Roto Riteup: April 17th, 2012

by
April 17, 2012

• Dee Gordon’s current strikeout rate is very alarming, if you ask me. Gordon has already struck out in more than 20% of his plate appearances. Yes, it’s early, but his contact rate has also suffered, and it’s really going to kill him if it continues. Gordon can’t steal second if he doesn’t get on first, and even during last year’s stint, he only did that 33% of the time.

• Nick Hundley is a three-true-outcomes machine in the early going. Hundley is hitting a despicable .043, but his OBP is at .290 through Sunday’s action. Hundley has either struck out or walked in over 50% of his plate appearances, but he is yet to jack a homer and only has one hit on the season (again, through Sunday).

• Edwin Jackson is a pitcher who’s off to a hot start this year. His complete game against the formidable Reds was not small feat, and the biggest news was not the runs allowed or innings pitched, but the big number of grounders Jackson was able to induce. I pegged Jackson to have a great comeback campaign before heading back out to the free agent market, and I have seen no reason to change my perception.

For those of you who play daily fantasy games like FanGraphs: The Game, or just like to stream players, here are a couple matchups you may be able to exploit.

A Pitcher for Today: Kevin Millwood (SEA) vs CLE
I recommended you take advantage of Millwood last week by playing all the Texas Rangers you could, but this week, I’m going to tell you to utilize Millwood.

A Pitcher for Tomorrow: Jason Vargas (SEA) vs CLE
I don’t know why I have no respect for Cleveland, but apparently that’s the case. Vargas won’t strike out more than five batters, but I’d bet his WHIP is mighty nice.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.

A Hitter for Today: Jason Kubel (ARZ) vs PIT (Karstens)
I have this feeling that Kubel hits a ball really, really far.





 

Zach is the creator and co-author of RotoGraphs' Roto Riteup series, and RotoGraphs' second-longest tenured writer. You can follow him on twitter.

7 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Ray
13 years ago

Re: Gordon-he is swinging at alot of bad pitches, but along with that K rate is an improved walk rate of 9.1%. His contact rate is a little shy of his 2011 contact rate, so we shall see if if he can improve it over the next few weeks.

0