Archive for James Paxton

Note: As was the case in a previous analysis of Statcast measures and their correlation with power metrics for hitters, I owe a debt of gratitude to Alex Chamberlain. He did a lot of heavy lifting for this column, running the correlations and discussing interpretations with me.

It won’t be the first or last time, but I did a silly thing on Twitter. In announcing a pick for the Pitcher List Experts Mock, I decided to tout the player I chose by citing one of his achievements, as captured by a Statcast metric.

Fun fact: Trevor Williams has the 3rd-lowest avg. exit velocity allowed on flies and liners over the last two seasons (min. 400 BBE), behind only deGrom and Kluber. Just took him in Rd 21 of the #PLExpertsMock. @JustinMasonFWFB, you’re up!

— Al Melchior (@almelchiorBB) December 13, 2018

(Justin, by the way, made his pick very promptly.)
Read the rest of this entry »

Is this thing on? Mic check… 1, 2, Mic check. “Were Doing it LIVE”. This is my first time here at the Roto Riteup so be gentle. I may not be Justin but I’m pretty sure standard procedure is to use a GIF in the intro…

We're more excited than @JustinMasonFWFB watching Chris Stratton right now pic.twitter.com/On7NmACtyQ

— RotoWear (@RotoWear) April 2, 2018

Am I doing this right?

On the Agenda:
1. Mookie the Great
2. Various News and Notes
3. Streaming Pitchers

Mookie the Great

Have a day why don’t you Mookie Betts… WOW! Betts, yesterday against the Royals, went 4 for 4 with three solo home runs. Currently, Betts leads the league in home runs, runs, slugging percentage, on-base plus slugging, and is second in batting average. If you can name the five best hitters in baseball and you leave him off the list, chances are you are just wrong. Also if he is not in your top five hitters you should probably consider what other bad life choices have led you to this point.

Various News and Notes

Edwin Encarnacion and his home run parrot got quite the work out against the Rangers. Encarnacion hit two home runs off Matt Moore and then another in the ninth for good measure. Going into the game Encarnacion was hitting just .171 but he made up a ton of ground with just a few swings on Wednesday.

Bryce Harper stole his fourth bag of the season yesterday, tying his 2017 season total. With the wheels in motion for Harper, he is currently on pace for 49 home runs and 22 stolen bases. Four players in major league history have hit 50 home runs and stole 20 bases… Willie Mays (1955), Brady Anderson (1996), Ken Griffey Jr. (1998), and Alex Rodriquez (2007).

James Paxton was almost unhittable on Wednesday night. Yes, technically he gave up five hits but he also was able to get 31 swinging strikes on 105 pitches and a total of 16 punch-outs. When the A’s made contact, which wasn’t very ofte,n it was extremely weak contact. Paxton held batted balls to just 83.6 MPH on average in this one. Think of it this way… Paxton turned a top-five offense in baseball into a team full of Adam Engel’s.

Streaming Pitchers

There is not a ton of streaming options but if you are feeling lucky, Mike Minor against *cough* the Red Sox could be a decent one. Now, wait before you blast me in the comments section or say mean things on twitter (fantasy_keith), hear me out. Boston is probably the best team in baseball but against lefties, they have struck out 25% of the time and hit for a league-worst .202 batting average. Minor on the other hand has managed to keep base runners off the base paths this year (1.14 WHIP) and has a 3.01 ERA in his last 104.2 innings pitched.

Here in the final week of April, sample sizes are starting to build up, but there is still a lot of statistical weirdness out there. Just in the walk rate leaderboard alone there are some confounding data for fantasy owners to ponder. Jose Quintana and Michael Wacha with double digit rates? Vince Velasquez among the lowest one-fourth? It’s like I hardly know these guys.
Read the rest of this entry »

This is the weird part of the fantasy baseball season. Trade deadlines are rapidly approaching or have recently passed in leagues. Gamers in keeper and dynasty leagues range from pushing their chips in the middle to chase the crown this year to playing for future seasons. As the season winds down, I love looking at recent performance. This is especially true in keeper leagues. Who’s playing well down the stretch? Have these hot performers made tangible and sustainable changes that could improve their stock going into 2017? Is a youngster getting a look and playing well? Let’s pick through the data together. Read the rest of this entry »

It didn’t take long for a team to acquire Oswaldo Arcia after the Twins opted to designate him for assignment. He’ll get a fresh start for the injury-depleted Rays. With the non-waiver trade deadline on August 1st, Joey Gallo could finally get another crack at the majors soon. I’ve also got my eyes on a lefty throwing premium cheddar. James Paxton is lighting up the radar gun and received some love from Paul a few weeks ago. Read the rest of this entry »

Due to the request of a Twitter follower, we’ve fast-tracked 2xSP to Thursdays for the time being. We’ll see how it goes; adding a day into the mix can make things a bit more iffy when trying to accurately predict and project which guys actually make those first starts on Mondays and Tuesdays, but we aim to please, and thus here we are.

After going 3-for-3 in quality starts to get last week underway, the overall numbers have started to look pretty good. The strikeouts from the week before — thank you Matt Shoemaker and Danny Duffy — were also a nice boost.

Overall stats halfway through week 10:

22-17 record
3.76 ERA
8.3 K/9
2.9 K/BB
1.31 WHIP
35 quality starts

And now, onto this week’s recs with team wRC+ in parentheses:

RHP Archie Bradley – 12.5% ESPN – @PHI (72), @COL (96)

I don’t honestly love any of these picks this week, but when you get into this pattern of three per week, you kinda gotta stick to it. Bradley’s been giving up home runs left and right (five in his last two starts spanning 11.1 innings), but I’m hoping he can be the predator rather than the prey in this two matchups. He’s rolled up the strikeouts so far which is encouraging (39 in 35 innings), but I’ll admit that I’m a bit terrified of how he’ll pitch in Coors Field, as the Rockies have an .892 OPS at home (but just a 104 wRC+). Hopefully his 1.8 HR/9 is just a blip on the radar screen — the 21.2% HR/FB rate seems to suggest so — and the can rely on his groundball and strikeout tendencies to grab a couple nice starts here. At the very least, I’m hopeful of a quality start against the Phillies. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve stolen from the movie before. I’ll do so again…

Guarantee? If you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for now, for your fantasy teams’ sake, for your daughter’s sake, ya might wanna think about listening to quality content from me.

If you don’t know where this reference is from, then well…just ring your call button, and Tommy will come back there and hit you over the head with a tack hammer.

I actually will play guarantee fairy here, specifically for deep leagues since there are no uber-exciting names that jump out in my below grid. So here goes…

So long as they pitch to a qualifying level of innings without getting hurt or losing velocity (not ballsy enough to leave out these contingencies), I GUARANTEE these starters won’t be any worse next year (although in the grid below I highlighted in different strengths of green/red both starters and relievers):

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I mentioned that ESPN added a good deal of players to their player universe, but I failed to go in to depth as to who you should be looking at. So, without further ado, here are four names you’ll want to look into if you’re in a large ESPN keeper league:

– James Paxton, SP, SEA: Currently cruising in Double-A, Paxton was once a top draft pick of the Toronto Blue Jays, but refused to sign and has been the gauntlet ever since. He throws a fastball in the low- to mid-90s with nice movement, and the 22-year old also possess a very nice breaking ball. I’d guess Paxton is up during the middle of 2012 if not sooner, and with the Mariners defense and ballpark, he could put up solid numbers right away.

Read the rest of this entry »