Archive for dan straily

Unless I’m just missing it, I don’t believe you can create a custom leaderboard of the day’s probable starters here on the site. Other sites might have some data on the day’s starters, but I’m not aware of it. But every time I pick a lineup I want to look at how each pitcher fares against hitters of each handedness and how homer prone they are. So below you’ll see a screenshot of a custom leaderboard I created to help me pick hitters today.

If some other site is already providing something like this, please let me know and I’ll avoid posting something similar in the future. But if this is something you’d like to see again, let me know. And if you have any suggestions about different or additional stats you would find helpful if included, let me know that as well.

After the jump is the chart, and we’ll use it to pick some hitters.

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Dan Straily| Oakland Athletics | @ Seattle on Friday

Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like Dan Straily has been around for awhile. In reality, he’s still very much a prospect. He made his tenth major league start yesterday and has just over 50 career big league innings. And he’s a good prospect. He displayed good strikeout and walks skills throughout the minors, especially in the upper minors. His BB% was under 8% in stops at A+, AA, and AAA, and his K% was above 30% in about 150 innings of work at AA and AAA. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I looked at a few underrated and overrated position player prospects. This week I wanted to follow that up by doing the same thing with some pitching prospects. The rule with prospects is always caveat emptor as they can’t typically be counted on for consistent production or performance. Still, “hitting” on a few helpful guys your league opponents didn’t expect to be useful can lead your team to fantasy glory.

Remember that these players are being evaluated entirely for their 2013 usefulness, without regard to keeper or dynasty implications.

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Looking at what’s available this weekend, perhaps it should be titled “steaming” weekend starters because there’s slim pick’ens to be had.  Still, there are some interesting options for you should you be in panic mode for wins and strikeouts, a mode in which the author of this post resides in at least two leagues. So let’s get to it.

Steve Johnson

Yes, Steve Johnson. Johnson, who slogged through the minors for the past eight years, seemed to finally put it together in AAA in 2012 with a 2.86 ERA and a 8.5 K/9. He gave up just 66 hits over 91 innings pitched at AAA, striking out 86 batters. He was called up to Baltimore mostly to serve as a reliever where he’s been quite effective — throwing 16 innings, giving up just 7 hits and striking out 21 batters. But he’s also been used as a spot starter, making three starts and he’s been equally good. In those starts, he’s thrown 17 innings, given up 12 hits (10 singles), and struck out 22. His main bugaboo (oh, Mom I blame you for that word) is the free pass as he’s walked 15 batters over his 33.1 innings pitched and he’s had a history of control issues throughout the minors.

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