Team Schwartz/rounds drafted:
C: Travis d’Arnaud/17 1B: Victor Martinez/4 2B: Arismendy Alcantara/18 3B: Josh Donaldson/3 SS: Hanley Ramirez/2 MI: Jean Segura/19 CI: Prince Fielder/6 OF: Mike Trout/1; Mookie Betts/7; Ryan Zimmerman/10; A.J. Pollock/14; Steven Souza/20; Carl Crawford/24 U: Pedro Alvarez/21
Mike Podhorzer and Chad Young embarked on a journey–quest to find an offensive expected (x)HR/FB rate.
Based on batted ball distance and angle, you can go to Baseball Heatmaps (BHM) and find expected versus actual homers or verify HR/FB ratios through HR+FB average distance.
Here’s an uber simple descriptive balls-in-play (BIP) expected homer (xHR) formula:
xHR = PA*Contact%*OFFB%*HR/FB. Looking at the outcomes from last year we have the following list first ordered by the most likely regressions:
It’s probably safe to say Anthony Rizzo has silenced skeptics this season. After showing tremendous amounts of promise upon receiving a call up in 2012, he struggled in 2013, but the sky didn’t fall; his peripherals were still good, even improving a little. Still, questions remained, and they were fair. The two largest questions, to me, were: could he hit fastballs? and can he perform versus lefties? Read the rest of this entry »
Coming into the 2013 season, first baseman Anthony Rizzo was considered one of the prime breakout candidates in all of baseball. He was only 23 years old on Opening Day, and he compiled a .349 wOBA with 15 home runs a year ago in 368 plate appearances. Furthermore, if one adds his Triple-A home run total from 2012, he actually launched 38 bombs last season, so it’s not difficult to understand what spawned the enthusiasm.
Rizzo wasn’t able to follow through on the bold predictions. He only hit .233/.323/.419 on the season, and despite the solid 23 home runs, he was barely a top-30 first baseman in ESPN leagues. His .325 wOBA ranked 19th among qualified first basemen, behind uninspiring guys like Nick Swisher, James Loney and Justin Smoak.
Thus, two questions quickly push their way to the forefront: (1) what happened in 2013, and (2) what can fantasy owners expect for 2014?
I did this on Monday as well, but below you’ll find a chart showing how today’s probable starters have fared against hitters of each handedness this year. This chart is something I create in the leaderboard section of the site, and it’s extremely helpful when picking hitters for the day. Unfortunately, the list must be created manually as there isn’t a filter for the day’s probable starters. Because inputting all the names takes a little time, I figure I’ll just do that work for you. After the jump we’ll use the chart to pick some hitters for the day. And we’ll pick a couple of starters, too.
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Recently I’ve taken a look at early season changes in contact rate and fly ball rate because of Russell Carleton’s research showing we’ve reached the point in the season where the sample for those statistics has become ‘reliable.’ There has been some debate in the comments about what reliable means and how much the small season sample can help us in predicting what a player will do the rest of the season.
I look at it like this. For the statistics that have crossed that reliability threshold, we can look at the players who have seen the biggest changes in either direction and feel safe that their skill has improved or decreased to some degree. That doesn’t mean regression isn’t coming. It just means that at the end of the year it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a player with an improvement or decline from their career mark in a particular category. Although the improvement or decline at the end of the year is not likely to be as extreme as it is at this point in the season.
Today I want to look at the hitters who have seen the biggest changes in ISO because a fair number of players have now crossed the 160 AB threshhold shown in Carleton’s research. Below are the guys who have seen the biggest increase in ISO. After that, we’ll examine whether some other statistics back up the power surge. And a little bit later we’ll see if we can’t figure out how much regression to expect. Read the rest of this entry »
There are plenty of things that I am thankful for this year. Adam Jones’ breakout and Melky Cabrera’s PEDs bust which proved his 2011 was indeed unsustainable without a little illegal assistance — two articles and a bold prediction (found here, here and here) I took a mess of heat for in the comments section that still have me smiling at the haters — are two such examples. But what I am most thankful for in the fantasy baseball world is the mess of young, raw talent I own in my primary keeper league that has no contracts and a keeper structure that has a minimal inflation rate. Mike Trout, Brett Lawrie, Jason Kipnis, Jason Heyward, just to name a few. But I can’t keep them all and at first base I am left with a tough choice that I will turn to you for some thoughts: Would you rather keep Paul Goldschmidt or Anthony Rizzo? Read the rest of this entry »
It’s a pretty exciting time for both baseball fans and fantasy players right now, isn’t it? Rosters don’t expand until September and yet we’re still seeing a slew of prospects getting called up and being handed regular playing time. The baseball fan in me loves seeing the next generation of superstars ushering in a new era while the fantasy player in me gets a nice inundation of fresh blood into the player pool, ready to be scooped up from the waiver wire and put to work as I push my way towards another fantasy championship. It’s win win, right?
Wrong.
Not everyone is totally jazzed up about some hot-shot rookie getting called up and handed an immediate starting role. Much like the debate in this country about immigrants coming in and taking jobs away from struggling, unemployed Americans, there are several in the baseball world that have a dissenting opinion here. Those veteran players who end up riding the pine as well as their fantasy owners are not a happy group of campers.
When Anthony Rizzo was summoned from Iowa to play first base for the Cubs, both Bryan LaHair and his owners were reassured that there would be no loss of playing time. He would move to right field, get his usual number of at-bats, and there was even the bonus of additional position eligibility. Forget about the fact that he was already sitting against most lefties and the handwriting was on the wall; his job was still supposedly safe.
But with the Cubs out of the playoff race, they decided to go and summon Brett Jackson, a highly touted outfielder in their system who, despite batting just .256 for the year in Triple-A was now being given a substantial opportunity to prove his worth on the major league level. But at whose expense? Yup. That’s right. We’re sorry Mr. LaHair, but we have no available table for you at this time. With Rizzo locking down first base, Jackson taking over center field and both David DeJesus and Joe Mather looking like better defensive options, LaHair’s time as a starter has come to a close and those fantasy owners that were still relying on him are now left to scour the waiver wire in search of a new hitter.
And it’s not just happening on teams that are already looking towards 2013. As the Orioles sit atop the wild card standings, they finally told a struggling Mark Reynolds, and those fantasy owners in deeper leagues still forced to use him, that his time was up when they promoted Manny Machado from Double-A on Thursday morning. They even switched the kid’s position in order to boot Reynolds from the starting lineup. It might not be happening all at once, but with the depth the Orioles have now in left field, first base and at DH, Machado occupying third now is pushing Reynolds further and further out the door.
Now obviously fantasy owners should be prepared for this type of thing. It’s something that happens virtually every year. But when you’re playing in deeper leagues and the player pool is scant with talent, these situations can be tough to avoid. It’s great to see new, young talent shine on the big stage, but when they’re stealing the spotlight from one of your guys, it becomes real difficult to appreciate.
My primary keeper league is a 15-team, mixed roto league where we start two guys at each position with six outfielders and nine pitchers. We draft our starting roster and then have just two opportunities — the final week of April and mid-May — to fill out a 10-player bench from the free agent player pool. That’s it. No other time. There’s no streaming of pitchers throughout the year unless you roster a few on your bench and there’s no waiting to pounce on a rookie on the waiver wire once he gets called up. You need to know in March who is going to get called up, regardless of whether it’s mid-season or September. The first month and a half is all about knowledge and foresight. Read the rest of this entry »
Like Sergio Santos recently, Eno Sarris has been placed on the paternity leave list. In his honor, let’s take a look at three babies on their way to the big leagues – a few prospects who are on the verge of big-league playing time not only due to their own performance, but because of the situation on the big club ahead of them. Everyone knows that Mike Trout & Bryce Harper are coming, so instead we’ll check in on…
Nolan Arenado, 3B Colorado Rockies
In 2011, the Rockies sent out nine different players to man the hot corner, from Ty Wigginton’s 62 starts all the way down to the one sole inning catcher Chris Iannetta received at the end of a blowout loss against Kansas City. Six of the nine – including the top four, who combined for 119 starts – are no longer with the club, a hole the Rockies attempted to patch over by signing 38-year-old former Dodger Casey Blake this winter. Blake was injured & ineffective in camp this spring and was cut before Opening Day, so the Rockies are limping along with utility infielder Chris Nelson & former catcher Jordan Pacheco at the position for now. Neither is hitting (two extra-base hits and three walks between them in 39 PA thus far) and neither has much of a minor-league track record to suggest that’s likely to change any time soon.
Nelson & Pacheco are just placeholders, however, and short-time ones at that, since the team is just marking time until consensus top prospect Nolan Arenado is ready to claim the spot. Arenado tore up the California League last year as a 20-year-old (.361 wOBA, 20 homers, just 53 strikeouts in 583 PA) and then impressed in the Arizona Fall League. If not for the fact that he’d never played above High-A prior to this season, he might have broken camp with the big club – a promotion many were clamoring for anyway – and so far he’s crushing Double-A, hitting .395/.477/.632 in ten games for Tulsa. While there’s obvious small-sample-size caveats in 44 Double-A plate appearances, the scouting reports and complete history have all been glowing.
Arenado turns 21 today, April 16. He may not get a call to the big leagues for his birthday, but you can bet he’ll be spending most of this year in Colorado, not Oklahoma.
Anthony Rizzo, 1B Chicago Cubs
All spring, we heard that the Cubs were really going to give 29-year-old minor-league vet Bryan LaHair a chance to be the regular first baseman, despite having shipped off flamethrower Andrew Cashner to San Diego to reunite Rizzo with Theo Epstein & company. LaHair suffered through a homer-free spring training while Rizzo impressed, but the Cubs insisted that Rizzo would be starting the year at Triple-A Iowa. He did, but then the Cubs went out and started utilty guy Jeff Baker at first base in the first two games of the season and in four of the first nine, as LaHair dealt with back tightness and sat against lefty pitching.
To his credit, LaHair has produced when he’s played, hitting .348/.423/.696 with two homers in the early going. On the farm, though, Rizzo has been the Matt Kemp of the PCL, already hitting five homers to go with a .520 wOBA so far. (Again, small-sample-size and PCL offense to be taken into account here.) If LaHair keeps hitting, he’ll keep his job, but the Cubs clearly hold Rizzo in high regard and didn’t trade Cashner for him to have him waste away in the minors all season long. It remains to be seen how they would make that work – LaHair does have some outfield experience in the minors, and David DeJesus could potentially shift to center if they trade or dump Marlon Byrd, though an outfield defense with both LaHair & Alfonso Soriano sounds hilariously awful – but with a Cubs offense struggling to get anything going, they’ll find a way to get Rizzo in the lineup if he keeps showing that he has nothing left to prove in Iowa.
Trevor Bauer, SP Arizona Diamondbacks
I’m not sure if there was a bigger regression candidate heading into 2012 than Diamondback starter Josh Collmenter, who was surprisingly effective in 24 starts as a rookie last year but who gave little indication based on his history and performance that this was something he’d be able to keep up over the long term. He was basically the Chris Johnson of the new season, in terms of “there is just no way that guy is going to be as good next year.”
While it’s been only two starts, Collmenter has indeed been atrocious, allowing 14 baserunners, 10 earned runs, and 3 homers in 7 innings so far. It’s been bad enough that Kirk Gibson announcing that Collmenter will get another start this week against Atlanta actually qualifies as news, because it was in no way assured. For a team picked by many to win the division this year and possibly go deep into the playoffs, those results are unacceptable.
Even worse for Collmenter, the Diamondbacks have a ready-made replacement in their own top prospect, 2011 #3 overall pick Trevor Bauer. Bauer reportedly came close to making his big-league debut last year and is now one of several hot pitching prospects in the Arizona system, along with Tyler Skaggs, Pat Corbin, and Archie Bradley. With Jarrod Parker off to Oakland in the Trevor Cahill deal, Bauer is the closest to the bigs, having stuck out 46 in 32.1 Double-A innings between his debut last year and his first outings this year. While he needs to work on his walk rate – 5.6/9 in Double-A is far from ideal – he’s the kind of high-upside strikeout arm that the Diamondbacks currently don’t have in the back of a rotation that features Collmenter and Joe Saunders. Collmenter may have just one more start to prove that he’s actually a starting pitcher worth hanging onto, and the odds aren’t good that he’s going to be able to do it.
Bauer may not be the first choice if Collmenter loses his job – Arizona could try to patch things over for a few weeks with similar placeholders Barry Enright, Zach Kroenke, or Wade Miley – though none of them are going to stand in the way of Bauer once Arizona decides he’s ready. By the looks of things, that may be sooner rather than later.