Archive for David Robertson

Sean Doolittle was named to his first National League All-Star team on Sunday (he was also an American League All-Star with Oakland in 2014), and he’s clearly been worthy of the distinction in both the real and fantasy worlds. He has compiled a 1.45 ERA, 0.54 WHIP, 22 saves and 49 strikeouts to date and ranks as the top reliever in terms of Roto value in the NL (per ESPN’s Player Rater).

Not all of the news for Doolittle was positive on Sunday. Earlier in the day, reports surfaced of Doolittle having a strained toe. By multiple accounts, the injury is minor, and he may even have been able to pitch in the series finale against the Marlins. It was a moot point, as the Marlins won in a 10-2 laugher.
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With established players fleeing the south side of Chicago like their hair’s on fire — like any good rebuild, honestly — it’s a little strange that one of the vested veterans left standing is closer David Robertson.

If not perfect, Robertson has been perfectly useful over his first two seasons with the White Sox in the closer’s role. Despite the team only winning an average of 77 games in those first two seasons, Robertson has saved roughly half of those wins (71) with a decent 3.44 ERA (3.04 FIP), much more than a strikeout per inning (11.5 K/9) and a walk rate right around his career mark, though it was much better in year one (1.8 BB/9) than year two (4.6).

With $25 million left on his deal and the free-agent market barren for late-inning relievers not only now, but at the advent of the offseason, Robertson still presents a fairly decent value. It makes sense for the White Sox to cash that in for myriad reasons, not the least of which is the closer-in-waiting and today’s subject: Nate Jones.

Who? Read the rest of this entry »

Mock. Yeah. Ing. Yeah. Draft. Yeah.

You can follow our 12 team, standard 5×5 roto mock draft. Else, here is a summary of the first two rounds and our first outfield battle.

My first battle is my self-battle on Zack Greinke. After 63 picks in, I tweeted an image of my rankings, which had Zack Greinke literally all alone at #23 overall. Everyone else in the top 40 were gone by pick 63 except for Greinke and Prince Fielder whom I wound up drafting once pick 6.72 came around.

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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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Reds at Pirates: The Josh Harrison show included a triple in the bottom of the 8th that gave the Pirates the lead for a Mark Melancon save (#25).

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• White Sox at Yankees: David Robertson furnished save #34. D-Rob has only blown 2 saves all year this year and has done an awfully good job displacing Mariano Rivera. In fact, as a closer, Mariano Rivera never reached a 30% K-Rate and his career contact rate was 79.7%. D-Rob has a sub-70% contact rate this year and could be even better next year assuming the luck stats (BABIP based on his inflated line drive rate this year; HR/FB and LOB%) all take a step forward next year. It will be interesting to see where D-Rob lands next year considering he deserves a big payday and the Yankees still have another dominate K%(39.9%)/Contact%(70%) reliever in Dellin Betances. D-Rob got the 10th best K%-BB% in baseball right now: 28.5% tied with Koji Uehara.
• Rays at Blue Jays: Casey Janssen has offset an awful K-rate with the best BB-rate of his career, but he walked Wil Myers tonight to start the 9th and blew a save after a couple of singles. Brad Boxberger pulls an Armando Benitez and gives up a 2R-HR to Dioner Navarro and a double to Colby Rasmus. We were getting pretty spoiled with Boxberger: 8 scoreless innings since August 10th with a 13:1 K:BB ratio and only 3 hits. Between Koji Uehara yesterday as well as Boxberger and Ken Giles today, the R2M (Regression to the Means) Monster hit me hard this weekend.

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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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Over the course of the next few weeks we will delve into the depths of the bullpens to identify potential middle relief targets, specifically, those relievers who appeal to owners in leagues that reward “holds.”

Andrew Bailey | RP | BOS

The oft-injured reliever struggled mightily in his first season in Boston — albeit, in just 15.1 innings (19 appearances) on the hill. His contributions were limited due to a damaged ulnar collateral ligament the right-hander suffered in a collision with a Pirates’ base runner while covering first in Spring Training. Bailey returned to the bump in mid-August, but failed to impress. The 18.9 K% and 10.8 BB% posted in that short time were both career lows. His velocity was up, but Bailey couldn’t hit the first strike (55.4% F-Strike%), miss bats (6.8% SwStr%) or induce ground balls (32.7% GB%) at rates he was previously accustomed to.

Based on Bailey’s struggles, the Red Sox went out and acquired Joel Hanrahan — from the Pirates, ironically — to take over ninth-inning duties. Despite the acquisition, Bailey and the Sox agreed to a one-year deal in the off-season for the righty to return to the Boston ’pen. This will give Bailey the opportunity to perform in situations that aren’t as high leverage, which could boost his confidence and potentially his trade value. Early indications suggest Bailey may share the setup duties with Koji Uehara, who was also brought in this winter, giving him the opportunity to tally some holds. If Bailey is dealt to a team in need of a bullpen arm, his role could increase, subsequently boosting his fantasy value. For now, Bailey is nothing more than a late-round dart for deep mixers or AL-Only leagues that reward holds + saves.

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They say that, in life, timing is everything. Yes, success is often something you achieve when you put in the proper amount of work, but for many, it can simply be a matter of being in the right place at the right time.  Sometimes, it can be an amazing occurrence in life, at least when it happens to you, and other times you just sit there and watch in complete disbelief, wondering how some people can catch such a break. It can be as big as randomly meeting someone who, in the end, offers you your dream job, or as small as simply flipping on the TV and catching a ballgame in the fourth inning that ends up being Matt Cain’s perfect game. 

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