I Resolve To Slay Mine Foes – Part the Third
Last year, I missed my annual resolution to slay mine foes. While I’d like to say the universe imploded as a result, there’s no sign anybody noticed. I’m here to announce that my resolve has returned in time for 2018, lest I inadvertently prove responsible for the annihilation of humankind. Or something.
In the past, I’ve offered practical resolutions to advance my totally valid career as a fantasy baseball analyst. In 2015, I sought to join a dynasty league. I accomplished this with flying colors. If you pay close attention to my recent work, you may have noticed a heavy dynasty skew to my output. My 2016 resolution involved a series of unique reader leagues. They were… interesting. I ultimately decided against continuing these experimental formats.
Wait, this is boring. What we need is a leitmotif. Stay awhile and listen… to this weird music I play while writing (no joke).
This time around I resolve to start my own podcast. I already have the basic idea in place. It’s called Top Tout. We send 20 fantasy baseball analysts to a sexy location where they’ll compete in a series of challenges – often loosely associated with the location. A panel of judges eliminate them one-by-one until the Top Tout is crowned.
Wait, that’s Top Chef. Top Tout will be something else. But also exactly what I described. First, I need to find a home for it – possibly here? Is FanGraphs already too saturated with podcasts? Should I have first discussed this with my employer? Are you enjoying the leitmotif? Am I asking too many questions?
Yes.
Well this is weird. I’m only at 250 words which is a tad light even for a January 1 puff piece. Deckard Cain only just mentioned Diablo. We still have two and a half minutes to burn. For you, it’ll be a good 30 seconds before we have come at last to Tristram’s old cathedral. Perhaps I need a second resolution.
Recently, a twitter bot posted a couple hot takes from my latest chat session. To spice things up, I’ll be selecting a few fun comments to highlight… somewhere. Perhaps as the lede to the chat transcripts. Perhaps they’ll appear scattered throughout the Daily Grind during the season. Let’s try it out.
Seriously, they’re pretty similar.
Also, Carson doesn’t have hiring and firing power.
I still can’t figure out how one would set up a 0.25 catcher league. Ideas?
Pretty sure I just failed some sort of secret initiation.
I remember a time when Nolan Arenado and Nick Castellanos were considered to be similar prospects. I feel like people still have them mentally linked even though they’re so crazily different now.
He’s baiting me, right?
Well, the song’s not over yet, but I’ve had enough of this. See you tomorrow to discuss Amed Rosario and post-hype sleepers.
You can follow me on twitter @BaseballATeam
I will take this time to, in non-sequitur fashion, clamour for W+QS and SV+HLD in the auction calculator. I will accept any ridicule for doing so.
spam deleted
All my leagues now are S+H, so I second that request.
Anyone still just counting just saves is ridiculous. It would be like just counting RBIs from cleanup hitters, and pretending there was a reason to do it.
Every category has a distribution or histogram of players that contribute to it in various quantities and your job as a fantasy owner is to select players who contribute to it while also weighing the trade offs in the other scoring categories.
The fact that we’re still, as a community, stating that only 30 RPs are relevant for a category is quite bonkers. I can’t even imagine not being able to play Andrew Miller without actively hurting myself in one category just because he pitches “not the 9th” mostly.
Though we might also reconsider stepping down off the W/QS/H/S thing altogether. Some are noise categories (W), another merely a second category to reinforce the top end value pitchers (QS), and the other two are basically a measure for some amount of outs obtained while your team has the lead or ends with it (H and SV).
I’ll step down off my soapbox now….
I don’t see an issue with it for a typical 12 or fewer team format. There’s usually 60+ rosterable relievers.
The team building aspect is richer if I can choose which relievers benefit me the most without having to decide if I want saves or not. 12 team included, unless you’re starting less than 9 pitchers I suppose.
I like being able to choose 70IP MRs with good ratios high Ks and 25-30 holds and balance that against “save compilers” and whatever ratios I’m asked to take to get the higher counting stat at a much lower ratio and K contribution over those 40-60IP.
Just the same as if I want to roster a 6-hole hitter in a 12 man league and give up a little R+RBI for some AVG or some steals or whatever the tradeoff is. I don’t have to take 0 R+RBI, just less than the higher lineup slot compilers.
Oh, and they are disproportionately valued in a saves only world. Didn’t want to forget that!
Teams are going in the direction of spreading around the saves though. I’ve never streamed so many saves as 2017.
You like the save cat, it’s a noble position and I shall bow out duly noting our differences in opinion.
Easy solution to 0.25 catcher league: cap catcher PA to 25% of league average
I’ll leave this here for everyone as well, while Nick Castellanos and Nolan Arenado may have taken different paths, there’s not that much separating them. Especially if you consider that in the second half, Castellanos started swinging more, walking less and put up numbers that are Arenado-road-esque save for the walks.
I’m still a huge Castellanos fan. He had an awful May, a bad April and just a bad first half. He’ll still be just 25 on Opening Day and not everyone takes the linear path to stardom. Ask Freddie Freeman who seemed stalled out at that ~.190 ISO number after breaking onto the scene at age 22. It wasn’t until his age 26 and 27 seasons that the homeruns started falling from the sky – helped presumably both by his physical maturation as well as the new ball.
Castellanos hits the ball just as hard as Freeman and is a line drive machine. I’m still all-in on Castellanos, especially in a year when his counting stats will be buoyed by finally hitting in the middle of a lineup, even if it’s a crappy one.
Are you high?
High on Castellanos? You bet.
Man you’re just full of bad opinions 😉
This is what I was talking about 🙂
Though I did give you a thumbs up because there’s nothing wrong with liking a guy.
I’ve done the deep dive work, it’s there. I promise. Pedigree plus the second half changes and he’s a lot more like Freddie Freeman than you think. As a bonus, since he doesn’t walk much, yet, in traditional formats he’s more valuable.
“As a bonus, since he doesn’t walk much, yet, in traditional formats he’s more valuable.”
What? Not walking much does not make a player more valuable in any format, traditional or otherwise. Thats just a dumb thing to say.
Well… that’s complicated. I’ll use Adam Jones as an example. His aggression leads to a low walk rate, but it also allows him to avoid strikeouts well beyond what his swinging strike rate predicts. There are other players like this throughout the league. That helps his batting average and RBI at the expense of OBP and R. If you’re not in an OBP league, who cares.
There are other hitters in which a low walk rate seemingly has no positive benefits. These players tend not to last very long without some other redeeming skill like elite defense.
One is an all-world defender and perennial MVP candidate while the other can’t field and is slightly above average at the dish. I’m not all that high on Arenado because I don’t know what he would do if he hit in Detroit all year (it would be better than Castellanos), but let’s not pretend that Arenado’s 15.6 WAR over the last few years is comparable to Castellanos’ 3.4
Nope, agreed. Defense is out of the picture, we’re talking Roto here. But yes, go ahead and look at wOBA and xwOBA for Castellanos and for Arenado on all batted balls events. Castellanos xwOBA is better. Coors helps him immeasurably (except we can measure it).
All I’m saying is let’s not get down on the 25 year old who hits more line drives than almost anyone in the league. The same guy who made changes in his approach that lead to a launch angle that mirrors Freeeman’s change from 2016-2017.
Freeman used to hit the ball with a launch angle distribution similar to what you see with Castellanos pre-second half 2017. The distribution in the second half looked like the same change Freeman made in 2016.
but his xstats are fucked because Detroit was weirdo land last year. Are you accounting for that?
(not sarcasm, Castellanos is intriguing to me also I’m just out at the moment)
Say more, I’m not acquainted with the Detroit issue. His xstats were the same in 2016 as well. His weird first half where he hit 41% of his balls on the ground makes his 2017 hard to parse if you don’t rip it apart. He’s the same hitter. He’s a 30+ home run guy (gasp!), physically maturing, coming into his prime, who hits the ball harder than Nolan Arenado. I’m going to stay positive on him.
The exit velos for every detroit hitter were a good amount faster at home than away. At first it made it seem like Miggy, Castellanos, everyone was a buy low… but the consensus became that it was a bad setup in Detroit. I don’t have the numbers on hand and a quick google search failed me, but fangraphs have written about it and so has baseballprospectus.
Oh, here is one community post that is pretty great:
https://www.fangraphs.com/community/detroits-batted-ball-readings-are-hot/
Thanks. It even has one of my articles listed which is funny that I missed it. Appreciate the note majnum. I’m still not certain that anything is wrong with the data, but each park does have an error band around any particular data point. I’m strictly speaking in terms of exit velocity in this next sentence:
Even if I discount Comerica 10% to get it down to the Coors field offset, Castellanos still hits the ball ‘as hard as Arenado’.
Once he got right last year, NC was amazing. It’s okay if people want to pass on him – I like being able to buy him.
you may have re-intrigued me, which I kinda hate 🙂
I’ll point you at a full article later in the week. You’ll hate me more.