For a change, it’s no longer about injuries! As we hit the final two months of the season, teams who are already throwing in the towel on a playoff run are looking to the future. That means reducing the playing time of disappointing veterans and giving the youngsters a shot.
If you’re a H2H league owner, September could be a frustrating time. It’s when veterans sometimes take a seat as their out of contention teams choose to give young hitters a look and young pitchers reach their innings limits and get shut down. The worst part of it is that these may have been the players that helped you achieve the best record in your league, yet come playoff time, you can’t even count on them to contribute to your championship run. So let’s discuss some of the pitchers who are definitely or possibly on an innings limit. Whether their teams decide to skip a start here and there to keep the innings down or just shut him down with two weeks or so to go, I don’t know. But either way, an innings limit would take a bite out of the pitcher’s value the rest of the way.
Yasiel Puig is a mercurial talent and as such expectations are very high. This season has been marred by subpar performance especially when compared to his 2013 campaign. Puig quickly became a star in his rookie season and we all know how rare that is. He batted .319 that season with 19 homers, 42 RBI’s and a .925 OPS in 104 games. By means of comparison, Mike Trout erupted in his 2nd season. Many may forget that Trout batted just .220 in his 40 game introduction to MLB and he started his magical 2012 sophomore breakout season in the Minors. So shrouded in the veil of high expectations, this is the lens that we should use to look at Puig today.
Ignoring those who reinjured themselves or were moved to the bullpen, all of the American League starting pitchers who underwent Tommy John surgery last season have now returned. Typically, I ignore these pitchers in fantasy leagues during their first year back and then analyze their results and velocity when forecasting their performance the following season. But a blanket ignore on every TJ surgery returnee might not be prudent, as evidenced by the superhuman Jose Fernandez, whose performance suggests that he hasn’t skipped a beat. So let’s take a look at our three.
One trend that is unavoidable in baseball is that Home Run power is dissipating. Since the peak year of HR production in 2000, the number of HR’s hit has dropped by almost 27%. A full 10% of that drop happened between 2013 and 2014. A HR was hit every 29.4 AB’s in 2000 and that number was 39.6 in 2014. Some numbers for your viewing pleasure….
| Year | Total HR’s | HR/FB Rate |
| 2000 | 5693 | 8% |
| 2013 | 4661 | 7.3% |
| 2014 | 4186 | 6.9% |
Statistics Courtesy of the Seattle Times
For once we don’t need to dwell on the reasons for this decline—they are well known. As with any obstacle we are presented with an opportunity. It is fairly easy to identify the players who are proven HR hitters and capable of providing power within the more restrictive confines of the new normal. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to find an emerging power hitter who provides a measurable advantage in the HR category at a position generally not associated with HR prowess? Enter Mr. Jonathan Schoop, second baseman for the Baltimore Orioles.
In the wake up the Troy Tulowitzki trade, it’s an all-Rockies waiver wire edition this week. That’s because the speculation is that the newly acquired Jose Reyes won’t be spending very much time in Colorado and may very well be shipped right back out. The two names highlighted here could be manning shortstop the rest of the way. Or not, and remain worthless, if Reyes stays in Colorado.
As we head into the trade deadline, this time of year marks the unofficial fantasy league deadline for when trades might still have some effect on the standings. So let’s use the batted ball distance leaderboard to identify those batters with strong distance marks, but HR/FB rates that don’t quite measure up. These seven hitters all seemingly have some upside over the final two months, assuming they sustain their distances.
If you didn’t consider either the Aramis Ramirez or Scott Kazmir trades last week the first blockbuster of this year’s deadline deals, then you can certainly cross that event off your list now. Johnny Cueto leaves the only team he has played for and travels West to the darling Kansas City Royals. Does Cueto’s value “receive a big boost”, as one popular fantasy news site suggests?
Let’s take a gander at the American League starting pitcher leaderboard for SwStk% over the last 30 days. Since that time span typically comprises just four to five starts, such dominance could get lost in the full season numbers. So I’ll highlight some of the more interesting names among the leaders.
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.
–DL and Call-Up Player Pace Comparisons–
When making player comparisons on fantasy statistics pages, it’s easy to get blinded by seasonal totals. Those work pretty well over the first month of the season, but now that we are a week into the second half, many players have experienced DL stints or have been called up since the start of the season. Even for players who have made a minimum stay on the DL, the lost plate appearances over a two-week period can be enough to hold them behind comparable players in the counting statistics.
