In the FanGraphs Experts League (most recently discussed here), my team (Amateur Hour) has been in a free fall, sinking from first all the way to 8th and 15 points out of the top three.

But I am thinking of acquiring at least one rental, if not two or three, to try to make a push this year. Before doing so, I want to lay out my case here and explore why a team in the bottom half of the standings might decide the time is right to make a run.

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Stephen Strasburg is possibly the best starting pitcher so far this season. Here is a quick sampling of his stats:

11.6 K/9, 32% K%
2.6 BB/9, 7% BB%
2.82 ERA, 2.42 FIP, 2.60 xFIP, 2.60 SIERA

These numbers are good enough that I have him ranked as the best fantasy starting pitcher without taking the number of innings he pitches into account. The only knock against him is that he is not a ground ball pitcher with has led to a career BABIP 0.308. When he is on the mound, he is arguably the best fantasy pitcher in the in the game.

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For me personally, it feels like offensive surprises and busts are harder to evaluate during the year because we have fewer tools to analyze. Power is one skill that is difficult to decide how real a spike or drop is, but Jeff Zimmerman has been mentioning a tool at Baseball Heat Maps that gives you the distance of a hitter’s batted balls, which may really help in this type of analysis. In the past, I have used the ESPN Home Run Tracker site to help determine how flukey a change in HR/FB ratio is, but I think looking at the raw average distance is a less flawed method. I looked at the five hitters whose HR/FB ratio has increased the most this year and then added their 2011 and 2012 average home run plus fly ball distances to the table.

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Mike Trout is a stud.  No question about it.  At 20 years old, the Angels outfielder has taken MLB by storm with a .341/.397/.562 slash line that comes with 12 home runs, 40 RBI, 57 runs scored and 26 stolen bases. He’s delivered all of that and, mind you, he was in the minors for the first month of the season. The production has been phenomenal and as an owner of Trout in my primary keeper league, the smile is so wide, it makes the Kool-Aid guy look like a crying fool. But while the old adage is not being able to see the forest through the trees, so many keeper league owners are so hell-bent on building up their future that they fail to see the season at hand and are so willing to dismantle their entire squad simply to acquire Trout and hand me the league this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Adam Wainwright’s last start was a match up with an historically bad offense and it was such a no brainer that he was my starting pitcher pick in “The Game” here on Fangraphs. Seven runs and 11 hits over five innings pitched versus the Pittsburgh Pirates later, I felt rather duped. And yet, I’m still bullish on Adam Wainwright.

Here’s what I know. Between 2007 and 2008, Adam Wainwright was a very good starting pitcher. Between 2009 and 2010, he was great. You wanted Adam Wainwright on your fantasy team, and you wanted him badly. I just know it.

And then we know about elbow surgery.

But despite it being a particularly damning diagnosis in the short term, Tommy John surgery isn’t quite as terrifying as it used to be since we’ve seen so many pitchers return to have successful post-surgery careers. Often times, we see pitchers simply scraping off the rust after spending the better part of a year recovering and rehabbing and not throwing baseballs. But their skills often return.

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On Saturday, I identified a couple of players who fantasy owners might consider buying high on. I purposely ignored players who were expected to be top guys to begin with, but were having even better season than projected (David Wright, Adam Jones), as I preferred to look at more of the cheaper players with surprising performances. Similarly, the sell low guys will be players that were expected to generate high dollar values. I think it’s tougher to recommend selling low on a player than buying high, because we always preach patience and believe that a player will bounce back to his established level of performance, rather than weight the first 3 months of the season so heavily. At the risk of being very wrong…

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A few days ago, I looked at the effects the shift may be having on players using the difference between their BABIP and xBABIP. The observed drop in a player’s BABIP, compared to their xBABIP, was 41 points. As reader phoenix2042 pointed out, I was using a dated formula for xBABIP. By using an updated xBABIP formula, I still found a difference, but not as much of one.

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In the original ottoneu league, the weeks following the amateur draft tend to be among the most active. As contracts are signed, draftees become roster-eligible and teams – particularly those that are out of the running for this year – begin the process of stocking their farm system with newly minted millionaires.

This year, Carlos Correa was already auctioned in that league, going for an impressive $6. Not only that, but half the league bid on him and four of the bids were for $5 or $6. All for a 17-year-old. The kid has a ton of potential, and may very well be the second coming of Alex Rodriguez. But I didn’t enter a bid.

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You may recall that a month into the season, I was embarrassing myself in the LABR mixed league. Despite going offense heavy during the draft and being questioned about my pitching staff, my team simply wasn’t hitting. My pitching was performing better, but not nearly good enough to offset the atrocities at the plate. Well, a month later, things have improved. Not a whole lot, mind you, but better times indeed.

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After generating quite a bit of hype this preseason with the addition of Prince Fielder, Detroit looked to have a fairly potent offense this year. That offense has not materialized yet. Here are some of my thoughts on their struggling lineup.

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