Archive for Sleepers

The Astros apparently listened to their analytics team when they acquired Collin McHugh. You see, McHugh’s spin rate on his curveball is exceptional. Maybe it’s not quite that cut and dry, we’ve talked about his move to the four-seamer over the two-seamer was great for him. But read this newest snippet on McHugh and you’ll see that spin rate was huge for his acquisition:

The Astros’ analysts noticed that McHugh had a world-class curveball. Most curves spin at about 1,500 times per minute; McHugh’s spins 2,000 times. The more spin, the more the ball moves during the pitch—and the more likely batters are to miss it. Houston snapped him up. “We identified him as someone whose surface statistics might not indicate his true value,” says David Stearns, the team’s 29-year-old assistant general manager.

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I’ve stolen from the movie before. I’ll do so again…

Guarantee? If you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for now, for your fantasy teams’ sake, for your daughter’s sake, ya might wanna think about listening to quality content from me.

If you don’t know where this reference is from, then well…just ring your call button, and Tommy will come back there and hit you over the head with a tack hammer.

I actually will play guarantee fairy here, specifically for deep leagues since there are no uber-exciting names that jump out in my below grid. So here goes…

So long as they pitch to a qualifying level of innings without getting hurt or losing velocity (not ballsy enough to leave out these contingencies), I GUARANTEE these starters won’t be any worse next year (although in the grid below I highlighted in different strengths of green/red both starters and relievers):

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One thing we know about strikeout and contact rate is that the stats stabilize quickly. In other words, those stats tell us more about future work in those categories quicker than other stats. But players make changes all the time, and it’s not just the first month of the season that we care about.

So who’s changed the most in the last month? Let’s look at the biggest differences in contact rate over the last month, and it what might tell us about these relevant players.

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In 1948, Preston Tucker introduced the Tucker Sedan, a revolutionary automobile that innovated several safety features still in use today. The Tucker 48 posed a threat to the major automobile manufacturers of the time, and the company fell into bankruptcy amidst smear campaigns and a lengthy SEC trial, in which Tucker was acquitted on all counts. His story inspired the 1988 Francis Ford Coppola film Tucker: The Man and His Dream, which is an okay movie. Jeff Bridges is really good as Tucker, but it’s a pretty cheesy flick.

In 2014, Preston Tucker (no relation, at least that I know of) is an outfielder in the Astros’ system. Largely overlooked, thanks to Houston’s crazy-deep farm system, Tucker didn’t make a whole lot of top prospects lists this year, but he still got enough attention to slide in at No. 21 on SB Nation’s organizational consensus top prospect list.

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On Friday, Jeff Zimmerman published the calculated xBABIP marks using his new equation incorporating Inside Edge data. While we are well aware that we remain far away from a perfect xBABIP equation as some commenters pointed out what’s missing, it’s still a useful metric to analyze. So I have curated a list of hitters whose xBABIP marks are significantly higher than their actuals and could represent good acquisition targets for the final two months of the season.

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As we continue into the second half of the season, it’s time to check back into the batted ball distance leaderboard. As usual, I am identifying potential HR/FB rate improvers by comparing a hitter’s mark to his distance. However, distance alone doesn’t tell the complete story, so this isn’t a perfect analysis. I found that batted ball angle and the standard deviation of fly balls were also quite important. But since this data isn’t publicly available yet, we have to do the best with what we have. So without further ado, here are your power surgers.

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I’ve wanted to write about Steven Okert for quite some time now. There’s a strange little line I walk writing about prospects from a fantasy perspective. Ostensibly, I should write about prospects who are likely to make an impact in fantasy baseball in the relatively near-future seeing as, well, that’s my job. Why would I write about a relief pitcher in High-A?

But now, dear reader, the stars have aligned in such a way that I can finally write my long-awaited article about Steven Okert. He’s in the news for his standout performance in the clumsily named California-Carolina League All-Star Game (I recommend clicking that link if only to see the high level of swagger Okert possesses while rocking his replica championship belt), but the internet at large seemingly has no idea who he is. Seriously, do a Google search and see what you can learn about the kid. Spoiler alert: It’s not much. So there’s Solid Reason No. 1 for me to write about Steven Okert.

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On Tuesday, the White Sox promoted second baseman Micah Johnson from Double-A to Triple-A. In 2013, Johnson split the season between A and High-A, with a brief taste of Double-A, compiling a .312/.373/.451 slash in 601 plate appearances with an eye-popping 84 stolen bases. Our own Nathaniel Stoltz wrote a comprehensive scouting report on Johnson last June, and two of Nathaniel’s statements in that article help place Johnson’s 2014 success into the context of his long-term prospects:

• “Johnson will go as far as his approach and BABIP take him, and a lot will hinge on how well both facets translate to the upper minors.”
• “It will be Double-A Birmingham that will begin to solidify the direction Johnson’s career will take.”

Fortunately for Johnson, and the White Sox, he has responded in a big way, succeeding beyond expectations in the specific areas pointed out by Nathaniel last June. As a result, the perception of Johnson as a prospect needs to be reevaluated and likely elevated.

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We have some fancy tools here at FanGraphs, but sometimes brute force works just as well. In fact, Glenn DuPaul found once that strikeouts minus walks beat the ERA predictors at their own game.

Maybe it’s no surprise. That’s the heart of the game, getting outs and keeping people off the basepaths. And maybe sometimes this other stuff is just pyrite. Just because you get a lot of ground balls doesn’t mean you won’t give up home runs. Even if you have a limited arsenal, if you can get strikeouts and limit the walks, you can have success. So focus in on the Ks and the BBs.

Let’s make a list.

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Jesus Aguilar is the very definition of a prospect with more value in fantasy baseball than in real life. Our own Marc Hulet ranked him as the 11th-best prospect in Cleveland’s system last year, and left him out of the top 15 entirely this year. There are plenty of very good reasons for this exclusion, starting with the fact that Aguilar is a bat-only prospect; he has well below-average speed and doesn’t have much of anything to offer defensively.

Furthermore, the 23-year-old’s one plus tool, his power, has mostly been of the five o’clock variety throughout his minor-league career. Listed at 6’3″, 250 pounds (I’d bet my life savings on the over regarding his listed weight), he puts on one hell of a show in batting practice, hitting the ball out of the park to all fields. However, following his 23 homers in A-ball back in 2011, he hit just 15 dingers between High-A and Double-A in 2012, and 16 last year in Double-A.

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