What do you look for in second-week-of-the-season pitcher pickups? I’m solely looking at quality of stuff improvements, such as increased velocity, a spike in swinging strikes from a guy who rarely induces lots of them, and perhaps a new pitch mix featuring more prominently a pitch that has been effective, but less frequently thrown, in the past. Unfortunately, 99% of fantasy owners are simply picking up the guys who happened to only allow a run or less in their first start. While a blind squirrel will eventually find a nut, it’s not the most efficient path to success. That said, let’s take a gander at which American League starting pitchers fantasy owners are picking up on CBS.

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Two arms who got a lot of attention this draft season made their second starts of the season and dominated the opposition. Michael Pineda and Jharel Cotton were bouncing back from opening week duds after both guys had bad second innings that eventually cut short their outings, but neither were exactly pummeled. They rebounded nicely in their Monday afternoon outings. Here are my thoughts on the two starts.

Michael Pineda – 7.7 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 11 K, 1 HR, 93 pit, 67 strikes, 18 swinging strikes v. TB

Few things are more “Michael Pineda” than following up a 3.7 IP/4 ER bomb with 7.7 nearly perfect innings (Evan Longoria’s double broke up the perfecto with two outs in the seventh). Hell, his first start was also the most “Michael Pineda” ever (4 ER in fewer than 4 IP yet still 6 K, 0 BB) so he’s been everything you’d expect thus far. The fastball velocity was up a tick and had the Rays tied up. They beat the piss out of it in his debut with a 1.417 OPS in 12 PA, the bulk of which came against lefties (9 of 12 PA). Yesterday they were 0-for-11 with lefties again accounting for nine of the plate appearances.

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Pitch forks have emerged, and rage has exploded over the most recent Rich Hill trip to the disabled list – once again, for a blister. Hockey fans gearing up for the playoff run scoff, stating how their sport has players who take slap shots to the face and return in the same game – blisters? Those are a sign that baseball players are weak, pampered, and fragile. Why do blisters keep forming on Rich Hill’s fingers? What are the implications for changing his style that could prevent blisters from occurring all together? Why can’t Sidney Crosby grow a beard? Let’s get into the answers to these questions.

All of pitching revolves around applying the appropriate amount of pressure to specific areas at ball release, and causing the ball to spin about a certain axis. This pressure applied along the seams, generates friction, and spin on the ball. More friction? More spin. That’s why pitchers try the ol’ Icy Hot trick to get a better grip on the ball, and throw funkier pitches. Sorry if I got most of my pitching knowledge from Rookie of the Year – I flamed out as a player in High School.

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I’m a sucker for velocity spikes. We know that all else equal, higher velocity is better. And when a pitcher makes it to the Majors with certain expectations, those expectations are built upon his current velocity. What if that velocity improves? Well, then we should probably increase our expectations. So when I was reading of Shelby Miller’s velocity surge during spring training, my interest went from zero to, well, not zero.

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Half a week in the books. How’s your team doing? I wanted to write a SELL, SELL, SELL!! piece but that seemed a tad premature. So instead, let’s check in on Dallas Keuchel, a divisive player entering 2016 and once again in 2017. With concerns swirling around the Houston lefty given last year’s undeniable decline in both performance and health, I was eager to see him pitch the Astros’ opener against Seattle.

Coming off his 2015 Cy Young campaign, Keuchel was a polarizing figure. A ground ball pitcher with impeccable command, detractors fretted about his lack of velocity. Well, if his cheddar was in short supply to begin with, the fromagerie was flat out barren in 2016. Keuchel lost a tick on the gun, averaging 88 mph on his fastball through his first 10 starts. But that wasn’t all. His pitches were down nearly across the board.

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Yesterday, I unveiled my bold hitter league leaders, with the acknowledgement that these are a lot tougher to hit than the generic Bold Predictions. The pitching side of the ledger is a bit easier, but still difficult, of course. Given that there is more luck and factors outside the specific pitcher’s control involved that shape his surface results, it’s more conceivable that a non-favorite leads the league in a category.

In an effort to avoid double dipping and naming the same pitcher in two categories, there may have been a slightly better bold choice for a particular category. I opted to come up with different names in each. Also keep in mind that it is difficult to balance boldness with realistic. I eliminated many names that I didn’t think were bold, but maybe you do. I also eliminated names that have no real chance at leading in the category.

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With the season starting, new useful information will finally become available. Let me know if I can provide any hard to get information in which other analysts aren’t providing. I will continue trying to notice injured players, provide Quick Looks at new/suspect pitchers, give velocity updates, and prospect comparisons. Other writers can provide normal group-think information. Let me know where I can provide that early edge.

The principal shareholder in the Rays, Stuart Sternberg, discussed how finding and developing the new frontiers provides competitive advantages.

Maybe, Sternberg said, it’s by falling behind, taking a lead from companies that follow Starbucks into good locations, copy Apple electronics or make generic drugs.
“I think where the advantage for us is going forward — and it’s going to sound crazy — is to try to allow all, and I will say all, these other organizations to devote enormous resources, and that’s not just money but thinking, brain power and devotion, to things that will have very little payoff, while those resources, brainpower and money might be better spent somewhere else,” he said.

“You build it, you invest all the (research and development), you devote everything you can and like a drug company, I’ll do the generic version for nothing, and I’ll undersell you. And while you’re doing that, I’ll worry about some other stuff over here.

“Everything I’ve seen, it’s an arms race right now, and guys are using elephant guns to kill mosquitoes.”

No matter what the target, the Rays have to find a way to get back ahead.

“There’s always going to be new frontiers,” Bloom said. “If we don’t find them, somebody else will.”

Let me know which frontiers we can explore together.

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Tom Verducci once wrote about how a 30% increase in innings pitched could lead to injury in young pitchers. Since he wrote that, many people have objectively determined that this is not the case (Carleton, 2013). Not all innings are created equally, and not all pitches put the same amount of stress on the human body.

As we have learned in many different ways that are not a lot of fun , both relief pitchers and starting pitchers can succumb to the effects of pitching (also read as, getting injured). This makes the Pitcher Abuse Point scale not appropriate for relief pitchers (see this article on Baseball Prospectus – (Jazayerli, 1998)). Other research has pointed to measures like innings pitched as being a poor determinant of workload in pitchers (Karakolis et al., 2016). Pitching on consecutive days, high velocities, and total pitches have been identified as risk factors for injury (Whiteside et al., 2016). Read the rest of this entry »

Roster moves are continuously happening. I know I’ll miss a few but here is some information on the more fantasy relevant moves. As more news comes out over the weekend and I find time, I will add to the list any information I find useful.

• Adalberto Mejia is the Twins fifth starter.

Early this offseason I stated:

A pitcher I am keeping my eye on is the Twins Adalberto Mejia. No one has reported any of the lefties pitches as plus but he may have four average pitches with above average control. He throws his lowest rated pitch, the curve, hard. Hard curves (80 mph plus) are more successful than slow curves so even his worst pitch can be useful. If he continues to post good minor league strikeout and walk numbers, he could move into a bad Twins rotation quickly.

He isn’t immediately rosterable in most leagues. I will though try to catch his first start and see what’s behind the 9.5 K/9 in AAA.

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Spring Training Velocity Extravaganza

After my Tout Wars weekend, I found time to update the spring training velocities. Here are some pitchers seeing significant changes.

Cole Hamels

Hamels’s fastball average 91.5 mph on the 21st and down to 90.8 mph on the 26th. Last season it averaged 92.6 mph. I would be diving in more on Hamels but his velocity starts low every season.

While he starts slow, owners should closely monitor his velocity to make sure it starts ticking up.

Jake Arrieta

I am less optimistic on Arrieta. He is seeing a similar drop in velocity to Hamels at ~2.0 mph.

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