Archive for roto

I was searching through depth charts the other day, trying to find an interesting tidbit or interesting name. I stumbled upon Kennys Vargas. He was covered here by Scott Strandberg upon his arrival. Of note in that piece: he’s a large human with large power; also there’s a Big Papi reference, which was purported by others. And then he was covered by Mike Podhorzer in a searching for power piece.

It’s been a little over a month since those pieces. Vargas has accumulated nearly 200 plate appearances; not a huge amount, but a substantial one upon which to at least look at what’s taken place. He’s still huge. And his power, evidenced by his ISO, is also pretty damn large-and-in charge, too. Also of note, though: a huge swing rate; a pretty large strikeout rate, and a miniscule, nearly unidentifiable, walk rate.

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Not too long ago Paul Goldschmidt’s season ended. The event that caused it resulted in a little retaliation, that may or may not have taken Andrew McCutchen out for a little while. In the aftermath of the McCutchen injury – and the Diamondbacks’ overall bad year – Goldschmidt’s season sort of became lost, carried away in the tide of Tony La Russa’s press conference, and the Pirates’ anger and sadness over losing their best player in the midst of a push for October. We aren’t here to debate unwritten rules and the policing of the game, though. It’s become a cumbersome topic that I don’t really care enough about to debate, but we needed some background, and my lede writing is below replacement level.

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Note: All stats are as of August 31, 2014; Labor Day stats are not included. Although, considering the Braves were collectively no-hit by the Phillies, there wouldn’t be much to change, anyways. 

Let’s back up a few months: In March, Freddie Freeman was a borderline third round pick, according to ESPN’s draft data. He was coming off a fantastic season, in which he set career highs in batting average, on base percentage, and RBI, while tying his career high in home runs by swatting 23 home runs. Freeman’s power ceiling was in question: How many home runs is a reasonable expectation? Can he possibly get near 30? His contact ability wasn’t, though. The latter has been fine; the former, not as much. But maybe that’s alright.

In Freeman’s first 114 plate appearances – taken from March 31 through April 30 – he hit six home runs, posting a .416 wOBA. In the 492 plate appearances since May 1st he’s left the yard only 11 times, posting a .370 wOBA. Make no mistake about it, Freeman has still been good. But his power – which was already in question compared to his peers – has taken a step back. So, the question is: What should we do regarding Freeman next year? Read the rest of this entry »

It’s probably safe to say Anthony Rizzo has silenced skeptics this season. After showing tremendous amounts of promise upon receiving a call up in 2012, he struggled in 2013, but the sky didn’t fall; his peripherals were still good, even improving a little. Still, questions remained, and they were fair. The two largest questions, to me, were: could he hit fastballs? and can he perform versus lefties? Read the rest of this entry »

Since I took over the first base beat a few weeks ago, I haven’t done rankings. Today, though, I’m going to attempt to do so.

First base has been a weird position this year: Paul Goldschmidt was awesome – less power than last year, but still awesome – and then he got hurt. Miguel Cabrera has looked more human than years past. Chris Davis has returned to being who we thought he was before he became an animal, I guess? Anthony Rizzo has been awesome, though, so that’s fun!

The last updated consensus rankings done by the team can be found here. Admittedly, I play solely in OBP leagues, so I’m going to do my best to strip out my thoughts on that because I know most of you probably play with batting average. I won’t be including guys like Todd Frazier, Jose Bautista, and Buster Posey, because you’re probably playing them elsewhere. I’ll use tiers. The names within them are pretty interchangeable, in my opinion. Read the rest of this entry »

Notes: All stats below don’t include yesterday’s games.

Nick Swisher is done helping you. Lucas Duda might be the heir to his…throne, though. It’s probably more of a nicely upholstered chair that you’d find at a restoration shop where you know what it’s worth, but the person selling it does not. Enough with poorly thought out metaphors, though. To the stats!

The resemblance is startling. You could even make the case that Duda’s a little undersold going forward, considering how different his approach has been this season. (more on that in a bit) It’s usually best to trust the projections, but I’m expecting a better line going forward than the one Steamer projects (.334 wOBA). Basically, I’m not taking my own advice, because Duda. That’s why. Read the rest of this entry »

Do they still do the worst column of the week thing at Grantland? I love those things! Let’s try to top the good folks at Grantland in this space today!

My baseball consumption and internet reading have been way down in the first month-plus of 2014. The bosses at work are really making me like actually work a lot lately in this post-Marxist, post-industrial capitalist world. Little do they know that this column is being written on the company’s dime! I feel like I’m starting to finally win here. Long introduction long, I’ve been having to follow the season pretty much through Grant Brisbee’s columns to this point, and earlier this week, Brisbee provided an embarrassing gif of Buster Posey catching the fear as Jason Heyward slid in to the plate, eluding Posey’s fraidy-cat tag.

I’m with Darryl Ratzlaff who tweeted at Giants beat writer Hank Schulman, “was little league. Franchise philosophy? I havent seen Sanchez scared of contact Injury in his head.” That’s exactly right. Posey might have more tools than Hector Sanchez, but Hec has a plus-plus heart. They say you can’t measure heart, but I just did.

Defensive Runs Saved has Posey at +1 on the year and +16 for his career, but I’ve got news for John Dewan: that play linked to above qualifies as a Defensive Run Lost (DRL), another new stat I just created. Worse, watching Posey run for the hills with a runner barreling in on him has a cascading effect on the rest of the club. When they see the highest-paid player on the squad dogging it in a meaningless Ryan Vogelsong start in May, they know they don’t have to bother selling out for the team either.

What’s that you say? Posey is hitting .292/.386/.467 while leading one of the game’s best teams (so far) in WAR? Posey might be first in WAR, but he’s also first in appeasement and last in heart. And to think, the Giants could’ve drafted an all-heart gamer like, I don’t know, Justin Smoak or Gordon Beckham instead.

It’s time for Sabey-Sabes and fantasy owners everywhere to either give Posey his outright release or move him to third base. They say good-hitting catchers don’t grow on trees, but Andrew Susac is hitting .312/.404/.610 at Triple-A Fresno. Plus, Hector Sanchez is a money player. He’s already got 16 ribbies this year. I know this is FanGraphs and so you guys don’t know what ribbies are, so I’ll educate you. A ribbie is a run batted in, meaning a player drives in another member of his team via a walk, hit, or even an out. It’s something gamers who don’t care about their UZR or OPS+ or wOBA or WAR or VORPS or FIP do for the ball club in pursuit of victory.

I really feel for Sabey-Sabes, his skipper—Boch, Giants fans, and Posey fantasy owners. Posey is the Giants all-time San Francisco leader in Championships+, another new stat I just made up, but he’s sold out to sell sports drinks and protect his health to avoid another potentially career-threatening injury. What’s more important: keeping Posey healthy so the Giants don’t have to trade Kyle Crick for Carlos Beltran later this summer, or trying to win a game in May? If you answered winning a game in May, you’re a get-it guy or gal. Each game is equally important. This isn’t Animal Farm; some wins aren’t more equal than others. Duh!

I can’t stress enough to you how important the phantom tag heard ’round the world is to this season. It’s an even year, so you’d think the Giants would just waltz to the World Series a la 2010 and 2012; however, that plan was dashed nearly three years to the day that Scott Cousins took Posey out. The Giants can’t recover from this unless they turn things over to the young bucks with nothing to lose in Susac and Sanchez. Sabey-Sabes has pulled off this addition by subtraction once before when he dealt Bengie Molina to Texas and turned catching duties over to the eventual Rookie of the Year in 2010, a guy named Buster Posey. That guy is gone now.

It’s time to look beyond the stats and sell high on Posey.

In all seriousness, one could make the case Susac is the top prospect in the Giants’ system right now. As the trade deadline approaches, if the Giants stay in contention, a catching-needy team would be wise to take a run at Suasc. He’s shown power, patience, plus-plus looks, and the ability to throw out Billy Hamilton five times thus far during his minor league career. The 24-year-old second-round pick out of Oregon State could have a bright future if he can stay healthy, as injuries have plagued him dating back to college.

This article was funded by Take it Back PAC: Andrew Susac for Starting Catcher in 2014. It was entirely facetious with the exception of the final paragraph.

Episode 107

The latest episode of The Sleeper and the Bust is now live! Jason Collette and Eno Sarris discuss batters and pitchers with zeroes still in their stat line, some injuries, and a look at Jesse Chavez and Homer Bailey.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us any fantasy questions you have that we may answer on our next episode.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or via the feed.

Thanks to Ian Miller aka Teen Archer, for the new intro music Approximately 53 min of joyous analysis.

So a buddy of mine calls me the other day in need of a 10th team for his home league.  Apparently someone dropped out at the last minute due to work obligations and he needed to find someone competitive to fill the slot.  Shallow league, very basic.  10 teams, mixed, 5×5 roto, standard snake draft.  Happily, I obliged and decided that this would be a great opportunity to see just how long I could wait on drafting a starting pitcher while still maintaining a competitive staff in the league.

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We see it all too often in fantasy — a former superstar and usual top pick ends up on the decline and still gets drafted or traded for value based solely on name and former reputation.  Maybe some people are anticipating and hoping for a return to the glory years.  Maybe some people are just fans and can’t let go.  Whatever the reason may be, the player’s value is over-inflated on draft day and, more often than not, a complete disappointment by season’s end.  With a top five ranking amongst catchers and an overall ADP of 79.64, Joe Mauer seems like a candidate who fits this description.

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