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The economics of keeper and dynasty leagues intrigue me because no two owners value the future equally. Given my primary league is of the keeper taxonomy, I am always thinking about the future. Given the especially miserable state of my team in said league, I’ll soon reach a point where I am only thinking about the future.

A segue of remarkably poor quality: Joc Pederson is good at baseball.

Another segue of questionably better quality: he reminds me of George Springer for reasons not entirely surprising.

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When I comment on the shape of a pitch, I try to put it into two pieces of context: the league average movement on a pitch like that, and the rest of that pitcher’s arsenal. More on the second bit later.

Today, let’s look at some young pitchers with small track records — guys like Eduardo Rodriguez, Chi-Chi Gonzalez, Vincent Velasquez, and Lance McCullers — up against the average movement of the league’s pitches. Because we may not know a ton about outcomes right now, but the movement of a pitch probably only takes a few games to stabilize. It’s an aspect of the pitch, much like velocity, which stabilizes in three games.

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It is MLB draft day, which is an exciting time for prospect focused fans and especially dynasty league participants. I already have three potential first rounders on my dynasty team, so I will certainly be focused on today’s action. Unfortunately, it usually takes a few years for even college players to make their debuts, and it is not uncommon for high schoolers to spend five years in the minors before coming up to the majors.
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Today at The Freshmen Report we’re going to look at a couple of speedsters that are positively impacting their clubs, as well as one of the Cubs’ promising young players.

Billy Burns, OF, Athletics: The A’s entered the season with all sorts of outfield options and Burns was an afterthought — demoted to Triple-A to begin the year. A development success by the Nationals — who selected him in the 32nd round of the 2011 draft — the speedy outfielder needed less than four years in the minors to become a impactful leadoff hitter. He’s stolen 10 bases in 12 attempts but needs to get on base more consistently with a walk rate of just 4.3%; his .362 on-base percentage if heavily-fuelled by his .318 average. Burns, 25, entered the 2015 season viewed as a potential fourth outfielder and, although he’s off to a fast start (pun intended), he hasn’t proven that he’s a regular center-fielder just yet. Enjoy the offence while it lasts but don’t plan around him long term.

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Like most Americans of our generation, we remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when we got the news about Kennedy. It seems like just yesterday. In fact, though, it was last week, and we were sitting at our computers, as usual, staring at baseball numbers, as usual. We froze with horror and disbelief as we saw that Ian Kennedy had pitched 3 2/3 innings, allowing 9 baserunners and 7 earned runs. Actually, now that we brood about it, that may instead have been May 17, when we were sitting at our computers, as usual, staring at baseball numbers, as usual. We froze with horror and disbelief as we saw that Kennedy had pitched 5 innings and given up 6 earned runs. Or, we wonder, as the mystic chords of memory begin to chime like Peter Buck’s guitar, was it instead May 12, when we distinctly recall freezing with horror and disbelief as we saw that Kennedy had pitched 4 2/3 innings, let 11 guys reach base, and surrendered 5 earned runs? No, wait—it might, after all, have been April 25, when Kennedy pitched 4 1/3 innings, with 9 baserunners and 8 earned runs the outcome, and we froze with horror and disbelief. Read the rest of this entry »

Most of you know that I love tracking pitches as if they were players. Jeurys Familia‘s slider just got overtaken by the one by thrown by Sergio Santos in whiff rate! David Robertson‘s knuckle curve is now number one in the game by whiffs, not Craig Kimbrel’s! With at least 20 balls in play, no pitch has a bigger grounder rate than the sinkers by Javier Lopez, with Chad Qualls, Charlie Morton, Brad Ziegler and Brad Hand rounding out the top five.

Anyway, I fired up my favorite query for you, and thought I’d point out some notable pitches.

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In looking through my three annual league rosters this morning, I noticed there were two players I have in each of those leagues. Those two are Marcus Semien and Rubby de la Rosa. To give some perspective, one of these leagues is a deep, 20-team industry dynasty league and the others are keeper leagues. I made a trade during the offseason for de la Rosa in the dynasty league because I love his velocity and think he has the potential to be one of those Garrett Richards type post-hype breakout pitchers.
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We always read a lot about prospects and rookies but the coverage tends to fall off the map after the conclusion of a player’s freshman season. This ongoing series will chronicle the successes and failures of the sophomore class to help determine whose rookie season was a harbinger of even better things to come, and whose was blanketed in smoke and mirrors.

Previous:
The Sophomore Report 1
The Sophomore Report 2
The Sophomore Report 3

Roenis Elias, RHP, Mariners: Despite a surprisingly-good freshman season, Elias was unable to crack the Mariners’ opening day roster and opened the year in the minors. Injuries presented an opportunity to the 26-year-old hurler at the end of April and he hasn’t looked back. When you adjust for his 91% strand rate, Elias has been basically the same (surprising) pitcher that he was in 2015. Consistent lefties with the ability to miss bats and churn out innings are hard to come by and he should hold on to his rotation spot even when (if) all the Mariners hurlers are healthy and productive.

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The older we get, the more awed we are by catchers and the more literally unthinkable we find what they do. Our imaginary lives are as richly textured as the next stat geek’s, and now and then, in the kingdoms of our own minds, you might find us pretending that we’re thirty or forty years younger, and far better baseball players than we ever were. But though we might imagine ourselves hitting Stargellesque home runs, throwing Koufaxian pitches, or making Robinsonable plays in the field, we just can’t conceive of getting into and out of a crouch as often as catchers must and do. Our geriatric knees just won’t let us get our geriatric minds around the possibility.

But being able to crouch that much and that often is of course merely one part of a catcher’s job. As you know, he’s also got to call pitches, block the bad ones, frame the good ones, throw out base stealers, pounce on bunts, and, so it’s said, serve as the on-field team’s prefrontal cortex. So it’s unreasonable to expect catchers to hit very much, and in fact, many of them don’t. Read the rest of this entry »

• Holy cow. The Reds have finally placed Devin Mesoraco on the DL with his hip injury.

Mesoraco hasn’t caught in a game since April 12 due to an impingement in the hip. He was able to pinch-hit in 13 games and start as designated hitter in four, hitting .178 in 45 at-bats.

A month and half to determine if he should go on the DL.  Additionally, there is good chance he will need surgery and miss the rest of the season.

• David Wright came out and said he is dealing with spinal stenois.

Wright will cease baseball activities and take medication for the next week, while continuing a program of core strengthening and back stabilization exercises. The Mets believe it will be enough to eliminate the flare-ups of lower back tightness that Wright has recently been experiencing. They do not consider Wright’s condition degenerative, according to assistant general manager John Ricco.

“The doctors aren’t that worried about it,” Ricco said. “It’s just something that seems to be taking longer than we initially thought. The way it was progressing, they thought it would be gone by now.”

He is making little to no progress on getting better and has decided to relocate to California to be closer to his doctor.

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