Just before the season started, the FanGraphs staff (including RotoGraphs contributors) was asked to make its official predictions for the upcoming season. We took our best shot at predicting the playoff teams, MVP and Cy Young Award winners, and Rookies of the Year for 2017. Perhaps in the coming weeks we will check in with the top picks for MVP and Cy Young, but in this article, we’re going to look at the top rookies.

Our staff picks on the American League side had Andrew Benintendi (40 votes) as the overwhelming favorite to be named the league’s top rookie, with Jharel Cotton (4) and Mitch Haniger (4) rounding out the top three.

Over in the National League, Dansby Swanson (27 votes) was the favorite by a wide margin, followed by Robert Gsellman (12), Manuel Margot (5), and Hunter Renfroe (4).

While it’s extremely early and still much too soon to make any concrete statements about who will win this year’s awards, let’s take a look at the wide-ranging early season performances of the players we expect to be the game’s top newcomers: Read the rest of this entry »

Tout Wars Thoughts:

In Tout Wars, I am currently last in both ERA (5.32) and WHIP (1.58). I knew I would struggle in these two categories but this lack of production is about impossible to replicate. The culprits are:

Name: ERA, WHIP
Corey Kluber: 6.38, 1.42
Rick Porcello: 7.56, 1.74
Adam Wainwright: 7.24, 2.20
Jeff Samardzija: 6.16, 1.42

Two of my closers aren’t much better:
Blake Treinen: 6.00, 2.00
Ken Giles: 9.00, 1.80

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Last week we told you about some hitters who might be of interest to, and only to, people (like us) who play in leagues so deep that they (the leagues, not the people) are hadalpelagic. Your kind response has encouraged us to take on an even more daunting task: identifying, down there among the bristle worms and the viperfish, starting pitchers who aren’t widely owned (which we define as being owned in fewer than 50% of NFBC leagues) and might be worth having. Read the rest of this entry »

We know that pitch velocity stabilizes rather quickly and while a pitcher’s pitch mix each game could vary, sometimes wildly, it’s generally consistent from year to year. But often times, pitchers introduce a new pitch or switch up their current pitch mix in an effort to be more effective. Those changes could lead to a breakout if the pitcher lands on the optimal mix. Although we’re still only a couple of games started into the season, let’s take a gander at those starters who have thrown any of their pitches 15% more or less frequently than last season.

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This post on old broken men comes via Mario Mendoza when he asked about a few pitchers.

While I won’t cover all the pitchers today, McCarthy and Ryu intrigue me because they’ve been productive in the past but injuries cost them most of last season. While not listed, Lance Lynn and Brett Anderson fall in the same category. As a group, they averaged 15 IP in 2016. Here is a quick take on all four.

Brandon McCarthy (Dodgers)

Wow, I hope the other pitchers will be easier to analyze. McCarthy has been consistently inconsistent. I will start with the basics. His fastball’s averaging 93.2 mph. He’s been at this higher velocity the last four seasons after averaging around 90 mph before 2014.

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There have been a lot of questions and comments this season about the change in pitch velocity readings. I am not going to go into depth why these changes were made, but I have seen a lot of people questioning these velocity readings, and how they might compare to past seasons.

I am sure you have seen articles about how velocities this season are roughly 0.6 mph faster than last season, so maybe you have been subtracting a mile per hour from each number you see as a back of the envelope estimate.  Maybe you’re happy with that, maybe not.  Tom Tango mentioned a manner for calculating the traditional pitch velocities in the comment section of his blog post about the change to Start Speed. After seeing this, I immediately implemented it on my personal pitch database, and I am here to share those results with you today. Read the rest of this entry »

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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