A brief list of available starting pitchers that I would probably stash away on my bench, if my bench wasn't already full of AAA and AARP prospects.
Brandon Morrow (SP,RP Blue Jays): I spot-started him against Baltimore at the beginning of the season, eating his five earned runs and then quickly tossing him back. His next start was even worse. However, since then, over his past four games: 2-1, 2.96 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 12.6 K/9. His high BABIP means he might be able to continue trending towards servicable numbers in the future, despite his AL East opponents. 3.81 xFIP. If he fixes his BB/9 problems, he's a must-add.
Mike Leake (SP, Reds): On the season, 2-0, 2.94 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 5.88 K/9. Those numbers could keep him in the league and Chapman on my bench for another month or two. He's also apparently developing some better control, issuing only four walks over his last twenty innings. A word of caution, four of his five starts were against the Cubs, Pirates, Astros, and Mets.
Jonathon Niese (SP, Mets): I'm wary of any Mets player, since Citi Field is where talent goes to die, but his line over the last four starts is: 1-0, 2.25 ERA, 1.63 WHIP, 9.0 K/9. His .382 BABIP should come down, and a 4.06 xFIP is interesting enough for a seventh starter to hang onto until we see whether he can stop giving up 12 hits a game.
Jason Vargas (SP, RP Mariners): Last four starts: 2-1, 2.73 ERA, 0.91 WHIP, 7.52 K/9. He's been very lucky over that span, giving up only sixteen hits over 26 1/3 innings, and that's probably not sustainable for a guy with weak stuff like Vargas and his 87 MPH fastball. He's worth picking up to monitor his success, however, and the RP eligibility is huge.
Kris Medlen (SP, RP Braves): I really don't want to use Medlen's reliever stats to make a starter projection, but now that Jurrjens is hitting the DL he's going to have a second chance at the Atlanta rotation. He was a mid-season callup last year, even before Tommy Hanson, and was afforded four starts, of which three were awful, and two didn't get past four innings. However, the 9.32 K/9 was consistent with his strikeout rates as a reliever that year and next. In his AAA stint in 2009, he was 5-0, 1.19 ERA, 0.80 WHIP, 10.51 K/9. In AA 2008: 7-8, 3.52 ERA (2.87 FIP), 1.23 WHIP, 8.98 K/9. If he can keep himself from blowing up, and actually pitch through the 5th inning of his starts, he could be a season-altering asset.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Carl Crawford: Losing a step or bulking up?
Carl Crawford has been my keeper for a while. Even the year he wasn't, he fell to me in the second round of the draft. The last time he wasn't killing my slugging and RBI totals was 2005 (a strange year that involved four future Mets, who are all now awful). I know Carl Crawford's habits and streak tendencies (he's streaky like Ryan Braun, who'll both lay dormant for entire weeks before unleashing a 10-game flurry of homeruns and base swipes). I know that he's played on historically bad teams (the only .500 slugger on the 2006 crew was Rocco Baldelli, the same year that Ty Wigginton led the team in RBI with 79, two ahead of Crawford).
I also know that now he's on one of the best offensive teams in baseball. The Rays currently lead MLB in total runs scored, though they fall behind in specific power and batting categories. They're just a very good, well-rounded offensive club in 2010, despite some key 2009 breakouts having poor starts. I believe this has flowed through to Carl's own personal statistics. Currently sandwiched between Bartlett and Zobrist, he's upped his walk rate to 11.1%, compared to his 5.4% career mark. He's scoring more runs thanks to a Longoria-Upton-Pena lineup batting while he's on base. He's also batting .330, due in part to his high .378 BABIP. He's on pace for the following line:
.330/.400/.530 115 runs, 75 RBI, 40 SB
Sustainable? I don't know. High-speed guys who can beat out throws tend to have an inflated BABIP, so it's harder to use that statistic as a loose measure of batting luck (Ichiro's career BABIP is .357, for example). .378 is possible to maintain for a full year; Crawford did it in 2007. I have my suspicions about the walk rate, since he's swinging at more balls compared to 2009 and making contact with fewer of them, which would suggest the OBP is due to come down. There are two things that are puzzling me.
Power: Crawford's ISO is .200, small in the world of sluggers but far and away a career high for a player known more for his stolen bases than his extra-base hits. He's on pace for 57 doubles, 35% higher than his career high, with a healthy number of homeruns and triples too. .530 slugging is nearly 100 points higher than his career figure. But there's no supporting data for this power surge. He's not hitting significantly more line drives or ground balls or flyballs than any other line in his career. If anything he's popping out more. He's obviously not swinging for the fences. What's the deal?
Speed: Through May 5th of 2009, Crawford had 19 stolen bases. Granted six of them came when the Rays exposed the Red Sox defensive catcher woes and opened the floodgates for future beatdowns like Nelson Cruz's 5-SB romp, so let's dial that back down to 1, and credit Crawford with 14 non-Varitek SBs. He'd also accrued a grand total of zero CS. He wasn't caught. He was a golden god of sliding into second base. Now he only has seven swipes. He hasn't successfully stolen a base since April 22nd, and has been thrown out three times since. That's nineteen times on base, though six of those times he was already standing on second or third. I specifically avoided drafting another 50+ SB guy because I figured I had one already. I don't even have one SB this week from any of my players, and only four last week. What's the deal?
Theory: Based on nothing but uninformed speculation and idle observation, I think Carl's bulked up a bit. I think his playing weight this year is higher than years prior, mostly muscle, which has translated into more balls getting punched out into the gaps. He's swinging harder, which has upped his slugging rates. The extra few pounds means he's not quite as spry on the basepath, still speedy but no longer league-leading.
Alternative Theory: He's only a month younger than I am, but this was the year, approaching age 29, when my knee started hurting for no particular reason, when my metabolism completely lost it, when I had to drop all snack foods and sugars from my diet to avoid ballooning weight concerns, when I couldn't wake up refreshed even after eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, when staying awake past 12:30am is an ordeal. I know Crawford's a professional athlete in a physical condition I couldn't even dream of having, but just maybe he's transitioning into the same middle-age phase that I am, and his body's holding more weight, and he lost a millisecond off his jump, and playing 155 games is taking more of a toll on his body (in 2009 he had more SBs in May than in July-September combined) than it used to.
Either way, Crawford is my second best hitter right now, and I'll have to enjoy the ride.
I also know that now he's on one of the best offensive teams in baseball. The Rays currently lead MLB in total runs scored, though they fall behind in specific power and batting categories. They're just a very good, well-rounded offensive club in 2010, despite some key 2009 breakouts having poor starts. I believe this has flowed through to Carl's own personal statistics. Currently sandwiched between Bartlett and Zobrist, he's upped his walk rate to 11.1%, compared to his 5.4% career mark. He's scoring more runs thanks to a Longoria-Upton-Pena lineup batting while he's on base. He's also batting .330, due in part to his high .378 BABIP. He's on pace for the following line:
.330/.400/.530 115 runs, 75 RBI, 40 SB
Sustainable? I don't know. High-speed guys who can beat out throws tend to have an inflated BABIP, so it's harder to use that statistic as a loose measure of batting luck (Ichiro's career BABIP is .357, for example). .378 is possible to maintain for a full year; Crawford did it in 2007. I have my suspicions about the walk rate, since he's swinging at more balls compared to 2009 and making contact with fewer of them, which would suggest the OBP is due to come down. There are two things that are puzzling me.
Power: Crawford's ISO is .200, small in the world of sluggers but far and away a career high for a player known more for his stolen bases than his extra-base hits. He's on pace for 57 doubles, 35% higher than his career high, with a healthy number of homeruns and triples too. .530 slugging is nearly 100 points higher than his career figure. But there's no supporting data for this power surge. He's not hitting significantly more line drives or ground balls or flyballs than any other line in his career. If anything he's popping out more. He's obviously not swinging for the fences. What's the deal?
Speed: Through May 5th of 2009, Crawford had 19 stolen bases. Granted six of them came when the Rays exposed the Red Sox defensive catcher woes and opened the floodgates for future beatdowns like Nelson Cruz's 5-SB romp, so let's dial that back down to 1, and credit Crawford with 14 non-Varitek SBs. He'd also accrued a grand total of zero CS. He wasn't caught. He was a golden god of sliding into second base. Now he only has seven swipes. He hasn't successfully stolen a base since April 22nd, and has been thrown out three times since. That's nineteen times on base, though six of those times he was already standing on second or third. I specifically avoided drafting another 50+ SB guy because I figured I had one already. I don't even have one SB this week from any of my players, and only four last week. What's the deal?
Theory: Based on nothing but uninformed speculation and idle observation, I think Carl's bulked up a bit. I think his playing weight this year is higher than years prior, mostly muscle, which has translated into more balls getting punched out into the gaps. He's swinging harder, which has upped his slugging rates. The extra few pounds means he's not quite as spry on the basepath, still speedy but no longer league-leading.
Alternative Theory: He's only a month younger than I am, but this was the year, approaching age 29, when my knee started hurting for no particular reason, when my metabolism completely lost it, when I had to drop all snack foods and sugars from my diet to avoid ballooning weight concerns, when I couldn't wake up refreshed even after eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, when staying awake past 12:30am is an ordeal. I know Crawford's a professional athlete in a physical condition I couldn't even dream of having, but just maybe he's transitioning into the same middle-age phase that I am, and his body's holding more weight, and he lost a millisecond off his jump, and playing 155 games is taking more of a toll on his body (in 2009 he had more SBs in May than in July-September combined) than it used to.
Either way, Crawford is my second best hitter right now, and I'll have to enjoy the ride.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Sadly No: The Rangers are not the best starting pitching staff in baseball.
On a non-baseball internet forum I frequent, the argument has been put forward that Nolan Ryan's influence on pitcher conditioning and getting later into games is the sole reason the Texas Rangers pitching staff is much improved over years prior. This is entirely possible, as their two best starters (CJ Wilson and Colby Lewis...who knew?) are averaging about 6 2/3 innings per start, a marked improvement over, say, the pre-Nolan 2007 season when 5 IP seemed like a pitch count limit. The argument was also put forward that Texas has the best starting five in baseball.
In terms of overall staff figures, this is plainly absurd. Texas's respectable 3.65 starter ERA is good for 8th in the league, but is a full run higher than that of the Cardinals, Rays, and Giants. Their 158 IP is only 17th, despite Ryan's philosophy. Their composite 9-6 record isn't poor, but they don't compare to the 15 wins held by the Yankees, Rays, and Twins. The 74 walks issued by Rangers SPs is second only to the Rockies. By second, I mean second highest, so perhaps "29th best" is more appropriate. This puts them 23rd in K/BB, 13th in WHIP, and their xFIP is the 6th highest in baseball.
Now Harrison and Feldman might be better than Todd Wellemeyer (6.33 ERA) but the Giants 1-4 are so much better than the Rangers 1-4 that I don't consider this a serious comparison. Or consider that the worst Rays starter right now, arguably Jeff Niemann, has a 2.76 ERA and no losses. Or maybe it's James Shields, highest ERA (3.15) but he's 4-0 with more strikeouts than innings pitched. Hell, the Cubs worst starter right now is Ted Lilly, and I'd still take him over Harrison and Feldman and probably Harden. You can even make an argument for the Twins and Nick Blackburn, or Lohse and the Cardinals.
This isn't to say Texas fans shouldn't feel optimistic about their pitching for the first time since Nolan Ryan, they're doing quite well. But the Yankees, Cardinals, and Giants each have four pitchers putting up ludicrous video game pitching numbers right now and are clearly the cream of the staff pitching crop in 2010. It'll be interesting to see which of this year's out-of-nowhere studs falls apart first.
My bet is Brad Penny.
In terms of overall staff figures, this is plainly absurd. Texas's respectable 3.65 starter ERA is good for 8th in the league, but is a full run higher than that of the Cardinals, Rays, and Giants. Their 158 IP is only 17th, despite Ryan's philosophy. Their composite 9-6 record isn't poor, but they don't compare to the 15 wins held by the Yankees, Rays, and Twins. The 74 walks issued by Rangers SPs is second only to the Rockies. By second, I mean second highest, so perhaps "29th best" is more appropriate. This puts them 23rd in K/BB, 13th in WHIP, and their xFIP is the 6th highest in baseball.
Now Harrison and Feldman might be better than Todd Wellemeyer (6.33 ERA) but the Giants 1-4 are so much better than the Rangers 1-4 that I don't consider this a serious comparison. Or consider that the worst Rays starter right now, arguably Jeff Niemann, has a 2.76 ERA and no losses. Or maybe it's James Shields, highest ERA (3.15) but he's 4-0 with more strikeouts than innings pitched. Hell, the Cubs worst starter right now is Ted Lilly, and I'd still take him over Harrison and Feldman and probably Harden. You can even make an argument for the Twins and Nick Blackburn, or Lohse and the Cardinals.
This isn't to say Texas fans shouldn't feel optimistic about their pitching for the first time since Nolan Ryan, they're doing quite well. But the Yankees, Cardinals, and Giants each have four pitchers putting up ludicrous video game pitching numbers right now and are clearly the cream of the staff pitching crop in 2010. It'll be interesting to see which of this year's out-of-nowhere studs falls apart first.
My bet is Brad Penny.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Liveblog pt 2
8:33: Matusz walks Gardner at the top of the inning by following my advice and tossing a bunch of breaking balls that dropped out of the zone. Prediction: Gardner steals second, scores on a Jeter single, my head explodes. Meanwhile, Cervelli at 0-2: I've never seen a high slider before, but he threw it, and Cervelli punched it into right field. Two men on, no outs, a backup defensive shortstop at the plate. %^$^&%$&%$ Matusz throwing error on a fucking bunt, Gardner scores, still no outs..
8:49: A walk with the bases loaded. Johan Santana can tell you what comes next. Alex is home now so I'm done here.
8:49: A walk with the bases loaded. Johan Santana can tell you what comes next. Alex is home now so I'm done here.
NYY-BAL Liveblog
6:56: Welcome to my Yankees-Orioles liveblog, wherein I'll document the precise minute my hopes for this fantasy season shattered. Tonight's match up will feature O's rookie phenom and WHIP-killer Brian Matusz, also known as Bad SP4 for Carl's Bad Caverns, versus AJ Burnett, a Tommy John survivor putting up the best stats of his career. Michael Kay has just notified me that not only is Mark Texiera hitting, Brett Gardner and Nick Swisher are en fuego. This will end poorly.
7:01: I think Al Leiter just called Nick Swisher "Nickalick".
7:04: The 2010 stats of four starting pitchers I drafted last year:
3-1 3.16 1.19
6-0 0.87 1.02
1-1 2.84 1.01
4-0 1.50 1.08
7:09: Adam Jones was one of the consensus fantasy writer sleeper picks this year, so it makes me happy to see him struggling. I love it every time these hacks are abysmally incorrect. In the time it took me to type those two sentences, Jones has already struck out on three pitches.
7:13 AJ has gotten every batter this inning to 0-2. Now considering that these are Orioles hitters, maybe it's not an earth-shattering feat of pitching prowess, but it's still impressive. His problem is that he historically can't locate his punch-out pitches. He grazed a fastball off Wieters' shoelaces before chucking a fastball over the middle for his second strikeout. I probably shouldn't count on Matusz for the win tonight, nevermind a quality start.
7:19: Curtis Granderson can't hit left-handed pitching, s -- first pitch to Jeter is smacked for a double, FML -- so he's out of the lineup, triggering an odd cascading shift through the lineup where Jeter is DHing and Pena is playing SS. With Posada out of the lineup due to old-man-hip, this might not be awful.
7:23: Matusz isn't an overpowering arm. His fastball tops out at 92, but mainly he plays at 90, which means batters with traditionally good contact rates like Texeira can foul off seven or eight 2-strike fastballs in a row and look impressive doing so. When the offspeed pitch finally comes, it's always high and crushable, and only two extremely top notch defensive plays are keeping the score from being 2-0 right now. WHERE ARE THE STRIKEOUTS!?
7:36: This is the shit I'm talking about. Matusz has Cano, an awful breaking ball hitter, 1-2, and he throws three straight mediocre fastballs until one is finally high enough that not even a hacker like Cano can lay off. One good changeup down in the zone could have put him away. Now Thames is down 1-2, and another fastball comes. Gardner sees three fastballs and flies out to LF. Matusz is going to get crushed his second time through the lineup if he doesn't start throwing offspeed pitches effectively. Fastballs against Jeter-Swisher-Texeira-ARod-Cano is a recipe for a Scherzer-like performance.
7:48: Kay: "Boy, he's got very. Good. Stuff tonight." I agree. Despite giving up an unearned run and two baserunners with zero outs, AJ's struck out Jones and Markakis and now has Wieters 0-2. There's only been one pitch thus far that I would categorize as distinctly off target, against Wieters in the first inning. One more nasty curve, and he's struck out the side.
8:01: Adam Jones misses a diving catch, and now the backup catcher is sitting on third base, and I'm waiting to witness the ERA floodgates. ANGOR. On a positive note, Brandon Phillips has a homerun and Chipper Jones has a hit. These are the sorts of nightly results that inspire optimism for my awful team. "I got a hit! Yay!"
8:07: Miguel Tejada's gyrations and pre-swing footstomping are far more entertaining now that he's rocking a serious gut.
8:19: Matusz has A-Rod 1-2, here are the pitches that follow: fastball outside fouled, slider low strikeout. Throw the breaking ball! Cano: fastball high (foul), fastball high (foul), fastball high (foul), fastball middle of the plate for a single. @%$^@#%^!
7:01: I think Al Leiter just called Nick Swisher "Nickalick".
7:04: The 2010 stats of four starting pitchers I drafted last year:
3-1 3.16 1.19
6-0 0.87 1.02
1-1 2.84 1.01
4-0 1.50 1.08
7:09: Adam Jones was one of the consensus fantasy writer sleeper picks this year, so it makes me happy to see him struggling. I love it every time these hacks are abysmally incorrect. In the time it took me to type those two sentences, Jones has already struck out on three pitches.
7:13 AJ has gotten every batter this inning to 0-2. Now considering that these are Orioles hitters, maybe it's not an earth-shattering feat of pitching prowess, but it's still impressive. His problem is that he historically can't locate his punch-out pitches. He grazed a fastball off Wieters' shoelaces before chucking a fastball over the middle for his second strikeout. I probably shouldn't count on Matusz for the win tonight, nevermind a quality start.
7:19: Curtis Granderson can't hit left-handed pitching, s -- first pitch to Jeter is smacked for a double, FML -- so he's out of the lineup, triggering an odd cascading shift through the lineup where Jeter is DHing and Pena is playing SS. With Posada out of the lineup due to old-man-hip, this might not be awful.
7:23: Matusz isn't an overpowering arm. His fastball tops out at 92, but mainly he plays at 90, which means batters with traditionally good contact rates like Texeira can foul off seven or eight 2-strike fastballs in a row and look impressive doing so. When the offspeed pitch finally comes, it's always high and crushable, and only two extremely top notch defensive plays are keeping the score from being 2-0 right now. WHERE ARE THE STRIKEOUTS!?
7:36: This is the shit I'm talking about. Matusz has Cano, an awful breaking ball hitter, 1-2, and he throws three straight mediocre fastballs until one is finally high enough that not even a hacker like Cano can lay off. One good changeup down in the zone could have put him away. Now Thames is down 1-2, and another fastball comes. Gardner sees three fastballs and flies out to LF. Matusz is going to get crushed his second time through the lineup if he doesn't start throwing offspeed pitches effectively. Fastballs against Jeter-Swisher-Texeira-ARod-Cano is a recipe for a Scherzer-like performance.
7:48: Kay: "Boy, he's got very. Good. Stuff tonight." I agree. Despite giving up an unearned run and two baserunners with zero outs, AJ's struck out Jones and Markakis and now has Wieters 0-2. There's only been one pitch thus far that I would categorize as distinctly off target, against Wieters in the first inning. One more nasty curve, and he's struck out the side.
8:01: Adam Jones misses a diving catch, and now the backup catcher is sitting on third base, and I'm waiting to witness the ERA floodgates. ANGOR. On a positive note, Brandon Phillips has a homerun and Chipper Jones has a hit. These are the sorts of nightly results that inspire optimism for my awful team. "I got a hit! Yay!"
8:07: Miguel Tejada's gyrations and pre-swing footstomping are far more entertaining now that he's rocking a serious gut.
8:19: Matusz has A-Rod 1-2, here are the pitches that follow: fastball outside fouled, slider low strikeout. Throw the breaking ball! Cano: fastball high (foul), fastball high (foul), fastball high (foul), fastball middle of the plate for a single. @%$^@#%^!
Situation report: The Infield
Geovany Soto remains my hottest hitter; a blessing in that it's hard to get .500 OBP and SLG out of the catcher slot, and a curse in that it means the guy hitting 8th in an NL lineup is my most productive infielder. On the season he has only 8 RBIs, which is two more than Chipper Jones (batting 3rd) and one less than Brandon Phillips (who spent most of the season as the Reds cleanup hitter). While his hitting has cooled off lately, he's still walking (19 walks in 21 games) and I'm happy to let him be my on-base sponge while I wait to see what Carlos Santana turns into.
To loosely paraphrase some random fantasy writer I read recently but can't recall, somebody told Mark Texeira it was May. His line in the past week is .333/.438/.407 with four runs and three RBI, which is..still shitty for basically my second round keeper, but demonstrates marked improvement. I can't find an online repository of LOB statistics but I'd be willing to bet Mark's pretty high on the list this year. If he can start knocking in runs and stop ending innings, I'll stop despairing.
Brandon Phillips and Chipper Jones are bad. Despite a .355 OBP last week, that puts Brandon at .312 on the season. He's not running or hitting or scoring or knocking in runs. He's just ensuring I get a pretty decent draft pick next year. Chipper meanwhile had exactly one hit last week. His line ten games ago was .293/.431/.537, but now it's .206/.372/.353. So far this season he's strained his ribs, pulled an oblique, and is currently playing through hip pain. In about five weeks he'll run out of non-comedic body parts to injure.
Stephen Drew is hitting! He's maintaining a rather consistent .289/.361/.474 by creatively managing his success against RHP (.329 BA) against strategic awfulness versus LHP (.143 BA) so that he never gets too good, out of respect to his brother JD. That Stephen, always taking one for the team (unless "one" is a walk, or "team" is the Diamondbacks). It's at least enough that I'm comfortable dropping Escobar to acquire this week's waiver wire stud David Freese, whose hip isn't constructed of balled-up newspaper and might actually drive in some runs this summer if Chipper Jones can't.
To loosely paraphrase some random fantasy writer I read recently but can't recall, somebody told Mark Texeira it was May. His line in the past week is .333/.438/.407 with four runs and three RBI, which is..still shitty for basically my second round keeper, but demonstrates marked improvement. I can't find an online repository of LOB statistics but I'd be willing to bet Mark's pretty high on the list this year. If he can start knocking in runs and stop ending innings, I'll stop despairing.
Brandon Phillips and Chipper Jones are bad. Despite a .355 OBP last week, that puts Brandon at .312 on the season. He's not running or hitting or scoring or knocking in runs. He's just ensuring I get a pretty decent draft pick next year. Chipper meanwhile had exactly one hit last week. His line ten games ago was .293/.431/.537, but now it's .206/.372/.353. So far this season he's strained his ribs, pulled an oblique, and is currently playing through hip pain. In about five weeks he'll run out of non-comedic body parts to injure.
Stephen Drew is hitting! He's maintaining a rather consistent .289/.361/.474 by creatively managing his success against RHP (.329 BA) against strategic awfulness versus LHP (.143 BA) so that he never gets too good, out of respect to his brother JD. That Stephen, always taking one for the team (unless "one" is a walk, or "team" is the Diamondbacks). It's at least enough that I'm comfortable dropping Escobar to acquire this week's waiver wire stud David Freese, whose hip isn't constructed of balled-up newspaper and might actually drive in some runs this summer if Chipper Jones can't.
Of appropriate levels of tragedy to qualify for the category of events that occur in threes.
5/2/2010: Johan Santana, 3.2 IP, 8 hits, 10 ER, 2 BB, 1 K versus the Phillies
5/3/2010: Max Scherzer, 4.1 IP, 8 hits, 10 ER, 4 BB, 1 K versus the Twins
5/4/2010: Brian Matusz, ????????????? versus the Yankees
5/3/2010: Max Scherzer, 4.1 IP, 8 hits, 10 ER, 4 BB, 1 K versus the Twins
5/4/2010: Brian Matusz, ????????????? versus the Yankees
Monday, May 3, 2010
CC Fatbathia
So I turned on the Yankees-Orioles game precisely at 7:05pm, and YES was doing the team lineups. When CC Sabathia came up on the screen during his warmup tosses, I thought to myself "Oh right, I need to take the screen off of stretch mode" (we frequently stretch/zoom the image when Alex is watching 4:3 content) because CC looked so wide and huge.
The TV was, in fact, in normal display mode the whole time.
The TV was, in fact, in normal display mode the whole time.
The rest of the draft
ROUND 20: Magglio Ordonez
ROUND 21: Jeremy Affeldt
They filled my bench and RP4 slots and were both off my team the first week. That's about as much energy as I want to spend on these guys.
ROUND 21: Jeremy Affeldt
They filled my bench and RP4 slots and were both off my team the first week. That's about as much energy as I want to spend on these guys.
I tread where AJ Mass fears to tread
AJ Mass, professional fantasy sports analyst for ESPN.com and amateurish stat-head, today published an article on the law of averages and the impossibility of accurate fantasy prognostication. Well thanks AJ. His major premise is that subsets of statistical data based on random events are not predictive of subsets of future random data. In terms of contribution to the mathematical community this isn't exactly a revelation. He even simplifies the game of baseball to a sequence of roulette wheel spins, and then uses that argument to justify (improperly) that end-of-year aggregate data projection for baseball is a fool's errand (or a Gambler's). I find his conclusion rather humorous, considering AJ Mass is the author of the Daily Notes feature on ESPN's fantasy baseball page, which uses 2009 and 2010 pitching statistics to do a favorability ranking for every starting pitcher that day versus specific opponents. So while on the one hand crapping on the accuracy of data projection re: full season outcomes, here he is writing a daily article purporting to know whether Livan Hernandez is a better start this week than Brett Cecil.
Now maybe his article is a reaction to the undoubtedly thousands of complains he's received since the season began whenever he's gotten a pick egregiously wrong in Daily Notes, but I found it amusing that he's gone on at length to describe his own personal worthlessness in the fantasy sphere.
During the article, Mass took a pass on predicting the future value of three different players under different career circumstances: Colby Rasmus (the Hot Start), Mark Texeira (the Slow Start), and Roy Oswalt (a category he treated as Personal History versus a particular team, when the more interesting treatment would have been the Can This Old Veteran Keep It Together). In accordance to my earlier writing regarding the primary focus of majority fantasy writing, I'd like to talk about the sleeper, Colby Rasmus.
Unlike most rookies, he was afforded a full season of work, starting the 2009 season on the Cardinals roster. His line of .251/.307/.407 72/52 was awful by most standards (certainly fantasy ones), especially for players with no speed (3 stolen bases all year). His 20% strikeout rate was, well, not very good either (though not quite as bad as some of the other Cardinals outfielders), and his .282 BABIP suggests he wasn't unlucky enough to write off the season as a cosmic fluke.
So then what can we make of his current .288/.422/.630? Here are the relevant supporting figures:
18.7 BB% is almost triple his 2009 rate and 50% more than his historical minor league walk rates.
.375 BABIP is higher than average but within realistic boundaries.
37.0 K% means Austin Jackson is going to have a run for his money.
.342 ISO means there's some serious power here.
The walk rate improvement is, I think, the most notable piece of information to examine. Mike Silver of The Hardball Times wrote the following in October:
The problem with his sterling minor-minor league performance (and his 2010) is that we have a full year in the majors to use as a comparison, when he was healthy and had a starting job, and could only put together a .407 slugging%. If I had to guess, I'd say a fair component of that poor power output is a direct result of swinging at bad pitches, and that his improved discipline at the plate portends good things for Rasmus's 2010 season. He'll come down from .670-land, but I don't think a .275/.375/.520 is out of the question, if we can map his earlier power and later success to a projection.
Not bad for the 18th round.
Now maybe his article is a reaction to the undoubtedly thousands of complains he's received since the season began whenever he's gotten a pick egregiously wrong in Daily Notes, but I found it amusing that he's gone on at length to describe his own personal worthlessness in the fantasy sphere.
During the article, Mass took a pass on predicting the future value of three different players under different career circumstances: Colby Rasmus (the Hot Start), Mark Texeira (the Slow Start), and Roy Oswalt (a category he treated as Personal History versus a particular team, when the more interesting treatment would have been the Can This Old Veteran Keep It Together). In accordance to my earlier writing regarding the primary focus of majority fantasy writing, I'd like to talk about the sleeper, Colby Rasmus.
Unlike most rookies, he was afforded a full season of work, starting the 2009 season on the Cardinals roster. His line of .251/.307/.407 72/52 was awful by most standards (certainly fantasy ones), especially for players with no speed (3 stolen bases all year). His 20% strikeout rate was, well, not very good either (though not quite as bad as some of the other Cardinals outfielders), and his .282 BABIP suggests he wasn't unlucky enough to write off the season as a cosmic fluke.
So then what can we make of his current .288/.422/.630? Here are the relevant supporting figures:
18.7 BB% is almost triple his 2009 rate and 50% more than his historical minor league walk rates.
.375 BABIP is higher than average but within realistic boundaries.
37.0 K% means Austin Jackson is going to have a run for his money.
.342 ISO means there's some serious power here.
The walk rate improvement is, I think, the most notable piece of information to examine. Mike Silver of The Hardball Times wrote the following in October:
His 50.1 Swing% is possibly the most disturbing of all, as any hitter who swings this often will never garner many free passes. In addition, his 78.6 percent Contact% shows that he is missing on pitches too often. The Contact% is fixable. However, if he can’t refine his swinging tendencies, his OBP outlook will be severely capped due to lack of walks and strikeouts. Assuming pitchers continue to throw him in the zone at approximately the same rate as in '09 (50.9%), Rasmus would have to drop his swing percentage by a few points to see any real gains in his walk rate—and this kind of approach overhaul is not easy to do.If Contact% is fixible, Colby must not have heard. His contact rate is down 6.3% from last year. However, he's dropped his swing rate 10%. The combination of seeing more balls and swinging at fewer of them has resulted in the dramatic increase in his walk rate. Is the power legit? Rasmus slugged .512 and .551 in 2006 and 2007. His .396 in AAA in 2008 could be worrying, but can be attributed to a knee injury if one were so inclined as to make excuses.
The problem with his sterling minor-minor league performance (and his 2010) is that we have a full year in the majors to use as a comparison, when he was healthy and had a starting job, and could only put together a .407 slugging%. If I had to guess, I'd say a fair component of that poor power output is a direct result of swinging at bad pitches, and that his improved discipline at the plate portends good things for Rasmus's 2010 season. He'll come down from .670-land, but I don't think a .275/.375/.520 is out of the question, if we can map his earlier power and later success to a projection.
Not bad for the 18th round.
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