Dan Straily| Oakland Athletics | @ Seattle on Friday

Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like Dan Straily has been around for awhile. In reality, he’s still very much a prospect. He made his tenth major league start yesterday and has just over 50 career big league innings. And he’s a good prospect. He displayed good strikeout and walks skills throughout the minors, especially in the upper minors. His BB% was under 8% in stops at A+, AA, and AAA, and his K% was above 30% in about 150 innings of work at AA and AAA. Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Slowey was an afterthought this offseason. After signing a minor-league deal with the Miami Marlins, all but the most dedicated Marlins’ blogs neglected to write up the signing. In fairness, Slowey hadn’t pitched much in each of the last two seasons. A stress fracture in his rib cage ended his 2012 season after just eight minor-league starts, and he spent a fair part of 2011 in the minors. There was a legitimate question over whether Slowey would ever reach the majors again, let alone be an effective pitcher. But seven starts into 2013, Slowey has re-established himself as a bonafide major-leaguer. Though some regression is in store, Slowey’s landed in the perfect situation for a pitcher with his skill-set.

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Last week I looked at early season velocity gainers and losers. It was noted that the average fastball velocity so far is down league wide from where it was in 2012 but fairly consistent with the average fastball velocity in April 2012. But some commenters suggested that it might be useful to look at the April 2012 velocities of the guys who have seen the biggest gains and losses in velocity this year. The idea is to see if the discrepancy between 2012 velocities and April 2013 velocities is an indication of a change or just evidence that a guy tends to see his velocity dip or rise at the beginning of the year.

To gather a sample, I created a list of guys who threw 150+ innings last year and who had at least 20 innings this April. That yielded me a list of 70 pitchers. To find the significant changes in velocity, I calculated the differences in average fastball velocity between all of 2012 and April 2013. I then calculated the average difference and standard deviation to see who had made the biggest changes. Below are the guys who saw the biggest gains in velocity in April. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey, bounce back week! After a split week with two very bad suggestions, we rebounded a bit and only Anthony Rizzo kept the streamers from being perfect (sorry about Wade LeBlanc). It’s a bit of a stream-heavy weekend, with 28 of the 60 scheduled starters on Friday and Saturday sitting below the 50% ownership tag, but they’re a bit light on upside plays. Nonetheless, let’s dive in. As always, I aim for 50/25/15/5 ownership, roughly, when the streamers available allow.

Carlos Villanueva (48% owned) – Nope, he’s not as good as the numbers suggest right now. He’s got a 2.29 ERA and 0.82 WHIP, neither of which will last too long. But this shouldn’t be the weekend it corrects – the Reds can’t hit righties right now to save their lives, and their whiff-heavy ways should allow ‘Loso to continue to rack up a surprising number of strikeouts. I understand some trepidation here with Votto and Choo stroking northpaws well, but the lineup has been struggling a great deal beyond that pair and Todd Frazier in the early going. I wouldn’t stake my reputation on this one, but five innings and seven strikeouts is a reasonable expectation.

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When the Twins acquired Alex Meyer in December it marked a turning point of sorts for the organization. Denard Span had been one of the more popular regulars in the Twin Cities going on 6 years. This turning point was about more than sending Span out of town, though. Trading for a true power arm prospect was somewhat out of character for an organization that had recently become known for targeting soft-tossing, pitch-to-contact type hurlers. When G.M. Terry Ryan added Alex Meyer it seemingly punctuated a new trend in the organization’s effort to add well… more pitching in general, but particularly strikeout pitchers and guys who throw hard. Meyer does both these things and he isn’t far from helping Minnesota win ball games.

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It’s that week again, the time of the season when you get to put on your arguing boots and debate our updated tier rankings. As a reminder, these rankings are strictly based on projected rest of season performance. While the first month of statistics plays some (tiny) role in shaping my future projection, I am not technically weighting what has actually already happened. You can check out the preseason tier rankings for comparison.

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Boy, how things can change after just one month. Due to the promotion of Tony Cingrani, emergence of Matt Harvey and struggles of Matt Cain, the National League starting pitching landscape has been altered quite a bit. Since this is actually my first time doing rankings at the site, I’m going to put my own spin on them. Inside of normal tiers, we’ll rank them according to best Radiohead albums. I figure opening myself up to criticism from two different sides should be…fun. I’m also going to use the album titles to link to a song from that album, because, why not? But, first, let’s get to the rankings.

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Today we take another stroll into the dangerous and deep waters of the free agent pool of mystery. During our treasure search, we find a pitcher with a new name and pitch mix and an outfielder that was just called up.

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Perhaps I should have written this piece last week. Because last week, Justin Masterson had a sub-two ERA and people were talking about him and his new approach against lefties. Then again, this week he still has a 2.25 ERA and he’s ostensibly the same person. That’s the whole problem with believing in him, though — he’s still the same person.

In order to believe in change in an established pitcher, I want to see something change. Velocity. Pitching mix. Pitch usage. The quality of a pitch. First-pitch strikes.

I see none of these changes in Masterson, and least not at a level that would make me interested in a mixed league.

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Andrew Cashner | San Diego Padres | @ Cubs on Wednesday

Cashner is your typical young flamethrower who racks up strikeouts but struggles with control. In 130 career innings, he has a 25% K% and 10.5% BB%. In eight career starts he has a 25.7% K% and 4.4% BB%. That’s probably a small sample size anomaly, but there’s a chance that the windup suits him.

But Cashner has another skill beyond just the strikeout ability; he gets a ton of groundballs. His career ground ball rate is 51.3%. If he can keep that rate up as a full-time starter, he’ll join some pretty elite company. In the last ten years, there have only been three pitchers with a full season of 24%+ K% and 50%+ GB% at the age of 27 or younger. Those three were Jon Lester, Francisco Liriano, and David Price. Read the rest of this entry »