Roto Riteup May 12, 2017
Zack Greinke had an almost no-hitter Thursday night. He struck out 11 in eight innings after giving up a solo home run to Gregory Polanco. Following the game, he said he was throwing harder, but as he was “trying to throw it down the middle, it kind of goes down and away.” He also credited his slider that was feeling better since spring training.
On the Agenda
- News and Notes
- Jose Berrios to Start Saturday
- J.D. Martinez is Back
News and Notes
–Dallas Keuchel continues to dazzle after his outing against the Yankees. He’s currently 6-0 (I know you guys and girls don’t care about wins, but oh well). He struck out nine pinstripes Thursday and when contact was made, the balls went into the ground quite a bit. A 13.50 K/9 rating with just five hits in 25 batters faced in that outing. He’s healthier this time around and just look at that movement.
59 seconds with Dallas Keuchel’s Movement/Command. pic.twitter.com/rhA4ruZ8kH
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 5, 2017
–Adrian Beltre took batting practice Thursday. He’s not running full speed yet, but he has been fielding balls at third base. Unfortunately, there’s still no timetable for his return.
–Addison Russell could sit out again Friday with shoulder soreness. Javier Baez will get responsibilities at shortstop if this occurs.
Jose Berrios to start Sunday
Jose Berrios will be promoted to the Twins Saturday. Last season with Twins, Berrios struggled at the beginning when he tallied up a 10.20 ERA in 15 innings. Just 20 strikeouts over that campaign. He faired well when he was demoted back to the Rochester Red Wings and finished that stint with a 10.10 K/9 rating.
He was struggling with maturation issues (nothing off the field of course) when he couldn’t seem to transition his strong numbers from minor league play to the Twins. The 22-year-old has a 2.58 FIP in Triple-A this season with 39 K’s in 39.2 innings. He faces the Indians in Cleveland Saturday.
He needs more outings before we can get a real feel for him and take him seriously. He’s going to be ridiculously cheap once they add a price tag on him, but anticipate a lot of lineups stacking against him in the daily game.
Here are Eric Longenhagen’s recent notes on Berrios.
J.D. Martinez is back
Tigers outfielder J.D. Martinez should be ready to come back to the major league club Friday after being out all season with a sprained ligament in his right foot. This is on the heels of Jim Adduci’s right oblique injury.
He’s been struggling during his rehab assignment. He went 4-23 with two home runs across two teams.
In typical Martinez form, he won’t have an entire season of games under his belt. He played in 158 games in 2015, but he can’t seem to be dependable in a season-long type of format to stay healthy, but that doesn’t keep a lot of people away from him.
Proceed with caution especially in the daily game against the Angels Friday. He’s activated, but it’s not a 100% chance he gets the start.
“(I know you guys and girls don’t care about wins, but oh well)”
Well, this is a fantasy article, so… yeah, we do. Just because we don’t believe they are a good way to evaluate performance doesn’t make them not a fantasy category.
Even in fantasy terms though, chasing wins is never a really great idea.
Yeah, chasing wins is bad strategy, and at this point many (most?) savvy fantasy leagues have moved away from the W as a stat.
Great stuff as always! J.D. Martinez cannot come back soon enough. My AL-only team is flatlining.
This is a real grammatical horror show…
I’ve only read 3 articles from this particular writer and they’ve all been a struggle. How they’re still writing for this site is beyond me, it’s not just that the content is bland and non-captivating, the overall syntax is insultingly poor.
Awful, as usual. What is going on with this column?
An example of the awfulness:
–Last season with Twins, Berrios struggled at the beginning when he tallied up a 10.20 ERA in 15 innings. Just 20 strikeouts over that campaign.(…)He was struggling with maturation issues (nothing off the field of course) when he couldn’t seem to transition his strong numbers from minor league play to the Twins.—-
Huh?????
Roto Riteups by this particular author contain a level of factual and grammatical errors that you just do not see that often on Fangraphs, a website featuring some of the best writers I know (baseball writers or otherwise).
Not only that, but this author is coming very, very close to plagiarism in a number of these articles. The Russell note is an almost verbatim copy of the same note on Rotoworld, a website which at least posts a link to the original source of the news in its player notes. The Beltre note, again, is an almost verbatim copy from the original article by the Rangers’ beat writer. As someone who covers teams herself, I cannot imagine this author would appreciate her beat work being reposted, or downright copied sans credit, elsewhere.
Fangraphs writers are usually very good about posting or linking to the original source of their information, even when the source of the information is Fangraphs itself. I would highly recommend links to the original source of the information in these Riteups start appearing as this author is coming uncomfortably close to outright plagiarism. If Fangraphs readers wanted verbatim copies of Rotoworld, we’d look at Rotoworld (or the top of the player’s player page on Fangraphs). I think we’d all appreciate something a little bit deeper into the analysis aspect than we are getting here.
Then again, judging by the Jose Berrios section of this Riteup, maybe we are better off without the analysis as that section is an abject disaster.
By the way, if anyone is actually looking to use Jose Berrios in his start, he starts Saturday, not Sunday like the headline in this article says.
Please stop writing these. They produce more misinformation than useful accurate information. Your headline says that Berrios starts Sunday, but the first sentence of the section says he starts Saturday. Also, you said Berrios had “just 20 strikeouts” in his first 15 innings in the MLB last season. Since when is having a 12.0 K/9 disappointing?