Yesterday we took a look at five hitters heading into their contract years, and today we’ll cover the guys on the mound. Remember, this is completely subjective on my part. I’m not really sure there would be another way to go about doing this.
There’s a possibility that Tommy Hanson will be both over- and under-rated this year. There’s strong reasoning on both sides, but perhaps a recent tidbit of news can tip the scales in one direction.
Tommy Hanson is over-rated.
Though he’s now shown strong ERAs over the last two years, his xFIP has remained above four. He only gets ground balls at a league-average rate (41.2% career, 40% is about average), and yet somehow he has kept his home run rate below one per nine (.65 career HR/9).
This isn’t sustainable given the state of research on the subject, and is most likely an artifact of his home park. Except that he’s given up more home runs at home (.71 HR/9) than on the road (.59 HR/9). Still, he doesn’t show Matt Cain’s insane ability to rack up infield flies, and his deflated home run rate is almost all due to a tiny HR/FB rate (6.2% career). That number is closer to 10% across baseball, and he’s likely to give up more home runs in the future.
And, with a strikeout rate that is mostly meh (7.87 K/9), those home runs will hurt.
Tommy Hanson is underrated.
It’s funny that you should mention that strikeout rate, actually. Recent work at Beyond the Box Score showed that his strikeout rates fell late last year (5.17 and 5.84 K/9 in August and September, respectively, down from above one per inning across the rest of the year) – and then linked the fall in strikeout rates to his declining velocity. Though Mr. Apostoleris has some excellent graphs of his own, we can see that the FanGraphs’ pitch f/x charts show that Hanson has had this problem both years.
So, like many young pitchers before him, Hanson has had some issues with stamina in his short career to date. RotoWorld (quoting the Atlanta Journal and Constitution) provides us with a nugget of hope in this regard:
Tommy Hanson-S-Braves Feb. 1 – 9:33 am et
Tommy Hanson gained 10 pounds of muscle this offseason.
Hanson worked out at the Boras Sports Training Institute all winter with a team of trainers. “I felt like I did everything possible to get ready for the season,” he said Monday. “That gives me maybe a mental edge.” The 24-year-old finished with a cool 3.33 ERA and 1.17 WHIP over 34 starts last season for the Braves. He struck out 173 batters in 202 2/3 innings.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s bordering on a “Best Shape of His Life” update, but this one has concrete information. He gained 10 pounds of muscle, and perhaps that will help him retain velocity deep into the season. More velocity means more whiffs, which will allow him to mitigate the damage any added home runs might put on his ledger.
Conclusion.
Both the fans and Bil James project Hanson to improve his strikeout rate (8.51 K/9 for James, 8.42 for the fans) while putting up the worst home run rate of his career (.74 and .75 HR/9 respectively). Because his control is solid (2.78 BB/9 career), he will surely be a good pitcher next year.
In order for Hanson to be truly elite, though, he’ll have to show a strikeout rate closer to his minor league rate (10.7 K/9 carer MiLB), or at least over one per inning. Call me an optimist, but beefing up in order to maintain his early-season strikeout rates late into the summer seems like a good way to start. Call him “well-rated but with upside” if you need a moniker.
We’ve seen the move enough over the last two years that the math is clear: Struggling young fly-ball pitcher from a tough American League division + trade to Arizona = Fantasy relevance! So will that math magic work for Armando Galarraga?
Not so fast. The first difference is immediately obvious upon looking at the player cards of the respective trio. Galarraga has a career 5.7 strikeout rate with a peak of 6.35 in 2008 – Dan Hudson showed a 6.75 K/9 in Chicago and was consistently over one per inning in the minor league leagues, and Ian Kennedy had a 6.49 K/9 in New York and also had a strikeout rate over one per inning in the minors.
But, say you believe in Galarraga’s peak strikeout rate despite its precipitous drop (to 4.61 K/9 last year), there’s still the matter of his ground-ball rate. All of the three are fly-ballers (not fly ballers), but here Galarraga (40.4% ground balls career) comes out (incredibly) ahead of the pack when compared to Hudson (34.2% ground balls career) and Kennedy (36.9% ground balls career). So… he strikes out a few less but gets a few more grounders, maybe he should be included in the trio as interesting late-round picks in upcoming drafts?
Thta’s still a negative, Ghostrider. It’s a matter of age and proximity to their minor league records. When Hudson made the leap to Arizona, he’d only accrued 34 1/3 major-league innings and 23 years on this earth – Kennedy 59 2/3 and 25 respectively. Galarraga is 28 years old and has pitched 475 1/3 major league innings. He’s no lapsed prospect that hasn’t gotten the chance to perform – he’s a journeyman just trying to hang on.
The bounce back won’t look like Hudson’s or Kennedy’s for Galarraga, who has pitched to a 5.17 FIP over his career, but could it look okay anyway? Take his career strikeout rate (5.7), strikeout-to-walk ratio (1.62) and ground-ball rate (40.4%) and look for comparative qualified starters in the National League last year, and it’s not pretty. Being as good as Randy Wolf (5.93 K/9, 1.63 K/BB, 39.4% GB) and his 4.17 ERA (4.85 FIP) would be a success story for Galarraga. Other close comps are Dave Bush (5.52 K/9, 1.64 K/BB, 39.5% GB, 4.54 ERA, 5.13 FIP) and Rodrigo Lopez (5.22 K/9, 2.07 K/BB, 37.6% GB, 5.00 ERA, 5.21 FIP) so he’s not in happy territory.
Galarraga may take the fifth starter role in Arizona next year, and he may pitch better than his terrible 2010 season (imPerfect game notwithstanding), and he may even have some superficial similarities to other AL starters that have made the same move recently – all of these things may be true, but he’s still probably not a good pick in your next draft.
Before we get to today’s results, I thought I’d ask you if you’d please leave your suggestions for future ADP Crowdsourcings in the comments below. Thank you.
Matt Garza (xADP, You)
My vote: 8, 10
Average: 9.7, 11.7
Median: 10, 12
Std Dev: 2.9, 4.3
While we may not have perfectly agreed on where Garza is going to be drafted, or even when we would be willing to take him, we did agree on one thing: Garza is going to be overvalued and taken about two rounds before we would be willing to pull the trigger. I think the perception of his move out of the AL East and into the National League will help propel his ADP, but I could very well be wrong. I always find it interesting to look at these results, because – at least in this case – it can make you realize that most of us aren’t expecting to have Garza on our rosters in 2011, which is a strange thought to have echoed throughout the sample.
Jeremy Hellickson (xADP, You)
My vote: 15, 13
Average: 13.3, 12.3
Median: 13, 12
Std Dev: 4.2, 4.1
Trying to pinpoint a prospect’s numbers are tough enough, let along trying to accurately predict where they will be drafted. However, you guys had a pretty good idea when it came to Hellickson, even if I thought he’d be taken a little later. To be fair, my thinking may be biased based on what I’ve seen in “expert” mock drafts, and I’m going to put my faith in you guys. While I would be willing to take Hellickson in the 13th round, my projections don’t indicate that he’ll be worth that pick. But, when you can get a young stud like Hellickson who has the chance to be great, it’s worth the risk. I have a feeling this may be the sentiment for a good number of owners, as it seems some weigh pure upside far more than others.
Please leave your suggestions for future ADP Crowdsourcings in the comments below. Thank you.
A bunch of recent minor signings and news items probably don’t deserve full posts but might be relevant in deeper leagues. Let’s clear them out!
Jose Arredondo is healthy
Arredondo is finally good to go after a two-year battle with his elbow. You might wonder who this dude is, but remember his excellent 2008 with the Angels (3.10 FIP), when he was good enough to close for most teams. And then remember how bad Francisco Cordero is (4.53 xFIP last year), and you’ll know that Arredondo may just vulture a save or two this year. Sure, Aroldis Chapman is starting in the pen, too, and is in line in front of Arredondo, but he’s also got the ability to start. File this name away, at the very worst he may be useful in deeper leagues that use holds.
Shane Victorino was called out by Charlie Manuel
While Manuel may not be right to call out his player publicly, the fact that he mentioned that Victorino was swinging for the fences too often was interesting. Victorino had the worst BABIP of his career last year, and the highest fly-ball rate. These things are related, since the BABIP on fly balls is poor. Give Victorino a few home runs less and push his batting average a few ticks higher if he’s listening to his manager. Either way, he’s a decent bounce-back pick, and always shows a little power and a good amount of speed. Under-rated if you ask me.
Chien-Ming Wang to be ready for spring training
He hasn’t been useful for anything other than Wang jokes since about 2007 (or 2008 if you want to be generous), but Wang says his shoulder feels good and that he’d like to compete for a role in the rotation in spring training. Carlos Silva had some similar statistics and came to the weaker league and performed well – this Wang may not be done Chunging yet. Don’t forget about him in your deeper leagues, even if his lack of strikeouts makes his upside a little less palatable.
In this week’s edition of ADP Crowdsourcing, we are taking a look at two players who will be affected by Matt Garza being traded to the Cubs. Today we finish our week of voting with Jeremy Hellickson, and are using rounds as our unit once again.
Even before Garza was traded, I think most (including myself) were drafting Hellickson on the assumption that he’d have a spot in the rotation when the season began, because Hellickson was simply too good to keep in the minor leagues any longer. After the Garza trade, we can now be sure that Hellickson should enter 2011 in the Rays’ starting rotation, but we cannot be sure how many innings he will pitch.
Some may want to compare Hellickson’s debut with those of David Price and Wade Davis, but Helly isn’t a comparable pitcher. Hellickson already has two breaking balls that are of MLB caliber, and he does a good job keeping his pitches low in the zone. Tampa Bay’s defense isn’t going to hurt his cause, either, as they should continue to do an excellent job converting balls in play to outs.
It’s understandable that owners will have their reservations, as a rookie facing the stacked lineups of Boston and New York isn’t the best case scenario, but good pitchers do well in almost any capacity. The Rays are still going to compete this year, and while their bullpen could lose Hellickson a few wins, he should still be able to reach a double-digit win total this year. As long as he doesn’t succomb to James Shields‘ Homerunitis, he’ll be fine.
We are still voting on where you think Hellickson will be drafted by the average owner, but we’re going to take it a step further. We are also going to vote on where you would draft him, as well. Also, please note we are using round, not pick this time because of Garza’s likely ADP. Below is a link to the voting form, and please read the wording carefully. For the voting, we’re assuming a 12-team standard league, using 5×5 scoring.
To submit your vote, click here.
In this week’s edition of ADP Crowdsourcing, we take a look at two players who will be affected by Matt Garza trade to the Cubs. Today we start with Garza himself, and are using rounds as our unit once again.
If you just watched Garza throw in a bullpen session, you may have reason to believe that he is a legitimate MLB and fantasy ace. However, you wouldn’t have much reason to believe that if you just looked at his numbers from the past three seasons in Tampa Bay. Garza is one of those starters who has good velocity on his fastball, and despite a fantastic slider, is unable to strike out as many batters as he probably should. Garza’s age-25 season in 2009 gave everyone plenty of hope, and his strikeout rate crept over the 8.0 per nine innings mark. But he returned to normal in 2010, striking out only 6.6 batter every nine innings.
Garza has become an extreme fly-ball pitcher over the past few years, and despite Tropicana Fields’ park factors, his home run rate is usually below average. Wrigley Field is not as forgiving, especially against left-handed hitters, so Garza could end up getting himself in a little bit of trouble this upcoming season. However, facing a pitcher or pinch-hitter instead of a DH and leaving the AL East should help mitigate his potential home run problems.
We are still voting on where you think Garza will be drafted by the average owner, but we’re going to take it a step further. We are also going to vote on where you would draft him, as well. Also, please note we are using round, not pick this time because of Garza’s likely ADP. Below is a link to the voting form, and please read the wording carefully. For the voting, we’re assuming a 12-team standard league, using 5×5 scoring.
To submit your vote, click here.
Now that Matt Garza has been shipped to Chicago’s north side, we know for (almost) certain that Jeremy Hellickson will start the season in Tampa’s five-man rotation. The 23-year-old (24 in April) made four spot starts and six relief appearances for the big league team last year, pitching to a 3.88 FIP (3.47 ERA) with 8.17 K/9 and 1.49 uIBB/9 in 36.1 IP. He was a little homer prone, giving up five in those innings (1.24 HR/9), but that’s to be expected from a rookie in the AL East.
* Anyone not named Billy Butler and Joakim Soria, obviously.
The Royals traded their two longest tenured players in separate deals this winter, first shipping David DeJesus to the Athletics before sending Zack Greinke to the Brewers in what probably qualifies as the winter’s biggest blockbuster. That has left the team’s roster pretty barren in terms of fantasy talent, at least outside of Butler and Soria. Let’s dig through the team’s 40-man roster and see if any of their notable pitchers are worth drafting in a standard 12-team league. We’ll cover the position players tomorrow.
Dan Szymborski released his ZiPS projections for the Dodgers earlier this week, and they really like the Dodgers’ (somewhat) rebuilt rotation. Let’s take a look at the front four…