We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

Position battles? Not so much. Like with the cross town Mets, we’ll mostly talk about depth today. The rotation in particular looks brittle, and the options beyond the sixth guy are kind of terrifying.

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Before I try to do this in a (slightly) more scientific way, let me say that you can easily create tiers via the sniff test. Take a look at the pitching pool and try to assign groups labels, like ‘ace’ and ‘front of the rotation’ and ‘mid-rotation’. It’s what we do when we are trying to talk about prospect pitchers and where they might slot in later, it should come fairly naturally, and it will help you make sense of your specific player pool. It’s a worthy exercise no matter how rigorous the background work was.

Now let’s try to apply a more reasoned approach to the matter.

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A couple of weeks ago, I examined some players whose playing times seemed to be undecided. Today I am going to continue looking at somw more (full list of players in a spreadsheet).

When will Prince Fielder get 1B eligibility?

For owners in leagues with 18 or less games to gain eligibility, you have nothing to worry about this season. Now, for leagues with 20 game eligibility issues, most have a 10 game in season requirement.

Looking at his Fielders 2015 1B usage, half of his 18 1B games were in April. After then, it was just over 1 per month and of those nine games, seven were interleague contests. With Mitch Moreland handling normal 1B duties again, I see it being tough for Fielder to get a ton of time at 1B without a Moreland injury. He will need to play in all interleague games and here is when those games happen for the Rangers in 2016.

Apr: 0
May: 0
Jun: 3
July 3
Aug: 4
Sep: 0

With an optimistic two extra games a month at 1B, he won’t be eligible until July if he starts all interleague games. It could be longer with the eligibility pushed into late August.

I think I would only consider him a DH for the season and if he gets 1B eligibility, bonus.

David Wright will max out playing only 130 games. Probably closer to 112 games. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

A group of geese is a gaggle. A group of monkeys is a troop. When injuries travel together, they’re called a stack.  Or, if you’re a Rangers fan, you might prefer the phrase “an apocalypse of injuries.” Maybe a murder of injuries. But no, only crows travel in murders.

For two years, the Rangers rotation has suffered through bubonic ligament plague. The biggest name to be lost was Yu Darvish. Also hitting the shelf were Derek Holland, Martin Perez, Matt Harrison, and a host of others. Can they stay healthy this year?

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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

On Monday, I covered perhaps the easiest team to cover with regards to pitching battles. I spent about 550 words explaining that the Mets don’t have any battles. The Braves, well, they do. And here they are…

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We looked at strikeouts plus pop-ups minus walks, even if I need to re-run those numbers with pop-ups divided by plate appearances. And then we looked at Arsenal Scores, even if I need to re-run those numbers with more precision. Those things, plus projections, all inform my rankings, which I’ll run below.

But a word about my process. Pitching foils projection systems more than hitting for a reason: there are small changes that can make a huge difference. And changes in role are huge.

So, if you sort for the third category in my rankings below (difference percentage), you’ll find a bunch of guys that made small changes down the stretch that I think will make a big difference. And a bunch of guys that I think will win the fifth starter role. As well as guys that get hidden outs with the pop-up, and a bunch of guys undervalued by their overall numbers despite good arsenals.

You might be surprised to hear that I don’t run this all through a projection system and press go, and then run the rankings. That might be the best way to go. But I’m more intuitive. I’d rather play the would you rather and rely on my first impression in some cases. I’d rather go by my own sense of the depth charts than any that is put together for me. I’d rather feel my way through the ranks.

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Sorry for not having as many Quick Looks this off season. Instead of watching games inside while exercising, I have been exercising outside. I will try to get some more once spring training games start up so let me know of any pitchers you would like to see my thoughts on.

I will continue to implement player grading on the scouting scales of 20-80. I will use Dan Farnsworth’s scale he discussed in this article.

I will give a value for where I think the pitcher could currently fit in on the average team (CV=current value) and where they could end up (FV=future value). I am sure I will disagree with some grades from others, but I am only looking at one game.

Note: If I say a pitch moves 11-5, it is from the pitcher’s perspective.

Matthew Wisler
10/4/15 vs Cardinals
(45 CV/50 FV)
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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

Sometimes, I like to write about the low hanging fruit. The Mets’ pitcher battles are all around the fringes of the roster and won’t need to be addressed until halfway through the season. What follows is mostly a discussion of depth with a nod to two talented pitchers who will return in July.

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Everybody has their sleeper lottery tickets. By that, I don’t mean known quantities like Adrian Beltre who may be slightly underpriced. Players like Lance McCullers, Corey Seager, and Xander Bogaerts have flashed impressive talent, but they’ve yet to truly prove it’s sustainable. We’re making informed guesses when we reach for them in the draft. Today, we’ll talk about three reaches that I just don’t get.

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This is our new Innings Limit Tracker. This covers young pitchers (age-25 season or under) who could face an innings limit this year. If you think someone should be on the list, please let me know in the comments. Also if you see a source confirming someone’s inning limit one way or the other, please let me know!

I’ll be updating this throughout the season, especially as prospects with potential IP limits come up and start making an impact.

The chart shows how old the player will be for 2016, his 2015 innings breakdown, how many innings he’d have with a 20% increase of his 2015 count, his IP limit status assuming we know something, and then the source.

(This will show up in the sidebar under Draft Tools.)

(And it’s sortable in case you’re wondering!)