Archive for andrew cashner

The Red Sox’s bullpen has been among the most confusing ones for fantasy owners to figure out all season. In Tuesday night’s game against the Indians, we had more twists and turns to follow, but ultimately, much of what happened may not have a lasting impact.

The first surprise was seeing Nathan Eovaldi enter the game with one out in the bottom of the eighth inning with a 6-5 lead and a runner on second base. Eovaldi was supposed to begin his return to the Red Sox’s rotation on Wednesday as the scheduled starter for the series finale. Alex Cora has not abandoned that plan, but he put Eovaldi on a slight detour on his path back to a starting role because of what he called “probably the biggest inning of what we were trying to accomplish.” Eovaldi validated Cora’s decision, as he kept the slim margin intact by retiring Roberto Pérez and Jason Kipnis.
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As is usually the case, the selection of streamable starting pitchers is much heavier on risk than reward, but there is actually a widely-available starter who looks like a pretty safe bet to help your rotation. It’s Felix Pena, who is unowned in at least 85 percent of the leagues on ESPN, CBS and Yahoo and more than 75 percent of Fantrax leagues. In a column I wrote just last week, I made the case for viewing Pena as Patrick Corbin Lite.
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Andrew Cashner did not get much respect from fantasy owners this season. Given that he finished with the highest contact rate and lowest swinging strike rate for any qualified starting pitcher, it may look like he was undeserving of widespread ownership. Cashner’s 12.2 percent strikeout rate was lower than all qualifiers, except for Ty Blach, and that paucity of Ks usually doesn’t bode well for one’s fantasy value. Not only does it put an owner behind in the strikeout category, but K-rates inversely correlate with ERA.

Run prevention was not a problem for Cashner, as he ranked 15th among qualifiers with a 3.40 ERA. On the basis of that, along with 11 wins, a 1.32 WHIP and just 86 strikeouts, Cashner was a top-70 starter, both in Roto value (per ESPN’s Player Rater) and in CBS fantasy points. That may not sound like a big deal — okay, it’s not a big deal — but it does mean that Cashner was more valuable than several more popular starters. For example, the 31-year-old outearned Tanner Roark, John Lackey and Sean Manaea in Roto value and amassed more CBS fantasy points than Taijuan Walker.
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The best of, worst of awards continue this week along with a spotlight on fantasy baseball’s catcher landscape in 2015. Last week, I awarded the 2015 Sigh Young — fantasy baseball’s biggest pitching bust — to Jeff Samardzija, who miserably underperformed expectations en route to a pretty awful season.

The 2015 Roto Overhyped Pitcher award is a bit different and probably more subjective. Rather than simply be bad, a pitcher must have also been over-hyped. Too much hype typically occurs for two reasons, neither of which are mutually exclusive:

1. The pitcher was once a top prospect
2. The pitcher broke out, or turned the corner, the previous season

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It’s time for our Depth Chart Discussions to begin. In an effort to suss out every team, we’ve divided them into four parts (infield, outfield, bullpen, and rotation) and will begin breaking them down for you over the next few weeks. You can find them gathered here.

We all know how valuable a pitcher in Petco Park can be, even if they aren’t on the high end of the talent spectrum. Thankfully for us in 2015, the Padres staff will have some of that upper-end talent paired with a far more capable offense to support it. It is incredible how much one addition can make a difference for a club as the rotation looks so much more formidable now with their latest signing. Here is how the top four stack up:

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On Monday I ran the 2015 Steamer projections for starting pitchers through Zach Sanders’ Fantasy Value Above Replacement system and compared them to early NFBC ADP data to identify some possible bust candidates. I looked at four guys specifically, but there are a few more names that I think are worth discussing.

Andrew Cashner, San Diego Padres

Despite having a 2.55 ERA last year, early drafters seem to recognize that Cashner has some limitations. He’s going 35th among starters, but given his ERA last year and some perceived name value, it wouldn’t surprise me if he was going at least in the top 30. Presumably concerns about his ability to pitch a healthy number of innings and his lack of strikeouts in recent years have tempered Cashner enthusiasm. But according to Steamer, drafters are still too enthused as Cashner comes in 67th in the Steamer rankings. Read the rest of this entry »

The San Diego Padres have probably created more buzz than any other Major League Baseball team this offseason. New GM A.J. Preller added to his club a few position players who are pretty good in fantasy baseball terms – a couple of them really good, a couple of them who could be (but could also not be). The change in home venue for each doesn’t really affect his projection on offense negatively, either. The new guys all used to play in pretty pitcher-friendly yards.

A cool fantasy baseball thing related to the new guys’ pitcher-friendly yard, Petco Park, is that it has long helped its team to be a sort of fantasy goldmine. When fantasy baseball players search for pitching sleepers and fliers, they usually check San Diego’s roster for youngsters, retreads, and anyone else the Friars might give a shot that year. Petco Park has always had good park factors for hurlers, and the club’s coaching staffs (latest edition led by manager Bud Black and pitching coach Darren Balsley) have good reputations, too.

Now, :-(. The source of the Padres’ newfound buzz will make the cool fantasy baseball thing less cool. Perhaps a lot less.

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It’s no secret that Petco Park is a pitcher’s park. But for the sake of putting a face with a name, or rather some numbers with a narrative, I’ll point out that according to our basic park factors Petco was tied for the second most pitcher-friendly park last year. And prior to last year Petco had the lowest basic park factor in the league for nine straight seasons after opening in 2004.

Last summer, Bradley Woodrum discussed the changes made to Petco prior to the 2013 season and how they are affecting offense in the park. Offense is on the rise to some degree and that’s consistent with Petco not being the most pitcher-friendly park in the league last year for the first time in its existence. But it’s hard to say exactly how much the dimensions are bolstering offensive production. What we can say with some certainty is that even though it may not be the most pitcher-friendly park, it’s still safely pitcher-friendly.

Because of the nature of the park, pitchers for the Padres are always interesting to fantasy owners. So who is in line to potentially get the Petco bump this year? Below is a chart showing the five San Diego starters projected to throw the most innings along with their Steamer projections. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I wrote about hitters who might be undervalued because of poor recent performance that was being caused by something other than a decrease in skill. Today I’d like to take a quick look at the pitchers whose xFIPs were the farthest below their ERAs over the last thirty days. The idea again is that recent performance seems to be weighted too heavily in pricing, and these guys might have a little extra value in the immediate future. Read the rest of this entry »

Andrew Cashner | San Diego Padres | @ Cubs on Wednesday

Cashner is your typical young flamethrower who racks up strikeouts but struggles with control. In 130 career innings, he has a 25% K% and 10.5% BB%. In eight career starts he has a 25.7% K% and 4.4% BB%. That’s probably a small sample size anomaly, but there’s a chance that the windup suits him.

But Cashner has another skill beyond just the strikeout ability; he gets a ton of groundballs. His career ground ball rate is 51.3%. If he can keep that rate up as a full-time starter, he’ll join some pretty elite company. In the last ten years, there have only been three pitchers with a full season of 24%+ K% and 50%+ GB% at the age of 27 or younger. Those three were Jon Lester, Francisco Liriano, and David Price. Read the rest of this entry »