Four Things I Learned In Arizona

The highlight of the year is the FanGraphs meetup in Arizona. Last weekend, around 22 of us from the Graphs family got together to share a house and a lot of beer. It’s hard to write while on the trip, but work gets done. With so many different baseball personalities together in one place, the information sharing can supply a season’s worth of unique insight. Today we’ll discuss a few of the topics from the trip.

Tomas Looks Fugly

I think my favorite guy to quiz on the trip is Dan Farnsworth. If you’re not familiar with his work, he’s a private hitting coach who specializes in swing analysis. Last year, he talked me into liking J.D. Martinez well before he broke out on the big stage. Now I ask him about swings whenever I get the chance.

We went to watch the Diamondbacks play the A’s last weekend. I was looking forward to seeing more of Yasmany Tomas. I had received a couple batting practice videos where he looked flat out bad. I hoped he’d turn it on against live pitching.

What we actually witnessed is a strangely shaped man who lacked any semblance of plate discipline. Tomas swung at a lot of terrible pitches. Poor discipline and sub-optimal swing mechanics will make it hard for him to provide any value.

Originally, when I saw Tomas compared to Dayan Viciedo, I thought it was a lazy reference to another risky Cuban. Now, I’ve seen that the two look very similar. If Tomas can be even slightly better than Viciedo, that has its uses. Tomas played as the designated hitter, so we didn’t get to see his defense.

I was already edgy about selecting Tomas in fantasy drafts. I’ve now removed him from my board. He could hit 20 or 25 home runs in a full season, but the other plate appearances are liable to be painful. Yet another reason why the Viciedo comp fits.

On the topic of Viciedo, don’t expect a breakout in Toronto. We analyzed his swing the night before watching Tomas play. Everything he did with the White Sox can be explained by his swing.

O’Brien Looks…Viable

The Diamondbacks acquired catcher Peter O’Brien from the Yankees in the Martin Prado trade. If you’ve read anything about him, it probably included a comment about scouts hating his defense. The FanGraphs crew got a good look at O’Brien, and he wasn’t terrible.

Please note, we’re talking about a four inning sample. O’Brien showed soft hands on pitches in the strike zone. He did struggle with pitches out of the zone and dropped several. I shared the opinion that he looked better than Wilin Rosario. That earned some agreement, but Dave Cameron pointed out that Rosario is a lousy measuring stick against which to grade catchers. Touche.

The Diamondbacks currently have Tuffy Gosewich and Oscar Hernandez penciled in for playing time. Neither has any fantasy value. If O’Brien works his way into the rotation, he has enough bat to be a useful second catcher in deep or NL-Only formats.

Astros Striving For .500

There is some expectation that it’s time for the Astros to win. If the club fails to reach .500, their process might be re-evaluated. Jeff Luhnow’s staff is a sabermetric gold mine, so I’m rooting for them.

From a fantasy perspective, expect Houston to pull out all the stops. They were already a great source of power last season. A decent rotation and new back-end of the bullpen should help them to win games. The AL West is a tough division, so a .500 record will remain a challenge. I see them as a 79 win club +/- 10 or so.

Chris Carter, George Springer, and Collin McHugh are among the big names to watch. Carter looked miserable for a large chunk of 2014 before catching fire. There is hope that Springer is a superstar, but high strikeout rates limit his ceiling to the good version of Curtis Granderson. McHugh arrived out of nowhere as a fantasy ace. There’s always risk in solitary career years, even when the peripherals support the outcome.

A Couple Prospect Notes

In chatting with Mr. Farnsworth, he’s not particularly enamored with the swings of Corey Seager and Carlos Correa. Of course, those are two of the top prospects in baseball. Either player could debut this season. Athleticism can overcome sub-optimal mechanics so there’s no need to panic if you own these guys in a deep keeper league. My advice is to avoid overpaying to acquire them until we see more. Farnsworth likes Phillies prospect J.P. Crawford, although he’s supposed to be a different player than Seager and Correa.