Archive for Roto

Man, I am having a blast with the Baseball Info Solutions batted ball data that was recently added to the batted ball leaderboards. Sure, there are reasons to complain: the batted ball spray and contact quality statistics lack context, leaving you in the dark about how spray and contact intersect. For example, there’s Hard%, and there’s LD%, but how many of a hitter’s balls in play are hard line drives? (You can actually find this data on individual player pages under the “Splits” tab — just not on the leaderboards.)

Just because the available data aren’t as granular as one might wish they were doesn’t make them worthless or unusable. Yesterday, I demonstrated that we can still achieve small gains in our understanding of batting average on balls in play (BABIP) using the new data.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

–Shift Candidates by Oppo%–

The question of whether teams should use defensive shifts against certain batters is complex. Even applying the term defensive shift fails to do the decision justice because defensive positioning is not limited to either yes or no. However, we do know that teams are more and more willing to deploy defensive shifts. According to the Fielding Bible—Volume IV, shifting has nearly doubled every season since 2011, and early indications are that trend will continue this season.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s no secret that CC Sabathia has struggled mightily since 2013. It’s also no secret that his troubles have coincided with a swift decline in fastball velocity. Check out his velocity trend since 2011:

Last season he lost over two miles per hour off his fastball to a mark that dipped below the important 90 mph threshold. And yet despite the obvious signs of decline, I remained stubbornly optimistic, thanks to a still respectable SIERA. I (foolishly?) boldly predicted that Sabathia “reminds us of his glory days and earns top 40 starting pitcher value” this year.

Read the rest of this entry »

You may have noticed that FanGraphs now feeds batted ball data, courtesy of Baseball Info Solutions, into its leaderboards. The day the data appeared, my mind buzzed with ways they could be useful in improving our understanding of a hitter’s batting average on balls in play (BABIP).

Mike Podhorzer already augmented previous attempts at devising an equation for expected batting average on balls in play (xBABIP) for hitters by incorporating elements of a hitter’s power, speed, plate discipline and batted ball tendencies. So, with fresh numbers in hand, I embarked on a journey to further improve the ever-evolving xBABIP. However, I sought to do so by using only batted ball data. Basically, I intended to develop a convenient xBABIP equation, one that can be computed using almost entirely variables found on the same page.

Read the rest of this entry »

For a change, this week’s pair of recommendations are not the result of injury. One of them could be usable in more than just deep leagues, depending on your specific format, while the other is truly for the deep leaguers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 225

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

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss the injury news surrounding Alex Cobb, Anthony Rendon, Hanley Ramirez, and Oswaldo Arcia. They also dive into the April performances of Stephen Vogt, Josh Reddick, Brandon Crawford, Dee Gordon, Dallas Keuchel, and Alex Wood. They close talking about some call-ups: Chad Billingsley, Tyler Lyons, and Eddie Rosario.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I dove into the Baseball-Reference S/Str (swinging strike rate) metric and identified those starting pitchers who have enjoyed the biggest surge compared to last season. So naturally, today I’ll check in on the other side of the coin — those starting pitchers who have suffered through the largest decline in swinging strike rate. Obviously, knowing that a pitcher is inducing fewer swings and misses is worrisome, but we’ll see if there’s any hope for a rebound.

Read the rest of this entry »

A week ago, I identified the starting pitchers whose xK% marks were most above their actual strikeout rates. The swinging strike component is the most significant in my xK% equation, so let’s take a look at which pitchers have enjoyed the biggest surge in their S/Str (Baseball-Reference metric) this season. The 2015 numbers do not include yesterday’s starts.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 224

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

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette discuss the news related to T.J. House, Desmond Jennings, Zack Cozart, Blake Swihart, Billy Burns, Dilson Herrera, Miguel Castro, Drew Hutchison, Evan Gattis, Stephen Vogt, Nate Karns, Chase Anderson, Brett Anderson, Julio Teheran, Sonny Gray, Trevor Plouffe, and Craig Kimbrel.

Read the rest of this entry »

For the first time in years, Justin Maxwell is in demand.

OK, so it’s not a crazy, opening-scene-of-a-Beatles-movie demand, but still, his ownership has jumped 20% in CBS leagues in the past week, and for good reason: He’s off to a hot start. He has an .843 OPS entering Friday’s play, and, for about a week after wrestling away the starting rightfielder job in San Francisco from Gregor Blanco, he had been tattooing the ball with a .333/.407/.833 slash line before he ran into two guys named Kershaw and Greinke. He’s been blasting line drives at a 34.2% clip, the fly ball rate is back to a healthy percentage, and although it’s a young season, his average batted ball distance of nearly 300 feet backs up his 20% HR/FB ratio.
Read the rest of this entry »