Archive for Stock Watch

In Tuesday night’s After Dark chat, several people wanted to know if Austin Jackson is having a breakout season. A triple slash line of 0.500/0.583/0.850 definitely looks impressive, but those numbers are just not sustainable. With such a small sample, I will look to see if he is showing any signs of real improvement.

The most important note to remember is that Austin has only had 24 PAs this season. That number is just too few a number of at bats to draw any definite conclusions. In past seasons, he has reached similar numbers in other 6 game spans:

Apr 28th to May 3rd 2010: 0.571/0586/0.750
Jul 20th to Jul 25th 2010: 0.500/0.500/0.692
Jun 3rd to Jun 8th 2011: 0.400/0.438/0.533
Aug 30th to Sep 4th 2011: 0.552/0.567/1.069

Almost all players will get on an extreme hot hitting streak at some time. Jackson just seems to be the player starting the season on one.

The main cause of Austin’s improved performance is his unsustainable 0.643 BABIP. His career BABIP (0.374) has always been high, but not in the 0.643 range. Last season, Adrian Gonzalez led the league with a 0.380 BABIP. Using my xBABIP Spreadsheet, which uses batted ball data, his xBABIP projects a BABIP of just 0.428. A main contributor for the difference between his expected and actual BAPIP values is a 25% infield hit percentage (IFH%). Normally, a player’s IFH% maxes out around 14% in a season. For example, here are the 2011 and 2009 to 2011 IFH% leaders:

IFH%
2011: Cameron Maybin: 14.2%
2009-2011: Ichiro Suzuki: 13.8%

While Jackson has always had a decent BABIP, his 2012 value will eventually come down. People should expect Austin to max out with a BABIP south of 0.400.

The other factor for the increase in production is a drop in his strikeout rate from his previous average of 26% to 20% this season. The drop in K% is supported by his Swing % dropping from 46% to 42% and his contact % going from 63% to 75%. In his few PAs, he seems to be a little more selective with his swings and when he does swing, he is making more contact.

Of the higher BABIP or lower K%, I would track the K% to see if it stabilizes at a new level. With a lower K%, he will see a nice bump in AVG. Here is a what his AVG will look like with a 20% and 25% K% assuming a 0.380 BABIP:

25% K%: 0.285 AVG
20% K%: 0.304 AVG

It is way too early to draw any real conclusions from Austin Jackson’s start to the season. Most of his production has come from a completely unsustainable BABIP. Besides the high BABIP, he is also showing improved plate discipline. While the sample size is way too small right now, I would continue to track his K% and see if he has better control over the strike zone as the season goes on. Any chance for a breakout will be tied to lowering his strikeout numbers.

The season is barely more than a week old, but let’s quickly take stock of two first baseman headed in opposite directions…

Stock Up: Carlos Pena | Rays | Owned: 74! Yahoo! and 100.0% ESPN

Moving back to Tropicana Field after a one-year stint in Wrigley Field figures to take a bite out of Pena’s numbers over the long haul, but the first week back in the old digs has been a productive one (.536 wOBA in 22 PA). What I like most about Pena’s situation is his new batting order spot, second behind Desmond Jennings and ahead of Evan Longoria, Matt Joyce, and Ben Zobrist. It’s a prime RBI and runs scored spot, where his power and patience will play well. We know Pena won’t hit for average and his platoon split is an issue as well, but if he can’t get back over 100 RBI this season, he might never do it again.

Stock Down: Mike Morse | Nationals | Owned: 94% Yahoo! and 99.4% ESPN

A lat strain kept Morse on the shelf while the rest of the team broke camp, and the diagnosis has only gotten worse. Morse is now in “total shutdown mode” according to GM Mike Rizzo, and he won’t do anything for six weeks. If all goes well, maybe he’s back in the lineup in eight weeks, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Like oblique strains, lat issues can linger if not properly healed. Adam LaRoche’s job is safe for the foreseeable future, and Morse remains will remain a question mark until June.

It’s time for our first American League starting pitcher update! Let the small sample size analysis begin. I was bored at work today and decided to compare fastball velocity with last year already. Not surprisingly, there were a ton more pitchers with down velocity than up. I think this simply reminds us that pitchers are still building up arm strength and it should not automatically trigger alarm bells if your ace is not throwing as hard as last year. Of course, it’s something to monitor since it should gradually creep up through the rest of the month.

Read the rest of this entry »

In past years, I have posted 20 bold predictions for the upcoming season. Just because our little RotoGraphs contest among authors only required 10 doesn’t mean I was going to stop there! So here are another 10 bold predictions to ridicule me for, or cause your eyes to open in wonder as to how I could be such a brilliant prognosticator. And before you read on, take another gander at my first set of boldies to refresh your memory.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today, I am going to have a rundown on some position battles and lineup movements for various 2B. Mainly, I am looking for any last minute changes in a player’s value.

Position Battles

Royals – Chris Getz ,Yuniesky Betancourt and Jason Bourgeois – When the Royals demoted Johnny Giavotella to AAA, Chris Getz looked to be the everyday 2B. With his supposed new found swing, he looked to be given the Royals 2B job. Almost immediately, it was stated that Getz and Betancourt would have to share the 2B duites.

Yost isn’t designating either of them as the starting second baseman.

“We’ll play them both there, we’ll mix-and-match now,” Yost said.

Read the rest of this entry »

Stock down

Aaron Crow

Aaron started out 2011 with a bang. He had a 2.08 ERA, which he rode into the All-Star game as the Royals’ only invitee. The problem was that he was riding a bit of a lucky streak led by a .243 BABIP. He regressed quite a bit in the second half of the season when his ERA jumped to 4.34 because of a .393 BABIP. Also in the second half of the season, he did not record 1 Save or Hold. He was though able to accumulate five Blown Saves during that time frame.

Going into spring training, he attempted to become one of several relief pitchers league wide to transition into becoming a starting pitcher. After a few weeks, the experimentation was stopped when Joakim Soria was lost for the season and Crow was moved back to the bullpen.

Read the rest of this entry »

Brandon Morrow has always been an enigma to me. He has great stuff, but just can seem to put it all together for one good season. I am going to try to look at similar pitchers from the recent past to see if there is any hope of him breaking out.

Since the right-handed pitcher broke into the league with Seattle in 2007, here is where he ranks among the 156 starting pitchers with 400 or more innings.

K/9: 1st (10.0 K/9)
BB/9: 149th (4.5 BB/9)
% of PA that end in a BB or K: 1st (37.3%)

Brandon is a true outcome pitcher with most at bats ending up as either a walk or a strikeout. Besides being a true outcome pitcher, his career ERA has been significantly worse than his ERA predictors:

ERA: 4.37
FIP: 3.85
xFIP: 3.94
SIERA: 3.71

Read the rest of this entry »

The season is bearing down on us, so it’s time for a roundup of where some hitting prospects stand in their attempts to make Opening Day rosters across baseball.

Read the rest of this entry »

Keeping up with some of my colleagues here at Rotographs, here are three of the players I’m avoiding in drafts this season.

Delmon Young*

I know Young is a popular sleeper, and I know he’s absolutely setting Florida alight with his .485/.500/.970 line with 4 HR, but I am not buying in. If anything, his 33 great at bats enforce my concerns with Young, namely that while he’s entirely capable of having a burst of tremendous performance, he can’t sustain it over the course of a full season. He had one of those bursts as soon as he arrived in Detroit, hitting .324/.336/.481 with 4 HR in just over 100 PAs, but the other shoe dropped as he hit a 4-for-43 skid just before the end of the season. Read the rest of this entry »

Andy Pettitte

Andy Pettitte will be joining the Yankees tomorrow to see if he can be a useful starter. Don’t get caught up in the recent hype. The 39-year-old will have a lower than expected fantasy value for a few reasons.

First, a production level needs to guesstimated. To get an idea of his possible production level, here are his K/9 and BB/9 levels over the last three years he pitched:

Year, K/9, BB/9
2008, 7.0, 2.4
2009, 6.8, 3.5
2010, 7.1, 2.9

We should expect a K/9 value near 7.0 and BB/9 near 3.0. For reference, here are 3 pitchers from 2011 with similar K/9 and BB/9 rates:

Read the rest of this entry »