minors, he has eclipsed a strikeout per inning, but his 29.2 innings in the majors in 2014 featured a meager 6.4 strikeouts per nine and unsettling 3.9 walks per nine. Even with a lack of established options behind Sonny Gray that promised a chance at some point in 2015, I overlooked Bassitt in favor of prospects I considered to have higher upsides like Luis Severino, Jon Gray, and Eduardo Rodriguez.

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We know that average fastball velocity rises as the season progresses. And of course, velocity is highly correlated with strikeout rate. Sometimes velocity increases as a result of improved/changed mechanics, while other times pitchers might suddenly feel healthier than they had earlier in the season. Players are always dealing with aches and pains, the majority of which we never hear about. Since velocity stabilizes quickly, we should take surges very seriously. They could portend or confirm better performance. So here are your American League starting pitchers who have enjoyed at least a two mile per hour jump in velocity since April over the last two weeks.

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After KC’s World Series appearance in 2014, it is natural that there would be high expectations for the team and the Manager in 2015. In a move that confounded pundits, experts, and fans, Manager Ned Yost decided to open the season with Third Basemen Mike Moustakas batting 2^nd in the lineup.

Yost has not been known as a Manager who favors making decisions based on recent statistics.  In this new era of baseball, this places him firmly in the “Old School” camp. It has been reported that Yost has given his perspective on the value of sabermetrics during a number of interviews on the KC Royals Web Site.  I am simply paraphrasing what others have reported including Grant Brisbee in SB Nation on 9/15/14, ” There is no possible way that recorded information about how players have performed recently can help me do my job better.” OK. We get it.

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The trade that jettisoned both Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher opened up opportunities for two players to make some sort of impact in deep leagues. So today is an all Indians edition of the deep league waiver wire.

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Episode 263

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris talk Jean Machi in Boston, Ian Desmond surging, Marcus Stroman throwing, Howie Kendrick replacements, Chris Davis, Carlos Gonzalez, and Kyle Schwarber raking, Michael Taylor’s intrigue, and Eno’s Tuesday piece.

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As we have learned more about what drives hitter BABIP in recent years, we have talked a lot about batted ball type distribution. Joey Votto is always the example of what the ideal profile looks like for posting an inflated BABIP. It’s not necessarily the profile that leads to the highest wOBA (that’s more an individual ideal), but what would typically result in the highest rate of balls in play falling for hits.

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According to our prospect guru Kiley McDaniel, Miguel Sano was the game’s 15th best prospect and the Twins second best. After missing the entire 2014 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, he figured to prove he was healthy at Double-A this season before eventually (hopefully) earning a promotion to Triple-A. Perhaps a September cup of coffee was in the cards, though more likely he was expected to make his anticipated Twins debut in 2016. Instead, the Twins decided to get aggressive and promote the 22 year old to the Majors, completely skipping Triple-A. This is typically a risky move as anecdotally hitters endure a tougher transition jumping straight from Double-A to the Majors than do pitchers. Sano, however, never received that memo.

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Preston Tucker was a 7^th round pick for the Astro’s in 2012 out of fabled Plant High School in Tampa Florida which produced a number of Major Leaguers including Hall of Famer Wade Boggs. Normally a High School prospect with plus power from the left side, a reportedly high Baseball IQ,  and good plate discipline would be drafted fairly high but not in this case.

It’s not that Tucker wasn’t noticed by scouts who liked his powerful yet unorthodox swing and developed arms, but what was mentioned more often than not was that he had a “bad body”—scout parlance that encompasses a number of physical shortcomings and in this case it was his lack of height at just under 6 feet tall. Considered the 14^th best prospect in the talent rich Houston Farm system in 2014, Tucker isn’t even considered the best prospect in his family, as his brother Kyle Tucker who is 6’-4” was recently drafted by the Astro’s as their # 2 pick.

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I have a friend who is quite successful at fantasy baseball despite not really being much of a baseball fan. He know the stars, loved Griffey Jr. as a kid, and will watch a playoff game here and there, but he doesn’t know the next-in-line closer or on-the-cusp prospects for every team. He doesn’t have associations with every player’s name and utilizes the numbers for his success. He posed an interesting question to me the other day: “have you ever thought of trying to draft your fantasy baseball team name-blind?”

I haven’t thought about it and I’m not sure I could pull it off even if I were interested, but it got me thinking about one of my favorite exercises to do with baseball: the blind resume. Presenting the numbers without the names can alter your perspective of a player oonce you learn the name. It’s not that names aren’t important, though. Knowing a player can offer context for the numbers and help improve your judgments of those numbers. But they can also muddy the water substantially.

Today, we are going to look at several pairs of players without the names associated. The point isn’t that one player is definitely better than the other, but rather that removing the names might actually improve your perception of the players in question. Sometimes the names make us lazy. A star-level player who isn’t quite performing up to his normal level will be given a longer leash while an unproven newcomer often needs to prove himself more to get credit for his performance.

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