The Change: A Guide to Peaceful, Easy Streaming

We did a little work on streaming last week, in an effort to find you some stolen bases. But stolen bases are just one of the few things we’re all trying to cobble together here in the final month. You might be in a head-to-head league, looking to add one counting stat or another in your playoffs, or in a roto league where you’re furiously fighting for a category. Either way, you need power, speed, relief stats or spot starts, and either way, the context is key.

This is the guide for those that find themselves in that situation but don’t have the time to get granular. All you have to do is look at the team your potential player is facing, and you’ll know enough to make a decent move. Hopefully it won’t let you down — you’re already standing on the ground.

Power
It’s easy enough to play marginal power guys in Denver and Cincinnati and Milwaukee. Maybe even Baltimore and The Cell. But maybe you have a righty going to Baltimore or a lefty headed to Boston — you’d think that you’re set. But there’s no bigger discrepancy between our handedness park factors for homers in baseball than the ones you’ll find for Boston, and only three bigger than Baltimore’s. Boston is a decent park for righty home runs (lefties see their home run power reduced by 11% facing the Big Monster), and Baltimore is almost 10% friendlier for lefty home runs.

Then there’s the fact that our park factors are three-year regressed. That’s good if you want to be conservative and keep your value stats about the same, but we know that parks are changing all the time. Seattle, New York, San Diego and other parks have changed the walls. San Diego added a big screen that has changed wind patterns in the park. If you look at StatCorner’s more fluid 2016 park factors, things change a bit. Check it out in one place:

The summary is that holy crap do you have to start lefties in Milwaukee. A park factor of 145 is insane. Insane! You already knew you had to start lefties in New York and in The Cell, but did you know that lefties in Dodger Stadium have been showing a 121 park factor for home runs? And the Phillies have been showing righties a home cooking of a 129 park factor for home runs.

Let’s sum it up.

Duh parks: Denver, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Baltimore
Secretly good for lefties: Los Angeles (NL), Cleveland, Tampa
Secretly good for righties: New York (AL), Philadelphia, Washington
Secretly better this year: Philadelphia, Seattle

Steals
We did this last week, but let’s sum it up real quickly again. The pitcher is six times more important than the catcher when it comes to allowing steals, so the best place to look is this leaderboard that shows the pitchers ability to slow the running game. Jimmy Nelson, come on down.

But teams still have character, and some emphasize stopping the running game more than others. Plus, you could use this short hand to make quick pickups.

Good for steals: Yankees, Mariners, Pirates, Rangers, Rays, Braves
Bad for steals: Marlins, Astros, Red Sox, Indians, Giants, Reds

Bullpen
If you’re looking for saves, good luck. The Bullpen Report will help you out with the minutiae of the day-to-day in every bullpen. But there are realities when it comes to saves and holds chances! After an extensive look, I found that teams that score runs and have good bullpens provide the most saves chances. So, if you’re in a shallow league trying to decide between Hunter Strickland and Brandon Maurer, for example, this is relevant. And it is even if you’re in a deep league and trying to decide between Justin Grimm and Mike Morin.

First, check the full leaderboard for ‘team friendliness to saves and holds opportunities’ which is going to have to be edited into a new title. It’s judged by adding the z score for runs scored and team bullpen strikeouts minus walks together, and it basically just tells you which bullpens should provide the most saves and holds going forward.

Good for saves & holds: Red Sox, Astros, Blue Jays, Cubs, Mariners, Nats, Yankees
Bad for saves & holds: Braves, Phils, White Sox, Reds, Brewers, Marlins, D-backs

Spot Starts
Really, an easy way to do this is to just flip the ‘power’ paragraph on its head. Power changes things quickly, and is a decent gauge for the way a ballpark plays. Again, it’s more about the parks that might be better than we think in certain situations, so let’s break it down for lefty starters, righty starters, and parks that may have become friendlier to pitchers this year.

Duh parks: Giants, Angels, Padres, Pirates, Athletics
Secretly good for righty starters: Red Sox, Twins, Nationals
Secretly good for lefty starters: Indians, Rays, Dodgers, Cardinals
Secretly better for pitchers this year: Braves, Royals, Marlins