Archive for Roto

Episode 223

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

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss the injury news related to Jed Lowrie, Albert Pujols, Alcides Escobar, Archie Bradley, Anthony Rendon, Mat Latos, and Phil Hughes. They also touch on the call-ups of Tim Cooney and Jack Leathersich (and how it relates to Rafael Montero, who ended up getting hurt during his spot start on Tuesday). And finally they look at some recent performances from Ryan Braun, Denard Span, Hanley Ramirez, Shane Greene, Drew Hutchison, Dallas Keuchel, Mike Pelfrey, and Ubaldo Jimenez.

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NL OF Tiers: March (Preseason) 2015
Also, David Wiers’ AL OF Tiers: May

This is my second ever installment of tiered rankings so, I admit, I’m still figuring out how to properly balance a hitter’s present and future values. It’s too easy to rank them by, say, their current ESPN Player Rater rankings, but it would be foolish to still rank them simply by expected end-of-season value, as I did in March.

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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.

–Stolen Base Opportunities–

I did something similar to this a few weeks ago when I looked at RBI relative to plate appearances with runners in scoring position, which I used as an estimate of RBI opportunities. For stolen bases, I decided to define an opportunity as (1) a plate appearance that (2) features at least one received pitch—e.g. the first pitch was not put in play—where (3) the runner in question is on first base and (4) second base is open. Obviously, that’s imperfect for a variety of reasons. Not all plate appearances have the same number of pitches. Counts can matter. And sometimes runners steal third base. Still, I think it’s a decent attempt at a simple measure of how frequently a runner had the opportunity to attempt a stolen base.

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It’s tier update time! I’m notoriously stubborn when it comes to changing my opinion of a player and three or four starts is far too small a sample to convince me to make any real dramatic adjustments. However, there are some scenarios in which I will reconsider — a change in fastball velocity, a change in pitch mix, an injury, or perhaps the pitcher’s defensive support performing better or worse than expected. That’s really about it. I care little for actual results at this point unless there’s a significant change in results not explained by the aforementioned factors. Like, if Mark Buehrle was suddenly striking out more than a batter per inning. My xK% equation is fantastic in small sample sizes since it’s based on per-pitch metrics and not innings or batters faced. But still, the underlying components themselves could quickly change.

As a reminder, the tiers are named after the best characters from the FXX show, Man Seeking Woman.

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Let’s cut straight to the chase. Take a look at the statistical snapshots below:

Obviously, Player 1 is benefiting from a higher batting average on balls in play while Player 2 is getting burned a bit by his. Still, take away their triple-slash lines (but leave the isolated power) and you have two players with almost identical numbers, down to the six steals on eight attempts and the meager isolated powers (ISOs). Where they differ a bit is in plate discipline: Player 1 has a much healthier walk rate than Player 2 and a couple fewer strikeouts. So while Player 1 is benefiting from the a higher BABIP, he can also reasonably be expected to post a marginally higher batting average and noticeably higher on-base percentage. Most importantly, the two hitters are eligible at the same position and are, thus, substitutable.

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As usual, injuries create opportunity for others. That’s the theme yet again in this week’s edition of the deep league waiver wire.

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Episode 222

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

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss news related to recent injuries, call-ups, big performers, and of course bullpen shakeups.

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Yesterday, I took the first look of the 2015 season at starting pitcher’s xK%. I began with the potential surgers, those pitchers whose expected strikeout rates were most above their actual marks. Today will be the opposite side of the coin. These pitchers have posted strikeout rates significantly above what their mix of strike percentage, swinging, called and foul strike rates suggest. They could be in for strikeout rate collapses if they don’t improve those peripherals.

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As we near the end of the month, our samples remain far too small to perform any serious analysis on. But, that’s really only true when we’re using plate appearances or innings pitched as our denominator. My xK% equation is based on per-pitch metrics, which stabilize much more quickly than anything based on innings. No, I don’t know the actual stabilization point, but since a pitcher has thrown more pitches than he has innings pitched, that’s what’s going to happen.

So let’s take a look at those starting pitchers whose xK% marks are most above their actual strikeout rates. These are the guys with significant upside who should enjoy a strikeout rate surge in the near future.

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The buy low and sell high strategy has been a favorite one of fantasy leaguers for as long as fantasy sports has existed, I would imagine. Unfortunately, it’s nearly dead given the wealth of freely available information and the deeper knowledge we now possess about how to evaluate player performance. Nearly dead, not completely dead. To buy low or sell high on a player, you need a story, a narrative that essentially offers up confirmation bias and makes the owner you’re dealing with feel all fuzzy inside when agreeing to the trade.

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