Archive for Roto

Alternate Title: Publicly Reviewing My Boss’ Work

A couple days ago, Eno wrote about his decision to shop his $49 Mike Trout in an ottoneu experts league. Said Eno:

I bought Mike Trout for $10 in 2012. He brought me two top-three finishes in the ottoneu experts league. But I was not up to the challenge, and now he’s $49 and my team is 8th. I see no other option but to sell Mike Trout.

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Chris Cwik’s piece on Tyler Skaggs and the tough times the southpaw has endured while men are on base prompted me to wonder about that aspect of pitching. Which hurlers have performed differently, at least in terms of some typically advanced statistics, after hitters have reached base? What might we ascertain from what we discover?

Generally, when a pitcher pitches while men are on base, we assume that he works from the stretch. Therefore, if a starter is considerably less effective after a hitter has reached base against him, we may hypothesize that the hurler struggles while he pitches from the stretch. However, that isn’t necessarily true, because the pitcher may do things such as change his pitch mix in order to achieve a different type of result against a future hitter. Still, we can begin to make conjectures.

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In a move that we’ve been waiting on for quite a while, the Padres finally traded away their starting third baseman since 2009. Chase Headley now finds himself in New York, calling Yankee Stadium home. That alone should be cause for celebration, as his home park hasn’t been too kind to him over his career. But Headley has been a disappointment once again this year and has been bothered by a herniated disk in his back. Could this move be the jolt he needs to reward those fantasy owners who remained patient?

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There have been some decent pickups at the middle-infield positions lately for those who play fantasy baseball games. This is nice. The latest recommendation of one of those types doesn’t figure to have much of a shelf life, so the depth of the rotisserie or head-to-head league should figure into a fantasy owner’s decision of whether and how to pursue him. The other rec may be nothing about which to be excited, any time soon, but somewhere, somehow, it probably plays.

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Isn’t it fun playing the free agent pool merry-go-round? Ya know, picking up another player seemingly every week to fill that one roster spot you just can’t find a permanent player for. Between injuries and demotions, that describes about half my Tout Wars roster. Awesome. Here are two options for deep leaguers, one is almost guaranteed to be temporary, the other could potentially become permanent.

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Episode 145

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is now live! Eno Sarris and Nicholas Minnix discuss the Chase Headley trade; trade rumors (and the fantasy implications of them) involving A.J. Burnett, John Danks, and the relievers on the market; what Michael Cuddyer’s possible return might mean; the latest trips to the DL, among them Matt Cain’s; the Toronto Blue Jays’ call-up of Aaron Sanchez; interesting news about Garrett Richards and Jason Kipnis; and bits on some requested topics, comprised of observations on Justin Verlander (you may want to hear this), Adam Wainwright, Dallas Keuchel, and Chris Coghlan.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions so that we may answer them on our next episode.

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I bought Mike Trout for $10 in 2012. He brought me two top-three finishes in the ottoneu experts league. But I was not up to the challenge, and now he’s $49 and my team is 8th. I see no other option but to sell Mike Trout.

It’s utterly depressing.

It’s also utterly exhilarating.

The packages I’m seeing! They are delightful. I thought I’d break down the two best packages before I hit the accept button. Even if you aren’t in ottoneu, you may find my process interesting. Or abhorrent.

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Three months ago to the day, I wrote about a couple of catchers whose rates of ownership in fantasy baseball leagues, I felt, should have been increasing based on some early-season positives, albeit from a limited data sample. Josmil Pinto turned out to be a pretty justifiable inclusion for a little while, but Yasmani Grandal appears to have been a misguided recommendation. You win some, you lose some.

I haven’t given up on Grandal, but I’d begun to lose hope. His strikeout rate remained significantly greater than his career standard, whereas I expected (hope for) some regression. The San Diego Padres croucher’s fantasy production took a nosedive about a week into May and hadn’t come up for air. I came across some new stuff on him not long ago, something to follow. But I wasn’t sure what to make of the information at the time, and without a deeper look, more data or both, I wasn’t about to draw a conclusion or feel a jolt of optimism.

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Yesterday, I identified five hitters whose batted ball distance suggests a HR/FB rate surge could be in their futures. Today, I check in on those hitters who are at risk of experiencing a decline in HR/FB rate over the rest of the season. As a reminder, batted ball angle, standard deviation of all fly balls and fence distances all play a role, but are ignored during this exercise due to lack of data.

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Our journey this week into the waters of the deep league waiver wire brings us to two familiar faces, AL-only players who have shown flashes of their talent in the past and quite possibly stand to benefit owners in the short term.
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