The trading deadline is behind us and we’re knocking on the door of the stretch run. Somehow, it’s already August. And it was just a few short months ago that Evan Longoria was the consensus #1 third baseman and just a couple months ago that Aramis Ramirez appeared to have lost his eyesight. It’s been said more than once on this platform that the one constant is change, so with that in mind, I give you the updated third base rankings for August.
If you haven’t seen new Orioles first baseman Chris Davis‘ stats at Triple-A this season, you might want to put down your morning coffee to avoid spillage before you read on.
Today marks the second day of a new feature we will be trying out here at RotoGraphs. In an attempt to keep you, the fantastical reader, informed, we will be looking at some of the stories around baseball that have an effect on your fantasy team. Because this piece is ultimately being read by you, your opinion is requested. Please chime in using the comments and let us know what you would like to see from this piece.
– Stephen Strasburg, the phenom to end all phenoms, will begin a minor league rehab assignment sometime next week. The Washington Nationals ace has come back quickly from Tommy John surgery, and while some of his owners would prefer him to take it easy and wait until 2012 to return, getting a taste of big league action in 2011 will be good for the Nationals organization. As long as he’s not being rushed back, Strasburg pitching this season shouldn’t be a problem for his long-term development. If you’re in a standard redraft league, don’t worry about picking The Monument up, though.
Today marks the first day of a new feature we will be trying out here at RotoGraphs. In an attempt to keep you, the fantastical reader, informed, we will be looking at some of the stories around baseball that have an effect on your fantasy team. Because this piece is ultimately being read by you, your opinion is requested. Please chime in using the comments and let us know what you would like to see from this piece.
After a wild trade deadline, the Rangers now have Neftali Feliz, Mike Adams, and Koji Uehara in the back of their bullpen. This trade has a few fantasy storylines, so let’s make it more digestible:
Unless Keanu Reeves has been working on calling signs, you won’t be able to replace Brian McCann with a player off the wire with his upside. Now that the 27-year-old Brave has had his career year derailed by an oblique injury in the middle of a marathon game, fantasy owners will be looking for replacements. Let’s take a look at some possible pickups. In tiers!
Shallow Leagues
Jonathan Lucroy (38% owned in Yahoo)
Perhaps it was a dropping BABIP that has had Lucroy hitting closer to .250 over the last two months, but if batting average is important to you, he’s one of the better options available in more than half of Yahoo’s leagues. The good news is that the Milwaukee catcher has some upside left — this year. He’s showing a 21.5% strikeout rate, but also a 6.5% swinging strike rate. Last year, those numbers were 18% and 7.0% respectively. It’s possible that since his BABIP (.338) is so close to his xBABIP (.329), his batting average could even rise as his strikeout rate begins to look more like last year’s strikeout rate. His minor league strikeout rates were all much closer to 15%, so this outcome comes close to probable even. The question is his power. A .119 ISO is not going bring you McCann-like rewards. Not many batters have a ground-ball-to-fly-ball ratio above 1.41 and a home-run-rate-per-fly-ball around ten percent. Chipper Jones, Dustin Pedroia, Martin Prado and Melky Cabrera do, though. The nice thing is that all of them have ISOs above average. Lucroy might run into a few more home runs in the second half.
Mixed Leagues
Ramon Hernandez (23% owned in Yahoo)
Sure, you can go with the high-power, low-batting average guys like Miguel Olivo and and John Buck. Or maybe even Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who has resurrected his career and is mostly playable despite a bad contact rate. Instead it’s Ramon Hernandez that gets the call here. It’s taken the 35-year-old a long time to finally put up a .300 batting average, but with a .328 xBABIP and a .303 BABIP, it might just be sustainable. The way he did it was by sacrificing his fly balls. A career low in fly ball rate along with a career high in ground-ball rate makes him a different player these days, but don’t expect that 20.4% HR/FB rate to continue. He has a 11.7% career number and his power, as measured by ISO, has been dwindling for a while. Still, even if he won’t play as much as McCann or have the same power, he won’t kill your batting average.
Deep Leagues
David Ross (1% owned in Yahoo)
Well, now you’re just screwed. Just hope he won’t be out long. Ryan Doumit’s rehab has been moved to Triple-A, but he’s probably not back until the beginning of August. Josh Thole might be out there for you as long as you’re not in an NL-only with two catchers — don’t laugh, I am in the AL version — but the Mets catcher is all batting average because of his choked-up approach at the plate. And that approach is even limited in batting average upside. Instead, consider taking the same approach that the Braves might take and pick up Brian McCann’s replacement. If he’s out there, it’s because it’s obvious the lifetime .236/.325/.449 hitter is above his head at .293/.361/.507 so far this year. You don’t need xBABIP to know his .367 BABIP in 84 PAs is not sustainable. Ross has looked great in Atlanta mostly because he’s been limited to facing lefties, too. Interestingly enough, though, the 34-year-old righty has a .331 career wOBA against righties (.334 vs lefties). Everything but his BABIP is looks the same! Take advantage of perceived flaws and pick up the catcher with the .213 career ISO that has been hitting over .270 for the past three years.
It has been just about a year since Jhonny Peralta was dealt from the Cleveland Indians to the Detroit Tigers. It was July 28th, 2010, and Peralta was continuing his slide from the previous season where he saw his production fall in every meaningful category. His work ethic and conditioning were often criticized and given that his listed weight had gone from 180 pounds to a suck-in-your-tummy 215, his future at shortstop seemed rather dubious.
Cleveland had decided that Peralta wasn’t going to be worth the $7.25 million option they had on him for 2011 and the Tigers decided that having half their team on the trainers table wasn’t getting them any closer to a pennant. And thus, the “other” Giovanni Soto was sent to Cleveland for an underwhelming Peralta, hitting just .246 with seven home runs over 91 games. The general reaction was a bit of a shrug of the shoulders.
As hard as it is to concentrate with our fearless leader’s struggles on our minds, we must soldier on. Today, we’ll take a break from the National League outfield (don’t drop Nate Schierholtz until you know where Carlos Beltran will end up and what the Giants will do to fit him into the gargantuan holes in their lineup, since he could end up with the bigger part of the platoon with Cody Ross) to instead have some fun with the new statistic on our site. Yup, it’s SIERA time.
The thumbnail about SIERA is that creator Matt Swartz found that strikeout rate interacted with a pitcher’s BABIP and HR/FB. He also found that elite ground ball rates lead to better BABIPs. Because of these interactions, some pitchers should be compared to other excellent pitchers in those categories instead of being tied to the league average. We might find some aces that look better with SIERA, for sure, but it’s worth running the list in order to see who SIERA likes best. Another weapon in the fight against the luck dragon. Expect fabulous FIP-SIERA and xFIP-SIERA posts later in the week.
Back on May 6th Zachary Sanders wrote a waiver wire post about Todd Helton. At the time he was owned in only 12% of Yahoo! leagues and 19% of ESPN leagues. Some of you heeded Mr. Sanders’ advice as Helton’s ownership in ESPN leagues is up to 98.8%. Kudos to you, Mr. Owner. But those of you in Yahoo! leagues…what gives? Why do you hate Todd Helton? His ownership is just 61%.
All Helton has done is hit .324/.407/.502. No matter what type of league you’re in a slash line like that has value, even if its just as a bench bat. No, the 11 home runs and 50 RBI aren’t the type of power numbers you’d usually want from your first basemen, but Helton’s .177 ISO is actually higher than it’s been since 2006. The month of July has been especially good to Helton. He’s hit .396/.507/.604 in 69 plate appearances with seven extra base hits and 16 RBI. Expecting a 1.111 OPS to continue is a pipe dream, but there’s no reason he can’t maintain a figure in the high .800’s or low .900’s thanks to his fantastic on base percentage. His OBP has climbed each month going from .359 to .385 to .396 to .507 in July. Of the 17 first basemen Yahoo! has ranked in the top 100 Helton is the only one with an ownership percentage of 82.
Granted, you’re not likely to start Helton over players like Prince Fielder, Joey Votto, Paul Konerko, etc, but Carlos Pena and Billy Butler are owned in more leagues despite being lower in the rankings. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Helton keeps his average above .320 for the season. Only seven players in baseball hit above .320 last year. More players hit 30+ home runs. That presents real value.
Check your rosters. That last bench player you have that you rarely use? Drop whoever it is in favor of Helton. He’s better than the alternative.
Another week and another innovation at ottoneu headquarters. Now you can browse any ottoneu league you like, right here. A few recommendations include the FanGraphs Staff League, the original ottoneu league, Justin Merry’s league (for you linear weights players, since he’s the scoring system creator and all), and, yes, the Expert’s League. Use the feature to learn a little more about what you should do in your league.
For example. A little ride over to the commissioner’s team page in the Expert’s League can show you what our group of prognosticators decided Brian McCann was worth ($33). Or how many minor leaguers a seasoned ottoneu player owns (zero in this case). Lastly, since Commissioner Chad Young has his Amateur Hour team in seventh place, it can show you what another ottoneu team trying to decide whether to buy or sell looks like.
It’s an interesting team, you might find when you’re looking at his set lineups page. He’s got J.P. Arencibia and Brian McCann, two very good young catchers, both playing right now. And yet he only has 13 games left to play at the position. Is McCann going to be worth $35 next year? Will someone want Arencibia? This is a clear position of surplus for Young.
His team is not that old, though. Sure, he has Vladimir Guerrero ready to head to the bench for good, and of course no minor leaguers, but he also boasts Eric Hosmer, Hunter Pence, Domonic Brown and Mike Moustakas as position players. But the Vlad injury forces him to play Rajai Davis in the outfield. He could use an outfielder if he’s going to go for it this year.
His pitching is strong. Roy Halladay, Jered Weaver, Jeremy Hellickson, Shaun Marcum and Jair Jurrjens are the headliners, but Julio Teheran and Ryan Dempster make for a good bench. If he goes for it, a $10 Marcum might have great trade value without requiring him to sell his top pitching prospect. If he calls it quits on the year, a $43 Roy Halladay may not be keepable, as much of a machine as the Doc is.
The old adage is that “Nobody cares about your fantasy team.” The irony is that you can learn a lot from looking at other people’s fantasy teams. And before we get too up in arms about Chad’s team, we should go softly. He’s about to return from his honeymoon to discover that Guerrero broke his hand. As if returning from a honeymoon wasn’t difficult enough.
Oh, and the offer still stands! Fill an ottoneu league now, and the entire league is free. Contact ottoneu founder Niv Shah if that sounds interesting to you (on twitter or at help @ ottoneu.com).
It’s been awhile since we’ve done one of these. Let’s get right to it and take a look at some shortstop performances over the past two weeks.
Risers:
He’s actually steadily improved every month, but even his improvements were still far less than we’ve come to expect from Ramirez. His wOBA by month are .245, .312, .324, .516. Needless to say, July has been pretty kind to him. In his 61 plate appearances this month he’s hitting .392/.492/.706 with 4 HR, 17 RBI, and 7 K to 10 BB. The four home runs tie his high for a month this year and the 17 RBI are already eight more than he had back in April. It’s only been 61 plate appearances but it looks like Ramirez may finally be turning the corner we’ve all been waiting for. For all of us who have stuck by him this entire season I sure hope that’s the case.
His month of June was actually pretty amazing. He hit .297 in 105 plate appearances, but only managed a .681 OPS. He was the definition of an empty batting average. So far his July is pretty amazing as well. In his 42 plate appearances he has a 0.0% walk rate and 0.0% strikeout rate. Somehow he’s been able to run into two homers and banged out three doubles, giving him one less extra base hit than he had in June. He’s never hit for much power over his career, but has been able to maintain a decent enough average to retain value in deeper mixed or NL only leagues. He’s currently hitting .314 and is available in 93% of Yahoo! leagues.
Fallers
When Castro isn’t hitting for average he provides very little to your lineup. He doesn’t hit for any power and doesn’t walk enough to pick up any steals. This month he’s hit just .236 with zero steals and zero home runs. His strikeout rate has ballooned to 21.4% in 56 plate appearances. For someone that is owned in 91% of leagues you need better production out of him. If someone like Keppinger is available in your league you may be better off adding him until Castro can get back to his normal self.
They’re having shortstop issues on the south side of Chicago as well. Ramirez has been falling since June, putting up a .265/.311/.343 triple slash line with 1 HR and 11 RBI that month. That was after a hot May in which he posted a .389 wOBA. Unfortunately for him, he seems to have carried over the woes of June into July. He’s hitting .217 in the month, and while he does have two home runs his OBP is a horrible .265. The worst part about his season has been the lack of stolen bases. Ramirez had averaged 13 in his first three seasons but has only three so far, meaning he’s unlikely to reach double digits which severely damages his fantasy worth.
