Archive for Padres

For the skills over role consensu, Kyle Barraclough continues to thrive as the closer for the Marlins in spite of starting the season as the primary setup reliever. Barraclough notched his fifth save firing a clean ninth inning with two strikeouts in his fourth outing over the last five days. He’s yielded no runs his last 16 games spanning 15.2 innings and only allowed one hit in these appearances. During the season, Barraclough’s not given up a hit in 25 of his 32 outings and been scoreless in 28 of them. Although he’s battled control issues in the past, Barraclough’s 1.15 ERA and 0.80 WHIP suggest he’s settling into the role quite well. Just plan on Miami giving him a day off on Saturday if possible to keep him healthy going forward.

It feels like one step forward and two steps back with Felipe Vazquez this season. He did record his 13th save allowing a hit but striking out two, including Joey Votto, to secure a win for the Pirates on Friday night. On the surface, Vazquez has blown four of his last eight save chances with an ERA of 4.55 yet a FIP of 2.87, so which number should fantasy owners focus on? Vazquez has cut down his hard hit percentage allowed by 5.6 points. However, he’s traded ground balls for line drives. His underlying discipline statistics do not display complete erosion of his skills as his swinging strike percentage approaches his 2016 numbers, but owners drafted Vazquez for the upside he displayed in the first half of last year. Over the last 14 days, Vazquez has worked 5.1 innings with nine strikeouts against five walks with a 3.38 ERA and 2.53 FIP. Almost a encapsulation of his season so far with hints of upside paired with the high amount of walks. Perhaps he can turn this around like Kenley Jansen did in April, but it’s not for the risk averse. Read the rest of this entry »

After a difficult latter half of May, Felipe Vazquez seemed to get himself in the clear with some effective performances to begin this month. Vazquez’ first three games in June resulted in 3.1 scoreless innings with five strikeouts. That brief string of encouraging outings was snapped on Wednesday, as he nearly frittered away the three-run lead the Pirates gave him to start off the ninth inning against the Diamondbacks. Jon Jay’s two-out, bases-loaded single cut the lead to one run, and the tying run — represented by Deven Marrero — was just 90 feet from home. After an intentional walk to Paul Goldschmidt, Vazquez escaped the inning by striking out Jake Lamb.
Read the rest of this entry »

San Diego’s record may preclude fantasy owners from realizing how strong the bullpen remains to be. Brad Hand notched his 13th save working 1.1 innings giving up his first hit to a left-handed hitter all year (a double to Corey Dickerson) with two strikeouts. This marks his 15th scoreless outing over his last 17 and lowered his ERA to 2.31 on the season. Kirby Yates recorded his seventh hold allowing a walk with two strikeouts. He’s only given up one earned run in his last 17 appearances comprising 15 innings of work, limiting hitters to a .140 batting average against with 20 strikeouts so far, but 11 in his last 5.2 innings.

Also underappreciated, Blake Treinen closed out his ninth save in a 1.1 inning outing with three strikeouts in Toronto. In May, he’s accounted for a win and converted all six save chances in eight games. During these 9.2 innings, Treinen’s yielded seven hits, one earned run and three walks with 11 strikeouts. He’s nine for 11 in save opportunities this year with five of them requiring him to record more than three outs along with having to pitch more than one inning in nine of his 16 outings this year.  Read the rest of this entry »

With managers relying more on relievers and less on starters last season, and with the emergence of fantasy-relevant non-closers like Chris Devenski, Chad Green and Archie Bradley, fantasy owners have been taking more interest in relievers who aren’t in line to get steady saves. Andrew Miller has long been on the fantasy radar, and he is currently owned in more than 60 percent of ESPN and CBS leagues. However, Bradley and Adam Ottavino are about as popular as some lower-end closers, as both are owned in more than one-third of the leagues on ESPN and CBS. Devenski, Green and Dellin Betances aren’t far behind in popularity.

On Thursday, the season reached its three-week mark, so we are not quite one-eighth through the schedule. In 2017, only five relievers exceeded 80 innings, but so far this season, there are already 43 relievers who have pitched at least 10 innings. Not everyone in this group will keep up this pace, and it’s not hard to imagine that some who stay on this pace will wear down and may even need some DL time.
Read the rest of this entry »

Each Thursday, I’ll be looking at the top waiver targets who could be available in your deeper leagues. Every player who will be included in this series will have an ownership rate of 33 percent or lower in CBS and Fantrax leagues, which is a pretty good indication of these players being available in at least some mixed leagues with at least 15 teams.

Note: Ownership percentages are listed in parentheses, with CBS listed first and Fantrax listed second.

Franchy Cordero, OF, Padres (9/27): To be honest, I worried that by the time I wrote this, Cordero would be too popular to include in this week’s column. He is an industry favorite, probably in no small part because of the splash he made on Statcast leaderboards during his brief time up with the Padres last season. Both his barrels per batted ball event ratio (14.3 percent) and exit velocity on flies and liners (97.3 mph) placed Cordero in the top 20 for hitters with at least 30 batted balls.
Read the rest of this entry »

Even if you don’t own a turntable, it’s time to shop for some 33s.

Each Thursday, I’ll be recommending hitters to pick up who are owned in 33 percent of leagues or fewer on CBSSports.com and Fantrax. I’ve chosen to use these sites’ ownership rates as a guide, as they tend to be higher than those on ESPN or Yahoo. If I were to use the latter two sites as a guide for identifying players who are available in at least two-thirds of leagues, in reality, some of those players would be unavailable to many owners who play on CBS and Fantrax.
Read the rest of this entry »

If you had been stashing Anthony Swarzak or Ryan Buchter in the hopes that they would inherit some saves, this has not been a good week for you. On Tuesday, the White Sox dealt Swarzak to the Brewers for 25-year-old outfield prospect Ryan Cordell. This came the day after Swarzak teased fantasy owners by notching his first career save, preserving a 3-1 win over the Cubs. Swarzak now figures to inherit a setup role for the Brewers.

On Monday, Buchter joined Padres’ ex-closer Brandon Maurer and Trevor Cahill in getting dealt to the Royals for Matt Strahm, Travis Wood and 18-year-old second baseman Esteury Ruiz. Maurer will likely set up Kelvin Herrera, while Buchter will probably slot into a suddenly star-studded Royals’ pen in a middle relief role. However, their departure from San Diego creates all sorts of new closer possibilities. In the short run, Brad Hand figures to be the frontrunner to get saves (in fact, he got one Wednesday night against the Mets), but he, too, is a candidate to get traded to a team that needs to fortify the backend of its bullpen.
Read the rest of this entry »

It would appear the Padres may have a new closer.

With San Diego taking a 6-5 lead in the top of the eighth inning against the Mets, manager Andy Green sent Brandon Maurer out for the bottom of the inning. It wasn’t a two-inning save for Maurer, who had allowed at least one run in each of his last three appearances and a total of 10 runs over his last five outings covering 3 2/3 innings. Instead, Brad Hand came out for the ninth. Read the rest of this entry »

If you were inclined last spring to target an elite closer in your fantasy drafts, the 2016 season served as a cautionary tale as to why that might not be an advisable strategy the next time around. Several popular targets, most notably Wade Davis and Craig Kimbrel, didn’t quite deliver on their promise, while largely undrafted relievers like Seung Hwan Oh, Alex Colome, Sam Dyson and Edwin Diaz became reliable saves sources.

Brandon Maurer could be added to that list as well, though he won’t likely have the same appeal as the aforementioned closers. That’s because Maurer finished with a 4.52 ERA and 1.26 WHIP that would not only scare off ratio-conscious owners, but also signal his vulnerability to losing the closer’s role. After all, the Padres can also call upon lefties Ryan Buchter and Brad Hand, who had impressive 2016 seasons, or Carter Capps, once he completes his recovery from Tommy John surgery.

Read the rest of this entry »

He did once. Can he again?

Ian Kennedy has been one of the least valuable starting pitchers of 2015, a fact probably unsurprising to San Diego residents and his fantasy owners. Of all pitchers who have thrown at least 60 innings and generated negative wins above replacement (WAR), his ratio of strikeouts to walks (3.18 K/BB) and xFIP (3.83) rise to the top of an admittedly short list.

Still, his rate of strikeouts per nine innings (8.31 K/9) ranks 36th among all starters, and his walks-per-nine (2.62 BB/9) is nothing to sneeze at, either. It’s easy to see why fantasy owners hold out hope: his adequacy in preventing baserunners points to reasons why his 4.58 ERA is, perhaps, too high.

Unfortunately, Kennedy is a fly ball machine who has (almost) never enjoyed the friendly confines of a pitcher’s park. Per ESPN’s Park Factors, Kennedy’s home parks have mostly benefited hitters:

Read the rest of this entry »