Pinder & Triggs – Deep A.L. West-Only Leagues

It hasn’t exactly been an easy season for fans of East Bay baseball. Facing a rotation eviscerated by injuries and trades and clubhouse chemistry, once impervious to losing, lost, there hasn’t been much for A’s fans to gloat over. Not that expectations were all that high to begin with, but this? The best that can be said about 2016 is that at least the front office made a firm commitment to its youth as soon as it became obvious that meaningful baseball would not be played in the Coliseum at the same time meaningless football would be. And for that fantasy managers and particularly those digging for championships in deep leagues, should be thankful.

 

Chad Pinder (0% Yahoo, 0.0% ESPN, 1% CBS) – here’s an über-Deep League special for you. Between Pinder and Max Muncy, the A’s have a serious yin and yang dynamic going on at the keystone. The beneficiary of a bunion of historic devastation, it’s fitting that Muncy’s primary skill is his ability to walk; Pinder does not possess that ability. Whether to view Muncy’s similar walk rate (14% career incl. MiLB) and ISO (.152) as a testament to his discerning eye or his dearth of power is up to you but one doesn’t even have to make that determination with Pinder; he sports a healthy .172 career ISO and walks less than 6% of the time. Muncy bats from the left side, favoring him in a potential platoon situation. While Pinder is a righty, he’s closed the gap in his platoon splits and has in fact posted comparable and, at times, better Minor League numbers against righties than Muncy.

The A’s are committed to their youth movement and Pinder has long been thought a part of that. Drafted in the second round in 2013, the 24-year old infielder has flashed promising power with little regard for plate discipline throughout his minor league career. Last season he hit 19 homers across two levels on his way to a 134 wRC+ and Texas League Player of the Year honors. This season at AAA Nashville, Pinder doubled down, picking up his home run pace while continuing to exhibit his distaste for Ball Four.

Since his promotion, things haven’t gone the way Pinder might have hoped, collecting just 4 hits through his first 23 plate appearances and sporting a #DIV/0! strikeout-to-walk ratio. You might say he’s the anti-Gary Sanchez of the moment. But luckily for him, things haven’t gone much better for his competition. Walking with his typical prolific regularity, Muncy is hitting just .194/.306/.280. And his 17.4% pop-up rate isn’t doing him any favors. Scouts have generally been higher on Pinder’s ability up the middle defensively so I like his ability to stay there over Muncy.

I expect Bob Melvin to continue to find ways to play both players and given their respective versatilities, it shouldn’t be difficult. But for me, Pinder is the play here. His plate discipline aside, he’s a powerful young middle infielder who appears to be part of the organization’s plan moving forward. Pinder faces little competition and should provide some playable pop over the final month of the season.

 

Andrew Triggs (4% Yahoo, 5.1% ESPN, 8% CBS)  – since entering the rotation on August 11^th, a period spanning 4 starts, Andrew Triggs has kept some elite company. These are the pitchers within 7% or better of his K-BB%, SwStr%, and xFIP since August:

Woah there! So why haven’t more fantasy owners taken notice yet? It’s likely some combination of name recognition and a 4.39 ERA, the latter of which hurts you in fantasy. Still, it’s not as if Ray sets hearts and pants ablaze yet his ownership rates exceed 40% in all major formats. And since moving to the rotation, Triggs-owners have enjoyed an excellent 2.91 ERA. At this point, there’s really no excuse.

Triggs features a four pitch arsenal that includes a changeup he’s started throwing sparingly since transitioning to the rotation. Aside from his remarkable strikeout and walk rates, he’s also excellent at inducing ground balls, doing so nearly 50% of the time this season. Through his first 4 starts, Triggs has made his living down in the zone and not surprisingly, batters have had a hard time elevating against him. His 27.5% FB% ranks 21^st out of 124 pitchers who’ve tossed at least 20 innings in August.

Expect some regression to Triggs’ HR/FB% which sits at just 5.6% since he joined the rotation. His .228 BABIP should rise as well since he hasn’t been particularly effective at limiting hard contact. Triggs’ 89.8 mph average exit velocity ranks 37^th out of 51 starters who’ve thrown at least 300 pitches over that time.

Still, he’s displayed some excellent control and been remarkably effective over four starts, most recently against a tough St. Louis offense. If you’d like to see him in action, I suggest watching his start against Boston this weekend. I mean, there’s a good chance you’d bench him against the Sox anyway. But perhaps laying up is not your bag and you’d like to see something sooner. Well in that case, Roy McAvoy, head on over to the main page and check out Jeff Sullivan’s recent piece on Triggs. It’s replete with enticing videos featuring his expansive movement and confounding deception. Triggs really flashes some impressive stuff and the results over the last month have been compelling enough to go out and add him immediately. Just look at the company he keeps.