Archive for San Diego Padres

Trying to discern between second half breakouts as seeds sown for growth compared to a potential bust makes preseason preparation exciting. One name sure to be popular in the new year will be Franmil Reyes. During his 87 game sample in the majors last year, Reyes launched 16 home runs with a .280/.340/.498 slash line in 261 at-bats. It did not come without some adversity. He arrived to the majors with a propensity to hit for power along with racking up strikeouts.

This proved to be true during Reyes’ first 104 at-bats during May, June and nine games in July prior to his demotion. Reyes hit six home runs but only walked seven times with 42 strikeouts resulting in a .221/.270/.423 slash line. Less than ideal. Getting a reset in the hitter friendly Pacific Coast League, Reyes finished with a robust 16 home runs in only 58 games at Triple-A with a .324/.428/.614 line. This led to his return to San Diego on August fourth.

From this point forward, Reyes surged. Over his last 157 at-bats he scored 22 runs with six doubles, 10 home runs, 24 RBI and an eye popping .318/.385/.548 slash. He also hit safely in 20 of his 25 games in September benefiting fantasy owners who held tight or took another chance on Reyes upon his return to the majors. More encouraging, Reyes walked 17 times compared to 38 strikeouts in this time sample, showing growth in his plate discipline after his reboot in the minors.

During Reyes’ time at Triple-A, he walked 14.8 percent of the time versus a 23.6 strikeout percentage. While this rate of discipline should not carry over to the majors, there’s room for growth seeing his 9.7 and 9.8 walk rates in August and September provide hope going forward. In these same two months, Reyes reduced his strikeout percentages to 23.6 and 20.6 respectively as well. In both May and June, Reyes produced strikeout rates at or above 40 percent.

When trying to assess his potential average in 2019, some will depend on his ability to build on the gains in discipline during his second go around in the majors while he continues to adjust to hitting at this level. Reyes will also need to improve against right-handed pitching if he’s going to hit at or above his Steamer projection. At Triple-A, Reyes hit .359/.519/.564 against southpaws while slashing a very respectable .316/.404/.626 against right-handed pitchers in his limited 216 at-bat sample last season. When going back to his 2017 Double-A statistics, Reyes hit appreciably better against right-handed pitching (.292/.349/.514) than he did against left-handed pitching (.147/.233/.293).

While this intimates Reyes remains a work in progress, he should be able to improve upon his splits from last year in the majors. Reyes hit .247/.298/.449 versus right-handed pitching with 10 home runs in 178 at-bats. Against southpaws, he slashed .349/.426/.602 with six home runs in 83 at-bats. It’s tough to predict how Reyes will fare versus each type of pitcher in 2019, but planning on some movement to the mean in each category seems salient. So, improved plate discipline baked in with past production versus each type of pitcher should allow Reyes to hold his own going forward.

Transitioning to his batted ball data, Reyes should be able to achieve his Steamer projection of 69 runs, 28 home runs, 79 RBI, two stolen bases and a .251/.319/.456 line in 531 at-bats over 146 games. With home run production down last year, these will not be numbers to overlook. When trying to gauge his home run totals, Reyes displayed power throughout the minors along with the 32 he hit across two levels last season. But, trying to predict a total higher than Steamer’s will be difficult. Could he surpass this total? Absolutely. However, paying for more could be risky.

According to Statcast data, Reyes averaged an exit velocity of 96.4 MPH on his fly balls and line drives put into play of his 181 batted ball events. Last year, Reyes made the most of his 33.3 and 23.9 fly ball percentages from August fourth on, but he’s not recorded a season with a fly ball percentage above 40 percent, once, during his debut season in 2012 in Rookie ball. It’s encouraging Reyes produced a hard hit percentage (44.2) and home run per fly ball rate (29.6 percent) above the major league averages. He’s also within five-plus percent of the major league average in fly ball percentage. Not trying to downplay his home run upside, but his ground ball rates of 45.8 percent in August and 53.5 percent in September cannot be ignored when projecting his best case scenario.

Using xSTATS data, Reyes had an expected home run total of 12.7 last year with an expected slash of .268/.330/.465, an xBABIP of .346 and .OBA of .344 last year. These numbers along with his Steamer projection translate to upside. It’s apparent Reyes will be targeted from the 10th round on. In the #2EarlyMocks orchestrated by Justin Mason, Reyes carried an average draft position of 208.1 with a high pick at 165 and a low of 260 within the nine leagues. Due to his strong finish along with his power despite the ground ball to fly ball rates, Reyes will be worth the risk. As intimated above, using the Steamer projection as a guide to his baseline value, targeting “Franimal” to balance a draft with power and an average which will not tax the category makes perfect sense. Reyes could hit 30 home runs, or 24. Either way, he’s a half season hero who deserves the hype.

Ah, the final week of fantasy baseball. The time of year when guys you would normally never consider rostering become crucial lynchpins in your quest for championship glory. If you’re still reading fantasy content in the last week of September, chances are you’re in a highly competitive league, so I’m not going to waste your time talking about players that are likely owned. Instead, I’m focusing solely on players who are available in nearly every league. (If speed is your need, take a look at Mike Podhorzer’s column from this morning.)

Adam Rosales – San Diego Padres

Shocked doesn’t come close to describing my reaction to Rosales’ 2016 numbers. Entering this season, the 33-year-old journeyman infielder had a 0.9 Wins Above Replacement through 1,226 major-league plate appearances. This year, he’s sitting on a 2.3 WAR, with just 245 PA. In the past, Rosales always hit lefties better than righties, but it’s not like he mashed lefties either:

• vs LHP (pre-2016) – 529 PA – .242/.311/.375, .133 ISO, 15 HR
• vs RHP (pre-2016) – 697 PA – .215/.281/.317, .102 ISO, 12 HR

Now take a gander at his numbers from this season, his first in San Diego:

• vs LHP (2016) – 113 PA – .242/.354/.505, .263 ISO, 6 HR
• vs RHP (2016) – 132 PA – .224/.295/.500, .276 ISO, 7 HR

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I’m an Alex Dickerson fan, but I don’t know if anyone else is. He at least appears to have gone largely without fanfare thus far, as evidenced by his lowly ownership rates (4.7 percent at ESPN, 5 percent at Yahoo!). He never projected to be much of anything; former FanGraphs prospector Kiley McDaniel graded Dickerson’s tools below-average across the board, with exception to his plus raw power, and Dickerson led a weak crop of Padres prospects prior to the 2015 season in terms of projected WAR.

Fast forward to 2016, and Dickerson doesn’t look so meager. In 240 Triple-A plate appearances, he generated the Pacific Coast League’s 3rd-best wOBA. In fact, it eerily resembled that of the lauded Willson Contreras, and it only trails by a nonzero margin that of the seemingly powerful Mitch Haniger. Dickerson not only cranked up the power, posting a career-best .240 isolated power (ISO), but also shaved more than 7 percentage points off his strikeout rate (K%). The hit tool that once graded out well-below-average suddenly looked like a solid asset. While some hitters sacrifice power to refine their plate discipline or contact skills, Dickerson’s 3-year ISO of .199 from 2013-15 increased about 40 points.

The best news is the gains have carried over to the Major League level. To attest, Dickerson’s plate discipline, by definition, is above average:

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Without looking, take a guess at who leads the majors in stolen bases per plate appearance. Most of you probably chose Billy Hamilton, and while you aren’t far from being right, you are still wrong. While Hamilton’s pace of swiping a bag in 11.1% of his PA is mighty impressive, someone else is at an even more ridiculous pace of 11.6%. (Author’s note: As pointed out in the comments section by user “Regression is Mean,” Hamilton stole four bases yesterday to bump his rate up to 12.1%.)

Believe it or not, this mystery player is not even owned in 10% of Yahoo or ESPN leagues, as he currently sits at 8% and 9.5% ownership on those sites, respectively. (CBS owners are catching on, as he’s 20% owned on that site.) Who the heck is this player, and why isn’t he on your roster?

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Last week inaugurated what will likely be several weeks of depth chart discussions in the form of playing time battles. RotoGraphs staff will discuss and assess noteworthy battles for playing time and/or starting gigs for position players and, separately, pitchers. Here, specifically, this author will investigate the San Diego Padres‘ pitching situations.

#4 and #5 Starters

Behind James Shields, Tyson Ross and Andrew Cashner, the Padres’ rotation looks feeble. At least six arms could see a handful of starts — and, to avoid burying the lede, few warrant attention in standard mixed leagues. But, alas, playing time battles are playing time battles. In order according to FanGraphs’ depth charts:

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Over the last couple weeks, a 24-year-old former top-ten overall pick has been on fire. He has started 13 consecutive games, batting leadoff or second in 12 of those games. He slots in as the No. 6 fantasy second baseman in that stretch. Furthermore, he’s already third-base eligible in Yahoo leagues, making his sixth appearance (fifth start) of the season at third on Sunday.

On the year, this player is now hitting .262/.338/.431, with two homers and four steals. Sounds like a guy we should be jumping all over, right? Would you ever in a million years expect his ownership rates to look like this?

• 6% Yahoo, 3.4% ESPN, 11% CBS

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It’s time for our Depth Chart Discussions to begin. In an effort to suss out every team, we’ve divided them into four parts (infield, outfield, bullpen, and rotation) and will begin breaking them down for you over the next few weeks. You can find them gathered here.

We all know how valuable a pitcher in Petco Park can be, even if they aren’t on the high end of the talent spectrum. Thankfully for us in 2015, the Padres staff will have some of that upper-end talent paired with a far more capable offense to support it. It is incredible how much one addition can make a difference for a club as the rotation looks so much more formidable now with their latest signing. Here is how the top four stack up:

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When the news broke that the Tigers signed veteran closer Joe Nathan, Detroit GM Dave Dombrowski also announced that the team and the man who finished the 2013 season as their closer, Joaquin Benoit, would be parting ways, citing that the 35-year old righthander was no longer “a fit for the Tigers.” With that, Benoit jumped into the free agent pool and came away with a two-year, $15.5 million contract from the San Diego Padres where he is expected to fill the exact same role he filled for Detroit when he first signed with them back in 2011; a bridge between starter and closer with the potential to close out games, if needed. The deal works well for both parties as Benoit gets a contract comparable to what free agent closers have been getting and the Padres get a replacement for, and upgrade to, Luke Gregerson. Read the rest of this entry »

As you may have surmised, this week we here at RotoGraphs are looking at relief pitchers this week. Much of the focus tends to be spent on closers, but seeing as how volatile the ‘position’ is, the set-up men deserve their proper due. And one of the more reliable set-up men over the last few years who certainly deserves the recognition is none other than Luke Gregerson. The former Padres reliever has been a staple in the San Diego bullpen and given the frailty of Huston Street, the Padres longtime closer, he’s been as close to a must-own reliever as you can get without regularly accruing saves. However, now that Gregerson has landed in Oakland, his value heads south for a variety of reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

In the coming weeks, we’ll be covering each team’s potential depth charts in an effort to shine a spotlight on the interesting playing time battles that will be waged this spring. Obviously none of these depth charts are set in stone — rather they should function to focus your attention in the right places to find cheap fantasy value.

Bullpen arms come and go. The nature of pitching a mere 40-70 innings in a season leaves plenty of room for random variation. With that caveat out of the way, there might not be a better team to find cheap rate stats and holds than San Diego.

As our very own Jeff Sullivan noted earlier in the week, the Padres are moving the fences in at Petco Park. While this may increase the home run total, run scoring may not increase much — if at all. From a reliever standpoint, perhaps the most important thing to watch isn’t home run numbers, but the health of current closer Huston Street.
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