Archive for Uncategorized

It looks like there’s no one at this game, though I think I saw a Meckler Heckler.

On the Agenda: 

1. Closer Chaos
2. Quick Hits
3. Various News and Notes
4. Streaming Pitchers

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Having now identified the three hitters who may have suffered the most bad luck so far this season, while still holding real fantasy value and possibly being available in your leagues, it’s time to dig into why.

Through the process of elimination in the In Search of Some Luck piece, we were able to land on three names, which we will break down in this piece. Trent Grisham, JJ Bleday, and Max Muncy.

These three names provide a wide scope of ways a hitter can underperform their expected output, giving not only three potential additions to your fantasy roster, but a wider methodology to consider when looking at why some hitters don’t perform to their expected offensive output.

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Some teams would call it an embarrassment of riches, but the rise of Emerson Hancock in the absence of Bryce Miller early in the season has left the Mariners in a bit of a bind from a roster construction point of view.

With not enough starts to go around for six starters, Jerry Dipoto, Dan Wilson, and company opted to piggyback Bryce Miller and Luis Castillo. While the results spoke for themselves, it certainly did not look great off the field.

Whether that be Castillo launching his glove and jacket into the benches of Sutter Health Stadium, or Miller himself, very uncharacteristically for a starting pitcher, giving his thoughts rather candidly on the situation.

“This setup is not very comfortable.”

He stated awkwardly, in his post-game interview in Sacramento, before reverting to the usual newspeak we have come to expect from MLB players.

For both Castillo and Miller, there is only one way to remove yourself from any ideas of future piggybacking: pitch so well they don’t remove you.

That is exactly what Miller (and Castillo to a lesser extent, to his credit) has done, so far, since Operation Piggyback began.

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Now that the foundations have been laid and the methodology explained in Part 1 of this series, we can dive deeper into some of these pitchers.

As noted in the previous piece, Corbin Young wrote two breakdowns of individual rookie starters that I will link below:

The first covering Nolan McLean, Bubba Chandler, and Parker Messick. Link here.

The second covering Payton Tolle, Connelly Early, Brandon Sproat, and Trey Yesavage. Link here.

So this will be more of a collective analysis of the rough groupings and what stands out from the composite rating, and whether any deeper stats can further support or provide additional context for fantasy purposes.

The composite z-score rating has provided a solid framework for assessing this group of rookies, and most have now logged enough innings to draw early conclusions from the metrics. It is these pitchers who will receive the bulk of the analysis in this piece, while Gage Jump has looked enticing in his two starts — 12 innings is not quite enough for meaningful metric analysis just yet, but well worth keeping a close eye on.

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Beyond the Obvious Multi-Fastball Breakouts

Building on the chart we used last week to identify multi-fastball starters, some interesting names did not receive the analysis they perhaps deserved. This second piece seeks to address that, diving deeper into the names that did not fit the profiles identified in the initial piece but deserve coverage nonetheless, both from a pure baseball and fantasy perspective. Of the 38 qualified starters using a multi-fastball approach, 24 utilize a true multi-variant arsenal. The majority of these pitchers are already well known. Deep dives on Bryan Woo or Max Fried are not necessary at this point, but having covered some of the more obvious fantasy adds in part one, there was still plenty more to explore. The updated chart below reflects the latest qualified starter data, including some new names worth keeping an eye on.

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Angel in the outfield!

I know, it’s pronounced AHN-hel. He was fine, by the way.

On the Agenda: 

1. Closer Chaos
2. Quick Hits
3. Various News and Notes
4. Streaming Pitchers

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Jakob Marsee: Ball Robber

On the Agenda: 

1. Closer Chaos
2. Quick Hits
3. Various News and Notes
4. Streaming Pitchers

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Pulling off trades in our fantasy baseball leagues can be difficult. We usually know our league-mates well, and they often know our true tendencies and intentions, but that shouldn’t stop us from engaging. We should be active with trade conversations to improve our rosters in our quest for league titles. This weekly column will recommend hitters and pitchers to try selling high or buying low, and I’ll try to present realistic opportunities.

This week, let’s dig into a specific underperformer and assess what they types of deals we can make.

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Jeff Curry-Imagn Images

While the NFBC Main Event garners most of the attention, there are a handful of leagues with even larger entry fees ($2.5K to $15K). They are named Elite leagues (previously called High Stakes Leagues), and there are nine of them. With so much money on the line, these fantasy managers try to gain any advantage. Most of the time, these managers will be a week or two ahead of everyone else on their adds. Here are the players and some information on the ones added in five or more leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images

American League

Angels

• Yusei Kikuchi went back to his old mechanics with some improved results.

After struggling in his first four starts of the season, the left-hander turned it around by striking out eight over six scoreless innings in a 4-1 loss to the Padres on Saturday night at Angel Stadium. And Kikuchi said it happened after he reverted to a similar arm angle to last year after experimenting with a higher release point through his first four starts.

“I went over my mechanics this week and I think that brought me good results,” Kikuchi said through interpreter Koki Goto. “Going into this season, I raised my arm angle to become a better pitcher, but for the first four games, it didn’t work out well, so I brought back last year’s form. I tried to recall the drills I did, and I think that brought me good results.”
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He also did it with better velocity, as his four-seamer reached as high as 98.6 mph and averaged 96.4 mph, which was 1.3 mph higher than his season average. He also threw it 45 percent of the time, which was way up from his season average of 25 percent.

As long as Kikuchi throws strikes (1 BB with his new arm slot), he can be an effective pitcher. His problem is that he’s had two, four-walk games so far this season with 9 ER in 8 IP. Read the rest of this entry »