Grant Balfour has never called a hitter-friendly stadium home. He’s about to, since he signed a two-year deal to ostensibly be the closer in Baltimore. Will it matter?
Strikeouts, man. Alone, they predict next year’s ERA better than FIP! They’re an important category by themselves, and then they predict good work in the other categories, so they’re a double threat. At some point though, you have to worry about the other categories too. Edinson Volquez cough cough.
Matt Moore is no Edinson Volquez. But his followup season had enough flaws that you might be worried that — despite the strikeouts — Moore’s not going to age very well.
I am getting ready to take part in my first weekly-lineup fantasy baseball league. I’ve done this for fantasy football (which I suppose goes without saying) and for fantasy basketball (back in high school when the “find the guy playing five games this week” strategy seemed novel), but never for baseball.
As I try to build a team, I am realizing that I need to completely shift the way I value opportunity.
He’s 27, so maybe it’s not surprising. But over 1800 innings into his career, Felix Hernandez isn’t really showing any signs of decline yet. Well, if you ignore one stat.
A few weeks back, I wrote a piece on taking over a team from another owner, inspired by a new team I had acquired in a 20 team, 45-man-roster 5×5 (OBP, not AVG) league. In that piece, I mentioned three trades I made, moving five pieces and acquiring six.
Since then, I have made two more trades and wanted to take a quick look at how far my roster has come in the two months since I took ownership. I am not ready to calling it a winning (or even better) team, but it is certainly different and is starting to show the values of the new owner.
No team gave up as many runs in the seventh inning or later last postseason, and so one offseason goal was clear for the Tigers: improve the bullpen. So the Tigers started at the back end of the bullpen and are finalizing the details for a two-year contract with Joe Nathan. They had the money because of recent cost-saving measures, and they had the need, and the contract isn’t long. What’s the prognosis for Nathan over the next two years?
The holidays are upon us, and while there is plenty of serious business to discuss, it’s also time to sit back, relax, and have some fun. So this week I thought I would try to answer (or at least glance at) a question I’ve wondered for years – what would happen if Major League Baseball scored the AL and NL like fantasy leagues instead of looking at something silly like “winning percentage?”
The question you are asking yourself right now is probably, “He has really wondered this for years?!” but once you get over your shock and my nerdiness, you’ll want to know why I have been wondering this. When we created ottoneu, one of the things we wanted to do was closely replicate the job of a real GM and that meant, in part, picking a scoring system that reflected what really drives teams to win games or lose them. But, of course, we are still just counting stats. If a player only hits his HR in blow outs, you as a fantasy owner do not care, and the chances are this has little or nothing to do with the player’s value, but it certainly could impact his teams post-season chances. So what happens if we just look at the numbers put up by the real teams?
Obviously, the tools are there. Dexter Fowler can run, can hit with pop, has a good eye at the plate, and is a good defender. Those tools have made him an above-average regular by ‘real baseball’ measures and a top-sixty outfielder, worth more than seven bucks last year by our retrospective fantasy value measures.
And yet, his owners are probably getting tired of continually being teased by upside beyond. Just google his name and ‘breakout’ and see how many results you get, spread over the last three years.
In 2012, there were exactly seven qualified players who posted an ISO over .250 and a slugging percentage over .500. They were Ryan Braun, Miguel Cabrera, Josh Hamilton, Edwin Encarnacion, Josh Willingham, Jay Bruce, and Jason Kubel. Yes, Jason Kubel. Granted, of the group, Kubel had the least amount of value by WAR, but this kind of demonstrates the kind of company Kubel’s resurgence kept.
The Pirates have a corner outfielder coming that should combine plus defense with power and speed. 22-year-old Gregory Polanco even played in Double-A last year, so he’s close. But does the team want to slot him in from the get-go? Doesn’t seem like it. Because Pittsburgh added Jaff Decker to the fold over the weekend. Now there’s a stable of solutions in right field, and some short-term opportunity for those guys to step forward. And if any of them do so successfully, there’s even a chance they continue to play when Polanco is up… it’s not like Gaby Sanchez is going to keep them on the bench.
That’s how you get to the Jaff Decker, Travis Snider, Andrew Lambo, Gaby Sanchez, Jerry Sands and Jose Tabata solution.
