Archive for Stock Watch

Since I’m starting drafts, I decided I needed projections for seven of the players signing from Asia, either new to the MLB or returning. I could just pull a ranking out of my ass, but I figured I should at least start with a projection before inserting my own biases. For the following projections, I averaged the ZiPS and Clay Davenport projections and then add my own playing time adjustment.

Pitchers

Pierce Johnson
From the NRB
Signed with the Padres

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Historically, I’ve “corrected” hitter projections to my own liking and every time I’ve backtested them to the actual results, my adjustments have failed miserably. So why create more work when the end results make my final product worse? Am I a glutton for punishment? In all fairness, I’m sure a heavy dose of Dunning-Kruger is going on but I also believe there may be a sweet spot where personal scouting can come into play. Today, I’m going back to the well one more time to see if some injured hitters should have more encouraging projections because they may have played hurt.

First, I’ve always thought playing through an injury meant that the team and the player were accepting suboptimal production. Then the player could come back healthy and full productive the next season.
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Enough news has trickled out to put together a few noteworthy news nuggets.

• In my opinion, Chris Sale is not worth his current price right now (NFBC ADP of 44). I can’t have my likely ace and third-round pick with so many questions surrounding … especially not being ready to start the season healthy.

Red Sox ace Chris Sale has been cleared to begin throwing again after a visit with Dr. James Andrews, according to Rob Bradford of WEEI Radio. The goal is for Sale to be a full go for Spring Training in a few short months. Sale’s latest visit to the physician comes as a follow-up to an August appointment in which Sale received a platelet-rich plasma injection.
…
He didn’t suffer any ligament damage, and today’s update should inspire some optimism that Sale will once again be a stalwart in the Boston rotation and return to the Cy Young form that he maintained for the better part of a decade.

Better but not great.
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I blame my podcat mate Rob Silver for today’s study. First, he stated this:

The history of 35-year old first basemen having seasons like what everyone think Votto is gonna do is almost non-existent.

Now Hall of Fame players do Hall of Fame things but everyone just assumes the curve goes back up – and I hope it does but man….

— Rob Silver (@RobSilver) February 6, 2019

And then he said this:

Nelson Cruz hit 41 homeruns last year.

He’s awesome.

Super safe player to draft.

He’s 39 this year.

In the history of baseball one player has hit more than 40 homers at 39 or older – Barry Bonds.

Three players hit > 36 (Bonds, Hank Aaron, Papi)

Only 7 hit > 30.

— Rob Silver (@RobSilver) November 18, 2019

Of course, players age. Some quickly. Some not as fast. While few hitters remain productive into and past their mid-30’s, I needed a simple rule on how to deal with these vets. I found one and since I need to provide content to be paid, so does the world.
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The following tidbits are the most fantasy-relevant news I’ve found so far this offseason.

• Lots of information in this article to consider about Shohei Ohtani. One item that finally clicked with me was that his late-season injury was a knee issue.

Ohtani, though, proved he’s still a strong hitter, batting .286/.343/.505 with 18 homers and 62 RBIs in 106 games, but he saw his season end on Sept. 11 after undergoing surgery to address a bipartite patella in his left knee. The injury began to flare up in Spring Training, but Ohtani played through it, as it mostly only affected him as he ramped up his throwing program off the mound.

Tommy John recoveries need to get their new tendon from somewhere and it’s usually the knee. I wonder if the knee wasn’t healed from the elbow operation.

Also, his 2019 value seems limited by just pitching once a week and batting in just half the games.

Ohtani remains on track to return to two-way status in 2020, as he’s expected to pitch once a week and serve as the DH roughly three to four times a week. But he has to get his rehab done with both his knee and elbow this offseason, as he’s yet to fully complete his throwing program.

He is expected to be cleared to finish his throwing program in December and the hope is that he’ll have enough time to be ready for the start of the season. Ohtani is likely to be behind the other pitchers early in Spring Training, but it’s still too early to know the full plan heading into next year.

He’ll be limited to about 25 starts and in weekly lineup leagues, he’s just a half-time bat. Owners in bi-weekly lineup moves (e.g. NFBC leagues) can hope he hits during one of the two weekly blocks and not split time.
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Note: For my next few articles, I’m going to examine the hitters and pitchers who underperformed and overperformed in 2019. Each article may spawn off others since some areas may need to be explored in more detail. After performing horribly in 2019, I need to take take a hard look at why I missed last season and what I can do to improve.

I’m going to start with the one player class every owner hopes to hit on, breakout hitters. A couple of these cheaply acquired star hitters can help carry a team. It could be a prospect turned uber-prospect (e.g. Pete Alonso) or just a hitter displaying new skills (e.g. Ketel Marte). I’m going to dig into the reason these breakouts were not draft-day targets and look for any common themes.

To get the test subjects, I ran our auction calculator for end-of-season production and then compared the auction dollars to the values created from their ADP. I didn’t want to just use the difference in ranks because the gap from #1 to #15 could be over $10 but the difference between #250 to #300 might just be $1. Using this method, I found 62 hitters who outperformed their value by $10 or more.
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From a fantasy perspective, 2019 has not gone how we hoped for Andrew Benintendi. The Red Sox outfielder was being selected in the top-30 this spring: 30^th overall in NFBC drafts and 29^th at Fantasy Pros.

Benintendi continues to do things well in his third full big-league season. He hits for average, and walks often enough. While he is pacing for his lowest full-season stolen base output to date, he still can contribute in steals. But 450 games into his Major League career, Benintendi hasn’t been able to hit for the power that many anticipated. His 20-home run season in 2017 and current ISO of .181 being his high-water marks.

Benintendi’s solid, but underwhelming 2019 season may see him enter 2020 as a bit of a forgotten man in drafts. This could be a mistake if he is able to make the same power gains his teammate  Xander Bogaerts has made over the past two seasons – and Benintendi does share a significant amount of offensive traits with Boston’s star shortstop.

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Today at the Prospect Stock Watch, we’re going to look at pitching because… well, who isn’t looking for quality pitching? The ability to identify good pitching has become even more important around Major League Baseball these days where the balls have more juice than the Kool-Aid Man.

As a fantasy baseball owner, you’re tasked with finding a significant number of arms to help your team navigate through a long season filled with injuries and disappointments. And in this new era of baseball, it can be even more difficult to find a good, reliable starter as many pitchers hit a wall in Triple-A and/or the Majors where the balls are different than the lower minors (Say hello to Justus Sheffield and Deivi Garcia, among others).

Below, we’re going to rank the Top 6 MLB organizations in terms of minor pitching depth and list the best arms within each organization. If we look at the next wave of arms heading towards the MLB, it’s interesting to see these six organizations possess the majority of the top arms in baseball.

The below ranking will help fantasy managers in redraft leagues prepare for 2020, and it will help fantasy managers in dynasty leagues prepare for the multiple seasons ahead. Some of the teams below with the best pitching depth might surprise you. And if the rankings below are any indication, the American League Central could soon become a powerhouse league to rival the AL East.

1. The Detroit Tigers

The Tigers rank first for two reasons. Firstly, they have three pitchers at the top that project to develop into No. 1/2 starters. Secondly, the organization could graduate five strong starting pitchers by the end of the 2020 season. The club also projects to completely makeover the starting rotation by 2021 which could push Spencer Turnbull to the bullpen and allow the Tigers to deal Matthew Boyd for help on the hitting side (Recent draft pick Riley Greene looks special but there’s not much else after that).

Casey Mize, RHP, AA, ETA: 2020
Matt Manning, RHP, AA, ETA: 2020
Tarik Skubal, LHP, AA, ETA: 2020
Joey Wentz, LHP, AA, ETA: 2020
Alex Faedo, RHP, AA, ETA: 2020

Projected 2021 Rotation: Matthew Boyd, Casey Mize, Matt Manning, Tarik Skubal, Spencer Turnbull

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Every week for Sportsline, I write an article on available starting pitching and I lucked into a nice find. Using the criteria of owned in 60% or fewer leagues, increasing ownership, and they’ve never been profiled, Joe Ross met the criteria. I noticed Joe Ross reinvented himself as noted here by MLBDream.

Joe Ross throwing a curveball [h/t @jeffwzimmerman] and upping his sinker usage

👀 @JSpauny 👀 pic.twitter.com/LtkrEQc1CI

— MLBdream (@MLBdream) August 14, 2019

Today, I going to go through some lowly owned starters (in the majors and not on the IL) and see if any have made any positive or negative changes to their repertoire to utilize for the final quarter or the season. I’m going to look at pitchers owned in 16% to 30% of Fantrax leagues (Joe Ross was at 31% ownership).

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Today’s list is a weird group of players. Most should have been dropped last week once the ramifications of the trade deadline were known. Discrepancy Theory #1 is that about 20% of the owners blew off the post-trade deadline FAAB period (tough to miss this one) and finally caught up. If there was any week to be paying attention, it was the previous bidding period.

Or Theory #2 is that these owners were sheep waiting to see what other owners did with their drops. Most of the drops (e.g Tim Beckham) I would consider obvious, but maybe these owners need confirmation on making their moves. Or they use the platform’s ownership rate to see who to drop. I’m not sure if it’s wrong or right to wait a week on dropping someone. Waiting might be the correct move. It’s interesting and I’ll ponder the delay a bit more.

Also, if anyone happened to missed the last few articles, I’ve been trying to improve this article’s content. The major change is that I’m concentrating on players dropped in six to nine leagues. For now, this range seems the most useful for fantasy owners.

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