Roto Riteup March 19, 2017
If you’re subscribed to any type of baseball Twitter accounts or apps (and you probably are) you’ve noticed Adam Rosales keeps doing things and his name continues to pop up. Don’t worry. Not only is this spring training, but it’s Adam Rosales.
No offense, but the guy has well, no offense.
Last season he was making more plate appearances, but he’s back with Oakland and there is a lot of foul territory at O.co. His flyball rate has increased, but don’t get excited on his spring numbers…at least not yet.
On the Agenda
- Chris Owings…so hot right now
- Finding Nimmo
- J.D. Martinez
Chris Owings…so hot right now
This guy you can get a little excited about.
When it comes to Chris Owings, he doesn’t exude power, that’s not his role. He has a solid contact rate which has increased since 2015 along with his speed, but he does not walk. He sits at a 4.3-percent ratio, but his strikeout rate has gone down.
Steamer has him projected around the same numbers with a decrease in his power and on-base percentage. He is still in lines to become the starting shortstop, but I’ve seen him play in the outfield where he is successful as well.
Finding Nimmo
Brandon Nimmo was a treat to watch in the Pacific Coast League. A .352 batting average like Nimmo possessed in the PCL translates to a .274 average for the Mets. Which is fair considering most have difficulties transitioning. (Sorry Peter O’Brien, but it had to be said.)
The latest news with the 23-year-old puts his starting date with the big-league club at a delay.
Not only did he have a hamstring injury and was on his way to playing regular games, but he aggravated the hamstring during running drills on Friday.
Consider this a bigger warning. It’s doubtful he will start on the Opening Day roster, but keep him in mind for some of those Triple-A promotions.
J.D. Martinez
Yikes.
The Opening Day status for J.D. Martinez is officially in question after the 2015 All-Star was diagnosed with a mild foot sprain according to Jason Beck.
The injury is on his right foot occurred after diving for a catch in right field. The X-rays came back negative, but that didn’t prevent him from being on crutches.
This is awful news for the slugger who really had a chance to mirror that 2015 stellar season where he hit 38 balls over the fence. At least that’s the season I was hoping for him. His fly ball-rate dropped significantly last season and he seemed to be hitting more ground balls.
Don’t expect him to be making an appearance during those opening games.
Can we get a little more substance in some of these? Like, as someone who doesn’t get to see much Cactus League and finds spring training pretty boring in general…why is Chris Owings hot? You only referenced some vague career rate stats but when I hear a player is “hot” I’m thinking they are lighting it up at the plate or something.
Seconded. I know we’re still in Spring Training, but I’m used to a bit more in these columns, and a lot more than some info on 3 players…
This column should be called “Like, OMG!” Plus one on 89’s request.
Great post!
Fangraphs is a fantastic site filled with excellent writers, smart analysis and innovative statistics and tools, but these last three Roto Riteups are not up to par.
The information is widely available elsewhere.
The analysis is lacking (Owings’ “contact rate has improved since 2015”? It worsened from 2014 to 2015, then recovered in 2016 to basically the same level it had been in 2014)
The writing is wretched. (From the March 17th Roto Riteup: “If you look at his pitch velocity over the last couple of seasons, it digresses as time goes on.”)
I appreciate that analysis is Fangraph’s wheelhouse. But if you are going to do breaking news, take a cue from MLBTraderumors, which generally does excellent work in this regard.
I know you want page hits on the weekend, but I would hope you could find content that is closer to the level we see with David Laurila, who is outstanding.
The writing is pretty atrocious…
“The injury is on his right foot occurred…”
I think these posts can definitely be improved (pudieron’s comment is spot on) but the posts are not nearly as hellacious as some of the comments indicate. Noting a single grammar error in a blog and concluding the writing is “wretched” or “atrocious” is a bit of a stretch, IMO. If the author’s name were “Jesse” instead of “Jessica” would we see the same backlash?
Oh please. It’s not just one mistake. The verbs and adjectives are not used correctly either. The stats are also presented in a misleading fashion.
It is objectively bad.
First, in many years of commenting here, I have criticized the writing twice, and while the other author was not named Jesse, he was a man. Another author debuted this month and received rave reviews, and deservedly so. Kate Preusser delivered exceptional articles and the compliments she received were based upon her writing, not her gender.
There are additional obstacles faced by woman writing about sports. Anyone who dismisses a sports writer because she is a woman has no legitimate grounds in doing so. But when you use someone’s gender to shield him or her from scrutiny, you do not advance the cause of gender equity.
I generally look the other way when I spot an error or a poorly written sentence because I too am a professional writer who faces daily deadlines, so I know that people who write well will sometimes err or compose sloppy prose when they are under the gun, myself included. But the writing in these three Roto Riteups was poor:
– His flyball rate has increased, but don’t get excited ON his spring numbers
– he does not walk. He sits at a 4.3-percent RATIO
– He is still in LINES to become the starting shortstop
– Mind you it is a small sample size, we were mentally ready for him to start in Triple-A. (one of a number of run-on sentences).
– His power will not be affected, but his swing that is looking like it could be problematic.
– If you look at his pitch velocity over the last couple of seasons, it digresses as time goes on.
I also counted nearly a dozen grammatical errors in three short articles that totalled fewer than 1,500 words. She did not write clearly, concisely or cohesively.
Perhaps it is a generational thing. Jessica has an active and engaging Twitter account, but it takes a certain skill set to compose catchy phrases that are no more than 140 characters, and a somewhat different skill set to write sentences and paragraphs. Maybe she was especially pressed for time. Clearly, Jessica is passionate about sports and pursuing her profession. She is writing for a fantastic site, and I wish her the best.
Agreed. Pick any random Roto Riteup from the past few years. They all follow the same address syntax of: http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/roto-riteup-march-19-2017/
Here’s the first one from last year: http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/roto-riteup-march-28-2016/
These recent posts are not of the same quality.
It would be interesting to know how many of these critics contribute financially to the site.
My thoughts exactly. It takes a special type of person to complain about something they’re getting for free, even though somebody else spent time on it. No one is forcing anyone to read RotoGraphs.
That’s fair. I just signed up for a membership. Can I complain more now?
Is my opinion less valid because I choose not to contribute financially to a baseball statistics website? Would love to hear this pretentious case.