Archive for Zach Britton

We all have guys we like more than others. That’s just the nature of the beast. Whether it’s guys coming off down years we expect to rebound or ones we’ve done extensive research on to forecast a much better than expected season, we all have our favorites. Sometimes, we even have them for even less legitimate reasons.

As we get knee deep into draft season, I thought I’d share with you some of the guys I like more than most at each position:

C- Yasmani Grandal (NFBC avg. 145, No. 8 C)

Scoring just 49 runs while hitting 27 home runs seems crazy fluky, but I like what Grandal brings to the table overall. He does a little bit of everything — though the average might hurt — and brings the kind of pop we don’t usually see associated with the catcher’s spot. He’s still young enough (28) to be reasonably on an upswing, and he was markedly better in the second half last year (.245/.356/.521) than before the break (.212/.323/.434). He had nothing much in the way of platoon splits last year as well. Right now I like him better than Salvador Perez, who is going about 14-15 picks earlier in drafts. Further down the list, I’m intrigued by Devin Mesoraco (No. 21 catcher, No. 298 overall) after seeing a video of him testing out his bum hip doing some pretty wild plyometric drills. He could be a huge value. Read the rest of this entry »

Britton ranked third on Rotographs’ End-of-Season rankings among closers.

I can’t help myself; I’m like most other saber-inclined baseball people — I love strikeouts. I mean, I love a lot of things about pitching. I love that guys can seemingly come out of nowhere and be studs, like Corey Kluber, Dallas Keuchel or countless others.

As a person who has spent most of their life watching the Minnesota Twins, I can also appreciate guys who don’t walk anyone. Year after year while I watched the club as a fan in my teens, the Twins led or were near the top of the league in fewest walks allowed. Not walking batters isn’t always necessary, but if you’re going to have guys with a paucity of strikeouts — like non-Johan Santana starters in those days — keeping the bases clean is key.

I also really like grounders. The holy trinity of pitching for me — and probably for everyone else — is strikeout and walk rates married with groundball rates. It’s very, very rare to find a pitcher who is solid across all three aspects who isn’t a wonderful pitcher. Each of these things in isolation can lead to a tremendous pitcher, provided he checks off other necessary boxes further down the list.

But when you find someone who checks off all three boxes — oh boy. Read the rest of this entry »

Folks, if you want to do something else we can totally forget about this. Right?

Sigh. The whole reason people like making predictions is that they garner a ton of traffic — power rankings, anyone? — and almost nobody ever holds them to reviewing them because the damn season is so long. It’s like a dog returning to its vomit or whatever, I think.

But anyway, here’s my a review of my word vomit from back in March:

1. Kyle Gibson holds top-50 value in leagues this season.

Welp. It was a disastrous season for Gibson, who saw a drop in groundball rate and strikeout rate and a jump in walk rate, leading to an ERA in excess of 5.00. Basically speaking, all the strides he appeared to be making late last year lapsed, despite his slider and changeup becoming even better pitches this year than last. Inexplicably, he threw both of them a lot less than in 2015. (0/1) Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Zach Britton’s Sinker… Eh? Eh???

In fact, according to BP’s PITCHf/x Leaderboard, five of eight Baltimore Relievers had above average Sinkers last year: Zach Britton (#1 overall obviously), Darren O’Day (#17), Wesley Wright (#24), Tommy Hunter (#32) and T.J. McFarland (#39). Five of the top 40 (out of 136) relievers who used a classified Sinker over 100 times were Baltimore Orioles.

Available out of the bullpen:

Read the rest of this entry »

There are a sundry of middle/set-up relievers that can succeed in the closer role if given the opportunity. A few obvious: Wade Davis if something happens to Greg Holland… Wil Myers for James Shields and who?!; Ken Giles if the Phillies can somehow find a trade partner for the grundle-grabber; and Brad Boxberger if not Jake McGee. I assume David Robertson signs elsewhere and Dellin Betances steps in.

Lets’ look at potential closers using reliever outcomes. Here are the average contact and balls in play-related outcomes for all relievers that qualified and specifically relievers with 10+ saves:

Our Filters: 

• Contact-related outcomes: For K-BB%, Ct% and SwStr%, I filtered simply by the general relief pitcher averages. Everyone below average in these 3 categories was filtered out.
• Command-related outcomes: For zone% and first-pitch-strike%, I used 1 standard deviation below average and 1.25 SD’s below average in BABIP as filters. 1.25 SD allowed me to omit only the relievers that had career BABIP’s higher than we would like to see for a closer or in general. I didn’t want to screen out Jenrry Mejia (1.24 SD below the mean) or Tim Stauffer (1.19 SD below), because there’s a possibility for BABIP regression.
• Balls In Play-related outcomes: I was lax on the balls in play outcomes. I went with a 40% Grounder rate and 45% Flyball rate as my filters versus the averages that you see above because below average fly-rates don’t mean much in places like Tampa (where Boxberger is elite but below average in fly-rates); and above average grounder-rates don’t mean as much with atrocious defense behind you (hence Corey Kluber’s unlucky BABIP, which should have been closer to .299 per end-of-season xBABIP/Inside Edge data), but I digress.

Using these filters, we’re left with a robust list of above-average relievers beyond just closers (scroll down for the noted filters):

What happens if we use the command (K-BB%)/contact (Ct% and SwStr%) related averages for relievers with more than 10 saves this year? 

…We’re left with some elite closers and then a few interesting names.

Last year, Danny Farquhar (just missed the list this year) had a top 20 swinging-strike rate – about a percent better than Fernando Rodney, but it was masked by his BABIP and left-on-base rate that killed his surface stats (4.20 ERA vs. 2.40 xFIP). This year, he actually outperformed his xFIP with a 2.66 ERA. After an early season MASH Report on Rodney’s velocity, I eyed Farquhar. At least keep him in mind next year if anything does happen to Rodney.

Josh Edgin (Mets for those of you that don’t know) has a top 65 contact-rate sandwiched between Mark Melancon and Jake McGee and even induced grounders 50% of the time. He has a pretty extensive repertoire as well. In order of usage: Fourseamer, Slider, Curve, Change, Cutter and Sinker. According to his Brooks Player Card, he has great swing and miss rates on his Curve (>56%), Cutter (50%), Slider (>42%) and Sinker (33%). Even his Change approaches 30%. This isn’t the case on his Fastball, but at 93+ MPH, it induces a decent amount of grounders (1.8 GB/FB). Keep in mind he had late-season elbow issues which effected his velocity by a MPH or so, but he could be called upon to get Mejia out of a jam. I like him better than an unhealthy Bobby Parnell and Jeurys Familia from a command perspective for another year.

Zach Duke did his best Craig Kimbrel impression prior to the R2M monster hitting him in August. Prior to 8/1, Duke had a 34.9% K-rate and 27.3 K-BB%. Kimbrel ended the year with a 38.9% K-rate and 28.3 K-BB%. I think August and September brought him back to his realistic value (~2.50 ERA, 1.15 WHIP). It will be interesting to see who closes for the Brewers if they let Francisco Rodriguez go. Both Duke and Will Smith have above average (even for RP w/ 10+ saves) swing-and-miss. Will Smith should have additional command next year, but Zack Duke induces grounders better which I like in my closers/in Milwaukee. They also have Jonathan Broxton. The hierarchy seemed to be K-rod-Broxton-Smith late last season. If that’s the case, they should use Duke more (former starter) and in higher leverage situations. He was equally solid against both lefties (.258 wOBA) and righties (.262 wOBA).

Oliver Perez everybody! I thought I could filter him out by his splits being a lefty, but like 2012, he was more effective vs. righties (and faced 44 more of them). The D-backs have Addison Reed, up-and-comer Evan Marshall as well as Daniel Hudson caught touching 97 MPH so if not by outcomes or splits, we can filter Perez out by opportunity.

Darren O’Day and Andrew Miller is part of one dominating Baltimore bullpen – one that gets referenced by anyone who thinks the Orioles can beat the Tigers in the ALDS. Notice that Zach Britton didn’t make either of the above lists! He was filtered out by his below average K-BB% (13.70%). It’s his 75+% grounder rate (hence the 81+% left-on-base rate and .215 BABIP) that keeps him elite in Baltimore. The only concern you can have with O’Day is a fastball velocity almost 2 standard deviations below the mean for relievers, but his arm angle combined with that slider still induces a 30+% whiff-rate on both pitches. Miller’s slider though is a world apart from O’Day’s: only Pedro Strop, Will Smith, Jake Diekman, Greg Holland and Oliver Perez induces more whiffs than Miller’s 55% according to Baseball Prospectus’ Pitchf/x Leaderboards.  I doubt we’ll see a closer-transition next year in Baltimore unless Britton’s GB/FB ratio takes a drastic dive because his HR/FB ratio, which approached 18%, could be an issue.

An xBABIP review

On the last day of the season, @jeffwzimmerman provided me with Pitch xBABIP based on inside edge data. Let’s look at some of the bigger xBABIP differentials to keep in mind:

The last column depicts the z-score for BABIP differential. Francisco Rodriguez was expected to have a BABIP about 120 points above his actual BABIP. I highlighted (red/bad; green/good) the xBABIP z-scores as well so that you know whether or not to actually be concerned meaning sure Aaron Sanchez has the 5th biggest BABIP differential (over 2 standard deviations from the mean), but a .239 xBABIP is still utterly elite (3.34 SD’s from the mean). On the other side of the equation, it’s nice to see Evan Marshall, Carlos Martinez and Adam Ottavino (albeit in Colorado) with large BABIP differentials. Marshall and Martinez even have xBABIP’s over .5SD from the mean.

The last bit of fun

It was a very fun year to be doing bullpen reports for RotoGraphs. Aroldis Chapman broke the single-season strikeout rate of 2012 Craig Kimbrel (50.2%). He struck out 52.5% of the hitters he faced. Andrew Miller (42.6%) and Brad Boxberger (42.1%) also made the top 10 seasons ever. Dellin Betances (39.6%), Wade Davis (39.1%) and Craig Kimbrel (38.9%) made the top 20. Chapman’s swinging-strike% of 20% beat ’12 Kimbrel by .8%, but he couldn’t pass ’04 Lidge, ’03 Gagne, ’04 Gagne, ’02 Gagne or ’05 Lidge. Chapman, Miller, Doolittle, Boxberger, Betances (Wade Davis and Kenley Jansen close behind) all had historical, top 20 K-BB rates. Relievers dominate this list: only ’99 Pedro Martinez (#12), ’00 Pedro Martinez (#21), ’01 Randy Johnson (#27) and ’01 Pedro Martinez (#28) make it into the top 30, but it’s clear that we have a growing list of elite relievers.

From a fantasy perspective, thanks to 45+ saves totals out of Holland and Kimbrel, we had two relievers ranked in the top 20 pitchers. If Chapman didn’t miss time and Betances and Davis consumed the closer role, we would have had 3 others. Last year, Craig Kimbrel and his 4 wins, 50 saves, 98 SO’s, 1.21 ERA and .88 WHIP campaign made him the 3rd most valuable pitcher. This year with Kershaw, Cueto, Felix and Kluber, it would have taken even more.

If we combined the 3 more dominating performances exclusive of saves this year: Aroldis Chapman’s K-rate (52.5%) and saves total (36), Dellin Betances IP (90) – who was dominating in his own right, Wade Davis’ ERA (1.00) and Wins total (9) and Sean Doolittle’s WHIP (.73) – let’s call this guy Aroldellin Dooldavis, we would wind up with a 10.95 z-sum…just above Corey Kluber (10.72), but under Clayton Kershaw (13.74), Johnny Cueto (12.95) and Felix Hernandez (12.50). Even 50 saves wouldn’t have done the trick (12.43 z-sum):

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dodgers at Padres: Joaquin Benoit’s shoulder pain his back and Kevin Quackenbush should be owned in all leagues and perhaps for the rest of the season:

Why you’re not going to see #Padres closer Joaquin Benoit for a while http://t.co/LRTgQJhgQt

— Corey Brock (@FollowThePadres) August 31, 2014

It’s not yet known when Benoit will be available again. At this point, maybe assume 11 days like the last timeframe since it’s similar pain.

Yankees at Blue Jays: Future starter/ace, current september bullpen asset, Aaron Sanchez looked great striking out 3 in 2 scoreless innings for his first major league save. He threw 19 of his 28 pitches for strikes. And on 12 swings, the Yankees were only able to put the ball in play 3 times. His minimum fastball velocity was 96 MPH. The one breaking ball he threw was a beaut. to Derek Jeter on a 2-2 count. Probably anyone other than Jeter would have chased (just missed low). He’s only given up 1 ER in his last 8 appearances with a 12K:1BB ratio. IMO he’s got a great Sinker-Fourseam-Curveball repertoire in conjunction with the velocity to succeed longterm. He’s only thrown 3 Changeups thus far, but I’d assume that remains part of his starting repertorie. If so, more whiffs should come; the groundball induction is already apparent; and his command (4.3% BB-rate) thus far is a huge bonus.

Read the rest of this entry »

• The dreaded “closer in a non-save situation” …and Casey Janssen strikes out 2! The Blue Jays are only 4.5 games back from the Wild Card and Ryan Braun and Aramis Ramirez was up to start the inning so manager John Gibbons appropriately went all out. Janssen struck them both out, even though he only induced one whiff in seven swings total for the inning. Still, 12 of of his 15 pitches were thrown for strikes/fouls.
• “Put it in the (anxiety-inducing) Books” says (thinks) Howie Rose. With Jenrry Mejia unavailable due to his back and not his hernia supposedly, Jeurys Familia relieved Vic Black in the 8th after he loaded the bases. While he walked Sam Fuld forcing in run, he struck out Andy Parrino and got Josh Donaldson to ground out to shortstop. He got away with two things in the innings: the third strike to Parrino was a bit outside and the breaking ball on a full-count to Donaldson was a bit of a hanger although IMO it needed to be a breaking ball. At least it was thrown for a strike. A Stephen Vogt double after a Derek Norris strikeout in the 9th was the only other damage to give Familia the 5-out save. In any case, I think if he can continue to locate the fastball running outside on a lefty, he could be effective to all handedness. I’m a fan of the 3-pitch Fastball-Slider-Sinker repertoire that induces enough swinging strikes (12.4%) and ground balls (56%). We’re seeing it already in the outcomes and on the pitch level: According to Baseball Pro’s Pitchf/x Leaderboard, Familia has the 12th fasted RP velocity on the Fastball; 7th best whiff rate (51.43%) and 9th best GB/FB rate (3.2) on the slider; and 6th best whiff rate on the sinker (22.37%) which balances the fact that it only induces a 3.33 GB/FB ratio on it. If he can control the BB-rate, he should be successful and consume closing duties for at least the remainder of this year based on Mejia’s ailments. P.S. I’m a Mets fan so I apologies for the longevity associated with this run-on.
• Mark Melancon picks up the win (+1K) with a perfect inning in the top of the 9th vs. the Braves due to a Justin Upton error on a routine fly ball that allowed Jordy Mercer to score on a sac fly in the bottom of the 9th.
• Neftali Feliz hasn’t let up a run since August 3rd (only 6 appearances since). On this day, he had a 100% HR/FB ratio as Marcell Ozuna and Jarrod Saltalamachhia both went deep.
• A Bullpen Report where I don’t get to talk about Ken Giles or Brad Boxberger is a report I don’t enjoy writing nearly as much. Luckily, Ken Giles struck out Chris Denorfia, Logan Morrison and Dustin Ackley – all swinging in the 8th. To date, for relievers (200 pitches minimum), Giles has the 6th fastest FB velocity (97.72 MPH) with a top 15 whiff rate (26.7%). He also has a top 15 whiff rate on the slider (50.6%).
• The 8-9 punch of Darren O’Day and Zach Britton continues to ensure wins for the AL East leading O’s. O’Day strikes out both batters he faces and Britton strikes out 1 in a perfect 9th. O’Day threw 8/10 pitches for strikes: 4 whiffs, 3 looking, and only 1 time did the bat make (foul) contact with an O’Day offering. But Zach Britton! Whose ballsiest forecast had him at a 2.00 ERA and 30 saves?! a 77+% (77!!!) ground ball rate (11% flies and 12% liners) backs up the elite .222 BABIP right now. Nothing else on him screams elite, but the balls in play breakdown verifies the 2.04 ERA through a sub-2.00 SIERA.

Read the rest of this entry »

You’d think that after a shocking run to the playoffs despite having a dozen different pitchers make at least two starts — and only one make more than 20 — that the Baltimore Orioles would have done something to shore up their rotation this winter. They haven’t, so far, and while their decision is more than defensible, it doesn’t make projecting the 2013 collection any easier.

Here’s what we do know about this year’s Orioles rotation, however. We know that Joe Saunders (seven starts), Dana Eveland (two starts), and Randy Wolf (two starts) aren’t going to be part of it. We know that the top four is likely to be made up of Wei-Yin Chen, Jason Hammel, Miguel Gonzalez, & Chris Tillman, and we know with near absolute certainty that when the season ends, at least one of those four men (but likely more) will no longer be in the rotation. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s Roto Riteup talks primarily about closers. Closers, closers, closers.

–  Grant Balfour has been named the A’s closer, beating out Brian Fuentes. Balfour’s home run rate last season was certainly worrisome, but another season with an ERA below 3.00 and a WHIP below 1.15 is extremely attainable. Balfour is in the last guaranteed year of his contract, so a mid-season trade isn’t out of the question, even though the A’s hold a club option for 2013.

–  With Joakim Soria having big-time elbow problems, Greg Holland should be on everyone’s draft board. While Jonathan Broxton is the experienced closer, Holland is a more effective pitcher and less likely to break down in the process. Projecting where Holland should be drafted is tough, but if he is the full-time closer, there’s a chance he could actually end up in the top-ten at his position thanks to his massive strikeout rate. Mike Podhorzer has more on the subject.

–  Dr. James Andrews alert! Orioles’ starter Zach Britton is going to see the noted baseball mortician after inflammation returned to his throwing shoulder as of late. Britton was the subject of fantasy debate last year over whether or not he was a relevant roto option, but this should help squash any remaining ideas that he should be owned in anything but dynasty leagues. If your keeper deadline already passed, you should be kicking yourself in the face for being so silly.

A Pitcher For Today/Tomorrow
During the season, you’ll be finding recommendations for starters you could stream for the day after the notes, but this being spring training, I’m going to assume you aren’t playing some strange high-stakes spring fantasy game.

If you have anything in particular you’d like to see in this year’s Roto Riteup, please say so in the comments. Feedback is appreciated.