Archive for Angels

To suggest it’s been a tumultuous season for Edwin Diaz would be an understatement. He suffered his seventh blown save serving up a two-run home run to red hot J.T. Realmuto on Friday night but garnered his second win after Pete Alsono drew a bases loaded walk for the literal walk-off victory. Not only did Diaz set a career worst with his seventh blown save, the home run also tied him for another dubious place in history, along with his teammates: Read the rest of this entry »

Entering game play on the final day of August, many bullpens will enter September fatigued. With rosters expanding on Sunday, reinforcements will arrive but some teams, it may be too little too late. As for last night, a 15 inning game between the Red Sox and Angels ended in Andrew Cashner’s 11th win. He worked four scoreless innings issuing two walks and striking out three. Brandon Workman entered his save chance last night with a 1.35 ERA his previous 13 appearances and an impressive 21 strikeouts against three walks. After stranding two inherited runners in the eighth inning, Workman returned for the ninth looking for his 10th save. However, Workman walked Brian Goodwin and Mike Trout before getting a fielder’s choice ground out. This left runners on the corners with one out. A single to left field, mishandled badly by J.D. Martinez allowed both runners to score. As of this writing, they both count as earned runs resulting in Workman’s sixth blown save. After the tying run scored, Workman intentionally walked Kole Calhoun before striking out David Fletcher. Then another intentional pass to Andrelton Simmons preceding an inning ending ground out by Matt Thaiss. Read the rest of this entry »

Wednesday was not a good day for the two best closers of 2018. Edwin Diaz blew his second save of the season after entering the bottom of the ninth with an 8-5 lead against the Dodgers. Coming into the game, the Mets’ closer had allowed little damage when facing lefties, holding them to a collective .071/.133/.214 slash line, but Joc Pederson and Max Muncy defied the trend, hitting back-to-back homers to begin the Dodgers’ half of the inning. Justin Turner and Cody Bellinger followed that up with consecutive doubles, with Bellinger’s erasing the lead. Diaz would face three more batters but would only retire the last one. Unfortunately, the batter was Alex Verdugo, who hit a walk-off sacrifice fly.

Just as he did a year ago, Diaz is missing a lot of bats (17.3 percent SwStr%), but despite that, he has already equaled last season’s total of home runs allowed (five). That may be something of a fluke, as his flyball rate is up only slightly, from 35.3 to 37.0 percent, as is his average exit velocity allowed on flies and liners, from 91.5 to 92.1 mph (per Baseball Savant). It may be a good time to get in touch with a frustrated Diaz owner.
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In the moment Jose Alvarado owners yearned for, a save chance, things did not go as planned in New York. Alvarado last recorded a save on April seventh against the Giants on the road. He’s also registered five holds and two losses in 12 outings since. After Diego Castillo retired the Yankees in order in the eighth with two strikeouts, Alvarado entered to face Luke Voit, a known southpaw killer. Voit hit his 11th home run, and second off a lefty, leading off the inning. Alvarado allowed a single to Gary Sanchez, another hitter who fares better versus lefties, before striking out Kendrys Morales. But, a Gleyber Torres double put the go ahead run at second base. Struggling a bit with command, Alvarado uncorked a wild pitch after intentionally walking Clint Frazier scoring the tying run. Read the rest of this entry »

What a difference a year can make for the Oakland bullpen. Last year, the A’s relievers fueled the teams push to the playoffs with a career year by Blake Treinen anchoring the staff. However, last night, Lou Trivino blew the lead giving up two hits and two walks culminated by a Daniel Vogelbach three-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning. Prior to this meltdown, Trivino turned in seven scoreless appearances his prior eight games. Joakim Soria entered the ninth in a tied game to strikeout the side. But, he admittedly ran out of gas in the bottom of the 10th resulting in a walk to Vogelbach, then replaced by pinch runner Dee Gordon who stole second base. A double by Domingo Santana tied the game before an Omar Narvaez single ended in a Mariners walk-off win. Read the rest of this entry »

Apparently if you get the save against the Blue Jays, they name the building after you. So probably because the portion of the Jays’ lineup that was due up against the Twins called for a lefty reliever, rather than a righty, their home park is not called Parker Centre.

With the Twins up 3-0 heading into the bottom of the ninth inning, Rocco Baldelli summoned Taylor Rogers to handle Justin Smoak (.216 Avg, .135 ISO versus lefties), the right-handed Randal Grichuk (.317 Avg, but a .122 ISO vs. LHP) and Rowdy Tellez. The choice nearly backfired, as Grichuk singled and then Rogers stayed in to face Vladimir Guerrero Jr. after retiring Tellez. Guerrero singled, putting runners on the corners, but Rogers induced a Billy McKinney grounder to end the game.
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We often begin this column with the grisly details of the latest reliever meltdown. So why not start things off this time with some good news?

A pair of closers who had forgettable 2018 seasons are off to a nice start in 2019. Ken Giles recorded his third save in as many tries on Tuesday, securing the Blue Jays’ 7-5 win over the Red Sox. He has yet to allow a run in 5.2 innings, though this appearance was a little more eventful than his past ones from this season. Giles issued his first walk of the year, which came on the heels of a Dustin Pedroia leadoff single. Then he needed all of three pitches to retire Blake Swihart and Andrew Benintendi, and after going to a full count on Mookie Betts, Giles finished him off by getting him to chase a low slider.
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I got a suggestion to write a column on my favorite starting pitchers to target (thanks @cwsoxfan!), but in truth, that column is sort of scattered all over the place. For example, my last post for RotoGraphs included some analysis on why I will be targeting Joe Musgrove. I’ve written about several pitchers I’m ranking above ADP and the industry consensus, such as Matthew Boyd, Carlos Rodon, Anibal Sanchez, Mike Minor and Jaime Barria, in other pieces.

Still, there are a number of starters whom I do like better than other fantasy owners do, including those in the industry, but I have yet to write about them to explain why. For this piece, I will focus on five starters who will likely be frequent targets for me, based on my rankings as compared to ADPs. These aren’t exactly sleepers, though. Rather than going deep in the motherlode for bargains, I’ll be taking a look at widely-owned players who could provide a generous return if you are able to draft them at or near their ADPs
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Soon enough, we will be mocking liked we’ve never mocked before, practicing for our real drafts that are now a mere three months away. Like many in the industry, I embarked on my mock drafting almost immediately after the season. I was fortunate to have taken part in Justin Mason’s 2 Early Mocks, and since then I have participated in a mock draft for Lindy’s and the ongoing Pitcher List Experts slow mock (I have made 18 picks out of 23 as of this writing).

Already, it is becoming apparent that I have a few favorites who I am targeting. There are 10 players who I have picked in at least two of the three drafts, and five in particular strike me as good values if their early mock draft positions hold steady into the real drafts come March.
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Next Monday, a new AL Rookie of the Year will be crowned, and it won’t be Jaime Barria. Though he made 26 starts in his first major league season, giving the Angels 129.1 innings of much-needed solid pitching, Barria did not grab many headlines. He made only moderate waves in fantasy circles. In CBS leagues, which tend to run deep, Barria’s ownership and activation rates peaked in early September, when he was rostered in 55 percent of leagues and started in 36 percent.

Even though the Angels’ righty finished with 10 wins and a 3.41 ERA, he ranked just 73rd among starting pitchers in Roto value (per ESPN’s Player Rater). Barria’s ERA was slimmed down by an 82.1 percent strand rate and .271 BABIP, so fantasy owners can’t be blamed for thinking he was not truly a top-75 starter. Pitchers with an 18.3 percent strikeout rate tend to not draw much interest in fantasy, and Barria did not overcome his relative lack of Ks with an avoidance of walks or homers. His walk rate was 8.8 percent, and he finished with a 1.18 HR/9. Suspicions about Barria’s value were validated by SIERA, FIP and xFIP, all of which exceeded 4.50.
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