Mixing Fantasy & Reality: Urias, Swanson, & Notes

Quick Looks: Julio Urias

Last Saturday, I was watching the Cards-Cubs game until Alex Reyes was done pitching. I moved over to the Dodgers hoping to see what Brett Anderson looked like. I missed his one inning start. After a brief appearance of Josh Fields, the Dodgers brought in Julio Urias and I got some bonus prospect coverage.

I was not impressed at all with his current production level. He seems to be a thrower in the Tim Lincecum mold and doesn’t really know where the ball is going at times. This wildness can be seen in his 4.1 BB/9.

Here are my thoughts on the 20-year-old’s pitches.

• Fastball: Was between 91-95 mph with some release side run and some rise. Right now it is a swing-and-miss pitch and not one he can rely on for called strikes.
• Curveball: It sat at 74-77 mph. It was an above average pitch and he could throw it for strikes.
• Slider: It was around 84 mph and was inconsistent and looked like a bad change at times.
• Change: It sat at 79-81 mph and is straight. I think it works decently off his fastball for a change of pace pitch to get some swinging strikes. On its own, it is not a good pitch.

None of his pitches worked together. He definitely could use some more work especially with the fastball. He can do this work in the minors or majors, it doesn’t really matter. If he is in the majors for the next couple of years, don’t be surprised to see him struggle. Once he gets command of his pitches, especially his fastball, expect his value to soar.

Dansby Swanson Get Called up.

Swanson was called up from Double-A today which is a little surprising since the 22-year-old was only hitting .261/.342/.402. Grades from Baseball America, 2080, and MLB.com have him above average in every trait except power which makes for some unique comparisons.

Hitters who performed similarly to Dansby Swanson’s scouting grades over their first three seasons.

Austin Jackson, Alex Rios, Chone Figgins, Starling Marte, Carl Crawford, Starlin Castro, Ryan Theriot, Ichiro Suzuki, Coco Crisp, Jacoby Ellsbury

Sadly, the table is only full of recent prospects, so not a ton to go on. The second list is a nice list of names with some future upside of a top-20 hitter like Ellsbury, Crawford, and Marte. For 2016, I think his value may be minimal if at all, except in leagues where every warm body counts.

Notes:

• I think Luis Severino is done as a starter after his last failed attempt in the majors. I could see him with a predominate setup role within a year’s time.

• The Indians stole eight bags off Tyler Skaggs this past weekend. I timed his move to home from the stretch and it was 1.5 sec or higher. Most times a pitcher wants the value to be 1.3 secs or quicker. I think the Indians noticed the time and took advantage. With Skaggs starting tonight, I may not start him since he will need to make an adjustment throwing quicker and this may mess with previous stretch motion. In the long run, the change will be good, but an owner may get a few stinkers from him while he is making the adjustment.

• Jerad Eickhoff has been struggling in the 6th inning with a 12.71 ERA and batters hitting .410/.474/.807 against him. The problem is really the 6th inning in my opinion. Instead, he just struggles the 3rd time through the batting order which is a known phenomenon. Eickhoff allows .356/.413/.624 the third time he faces the hitters. I examined his stats and couldn’t find an obvious reason for his struggles like only having two pitches or velocity loss as the game goes on. I have him on my list of pitchers to watch in the near future to find the reason behind the struggles.

• Usually, defensive numbers matter little in fantasy, but here is the list of catchers with the highest caught stealing rates this year.

The top two catchers, Perez and McCann have a better than 50% rate and both reside in the AL Central. With the unbalanced schedules, the rest of the AL Central will be facing these two quite a bit with the White Sox and Indians facing them back-to-back in the same week. If you are an owner looking for some steals late in the season, just keep in mind steals may be hard to come by in the AL Central

• It looks like Joe Jimenez should be on owner’s radars as Detroit’s’ next closer according to this exchange at Baseball America with Kyle Glaser.

tatum (clearwater, FL): Kyle, good talk so far. Let’s add some velocity to this chat. When does Joe Jimenez get to Detroit and is he a future closer quickly, he is now in AAA? How does he compare to Edwin Diaz already up in Sea?

Kyle Glaser: Jimenez gets to Detroit in September, and he is the Tigers closer next season. Diaz’s slider is a better secondary pitch, and it’s hard to replicate just how ridiculously dominant he has been, but Jimenez absolutely is in the same vein of dominant, back-end closer very quickly.

• Great video of Josh Donaldson breaking down his swing.