Archive for Andrew Miller

This past weekend was an eventful one for the Cardinals’ bullpen. At the team’s Winter Warmup, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said that Carlos Martínez was ahead of schedule in his return from offseason shoulder surgery, giving momentum to his push to become a starter again. Martínez was slated to begin his road back with a bullpen session on Tuesday, and barring a change in plans, bullpen roles are now up for grabs. Once Jordan Hicks was shelved by a torn UCL and subsequent Tommy John surgery last summer, Martínez took over as closer. He secured 22 of the Cardinals’ 30 saves after Hicks’ season had come to an end.

There was also news regarding Hicks. He is currently tossing on flat ground two or three times a week and could return by the middle of the season. While it seems unlikely that Mike Shildt would put Hicks immediately back in the closer’s role, it does complicate our calculus for determining who (if anyone) we should target from the Cardinals for saves in this year’s drafts. Even if there was a clear successor to Martínez as the team’s closer, that reliever could conceivably get pulled from the role if Hicks made a sufficiently early and strong return.
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The Twins had a lot more trust in Fernando Rodney heading into this season than fantasy owners did. While Rodney got a $4.5 million deal from the Twins to be their closer last December, fantasy owners typically passed him over until after the first 200 picks were made (220 NFBC ADP, 239 Fantrax ADP). Several opening day closers lost their grip on the role long ago, but Rodney was the Twins’ unquestioned closer all season long.

Until now. The Twins traded Rodney to the Athletics for minor league right-hander Dakota Chalmers on Thursday night, joining an already deep bullpen where Blake Treinen, Jeurys Familia and Lou Trivino have settled into their respective late-inning roles. Holds, much less saves, could be hard to come by for Rodney with his new club.
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Author’s Note: The article you see below was completed before Andrew Miller was injured by a comebacker on Wednesday. I believe the thought process and information below is still relevant and useful, even in light of this injury.

I love this time of year. Sure it’s fun to be doing my own draft prep. But a much underrated part of draft season is all the talk by others in the industry about their own processes. If you’re trying to learn about other strategies and improve at this game, the expert draft season is a treasure trove of goodies. A lot of the strategy and thought provoking discussions will dry up as we get further away from March.

I gobble up the draft recap articles and podcasts that come out of the LABR and Tout drafts because I’m such a junkie for the strategies and decision making processes others use.

And there were some interesting ones this year. Ron Shandler took his new BABS approach to Tout Wars. Steve Moyer attempted the Labadini plan. And there’s now a Tout Wars head-to-head draft with some interesting rules that will lead to interesting strategies (as Jeff Zimmerman wrote about on Rotographs (free!), Rotographs again (free!), and Rotowire ($$)).

But the one outcome I want to discuss wasn’t so much an overall strategy as it was a specific plan or series of decisions. Chris Liss, of Rotowire, drafted Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, and Dellin Betances for a combined $38 in the AL Tout Wars draft (click here to see the entire results of all the Tout leagues).

Was this a good move? Or not? Read the rest of this entry »

It has begun! May your leagues bring you much joy. What follows is one approach to auctions that should bring you future joy.

I participated in two auction drafts. In both, I decided to spend little on pitching. In The Fake Baseball’s Friends and Family League (TFBFFL), I spent almost the minimum on our (co-own the free team with Zach Sanders) rotation and bench. I spent $16.00 on 12 pitchers ($2 max), but the results were not horrible: Drew Hutchison, Homer Bailey, Carlos Martinez, Henderson Alvarez, Shelby Miller, John Lackey, Sean Doolittle, Carlos Rodon and Rafael Montero. I dropped Chad Qualls already for Zach McAllister. We have enough bats to upgrade.

In my next auction, I wanted two better pitchers, but I still gave myself a $40 cap. I wound up spending $45 on the following:

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This post continues our Depth Chart Discussions. In an effort to suss out every team, we’ve divided them into four parts (infield, outfield, bullpen, and rotation) and will continue to break them down for you over the next few weeks. You can find the Depth Chart Discussion posts gathered here.

Closer/Setup Men:

Fishing for a closer?

Draft Jenrry Mejia and you may feel like doing this:

Jenrry Mejia. So pumped. pic.twitter.com/iy8HR5yrZu

— MLB GIFS (@MLBGIFs) July 26, 2014

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There are a sundry of middle/set-up relievers that can succeed in the closer role if given the opportunity. A few obvious: Wade Davis if something happens to Greg Holland… Wil Myers for James Shields and who?!; Ken Giles if the Phillies can somehow find a trade partner for the grundle-grabber; and Brad Boxberger if not Jake McGee. I assume David Robertson signs elsewhere and Dellin Betances steps in.

Lets’ look at potential closers using reliever outcomes. Here are the average contact and balls in play-related outcomes for all relievers that qualified and specifically relievers with 10+ saves:

Our Filters: 

• Contact-related outcomes: For K-BB%, Ct% and SwStr%, I filtered simply by the general relief pitcher averages. Everyone below average in these 3 categories was filtered out.
• Command-related outcomes: For zone% and first-pitch-strike%, I used 1 standard deviation below average and 1.25 SD’s below average in BABIP as filters. 1.25 SD allowed me to omit only the relievers that had career BABIP’s higher than we would like to see for a closer or in general. I didn’t want to screen out Jenrry Mejia (1.24 SD below the mean) or Tim Stauffer (1.19 SD below), because there’s a possibility for BABIP regression.
• Balls In Play-related outcomes: I was lax on the balls in play outcomes. I went with a 40% Grounder rate and 45% Flyball rate as my filters versus the averages that you see above because below average fly-rates don’t mean much in places like Tampa (where Boxberger is elite but below average in fly-rates); and above average grounder-rates don’t mean as much with atrocious defense behind you (hence Corey Kluber’s unlucky BABIP, which should have been closer to .299 per end-of-season xBABIP/Inside Edge data), but I digress.

Using these filters, we’re left with a robust list of above-average relievers beyond just closers (scroll down for the noted filters):

What happens if we use the command (K-BB%)/contact (Ct% and SwStr%) related averages for relievers with more than 10 saves this year? 

…We’re left with some elite closers and then a few interesting names.

Last year, Danny Farquhar (just missed the list this year) had a top 20 swinging-strike rate – about a percent better than Fernando Rodney, but it was masked by his BABIP and left-on-base rate that killed his surface stats (4.20 ERA vs. 2.40 xFIP). This year, he actually outperformed his xFIP with a 2.66 ERA. After an early season MASH Report on Rodney’s velocity, I eyed Farquhar. At least keep him in mind next year if anything does happen to Rodney.

Josh Edgin (Mets for those of you that don’t know) has a top 65 contact-rate sandwiched between Mark Melancon and Jake McGee and even induced grounders 50% of the time. He has a pretty extensive repertoire as well. In order of usage: Fourseamer, Slider, Curve, Change, Cutter and Sinker. According to his Brooks Player Card, he has great swing and miss rates on his Curve (>56%), Cutter (50%), Slider (>42%) and Sinker (33%). Even his Change approaches 30%. This isn’t the case on his Fastball, but at 93+ MPH, it induces a decent amount of grounders (1.8 GB/FB). Keep in mind he had late-season elbow issues which effected his velocity by a MPH or so, but he could be called upon to get Mejia out of a jam. I like him better than an unhealthy Bobby Parnell and Jeurys Familia from a command perspective for another year.

Zach Duke did his best Craig Kimbrel impression prior to the R2M monster hitting him in August. Prior to 8/1, Duke had a 34.9% K-rate and 27.3 K-BB%. Kimbrel ended the year with a 38.9% K-rate and 28.3 K-BB%. I think August and September brought him back to his realistic value (~2.50 ERA, 1.15 WHIP). It will be interesting to see who closes for the Brewers if they let Francisco Rodriguez go. Both Duke and Will Smith have above average (even for RP w/ 10+ saves) swing-and-miss. Will Smith should have additional command next year, but Zack Duke induces grounders better which I like in my closers/in Milwaukee. They also have Jonathan Broxton. The hierarchy seemed to be K-rod-Broxton-Smith late last season. If that’s the case, they should use Duke more (former starter) and in higher leverage situations. He was equally solid against both lefties (.258 wOBA) and righties (.262 wOBA).

Oliver Perez everybody! I thought I could filter him out by his splits being a lefty, but like 2012, he was more effective vs. righties (and faced 44 more of them). The D-backs have Addison Reed, up-and-comer Evan Marshall as well as Daniel Hudson caught touching 97 MPH so if not by outcomes or splits, we can filter Perez out by opportunity.

Darren O’Day and Andrew Miller is part of one dominating Baltimore bullpen – one that gets referenced by anyone who thinks the Orioles can beat the Tigers in the ALDS. Notice that Zach Britton didn’t make either of the above lists! He was filtered out by his below average K-BB% (13.70%). It’s his 75+% grounder rate (hence the 81+% left-on-base rate and .215 BABIP) that keeps him elite in Baltimore. The only concern you can have with O’Day is a fastball velocity almost 2 standard deviations below the mean for relievers, but his arm angle combined with that slider still induces a 30+% whiff-rate on both pitches. Miller’s slider though is a world apart from O’Day’s: only Pedro Strop, Will Smith, Jake Diekman, Greg Holland and Oliver Perez induces more whiffs than Miller’s 55% according to Baseball Prospectus’ Pitchf/x Leaderboards.  I doubt we’ll see a closer-transition next year in Baltimore unless Britton’s GB/FB ratio takes a drastic dive because his HR/FB ratio, which approached 18%, could be an issue.

An xBABIP review

On the last day of the season, @jeffwzimmerman provided me with Pitch xBABIP based on inside edge data. Let’s look at some of the bigger xBABIP differentials to keep in mind:

The last column depicts the z-score for BABIP differential. Francisco Rodriguez was expected to have a BABIP about 120 points above his actual BABIP. I highlighted (red/bad; green/good) the xBABIP z-scores as well so that you know whether or not to actually be concerned meaning sure Aaron Sanchez has the 5th biggest BABIP differential (over 2 standard deviations from the mean), but a .239 xBABIP is still utterly elite (3.34 SD’s from the mean). On the other side of the equation, it’s nice to see Evan Marshall, Carlos Martinez and Adam Ottavino (albeit in Colorado) with large BABIP differentials. Marshall and Martinez even have xBABIP’s over .5SD from the mean.

The last bit of fun

It was a very fun year to be doing bullpen reports for RotoGraphs. Aroldis Chapman broke the single-season strikeout rate of 2012 Craig Kimbrel (50.2%). He struck out 52.5% of the hitters he faced. Andrew Miller (42.6%) and Brad Boxberger (42.1%) also made the top 10 seasons ever. Dellin Betances (39.6%), Wade Davis (39.1%) and Craig Kimbrel (38.9%) made the top 20. Chapman’s swinging-strike% of 20% beat ’12 Kimbrel by .8%, but he couldn’t pass ’04 Lidge, ’03 Gagne, ’04 Gagne, ’02 Gagne or ’05 Lidge. Chapman, Miller, Doolittle, Boxberger, Betances (Wade Davis and Kenley Jansen close behind) all had historical, top 20 K-BB rates. Relievers dominate this list: only ’99 Pedro Martinez (#12), ’00 Pedro Martinez (#21), ’01 Randy Johnson (#27) and ’01 Pedro Martinez (#28) make it into the top 30, but it’s clear that we have a growing list of elite relievers.

From a fantasy perspective, thanks to 45+ saves totals out of Holland and Kimbrel, we had two relievers ranked in the top 20 pitchers. If Chapman didn’t miss time and Betances and Davis consumed the closer role, we would have had 3 others. Last year, Craig Kimbrel and his 4 wins, 50 saves, 98 SO’s, 1.21 ERA and .88 WHIP campaign made him the 3rd most valuable pitcher. This year with Kershaw, Cueto, Felix and Kluber, it would have taken even more.

If we combined the 3 more dominating performances exclusive of saves this year: Aroldis Chapman’s K-rate (52.5%) and saves total (36), Dellin Betances IP (90) – who was dominating in his own right, Wade Davis’ ERA (1.00) and Wins total (9) and Sean Doolittle’s WHIP (.73) – let’s call this guy Aroldellin Dooldavis, we would wind up with a 10.95 z-sum…just above Corey Kluber (10.72), but under Clayton Kershaw (13.74), Johnny Cueto (12.95) and Felix Hernandez (12.50). Even 50 saves wouldn’t have done the trick (12.43 z-sum):

Any day now, Zach Sanders (@zvsanders) will come out with his end-of-season FAVRz/Fantasy Rankings. Look out for them.

For this post, I will provide three sets of rankings using that same approach (summed up z-scores) for our end-of-season “Bullpen Report: Expected Fantasy Rankings”. The Bullpen Report team should follow up with role reports for each division in the coming weeks as well.

The first set of rankings you will find almost anywhere: on the fantasy sites that you use, via player-raters, etc. It’s the standard 5×5 fantasy value (Wins, ERA, WHIP, SO and Saves). The second grid will be for 6×6 leagues (addition of Holds). The last grid will be for 5×5 and 6×6 leagues, but instead of standard ERA and WHIP, we’ll look at rankings if you were to use expected ERA (via SIERA) and adjusted (adj)WHIP through BABIP differential: I will explain below.

1) 5×5 Rankings (Wins, ERA, WHIP, SO and Saves) – actual 5×5 value in column 4; expected 5×5 value in column 5:

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For my first Bullpen Report, I wanted to provide additional value so I blasted “Enter Sandman” and sprinted toward my office to write this.

Below the report of yesterday’s games, you will find rankings for 5×5 (W,ERA,WHIP,K,SV) and 6×6 (+Holds) leagues based on Zach Sander’s FVARz approach. For reference, I used 108 active Pitchers = 9 P x 12 teams and 25 IP as a qualifier. Why 25? I didn’t want to leave Ken Giles off the list.

But there’s more. In addition to their fantasy value, I’ve z-scored outcomes on the plate appearance level to depict pitcher skill (K%-BB%, Ct%, GB/FB, F-Str%, and IFFB% weighed by their correlations to ERA) and luck (BABIP, HR/FB and LOB% weighed by their correlations to ERA) thus far this season. To back up the top 20 relievers ranked by my “Skill” Score, I also furnished grids on their pitch outcomes, which depicts how well their individual pitches induce whiffs and grounders vs. flies.

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For a 26-year-old with an even 300 innings pitched in the majors, Andrew Miller has worn many labels throughout his career. He was a college ace at North Carolina and a top-10 pick by the Tigers in the 2006 draft. He was a primo prospect acquired by the Marlins in the December 2007 Miguel Cabrera deal. And he was a bitter disappointment traded to Boston last offseason for nothing more than recently-DFA’d reliever Dustin Richardson.

Last night, Miller took the mound at Fenway Park wearing yet another label: reclamation project. With Clay Buchholz on the DL with a back injury, the 6-foot-7, herky-jerky lefty got a fill-in start versus the San Diego Padres. He didn’t disappoint. Miller’s control wasn’t great, but he showed better stuff at the major league level than he had in years.

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The Florida Marlins figure to have a fantastic one-two punch at the top of the rotation this season, with Josh Johnson (inked to a four-year, $39 million deal during the off-season) followed by Ricky Nolasco, whose 2009 xFIP was 1.8 runs lower than his ERA. Anibal Sanchez, assuming his shoulder doesn’t start shooting flames, looks to be the third man. After that, things get a little..fishy (sorry).

Chris Volstad, Rick VandenHurk, Andrew Miller, Clay Hensley and Hayden Penn are all looking to earn a spot at the back of Florida’s rotation.

Volstad, 23, was the 16th overall pick in the 2005 draft. The 6-8 right-hander didn’t post huge whiff totals in the minors (6.3 K/9), but his low-90’s fastball, high-70’s curve and low-80’s changeup generated grounders at a 57.4 percent clip and he displayed plus control with just 2.4 BB/9.

Over the last two years in the big leagues, Volstad has posted rates of 5.88 K/9 and 3.51 BB/9, with a 4.43 xFIP. Volstad remains a groundball-oriented hurler, with a 50.9 GB% in the majors. His hook (+0.86 runs per 100 pitches for the curve) and changeup (+0.73) have been effective, but that fastball has been smacked for a -0.55 runs/100 value.

Volstad’s upside doesn’t appear enormous, but he’s a good bet to bounce back in 2010. His ERA was 5.21 in 2009, compared to a 4.35 xFIP. The reason? Nearly 18 percent of fly balls hit against Volstad left the yard last year, by far the highest rate among starters with 150+ innings pitched. If that number regresses back to the 10-12 percent range, then Volstad’s ERA should dip to mid-fours.

A 24 year-old Dutchman, VandenHurk has been Marlins property since 2002. The 6-5 righty features low-90’s Gouda and a hard slider, which has helped him punch out a batter per inning on the farm, with 3.8 BB/9.

Sadly, VandenHurk is often hurt. He had Tommy John surgery in 2005. More recently, he was shelved in both ’08 and ’09 with elbow ailments. VandenHurk has never come close to a full starter’s workload: his 121.2 IP last season between Florida and the minors was a career high.

In 2009, he had 7.69 K/9, 2.41 BB/9 and a 3.05 FIP in 59.2 innings at the Triple-A level, and 7.52 K/9, 3.22 BB/9 and a 4.78 xFIP in the majors. VandenHurk will miss bats, but health, control issues and extreme fly ball tendencies (27.6 GB% in the majors) make him unreliable. CHONE predicts a 4.66 FIP next year, with 8.54 K/9, 4 BB/9 and 1.38 dingers per nine innings.

R.J. Anderson covered Miller’s journey from highly-touted Tar Heel and Tiger to aggravating underachiever. The lefty is still just 24, and his career xFIP in the majors (4.70) is considerably lower than his ERA (5.50). Even so, scouts expected much more than mediocrity from the 6th pick in the 2006 draft.

First, the good: Miller has 7.22 K/9 in the major leagues, and he keeps the ball on the ground, too (48.1 GB%). The bad is, well, everything else.

Miller has generously handed out 5.09 walks per nine innings, tossing a first pitch strike just 52.1 percent of the time (58 percent MLB average). Batters aren’t chasing his low-90’s fastball, slurvy upper-70’s breaking ball or low-80’s changeup out of the zone (20.6 outside swing%, compared to the 25% MLB average).

When the 6-7 southpaw isn’t getting behind in the count, he’s hurt: he hit the DL in 2008 with a right knee injury and missed time last year with oblique and right ankle problems (injury info from the Fantasy Pitch F/X DL Tool).

As R.J. suggested, Miller might be best served by going to Triple-A and working out the kinks. He logged just 131 innings in the minors. CHONE still sees Miller through powder blue-colored glasses though, forecasting a 4.30 FIP, 7.62 K/9 and 4.79 BB/9 in 2010.

Hensley, 30, posted a 2.1 WAR season with the Padres back in 2006. The next few years wouldn’t be nearly as kind. Hampered by a shoulder injury (requiring labrum surgery after the ’07 campaign), Hensley was smacked around in the majors and became known as “the dude who gave up Barry Bonds’s 755th home run.”

The former Giants prospect briefly passed through Houston’s minor league system last year and then latched on with Florida. In 114 innings with the Zephyrs, Hensley had a 3.73 FIP, 6.47 K/9 and 3 BB/9.

Hensley’s something of a slop-ball pitcher, featuring a fastball that might crack 90 on a good day, a low-80’s slider, a mid-70’s curve and a low-80’s changeup. He’s not a great source of strikeouts, and he doesn’t have the sort of control that one usually associates with a finesse type. However, he does keep the ball on the ground. CHONE calls for a 4.79 FIP next year, with 6.3 K/9 and 4.5 BB/9.

Like his fellow competitors, Penn is no stranger to strains surgical scars. The former Orioles prospect has a promising minor league dossier. But you name it, and Penn has hurt it: surgery to remove his appendix in 2006, elbow surgery in 2007 and shoulder soreness in 2008. The 25 year-old righty is projected to post a 5.04 FIP next year, with 7.53 K/9 and 4.3 BB/9.

Volstad, VandenHurk and Miller remain mildly interesting fantasy options, though none should be on draft boards in mixed leagues.