Archive for Roto

I like a lot of pitchers who have unperformed this year. With strikeout and walk rates (K%, BB%) of 20.5 percent and 7.0 percent, respectively, Drew Hutchison delivers everything I want from a mid-rotation fantasy starter. With a 5.19 ERA and a 1.47 WHIP, however, he delivers a flaming bag of feces to my doorstep.

The same can be said for Taijuan Walker who, after a terribly rough start to the season, dazzled for seven straight starts before recently tossing three stinkers. With plate discipline ratios better than Hutchison’s and just 22 years old, Walker demonstrates the skill set and ceiling that have earned him consensus top-20 honors on prospect lists from 2012 through 2014. Yet his 5.06 ERA and 1.29 WHIP have left fantasy owners not only disappointed but also reeling.

Hutchison and Walker share a common trait: their ERAs dwarf their fielding independent pitching (FIP) statistics. FIP was designed to demonstrate a pitcher’s true performance in light of the events he can control — that is, events independent of balls put into play at the mercy of the defense supporting him (among other things).

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If you sort Yahoo!’s player page descending by ownership, Justin Verlander shows up on the second page. That means, at 70-percent ownership, he ranks in the top 50. Julio Teheran shows up there, too, at 73 percent. What the two have in common: more than 1,000 other players have been more valuable than them.

Verlander deserves an ounce of clemency: his 31 innings haven’t allowed him ample time to generate value. His 6.62 ERA, sixth-worst among all pitchers who have thrown at least 30 innings, really damages his stock.

Then again, so would his 5.01 xFIP, good for ninth-worst. Or his 6.06 FIP, good for fifth-worst. He has simply done nothing to inspire confidence in anyone, yet because of name recognition alone he’s owned in far more Yahoo! leagues than the pitchers I’ll present now.

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If you just started following the baseball season right now with no intimate knowledge of how every player’s current numbers were accumulated, you’d think Ian Kinsler was having a perfectly reasonable season. There’s been a power-for-on-base exchange, but he’s actually a point higher in OPS from last year at .728 through 398 PA so far. His 104 wRC+ is very much in line with the 100, 105, and 102 of the previous three years.

Alas, most have you have been following the season closely and know that he went nearly two full months without a home run before snapping the skid on May 30th. It took another 21 games and 90 PA for his second, but then just 11 games for the third and a mere six games separating that one and both his fourth and fifth, which were clubbed in the same game on Monday night. He’s still only on pace for nine homers which would tie his career-low, set in just 103 games, but his last 40 games suggest he’s back to being the teens-level home run hitter of the last three seasons.
Whenever a stark turn comes for a player, the first question is always “what’s different?”

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I feel like I’m becoming a broken record when I say that once again, injuries have opened up opportunities and as usual, play a role in this week’s dive into the free agent pool.

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(A: Both.)

Disclaimer: I wrote this post about Gerardo Parra yesterday afternoon because that’s how things work over here on the West Coast. Between yesterday and this exact moment, Eno Sarris and Paul Sporer posted their most recent episode of the Sleeper and the Bust during which, at around the 45-minute mark, they coincidentally discuss Parra. (Er, Parra is the coincidence, not the podcast.)

Basically, Sarris and Sporer say pretty much everything I write here but in fewer words. So if you want to hear a couple of smart dudes discuss Parra’s rest-of-season prospects, tune in. If for some reason you’d rather engage in in what will be a more verbose, occasionally visual, absolutely not visceral experience, proceed:

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For this post, I will let my deluded ramblings — what my National League outfield analysis eventually and ostensibly becomes pretty much every time nowadays — devolve into stream of consciousness. Because this is a sentence I actually wrote but deleted: “I want to talk about Gerardo Parra.” An alternative I considered: “Let’s talk about Gerardo Parra.”

Point is, I’ve started thinking too hard about simple things and my brain is grinding to a halt. Whatever — let’s just talk about Parra. Let’s have an open dialogue about the guy who, for all intents and purposes, is having a career year this season from an offensive perspective.

Parra’s 129 wRC+ (weighted runs created) easily vanquishes his previous high (106) set back in 2011. It marks only the second time his bat has rated better than average, so you’d be lying if you told me his production thus far in 2015 hasn’t surprised you. To attest: a man who, for six years, averaged eight home runs per 600 plate appearances has hit nine in almost half the time.

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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.

–The Other Best Rotation in Baseball–

There are several reasonable answers to the question of which rotation is the best in baseball. Following their offseason addition of Max Scherzer, the Nationals’ starters have certainly lived up to expectations, Strasburg aside. Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke provide a pretty fearsome one-two punch for the Dodgers. Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco provide the same for the Indians, and though they may not have quite the same name recognition, it is their rotation that leads baseball with 9.3 strikeouts per nine. The Cardinals are the Cardinals. Their scouting and player development is so good that they can afford to trade Shelby Miller and lose Adam Wainwright to injury and still boast an elite rotation with arms like Lance Lynn, Michael Wacha, and Carlos Martinez picking up the slack.

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I’m always looking for new angles on National League outfielders. There are only so many of them, and only so many things can be said about the same few juggernauts.

For example, I discovered just now that Randal Grichuk has recorded the fourth-highest wins above replacement (WAR) per plate appearance for NL outfielders behind only Bryce Harper, Giancarlo Stanton and Andrew McCutchen. It certainly surprised me, and while that’s a storyline in itself, Karl de Vries assessed Grichuk here last month, highlighting reasons for optimism and concern. (For example, his batted ball profile validates his power display but thinks his batting average deserves to drop around 45 points.)

In this same vein, it may surprise you to know the infrequently discussed David Peralta ranks seventh in WAR per plate appearance among NL outfielders with as many plate appearances as him (275) and 10th in aggregate WAR. Those figures account for his defense that, according to the metrics, rates average at best, so his value is driven primarily by his bat.

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Episode 251

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

In this episode, Paul Sporer is by himself discussing pitchers! More specifically, he has a list of pitchers he thinks are primed to be top ERA assets in the second half of the season. He has nine pitchers ranging from ace-level to waiver wire-fodder who could put up huge summers and lead your pitching to the promised land.

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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.

— Home Run Calls and Puts —

A lot can happen between now and July 31, but a lot will need to happen to flood the market with available players. The second Wild Cards have accomplished their goals of keeping more teams in the race, and even if they hadn’t, the AL has been so upside down this season that few teams will be confident that they should be sellers. Add to that the pressure that teams like the Red Sox, White Sox, and Padres face because of offseason win-now moves, and we may approach the deadline with as few as five or six teams willing to trade away players.

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Episode 250 – I said 249 on the episode accidentally!!

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

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris take a scattershot approach today with a bunch of topics sent in by y’all! We cover some second-half breakouts, offer some mea culpas, and decide that we still love Jorge Soler and Yasiel Puig quite a bit.

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