These things happen every year. Last Thursday, I wrote about my renewed roto affinity for Edinson Volquez and how the Pittsburgh Pirates seemed to be rescuing him. (Jeff Sullivan did a better job of quantifying some of the real improvements in the wild northpaw’s game a day later.)

It’s fun when the subjects of comeback stories are useful fantasy players as well. Your opponents are waiting for what they perceive as overdue corrections to burn you. You’re wondering how much longer you should ride this wave of unbelievable fortune. Bartolo Colon is texting these dudes to welcome them to the club.

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Given his top prospect pedigree and strong minor league results pre-2013, Tyler Skaggs was already a trendy sleeper heading into spring training with his new American League ball club. Then reports hit that Skaggs’ fastball velocity was way up and suddenly he was no longer just a potential undervalued asset, but a legit breakout candidate. And so far with a 3.21 ERA and 1.11 WHIP, his performance has been everything us owners could have hoped for. Except that the way he has achieved such performance is nothing like we expected. Meet the new Tyler Skaggs.

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When I’m determining what I’m going to spend on players during my leagues’ FAAB runs, I think about the long term. We all do, right? In my experience, however, most fantasy players tend to base their bids on the here and now: The players on hot streaks fetch the most dollars. The exceptions include recently named closers and promoted prospects of great esteem, among others, but you get the idea.

I’ll talk more about FAAB strategy in future columns, I’m sure, but I wanted to plant the seed: Bid according to what kind of returns you figure to receive from the player for the rest of the season, regardless of recent performance. A player’s latest feats can factor in a little, sure, especially if characteristics of them indicate skills growth. In the latter instance, though, you’re already wisely influenced by possible long-term gains.

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Shelby Miller looked broken after his first two starts of the year. Though it’s tough to overreact to just two starts, Miller did come with some concerns entering the season. After struggling down the stretch in 2013, and disappearing in the playoffs, Miller saw his fantasy draft stock take a tumble in late-March. After two straight tough games to open the year, it looked like those concerns were legitimate. But things took a turn in the right direction the last two times he’s taken the mound. Miller has given up one run over his last two outings with 14 strikeouts. While it’s just two starts, there’s some evidence that Miller might be alright moving forward.

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I asked twitter if I should write about Dallas Keuchel, Marcus Semien and Jonathan Schoop, or Brad Miller, and they spoke definitively: what’s going on with Brad Miller? So I wrote up Brad Miller and then I discovered that Blake Murphy had done the same. So he might include some of my charts and analysis, he might not, but we were too similar.

And I start again, with the second-most requested topic: Dallas Keuchel, come on down!

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Another week, another crop of injuries open up spots for two waiver wire candidates. Me thinks there’s a pattern here. As we snorkel amid the waiver wire waters, our first contestant is no stranger to deep league fantasy owners, though his awful 2013 made him persona non grata in the vast majority of formats entering the season. Meanwhile, a Tommy John snakebite has opened up a spot in the Yankees rotation, potentially opening the door for an intriguing left-hander to aid fantasy owners.

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Yesterday, I unveiled the xK% regression equation 2.0 and used it to discuss pitchers who may enjoy a strikeout rate surge in the near future. Today I am looking into the opposite group — those whose xK% suggest a decline in strikeout rate may be imminent. Similar to the surgers, I am only going to list those pitchers with actual K% marks of at least 20%. If he’s only posting a 15% mark to begin with, but should really be at 10%, do we really care?

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You can look at parts of Martin Perez’ profile and find yourself salivating over the upside. At the same time, there are parts of his profile that can make you question whether he’s a major sell-high candidate. Ranked around the 100-mark entering the season, Perez seems closer to proving doubters wrong but hasn’t yet validated believers.

To wit: Perez isn’t striking many batters out, but he’s not walking many, either; He’s improved his ground ball rate, but he’s also been gifted a 0.0 percent HR/FB mark; and he has a 1.86 ERA, one that’s surely helped owners early, and it’s backed by a healthy 2.42 FIP and 3.20 xFIP, but ZIPS and Steamer don’t like him any better than a 4.38 and 4.68 ERA, respectively, for the rest of the season.

The good-and-bad profile gets even tougher to figure out when you dive in deeper.
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A year ago, I developed a regression equation to estimate what a pitcher’s strikeout rate (K%) should be. That formula used a trio of strike type rates found at Baseball Reference, including a pitcher’s looking, swinging and foul strike percentages. While the original formula was a strong estimator, I have since tweaked it slightly.

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Yesterday we looked at some sell high hitters. At the outset, I noted that selling high is mostly a thing of past – everybody knows it’s good to buy low and sell high. And everyone is a lot smarter about their player evaluation too. These days, the cool kids are buying high. To buy high, one need only identify which top, breakout performers are likely to remain among the top players. Sometimes, owners will sell these players at a relative bargain in their haste to sell high.

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