Fantasy Baseball Blog and Analysis
Catcher is such a thin position that people tend to reach early to avoid being stuck with a vastly inferior, part-time player in the later rounds. It’s definitely one strategy, though not one I’d suggest employing. Despite the overall lack of production at the position there are some values to be found. Those players are highlighted in green.
I swore I wouldn’t do any offseason closer updates before spring training because relief pitchers can gain or lose too much value with the addition or subtraction of just one player, but I’m fairly confident the Red Sox have the last piece of their closing puzzle in place now as we move towards 2012. For Red Sox fans like me, you have to be thrilled that the team was finally able to acquire Andrew Bailey, especially given recent reports that the Rays were in the mix, but what does this mean from a fantasy perspective?
Right now Bailey will be the team’s closer. They’ve pretty much committed to moving Daniel Bard to the rotation to start spring training and Mark Melancon, while a nice addition to the bullpen, will simply lose out to Bailey.
Courtesy: Statcorner.com
That said, how should you value Bailey going forward? He’s still a perennial injury risk, which prevents him from joining the ranks of the elite at his position in fantasy, but Boston is a nice place to be closing games. Over the last three years Jonathan Papelbon had the fifth-most saves in baseball, though admittedly this speaks to his longevity in the position, something many other closers can’t claim.
But there is a slight worry for Bailey fans. The right-hander tends to allow a good number of fly balls. In Oakland that wasn’t an issue. In Boston that could be a problem. Now, let’s clarify something here for a minute. Fenway Park is not the home run hitter’s haven that many seem to think it is. Last season Fenway finished 22nd in home run park factor according to ESPN and finished 21st in 2010, 21st in 2009, 25th in 2008, 23rd in 2007 and on and on it goes like that. It’s a very difficult place for left-handed batters to hit homers unless they wrap it right down the right-field line. The thing is Oakland is even harder.
What’s troublesome about Fenway’s dimensions is how conducive it is to doubles. Statcorner.com does park factors for every ballpark, and Fenway rated as a 142 for doubles to left-handed batters and a 132 for doubles to right-handed batters. In one-run games those doubles could be troublesome. Thankfully, Bailey doesn’t walk many batters and has a career WHIP of 0.95. In the long run it’s certainly not as great of a ballpark to be playing in, but he shouldn’t suffer too much.
When Bailey inevitably goes down, grab Melancon. He’s waiting in the wings right now, though there’s so much volatility in the Boston bullpen right now that Bobby Jenks could end up snaking some saves too.
In summary, here are the parties involved for Boston:
Who replaces Bailey? Brian Fuentes has closing experience, saving 12 games for Oakland last season with a 3.70 ERA and 24 games in 2009 split between the Angels and Twins with a 2.81 ERA. Fuentes struggled before the All-Star Break last season (4.82 ERA, 1.42 WHIP) but was lights out in the second half (1.71 ERA, 0.91 WHIP). For what it’s worth, when Bailey was injured last season Fuentes was the first guy called upon (though he struggled at the time).
Josh Outman, Jerry Blevins and Tom Milone are the A’s other left-handed relievers (assuming Outman doesn’t make the rotation but he very well could with Gio Gonzalez gone) so the team doesn’t necessarily have a void to fill by moving Fuentes to the ninth inning. Milone’s addition in particular (from the Gonzalez trade) is great news for Fuentes as it makes his former role in the bullpen less important. Grant Balfour has been money over the last four seasons posting ERAs under 3.00 in three of them, however he has just 10 career saves.
As of now I think we’ll see Fuentes emerge as the team’s closer in spring training, but there’s plenty to be decided between now and then. Oakland’s closing job will likely be a mess all season which means saves vultures should be paying attention to what happens in the Bay Area (and not just because San Fran’s Brian Wilson is a side show all his own).
Here’s how I think things shape up for Oakland’s relievers:
I already gave my thoughts on Mock Draft Central’s early ADPs for starting pitchers ranked 26th through 50th. You can read those thoughts here or, if your short attention span has already given way, you can look at eight minutes of funny cat stuff instead. Please don’t watch the kittens and then forget about us.
Here are my thoughts on the top 25 starting pitchers according to early mocks. (As with the last two times, guys I deem the best values at the position are highlighted in green.)
There are a lot of starting pitchers to evaluate entering fantasy drafts. Managers in average sized fantasy leagues should know at least 75 starters, but those who are serious about finding sleepers or spot starters in season should know upwards of 100. We’ll start today with starting pitchers ranked 26-50 according to Mock Draft Central’s early fantasy baseball mocks.
Just like last time, players I deem exceptional values are highlighted in green.
Last season Brandon Phillips batted .300 for the first time in his career. He hit 18 home runs, his fifth season with at least that many dingers, and added in 14 steals, 94 runs and 82 RBI for good measure. It was one of the more well-balanced seasons in fantasy and good enough for fifth among second basemen by season’s end.
But does that make Phillips a top five option entering 2012? No, and I say that without any hesitation.
Any time a career .272 hitter hits .300 for the first time in their career at age 30, it definitely leads to more questions than answers. In fact, Phillips’ .322 BABIP was 30 points higher than his career average (.292). I did a lot of work over the last year working on accurate formulas that generate each player’s expected batting average (xBA) and expected BABIP (xBABIP). I’m confident in their abilities to pinpoint statistical anomalies, especially when there’s a great disparity between a players actual average or BABIP and their xBA or xBABIP. Think of them as the batter’s equivalents of FIP, xFIP, SIERA or tERA.
For 2011, Phillips finished with an xBA of .303 and an xBABIP of .318. Yes, I’m aware that the xBA is higher than his actual BA even though his xBABIP is lower than his actual BABIP, but that’s because of the inherent error built into each stat’s respective formulas. The take home message here is this: despite finishing 2011 with a batting average that wasn’t in line with career trends, the anomaly wasn’t due to random chance or luck. Phillips earned his success.
His 19.8 percent line drive rate was easily the highest of his career and two whole percentage points higher than his career average (17.8%). His 5.4 percent infield fly rate was the second lowest of his career and far better than his eight percent career average (and this is a significant stat since infield flies are outs or errors every single time I’ve ever seen them). His 7.1 percent infield hit rate was a new career high as well. His swinging strike rate was a new career low, his in-the-zone contact rate was a new career high and pretty much every other related stat reads as such.
Phillips had a banner year. In his advanced age his skill set is getting more refined and he’s approaching his at-bats better. I do think he can come close to a second straight .300 season, though I won’t go so far as to predict it because I don’t like predicting players to replicate career years.
What hurts Philips’ status as a top five fantasy second baseman is his declining power and speed. His 18 homers were the second straight season he’d hit exactly that many, but for the rest of his career he’d been a 20 to 30 homer guy. His HR/FB rate has fallen each season since 2007 and his ISO has leveled off in the .150s. He’s had three seasons with ISOs in the .150-.159 range and he’s hit 17, 18 and 18 home runs in those seasons.
And just like the power, the speed is declining too. Phillips stole just 14 bases last year, a respectable and useful total out of a second baseman but still a new career low. After averaging a little over 26 stolen bases over four seasons from 2006 to 2009, Phillips has totaled just 30 over the last two years.
If competition at second base was a little less stiff Phillips might have an easier time maintaining his top five status, but Dustin Pedroia, Robinson Cano and Ian Kinsler are easily the top three at the position. I expect Rickie Weeks to bounce back from an injury shortened season to be a top five option as well. I’m aware he has a lengthy injury history but in 2010 he led the entire league in plate appearances and his injury in 2011 was a freak twisted ankle. As long as he can avoid the muscle strains and pulls, I’m confident in his ability to stay on the field.
That means Phillips has to beat out every other second baseman just to cling to the fifth spot at the position. Can he really outpace Michael Young, Ben Zobrist, Chase Utley, Dan Uggla and Howie Kendrick (not to mention whoever decides to break out this season)? I’m not betting on it. I still like Phillips better than Kendrick and maybe better than Utley, but at best that makes him the eighth best player at the position.
I’m expecting a .285 season from Phillips with about 17 homers, 15 steals, 90 runs and 75 RBI. Almost any fantasy manager would be happy to plug those numbers somewhere into their everyday lineup, but the depth at second base is rather impressive and sadly that should strip Phillips of his top five status.
I was browsing Mock Draft Central’s recent mock results when, on a whim, I decided to write a little post on some trends I noticed at the third base position. As it turns out that was one of our more popular posts of late. I figure that had something to do with it containing all sorts of popular search phrases like “mock draft” and “ADP” and “Who the hell is Ryan Roberts?” but it could just be that people like good talk about a mock.
Whatever the reason, I’m here to give the people what they want in hopes that they come back to visit us often, our influence grows and in time I can use this site as a platform to push my own agendas. (Hmm, it sounds sinister when I phrase it like that.)
This time I’ll put a little more thought and preparation into the post and even organized it a little more nicely in chart form. Why worry about things like sentence structure and grammar when you can use pretty colors!
Note: Guys highlighted in green represent some of the best values at the position.
There are four main pitching categories in your standard fantasy league: ERA, WHIP, wins and strikeouts. Ace-quality starters give you major positive gains in all four categories (Justin Verlander).
Second and third tier starters give you minor-to-moderate positive gains in all four (Ricky Romero) or are average in one but fairly dominant in the other three (Matt Cain).
Typically you round out your pitching staff with a bunch of starters who specialize in one or two categories but are average at best in the others (Hiroki Kuroda).
If you’re looking for a starting pitcher in a pinch and need to troll free agency, typically you’re choosing between guys who might be pretty good in one or two categories but they do it at the expense of all others. Before leaving Seattle, this was Doug Fister.
Unless you were in a deep fantasy league, played in a league that gave ERA or WHIP bonuses or someone you knew was directly related to Fister, chances are he was among the most common names in your league’s transaction tracker. In the 21 games he started for Seattle, Fister carved his way to a 3.33 ERA and 1.17 WHIP, numbers that most of us would welcome to our rosters with open arms. His three wins and 89 strikeouts in 146 innings? Not so much.
But that was before Fister became a Tiger and changed his stripes. Somehow upon his arrival in Detroit he became a completely different pitcher. We all figured the wins would start piling on as Seattle’s offense makes Detroit look like the baseball version of the Mon-Stars from Space Jam, but at best Fister was still going to be completely inept in one of fantasy’s four main categories.
Two months later Fister had piled up eight wins in 11 starts with a 1.79 ERA, 0.84 WHIP and 57 strikeouts in 70 1/3 innings. His 7.29 K/9 with Detroit completely dwarfed his 5.49 K/9 during his prior four months in Seattle. Was the strikeout success a product of improved stuff or a different approach or solely a byproduct of a relatively small sample size? That’s what question 80 in our Top 100 Offseason Questions series asks.
Allow me to be insultingly basic for a moment. Baseball is mind game between the batter and the pitcher. On every pitch the batter wants to hit the ball and get on base and the pitcher wants to prevent that from happening. Obviously the best strategy for the pitcher is to throw the ball as far away from the batter’s bat as possible, but the strike zone doesn’t allow this. In fact, the pitcher is allowed to wander outside the strike zone up to three times per at-bat. If a batter swings at one of these pitches it’s generally a good thing for the pitcher because one of two things typically happens: the batter makes poor contact on a pitch that was hard to handle or the batter doesn’t make contact and the pitcher is granted another free pitch outside the strike zone. The batter shouldn’t want to swing at these pitches. When he does, it’s generally because the pitcher tricked him into thinking it was a good pitch to swing at. (Baseball is pretty damn fascinating when broken down in such simple terms.)
That lengthy explanation of baseball basics serves to set up this point. By looking at a pitcher’s O-Swing% (the rate at which he generates swings on pitches outside the strike zone) we can usually get a pretty good idea of how deceptive he is. Take a look at last year’s top 10 starters in O-Swing% and their subsequent rank in ERA among the 94 qualifying pitchers. I’ll even throw in 2011′s bottom 10 for good measure.
The top 10 starters in O-Swing% were ranked 28th on average in ERA whereas the bottom 10 starters in O-Swing% ranked 54th on average in ERA. Surprise! Clearly it’s better for pitchers when the batter swings at bad pitches.
But, how has Fister’s O-Swing% changed over his career? Has it been increasing (more deceptive), decreasing (less deceptive) or has it been fairly constant (no change in deceptiveness)? Fangraphs has these numbers readily available.
Notice the two categories I’ve circled. Over Fister’s career he’s been rapidly improving in O-Swing%. As a result he’s been able to throw fewer pitches in the strike zone (remember, where the batter likes it). Over the last two years he’s been able to decrease his O-Contact% (the rate at which the batter swings at a ball outside the zone and hits it) while increasing his O-Swing%. This tells us batters are swinging at more bad pitches and hitting fewer of them. That screams improvement.
Frankly, his pitches are getting better. In his two months with Detroit, Fister’s fastball averaged 90.5 miles per hour, the highest velocity of his career. He’s also been decreasing the rate at which he throws his fastball and has been upping his use of his secondary off-speed pitches, namely his slider and change-up.
In fact, Fister’s change-up skyrocketed in terms of effectiveness this season. In 2010 his change-up was 1.35 runs above average per 100 change-ups thrown, which was pretty much in line with 2009 as well. In 2011 with Seattle his change-up rated as just 0.12 runs above average per 100 change-ups thrown but upon arriving in Detroit this rate climbed to 3.46 runs per 100 pitches. It was the highest increase of any pitch after his move to Detroit. One look at his change-up placement explains why this pitch was so effective last season.
Notice how the heat map on the left (2011) clumps the change-ups right on the corner of the strike zone whereas the heat map on the right (2010) leaves them more out over the plate. Fister is one of the best control pitchers in the game — his 1.54 BB/9 was fifth-best among those 94 qualifying starters last season — so of course he’s inducing more swings and misses when he’s locating his pitches like this.
I don’t know what other conclusion I could come to. Fister has consistently been increasing his deceptiveness over the last few seasons and is locating his pitches better than ever. We already know he has complete control over where his pitches end up so I can’t help but think he’ll be able to keep this up as his career takes off in Detroit.
For fantasy purposes, it’s time to believe in Fister as a complete starting pitcher. He’s already demonstrated he can maintain above average ERA and WHIP rates, and he even won a few games with the Tigers. Now that he’s getting the strikeouts up he’s becoming more of a complete package. He has potential to be a low-end fantasy two or a solid number three in 2012. I’d say 160 strikeouts aren’t out of the question.
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