It’s fairly likely this isn’t your first spin with fantasy baseball, so you are no doubt familiar with the fact that things go wrong. Despite all your preparation, your undivided attention to the prognosticators and the projection sheets, sometimes the bell rings and one or two of your top picks turn into moldy wet blankets. One of your sleeper picks never wakes. A can’t-miss rookie never arrives.
It happens. It’s part of the game.
No pitchers going off the DL over the last few days, so I will just examine a few injury stories. Also, the PAIN and HURT leaderboards for younger players are posted.
• With about every pitcher who goes on the DL, I like to see if there were any glaring injury signs. With Jon Niese (torn rotator cuff), no signs really existed. His fastball velocity dropped 0.5 MPH from 2012 and his Zone% was down 0.9% points. While a declining velocity and Zone% are signs of a injury, these levels don’t usually raise any read flags. Of the 453 pitchers PAIN ranks, he was the 295 least injury prone.
Another factor I examine is his late game consistency (process is faster, it used to take over a minute to calculate and now it is almost instantaneous). Niese’s value has slow risen over the past three seasons.
“Winners never quit and quitters never win,” is probably one of those old adages you had shouted at you numerous times growing up. It doesn’t matter if you played a competitive sport, were in the math league or on the chess team (think I’ve covered our base demographic here, no?), you’ve heard it countless times. And if you haven’t, that’s probably because you weren’t paying enough attention and why you’re now living in your mom’s basement, working some dead end job, using a fake name and email to troll on the internet. But I digress. We’re here to talk about quitters — quitters in fantasy baseball leagues, obviously, not in life. Read the rest of this entry »
Before Brandon Beachy had been pushed back with a bit of elbow soreness after his final rehab start, I posted my thoughts at Talking Chop on how the Braves would manage their rotation with the impending return of one of their best starting pitchers.
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Back at it with another edition of “Scheming For Relief” after a well-deserved two-week vacation. I apologize to the middle relief “die-hards” out there for the absence of this piece over that time, but I know my colleague Ben at the Bullpen Report kept y’all up to speed nicely.
This week I went an arm on the rise, an arm on the mend and an unowned arm. While the first is likely owned in holds leagues, he’s on the verge of being owned in all formats. The other two, well, read for yourself and hope it helps! Cheers!
All ownership percentages reflect Yahoo! leagues.
Steve Delabar | Blue Jays | 3%
Over the past two weeks, Steve Delabar owns a 0.00 ERA with three holds and a league-best 14 strikeouts among relievers. On the season the Blue Jay boasts a 30% K% and a 13.6% BB%, but his numbers against the most recent 28 batters he’s faced are far superior: 50% K% and 10.7 BB%. The right-hander is inducing swinging strikes at an 18.1% clip over that time frame, up from 13.9% SwStr% on the year and 15% SwStr% for his career. It appears as if he’s been using his slider a tad less and relying on the splitter a bit more as of late, which could be one cause for the jump in missed bats. At any rate, Delabar is moving from the “should be owned in holds leagues” classification to the “useful middle reliever in all formats” category for those in need of steady whiffs, ratios and the occasional scab win. If your WHIP is a major concern, keep an eye on the 29-year-old’s walks to make sure the recent improvement isn’t just a mirage.
When the Wil Myers hype train started, he had no flaws. He walked almost as much as he struck out, he struck out less than the league average, and though he wasn’t a catcher any more, he looked athletic in the outfield, and his power was to drool for. That was probably 2010. Since, he’s been traded, and a possible flaw has emerged — his strikeout rate has increased steadily as he’s advanced. That’s not great news, but with him up today, it’s worth trying to ask the numbers what might be in store for Myers.
When the popular, based-on-actual-events cinematic classic Revenge of the Nerds and it’s less-appealing set of sequels failed to break down the barrier that existed between jocks and nerds, it seemed that all hope was lost. But when fantasy football went mainstream and those very same jocks were looking at things like yards per carry and target percentage, it appeared as though a breakthrough had been made. And when many of those jocks spilled into the fantasy baseball world and began studying things like BABIP and strikeout rates, you could almost hear a chorus of angels sing as the only thing being stuffed into lockers these days were jackets and copies of The Book. The bullying had finally stopped, or so we had thought. But just as in life when one bully is finally brought down, another seeks to take his place and us nerds who find statistics and the fantasy game so appealing are being victimized once again. And the worst part of it, is that it is being done by many of our own. Read the rest of this entry »
Tyler Austin ended 2012 being named the Yankees ‘Minor League Player of the Year’, after level-jumping four times, with a two-game stint for Double-A Trenton. He began this year in Double-A and, while he’s had some difficulties, he’s adjusted well and shown more of what was so impressive in the lower level leagues.
As we near the mid-point of the season, I find myself happily in the mix in all of my ottoneu leagues, including a surprising 4th (I think surprising) in the FanGraphs Experts League. I’m in the top half of the league in six categories (R, SB, W, S, ERA, WHIP) and close in another (RBI), but I am absolutely bottoming out in K, HR, and AVG (10th in each).
My path to improvement is pretty clear – add pop, average, or strike outs. And I have some decent trade options, as well, as I am running away with SB (first place with 88, second has 61), and have a deep enough OF to sustain a loss there.
Well, maybe it’s not so bad. In fantasy baseball, at least, most of the Marlins’ outfielders are owned in deep leagues. Juan Pierre might even be owned in some mixed leagues for his steals. At least when he goes up against the catchers from Tampa, San Diego, Anaheim, either Chicago, and Boston. And maybe it’s not that bad in real life either: the team has more than two wins from the outfield squad, and that’s good for 18th in the league.
But the way that outfield has been managed, and the type of talent that could be on the way, means that the Marlins outfield still represents some sort of crisis. In that it is in flux, and there’s opportunity here if the chips fall a certain way.
