Archive for Padres

In most drafts, I hit a point where I look at my queue and the remaining player pool, and I’m not excited about any of my options. I am currently participating in one of Justin Mason’s 2EarlyMock drafts, and as we enter the final rounds, I have yet to have that feeling. A number of players went in the middle rounds whom I had stashed in my queue several rounds before they were taken. The ones that I drafted felt like tremendous bargains, and the ones that I missed left me envious.
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It won’t likely come as a shock that, as we have one of our final opportunities to stream pitchers, there are few widely-available options worthy of our trust. In his recent piece on starting pitcher streaming options for the final weekend, Nick Pollack identified three pitchers from Friday’s slate who could be available and have some appeal. However, none of the three are likely to be on waivers in deeper formats.

In this column, I typically consider only pitchers who have an ownership rate of 25 percent or lower in Fantrax leagues, and even with setting the bar for availability fairly high, a couple of the pitchers featured here are at least worthy of consideration for your Friday rotation.
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Wednesday’s slate of starting pitchers is not fully set, as there are still no fewer than five teams listing TBD as their starter as of this writing. I have filled in some of the blanks, projecting that Stephen Gonsalves will be the Twins’ primary pitcher and Sam Gaviglio will start for the Blue Jays. That increases the number of widely-available projected “starters” to eight, using a 25 percent ownership rate on Fantrax as a cutoff point.

While most owners are forsaking these hurlers, a few are reasonable streaming options, particularly in deeper formats.
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Prior to Thursday’s game in Colorado, fantasy owners may have had few outward reasons to be concerned about Kirby Yates. Since becoming the Padres’ closer after the July 19 trade of Brad Hand to the Indians, he had not blown a save and tallied 20 strikeouts in 11.2 innings. Yates finally got that first blown save on Thursday, when he gave up Ian Desmond’s two-run walk-off homer. Given that it was at Coors Field, owners may be willing to forgive Yates.

While the 31-year-old is not among the most highly-owned closers, not many of his current owners are sitting him. Yates is 59 percent owned in CBS leagues but benched in 14 percent of leagues. On Fantrax, he has a 57 percent ownership rate but is being sat in only 8 percent of leagues.
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Between Paul Molitor‘s recent comments and the fact that Matt Magill and Taylor Rogers pitched the ninth inning in the Twins’ most recent save situation, we can be assured that Trevor Hildenberger won’t be hogging up all of the save opportunities in Minnesota. Hildenberger pitched the ninth inning on Sunday with a one-run lead against the Tigers, though because he got the final out of the previous inning just before Eddie Rosario’s go-ahead solo homer, he was pitching for a win and not a save. The situation was slightly different, but Hildenberger followed his recent pattern of creating a little stress. He began the ninth inning by allowing a Victor Reyes single, and two batters later, Reyes got into scoring position by way of a walk to Jose Iglesias. The drama ended there, as Hildenberger got the final two outs.
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While the Rockies seek clarity in their bullpen, fantasy owners feel the same. Last night, Adam Ottavino, back from an illness which sidelined him on Thursday, allowed a hit and struck out one batter to record his fifth save of the season. Wade Davis, who suffered his sixth loss on Thursday, did not pitch. There’s no report of an impending changing of the guard, but Colorado could use both Ottavino and Davis in save chances going forward. Ottavino’s within two saves of tying a career high and allowed runs in four of his last 19 outings, has registered multiple strikeout games in 29 of 53 this season and ranks fourth among qualified relievers in the National League in ERA (1.60).

However, before any change occurs, there’s $52 million reasons to use Davis to close games. It’s tough to stomach right now for Rockies fans, especially with him giving up multiple runs in three of his last four appearances. It’s been a rough start to the second half for Davis, sporting a 1-4 record with five saves in 8.2 innings but a 13.50 ERA, 8.34 FIP and WHIP just below two (1.96). Davis feels he’s found a glitch in his delivery after watching video, so it remains to be seen if a mechanical fix can help him improve in the heat of a playoff chase. Colorado will provide him a bit more leash, but consider this a timeshare going forward, but Davis needs to improve his ERA in losses (29.57 in seven innings) and reduce traffic on the bases. Read the rest of this entry »

The long-anticipated trade of Brad Hand finally went down on Thursday. The Padres dealt him and Adam Cimber to the Indians for Francisco Mejia, effectively remaking both teams’ bullpens.

The Indians find themselves in a similar spot to where they were two years ago, when they acquired Andrew Miller at the trade deadline. With Hand, they now have an elite lefty reliever who has performed better than Cody Allen, who has been the incumbent closer in both situations. Terry Francona is expected to stick with Allen as his primary closer, just as he did upon the team’s acquisition of Miller.
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With Thursday morning’s trade of Brad Hand and Adam Cimber to the Indians for Francisco Mejia, we have our first big reliever deal of the second half. While we now have to wait and see how Terry Francona balances his usage of Hand, Cody Allen and, eventually, Andrew Miller, we have had months to consider how Andy Green might deal with save situations once the Padres dealt their closer away.
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During a freaky Friday the 13th, handcuffs to the closer emerged as focal points of interest with three different relievers garnering saves last night. Starting in Pittsburgh, where Felipe Vazquez had worked in five of the previous six game, Kyle Crick notched his second save of the season allowing two hits in 1.1 innings with a strikeout. He’s in the midst of a 13 game scoreless streak dating back to June 15th limiting hitters to a .167 batting average against within it. Crick’s also recorded seven holds and two saves without a blown save. As for Vazquez, a well earned day of rest but he’s converted his last 11 save chances in 13 straight scoreless outings as well with a 1.02 ERA his last 17 games and 32 strikeouts his last 17.2 innings.

Ground ball machine Scott Alexander locked down his first save as a Dodger in spite of yielding two hits. Alexander’s worked in three consecutive games but the team decided to rest Kenley Jansen on Friday, who worked the the two prior games and threw 29 pitches on Thursday. As for Alexander, he’s not given up a run in 6.2 innings to start July with seven strikeouts against two walks. On the season, his 74.3 ground ball rate and 20.4 hard hit percentage against make him a valued reliever in real life, plus, Alexander’s converted all 12 holds provided him this year. Read the rest of this entry »

The last two weeks of June did not go smoothly for Brad Hand, but the Padres’ closer got his July off to a good start. Making his first appearance in five days, Hand preserved a 6-3 lead against the Diamondbacks for his 24th save of the season. After giving up a soft ground ball single to Daniel Descalso to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning, Hand struck out the next three Diamondbacks in succession.

Over his final six appearances in June, Hand had no problem missing bats, posting a 17.9 percent swinging strike rate, but when he did allow contact, it tended to be airborne (36.8 percent ground ball rate) and not gentle (10.5 percent soft contact rate). That contributed to him allowing at least one run in four of those appearances for a total of seven runs over five innings. It’s a little too soon to determine if Hand is past his difficulties, but Thursday’s outing was a step in the right direction.
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