In our first big trade of the non-waiver trade deadline season, Marcus Stroman joins the New York Mets, at which point Mets fans know all too well that he’ll turn into a pumpkin and never be effective again until he’s traded away. In all seriousness the knee-jerk reaction is that this move is fantastic for his fantasy value, given a more pitcher friendly venue and a switch to the National League. Let’s dive into the park factors to get more clarity on the change in home parks.

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When we size up our weekly or daily pitching matchups, most of us probably get a nervous feeling when thinking about starting our hurlers against the Yankees, Red Sox, Twins or Dodgers. Lately, the Indians have become one of those feared teams, too. But it’s been occurring to me that it’s not much fun owning pitchers who ply their craft in the American League West.

Of course, there are the always-tough Astros, but they are not alone as difficult matchups. Going back to June 1, the Angels and Mariners have the two lowest O-Swing rates in the majors, and the Athletics and Astros rank sixth and seventh. The Astros and Angels have the lowest SwStr%, and the Mariners have the 10th-lowest. The A’s, Angels and Astros are in the top 10 for ISO. While the Rangers lag behind their division-mates in these categories, they — along with the A’s and Astros — rank among the eight teams with the highest hard contact rates.
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We think we know that pitcher skills change more frequently than hitter skills do, so it pays to monitor pitchers whose skills have spiked over a relatively small sample, like the past 30 days. That’s typically around five starts and a significant change in skills could signal a new talent level. Since the pitcher’s overall season line still includes a lot of the previous skills baked in, fantasy owners might not realize the transformation that has been occurring. So let’s take a look at some of the surprise names that appear near the top of the leaderboard.

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Houston and Los Angeles.

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It feels like the season is winding down, but there are still two-plus months left so we will still see plenty of minor leaguers come up and get a shot. Today I want to look at a group of K-BB% leaders who haven’t appeared in the majors yet (min. 70 IP at Double- and Triple-A).

Nabil Crismatt, SEA – 24% K-BB

The 24-year old started his big season in Double-A and has definitely slowed down in Triple-A, despite still striking out 34% of the batters he’s faced in 22 innings there. I’ll defer to Alex Chamberlain for more info on him as he recently featured Crismatt in a Peripheral Prospects piece.

Alex Faedo, DET – 23%

Faedo has improved in a repeat of Double-A, jumping in K-BB% from 15% to 23%. He was ranked 15th in the Detroit prospect list this spring, but these 99 innings have helped his outlook. While he hasn’t hit Triple-A, he might not need much time there before getting a look in the majors. He and the next guy on the list both appeared in Peripheral Prospect 1.13.

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You may or may not have heard that Yu Darvish is back. By any conventional measure, his latest back-to-back starts of six shutout innings, two hits, and seven-plus strikeouts rank among his best in a long time. By measure of “Game Score v2,” which FanGraphs includes in a pitcher’s Game Log, Darvish’s scores of 78 and 79 are his two best starts since 2017. Because some of his better Game Score starts went more than six innings: these are his two best six-inning starts, period. They happened very recently, consecutively, and he didn’t labor through them, either, throwing just 94 and 83 pitches, respectively.

The last two starts were a gift to those who took a leap of faith. Darvish, who walked at least three batters in seven of his first eight starts (33 walks in 36ish innings!) and 10 of his first 13 (44 walks in 66ish innings!), was an absolute mess. He had compiled a 4.88 ERA, 5.19 FIP, 4.49 xFIP, and 4.96 SIERA in 13 starts, the cherry on top being a walk rate (BB/9) of six. Six! Six batters per nine innings. As my 14-year-old self quoting Ron Burgundy might say: “I’m not even mad — just impressed.”

However, from June 10 to July 3 — a five-start window sandwiched between his early-season futility and his recent wizardry — Darvish struck out 33 and walked just five in roughly 31 innings, compiling a 3.68 xFIP and 3.64 SIERA. Read the rest of this entry »

Where would those of us who are passionate about full-season Fantasy Baseball be without the counsel of America’s Leading Fantasy Sports Aggregator to guide us? Our hearts accordingly leapt up when we beheld in our In Box last week ALFSA’s “Ten Bold Second Half Predictions.” And about whom were these predictions predicted? Here’s the full list: Matt Olson, Christian Yelich, Justin Smoak, Pete Alonso, Kenta Maeda, J.D. Martinez, Brandon Woodruff, Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Eloy Jimenez.

Thanks, podnuh; we’ll rush right out and grab all those guys. Look—as we see it, a Bold Prediction must also be a Useful Prediction, and for anyone in a redraft league, a Useful Prediction is one involving a player who might actually be available. With this in mind, we present our own Bold Second Half Predictions, confident that most if not all these guys will be available for cheap in most if not all leagues. Five pitchers today, then five hitters tomorrow: Read the rest of this entry »

Trade season kicked off with a couple of smaller moves over the weekend as Boston and Oakland bought in on a pair of once-solid arms trying to recapture their past glory. While the deadline isn’t loaded with top-flight players, we could still see a blockbuster trade period by volume. Of course, that second wildcard keeps a lot of teams thinking they are alive when they really aren’t legitimate contenders… lookin’ at you, San Francisco.

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7/12/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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Just about every league has a Mike Soroka owner. Then again, the Braves’ All-Star rookie landed at the break as a top 20 starting pitcher in Roto value. He has the fifth-lowest ERA (2.42) and 13th-lowest WHIP (1.05) among all pitchers with at least 80 innings, and 6.0 runs of support per nine innings has left him with a dazzling 9-1 record.

Soroka also ranks seventh in sinker usage with a 47.4 percent rate. His primary offering is, in general, a notoriously bad pitch for swings-and-misses and not especially good for limiting extra-base hits. As one would expect from a pitcher who uses a sinker nearly half the time, Soroka has been below average at getting strikeouts. While the major league average K% is 22.8 percent, Soroka has registered a 20.1 percent rate in the first half. When you consider that many of the below-average strikeout pitchers are left unowned in many leagues, Soroka has been something of a liability for strikeouts for fantasy owners.
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