As baseball history keeps telling us, a pitcher’s ultimate success often starts with the heater, providing a base of core strength for their pitch-mix body on which the glamor muscles of the breaking stuff can better be supported.

With that in mind, let’s look at the best fastballs from starters in 2022 according to Run-Value (per 100 pitches) before looking at three possible draft-day bargains. While Run Value is by no means the end-all measurement of overall quality, (nor necessarily predictive), it does give us a solid snapshot of the overall results that a pitch returned while sending up flares for where further investigation might be warranted.

Read the rest of this entry »

For this exercise, we will be looking at starting pitchers and their NFBC ADP as of 11/29/21. It’s always interesting to see how the crowd thinks, who they seem to value, and how fantasy managers are shaping their drafts. For instance, how many pitchers are going in the first round? How many fantasy managers are grabbing two starting pitchers in the first three rounds? A lot to unpack and a lot of different aspects to analyze. We will go by round and after each round, we will discuss briefly what we are seeing! To note: this is based on Draft Champions which is a 15 team format with about 14 completed drafts.

Read the rest of this entry »

2021 is over and we turn the page to 2022. Here are my current ranks for the outfield position for 2022, my second of the offseason. I will post updates as things change with signings, injuries, or news in Major League Baseball.

You can review my ranks for other positions here: https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/category/rankings/ Read the rest of this entry »

Today, I complete my review of the early starting pitcher velocity changes to see how whether it was an early sign of what their velocities will be over the rest of the season. We’ll finish our reviews up with another set of velocity gainers.

Read the rest of this entry »

I recently took over an Ottoneu team for the upcoming 2022 season. If you are unfamiliar with Ottoneu, it’s keeper league where you get to make trades from mid-November to January 31st. Any players left on your roster after that you keep, using the auction draft to fill in the missing pieces. Taking over someone else’s team kind of feels like moving into an empty office. There are a few cobwebs in the corner, the previous owner left a really cool pen in the desk drawer and there’s a very stinky sandwich in the staff refrigerator that you somehow feel like is your new responsibility.

The fun part is taking stock of what you have and trying to decide what you want to keep (cool pen) and what you want to cut (stinky sandwich). In this series of posts, I’ll write about the decisions I have to make, how I go about analyzing the data before making my decision, and then what decision I plan to make. You too could be doing this kind of thing, all you have to do is take over someone’s abandoned team and search through the desk drawers when you move in.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s continue reviewing the early season starting pitcher fastball velocity changes. Today, we’ll look at the decliners through the first start and compare those velocity readings to what each posted through the rest of the season. Were these first start declines early warnings to sell while you can or did the pitchers quickly bounce back?

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m just going to keep grinding my way through the starting pitchers hoping to find a couple of gems.

For reference, here are the pitchers I’ve already profiled:

Starting and Relievers, Part 1 & 2($$):

• Alzolay, Quantrill, J. Suarez, Thompson, R. Suarez, Thompson, C Hernandez
• Javier, Lamet, Rasmussen, Steele, M. Perez, Cortes, Espino, Stripling, Long, Houck

Deep League Starting Pitchers

• Kaprielian, Taillon, Carrasco, and Ober

Trevor Bauer (308)

Even before the recent criminal charges, Bauer was a divisive player with the recent incident leaving him with no support. He’s such a hot topic, I about skipped him over. Read the rest of this entry »

Back during the first week of April, starting pitchers had made just one start…if they had taken the mound at all yet. So obviously, there wasn’t a whole lot to analyze. Rather than go dark for several weeks until there’s enough of a sample size to say anything, I decided to look at which starting pitchers had increased their velocity the most versus 2020 in that one and only start. Now I want to go back and find out if these pitchers actually sustained those increases, and if so, did it also result in a strikeout rate spike. Let’s find out.

Read the rest of this entry »

With the projection analysis out of the way, it’s time to start finding some starting pitcher gems for those arms being drafted at pick 300 or later according to NFBC’s ADP.

For reference, here are the pitchers I’ve already profiled:

• Starting and Relievers, Part 1($$): Alzolay, Quantrill, J. Suarez, Thompson, R. Suarez, Thompson, C Hernandez
• Starting and Relievers, Part 2($$): Javier, Lamet, Rasmussen, Steele, M. Perez, Cortes, Espino, Stripling, Long, Houck

James Kaprielian (300 ADP):

Kaprielian didn’t start the season in the majors but was recalled in mid-May to join the A’s rotation. He was likely kept from throwing too many innings since he’s returning from Tommy John surgery, but he showed signs of life.

To start out, his velocity dropped 2 mph from 2020 but that 2020 value was from just 3.2 IP of bullpen work. In 2021, he was sitting 93 mph with a steady climb from averaging 92 mph up to 94 mph. This value is in line with his 2016 Baseball America report of “… sits in the low 90’s and topped out at 96.” Read the rest of this entry »

Drafting early into the “Draft Season” can definitely be a double-edged sword, you could be taking advantage of the early market but you also are risking potential injuries to your players. If you do prefer to draft early I decided to dig into the current ADP and check out some starting pitchers who are going so late that they might be hard to find.

Read the rest of this entry »