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
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:
Phillies at Athletics: Ken Giles is the closer! This has already happened, but It’s my first BP Report since the Jonathan Papelbon grundle-grab, and I wanted to type it. I also wanted to type grundle-grab. Giles hasn’t had a save opportunity yet and his only 9th since was on 9/17. Sean Doolittle converted his 22nd save with 100% fastballs. Much of his success comes from throwing high, hard and historic which he did here:
I get two BP reports in a row so today i’ll focus a bit more on the game decisions and updates. Tomorrow I’ll get back to my normal per-pitch effect and component-comparison deal. I’ll also furnish an updated rankings list for your different league formats. I’m thinking the following:
5×5 (ERA,WHIP,W,K,SV)
6×6 (ERA,WHIP,W,K,SV + HOLDS)
5×5 Rate Stats Leagues (K/9, BB/9, HR/9, H/9, RA/9).
Any other formats? Shoot me a note in the comments section and maybe i’ll include it in tomorrow’s different rankings.
Indians at Twins: Glen Perkins has finally been shut down and Jared Burton will continue to consume closing responsibilities. While a MRI revealed no damage to his UCL (great news), he’ll be shutdown with a forearm strain and nerve irritation in his elbow. Strengthening and two months should do the trick. Burton got the win yesterday in 2/3 IP while Cody Allen blew his fourth save of the season through a Suzuki Double, Arcia Single and a botched double play ball.
Red Sox at Orioles: Edward Mujica got his 7th save of the season through three balls in play which is what we’ll continue to see from Mujica about 78% of the time (80% general contact-rate). Koji Uehara last pitched on 9/16 striking out the side. I just don’t see much motivation for them to make the swap at this point, but i’ll still swap him and Tazawa in the grid below. Zach Britton kept the game scoreless in the 9th and Darren O’Day continued his all or nothing month with a mistake and loss to David Ortiz. This says it all:
That red quadrilateral dead center? Yup, Ortiz capitalized.
A’s at M’s: Sean Doolittle is back, looked sharp and earned his 21st save the season. Since his last save on August 23rd, there was one lonely save by Eric O’Flaherty. The A’s went 6 and 14 over that timeframe. It was a big win for the A’s who kept the Mariners one game back from their Wildcard lead thanks in part to Doolittle’s clean return (1 IP, 1K), but thanks more in part to a Fernando Rodney implosion (1 IP, 4 straight walks in the top of the 10th). To date, using 50 IP as the qualifier, Sean Doolittle owns the 3rd best K%-BB% rate in the history of baseball, 36.2%, thanks in part to the 20th best K% ever (38.6%) and the 26th best BB% ever (2.4%). Incredible. Enjoy his high fastball in a time where not many others have this lethal high fastball and hitters focus with their chins down.
Astros at Angels: Angels keep winning: their 10th straight behind two Trout homers. Lefty specialist and deep bullpen option Joe Thatcher was activated from the DL. Austin Powers has forever ruined his last name for me: Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day….Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day! Huston Street earned save 14 for the Angels (38 in total). He gave up 1 hit, struck out 1 and looks as though he’s fine after being sidelined with a hamstring injury. Noncloser note: Jered Weaver continues to deceive. I strolled across this while preparing a 2015 Mets Rotation post…Jered Weaver owns the 9th best zone-contact rate for starters this year, and despite diminishing velocity, hitters are relatively swinging at much less stuff in the zone against him (14th best SP rate) confirming his continued deception.
Rays at Blue Jays: Usually I’m pointing to just how dominating Brad Boxberger has been, but perhaps he needs a little break despite only pitching in 4 of the last 8 days. It’s 2 appearances in a row now he’s given up a homer. He earned his 2nd loss of the season yesterday. With less than a month left of the season, if you’re in a saves-only league mayyybe it’s worth dropping Boxberger since Jake McGee is still the (very effective) closer. Casey Janssen confirmed that he’s still the Blue Jays’ closer earning himself save #23.
First, the ?’s.
Second, the historical K%’s.
And of course, the Grid…
1) The ?’s
Angels at Twins: Glen Perkins has a sore neck (received a MRI after tingling, but there was no structural damage). Ron Gardy said he should be back within a few a days so I wouldn’t jump to the waiver wire for anyone. We didn’t get a chance to see who would have had the opportunity to close out the games for the Twins tonight. While it was presumably Jared Burton, he received the loss, getting beat by a Albert Pujols double after a single (Cron) and walk (Trout) and then Anthony Swarzak let in the inherited runner. Huston Street earned save #37. That’s 3 straight appearances for Street and he could potentially use the day off tomorrow. He only has 2 k’s in through his last 5 appearances, and his win yesterday came from a blown save. He induced only 1 whiff from 6 swings tonight.
Astros at Athletics: Sean Doolittle had a successful bullpen session today and should be activated next week. Until then, it’s still Eric O’Flaherty closing out games. David Wiers called O’Flaherty a wild-card for the closing role prior to the season and the ground ball rate (58+%) and weak contact (.213 BABIP) holds true. Tonight, Luke Gregerson pitched a scoreless 9th for the win. Heck, if you’re own a hold league, why not own the entire Oakland bullpen next year?
Chad Qualls remains under the weather with a case of the shaky qualls. He let both of Scott Feldman’s inherited runners score and then gave up the winning single to blow a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the 9th. I would think and hope that Tony Sipp is next up for the closing role. Other than a shellacking on 8/25 (4BB and 4 ER without recording an out), he’s been lights out since 8/12 (12 K’s, 0 BB’s and only 1 hit). Yesterday, he struck out 4 of 7 batters. I’d like to see him with the gig.
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.
-The Boston Red Sox have shut down their 39-year-old closer, Koji Uehara, for the time being after experiencing tightness in his shoulder after completing a session of long-toss. The right-hander will attempt to throw again tomorrow (Sunday) before Boston’s brass determines if a trip to the disabled list will be necessary for their ninth-inning man. For the Red Sox and fantasy owners, the concern here lies in the comparison Uehara made between the stiffness he felt in the shoulder this Friday and the injury he suffered as a member of the Rangers two years ago. Then, the should stiffness continued to resurface, resulting in a two-and-a-half month stint on the shelf.
Read the rest of this entry »
-With fans and fantasy owners on the edge of their seats, Red Sox skipper signaled for “new” closer Koji Uehara to close out the Blue Jays in the top of the ninth frame at Fenway today. The 38-year-old veteran needed just 16 pitches while facing the minimum to induce two strikeouts and a ground out en route to his second save since being named Andrew Bailey’s replacement last week and his third overall save on the season. The Japanese right-hander has now made eight consecutive appearances without surrendering an earned run and has lowered his twenty-thirteen ERA and WHIP to 1.97 and 0.81 respectively. Additionally, Uehara’s K% spiked to 37.4% after fanning two Toronto batters in today’s contest. Going forward, I’d consider Uehara a borderline top-ten closing option.
–Jose Veras needed just six pitches to close out the Cubbies in the bottom of the ninth frame to lock down his 15th save of the twenty-thirteen campaign. The lanky right-hander is now 15-of-18 in save opportunities with a 27.8% K% and a 3.82 ERA (3.83 FIP). Veras’ current strikeout rate and ERA are right inline with his career numbers, but it is worth noting that he’s surrendering fewer free passes (9.8% BB%) through 33 ‘13 appearances than he has over his career (12.3% BB%). One reason for the improvement in walk rate could be that Veras is getting ahead of hitters with the first-strike (60.2% F-Strike%) more than he’s ever done before (52.4% career F-Strike%). Veras is also luring opponents to chase pitches outside of the zone more often (26.3 O-Swing%), but the righty isn’t allowing them to make contact (59.2% O-Contact%) as well as they’ve done in the past against him (63% O-Contact%).